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  • Advice: The first-time interviewer's dilemna

    - by shan23
    I've been working in my first job for about 2 years now, and I've been "asked" to interview a potential teammate (whom I might have to mentor as well) on pretty short notice (2 days from now). Initially, I had been given a free rein(or so I thought, and hence agreed), but today, I've been told "not to pose bookish questions" - implying I can only ask basic programming puzzles and stuff similar to the 'fizbuzz' question. I strongly believe that not knowing basic algorithmic notations(the haziest ideas of space/time complexities) or the tiniest idea of regular expressions would make working with the guy very difficult for anyone. I know i'm asking for a lot here, but according to you, what would be a comprehensive way to test out the absolutely basic requirements of a CS guy(he has 2 yrs of exp) without sounding too pedantic/bookish etc ? It seems it would be legit to ask C questions/simple puzzles only....but I really do want to have something a bit different from "finding loops in linked lists" that has kind of become the opening statement of most techie interviews !! This is a face-to-face interview with about an hour or more of time - I looked at Steve's basic phone-screen questions, and I was wondering if there exists a guide on "basic face-to-face interview questions" that I can use(or compile from the community's answers here). EDIT: The position is mostly for a kernel level C programming job, with some smattering of C++ required for writing the test framework.

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  • Single Responsibility Principle - How Can I Avoid Code Fragmentation?

    - by Dean Chalk
    I'm working on a team where the team leader is a virulent advocate of SOLID development principles. However, he lacks a lot of experience in getting complex software out of the door. We have a situation where he has applied SRP to what was already quite a complex code base, which has now become very highly fragmented and difficult to understand and debug. We now have a problem not only with code fragmentation, but also encapsulation, as methods within a class that may have been private or protected have been judged to represent a 'reason to change' and have been extracted to public or internal classes and interfaces which is not in keeping with the encapsulation goals of the application. We have some class constructors which take over 20 interface parameters, so our IoC registration and resolution is becoming a monster in its own right. I want to know if there is any 'refactor away from SRP' approach we could use to help fix some of these issues. I have read that it doesn't violate SOLID if I create a number of empty courser-grained classes that 'wrap' a number of closely related classes to provide a single-point of access to the sum of their functionality (i.e. mimicking a less overly SRP'd class implementation). Apart from that, I cannot think of a solution which will allow us to pragmatically continue with our development efforts, while keeping everyone happy. Any suggestions ?

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  • Personal knowledge base [closed]

    - by AlexLocust
    Possible Duplicate: How do you manage your knowledge base? Hello. Now I am using easy writing pad for scratches while doing some researches, solving troubles or doing workarounds. But.. you now, it's really difficult to remember all details of founded solution and it's alternatives after few months. And writing pad is not wery useful. Usually writing pad doesn't contains half of needed inforation: links founded in internet, output of some test commands and etc. Now I'am looking for a tool for storing information about my researches and it's results. Basic reqirements: ability to store files; ability to store formatted text (kind of HTML will be nice) with hyperlinks and code snippets; tags on notes; easy to use. Now I'am thinking about some kind of file-system organized storage, but I think it will be inconvenient. Another thinks is local wiki or blog. So, my question is: How do you organize you knowlege base? What tools do you use, and what "pros and cons".

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  • When is meta description still relevant?

    - by Jeff Atwood
    I received this bit of advice about the meta description tag recently: Meta descriptions are used by Google probably 80% of the time for the snippet. They don’t help with rankings but you should probably use them. You could just auto generate them from the first part of the question. The description tag exists in the header, like so: <meta name="Description" content="A brief summary of the content on the page."> I'm not sure why we would need this field, as Google seems perfectly capable of showing the relevant search terms in context in the search result pages, like so (I searched for c# list performance): In other words, where would a meta description summary improve these results? We want the page to show context around the actual search hits, not a random summary we inserted! Google Webmaster Central has this advice: For some sites, like news media sources, generating an accurate and unique description for each page is easy: since each article is hand-written, it takes minimal effort to also add a one-sentence description. For larger database-driven sites, like product aggregators, hand-written descriptions are more difficult. In the latter case, though, programmatic generation of the descriptions can be appropriate and is encouraged -- just make sure that your descriptions are not "spammy." Good descriptions are human-readable and diverse, as we talked about in the first point above. The page-specific data we mentioned in the second point is a good candidate for programmatic generation. I'm struggling to think of any scenario when I would want the Google-generated summary, that is, actual context from the page for the search terms, to be replaced by a hard-coded meta description summary of the question itself.

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  • Newbie seeking advice on programming in general

    - by user974685
    need some of you to remember back to a time when you might have been bad at programming... Been at my new job (as a software developer) for a couple of months now, passed probation period. Have very little programming experience (C++ only) and am currently working with asp.net MVC and silverlight. So there's a website the company has been working on and I am joining the effort to make it better, iron out bugs etc. The problem is - learning about a system/website which has already been made, via visual studio. I ALWAYS feel HUGELY overwhelmed, never knowing which part of this line should I look up, and generally having lots of trouble getting the big picture. Visual studio itself is something I'm finding it difficult to get to grips with, let alone the asp.net framework. I get the impression that because my coworkers have more experience than me, they are getting all the good jobs, and I am left with crap to do - stuff which is not even vaguely programming. Meaning they are learning/creating more, and I am learning/creating near nothing. I'm getting demoralised, and too scared to say anything. I'm not stupid, I've read and practiced plenty of the fundamental programming concepts...I'm just bloody scared of this damn framework. I look at it and just feel paralyzed. The result is that I keep asking the older veteran guy of questions, and he is getting irritated, and would rather give me easy/mindless/non programming jobs to avoid wasting time with helping me out. Then when I don't understand something, I'm hesitating about whether or not I should ask him yet, and trying to decide if it would be a waste of time. I'm the kind of person who picks things up slowly, but with a lot of attention to detail. The former I think is making me look incompetent though. Anyone get where I'm coming from please say something helpful....I'm scared of losing my job in a few months or something...

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  • Alt-Tab looses focus and have to hit Alt-Grave Accent to get focus

    - by John Hamill
    Alt-Tab looses focus and have to hit Alt-Grave Accent to get focus I have ubuntu 12.4 with Unity window manager. I have a gvim window and a firefox window open. I hit Alt-Tab to switch between the two. Sometimes the gvim window doesn't have focus and I have to hit Alt-GraveAccent (Alt-`) to get the gvim window to have focus (ie: have the cursor a solid white square instead of a outline of a square) I do this to move between firefox where I highlight some text and do a copy, then Alt-Tab to gvim and do a paste. Sometimes the focus isn't in gvim and the paste doesn't work. I then have to do an Alt-graveAccent to get the focus into gvim or click the gvim window. These extra steps slow my process down and it makes it difficult to get into a smooth rythum. I saw this: ALT+TAB loses focus Maybe the Alt-GraveAccent may help someone. It's a unity bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1035628 Your best bet is to wait until an update comes through fixing it.

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  • Generating Deep Arrays: Shallow to Deep, Deep to Shallow or Bad idea?

    - by MobyD
    I'm working on an array structure that will be used as the data source for a report template in a web app. The data comes from relatively complex SQL queries that return one or many rows as one dimensional associative arrays. In the case of many, they are turned into two dimensional indexed array. The data is complex and in some cases there is a lot of it. To save trips to the database (which are extremely expensive in this scenario) I'm attempting to get all of the basic arrays (1 and 2 dimension raw database data) and put them, conditionally, into a single, five level deep array. Organizing the data in PHP seems like a better idea than by using where statements in the SQL. Array Structure Array of years( year => array of types( types => array of information( total => value, table => array of data( index => db array ) ) ) ) My first question is, is this a bad idea. Are arrays like this appropriate for this situation? If this would work, how should I go about populating it? My initial thought was shallow to deep, but the more I work on this, the more I realize that it'd be very difficult to abstract out the conditionals that determine where each item goes in the array. So it seems that starting from the most deeply nested data may be the approach I should take. If this is array abuse, what alternatives exist?

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  • Aggregating Excel cell contents that match a label [migrated]

    - by Josh
    I'm sure this isn't a terribly difficult thing, but it's not the type of question that easily lends itself to internet searches. I've been assigned a project for work involving a complex spreadsheet. I've done the usual =SUM and other basic Excel formulas, and I've got enough coding background that I'm able to at least fudge my way through VBA, but I'm not certain how to proceed with one part of the task. Simple version: On Sheet 1 I have a list of people (one on each row, person's name in column A), on sheet 2 I have a list of groups (one on each row, group name in column A). Each name in Sheet 1 has its own row, and I have a "Data Validation" dropdown menu where you choose the group each person belongs to. That dropdown is sourced from Sheet 2, where each group has a row. So essentially the data validation source for Sheet 1's "Group" column is just "=Sheet2!$a1:a100" or whatever. The problem is this: I want each group row in Sheet 2 to have a formula which results in a list of all the users which have been assigned to that group on Sheet 1. What I mean is something the equivalent of "select * from PeopleTab where GROUP = ThisGroup". The resulting cell would just stick the names together like "Bob Smith, Joe Jones, Sally Sanderson" I've been Googling for hours but I can't think of a way to phrase my search query to get the results I want. Here's an example of desired result (Dash-delimited. Can't find a way to make it look nice, table tags don't seem to work here): (Sheet 1) Bob Smith - Group 1 (selected from dropdown) Joe Jones - Group 2 (selected from dropdown) Sally Sanderson - Group 1 (selected from dropdown) (Sheet 2) Group 1 - Bob Smith, Sally Sanderson (result of formula) Group 2 - Joe Jones (result of formula) What formula (or even what function) do I use on that second column of sheet 2 to make a flat list out of the members of that group?

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  • Installation of Tex Live via the terminal 12.04

    - by user74713
    I need to install upstream version of TeX Live for 12.04 to edit the manual for Ubuntu. I am having a difficult time installing it per the directions @ http://ubuntu-manual.org/getinvolved/editors#install-texlive. TeX Live documents are on my computer, but I am not able to run the install. No TeX Live program found on my computer. Any help is greatly appreciated! ~Thanx!~ Hello, my name is Chris. I am a student pursuing a career in technical writing. I would like to assist the Ubuntu community while gaining experience & building my resume. Below I have listed the prior attempts & links to view the posts of each attempt: Backports I have tried using the official backports of the latest (2012) TeX-Live via their PPA. Please refer to link below for the particulars. How do I install the latest 2012 TeX Live on 12.04? Latex I've also tried running Latex as suggested. Please refer to link below for the particulars. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2019051 PPA Causing Issue?? or something else I came across a post concerning the ability to install programs via the terminal and am wondering if it may be my problem??? Please refer to link below for the particulars. PPA - TeX Live Cannot install anything through Terminal - apt-get -f install

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  • How to organize a programming course?

    - by Bogdan Gavril
    I've been given the task to train our manual testers to become developers in test (write test automation!). some have basic programing knowledge (either dabbling in PHP or reading stuff) and some who have no experience. Note that I do have teaching experience, but with real students, not employees, and one concern is that they will not put extra hours except the 20% management gave them for the transition. Language to be taught and used: C# We have 8 hours per week to do this and should decide if they will make it in 2 months. I am thinking of a combined approach: use a manual such as Head First C# (although I'm not happy with the labs, they're mostly games and I don't want to add UI complexities) have them read from the manual do labs with them, solving more and more difficult problems and explain the theoretical stuff as well have them do a bigger project towards the end Some questions: do you have a better suggestion as far as manuals go? do you have a better aproach? Focus less on labs? what kind of assesments should I use and how often? should I let them do a bigger project (bank system or small game) and how much time should I invest in that? ideeas on labs? other resources ? Any other tips would be most welcomed! Thanks!

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  • How-To Backup, Swap, and Update Your Wii Game Saves

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Whether you want to backup your game saves because you’ve worked so hard on them or you want to import game saves precisely so you don’t have to work so hard, we’ve got you covered. Image adapted from icon set by GasClown. There are a multitude of reasons you might want to export and import game saves from your Wii including: saving the progress on your favorite games before sending in your Wii for service, copying the progress to a friend’s or your secondary Wii, and importing saved games from the web or your friend’s Wii so that you don’t have to bust your ass to unlock all the specialty items yourself. (Here’s looking at you Mario Kart and House of the Dead: Overkill.) Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop How Do You Block Annoying Text Message (SMS) Spam? How to Use and Master the Notoriously Difficult Pen Tool in Photoshop HTG Explains: What Are the Differences Between All Those Audio Formats? How To Use Layer Masks and Vector Masks to Remove Complex Backgrounds in Photoshop Bring Summer Back to Your Desktop with the LandscapeTheme for Chrome and Iron The Prospector – Home Dash Extension Creates a Whole New Browsing Experience in Firefox KinEmote Links Kinect to Windows Why Nobody Reads Web Site Privacy Policies [Infographic] Asian Temple in the Snow Wallpaper 10 Weird Gaming Records from the Guinness Book

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  • Won't boot after installing Ubuntu 12.04 sucessfully

    - by Matt
    I installed 12.04 successfully and rebooted (I took out my installation CD), and selected the newly installed Linux partition to boot from rEFIt. Then it just comes up with this error message: Error loading operating system which could not be more vague. Take that back. I guess it could say just "error." I don't even get to the boot prompt which limits what I can do. I cannot boot into rescue mode. I tried boot-repair, but it took more than 24 hours to check the system configuration, so I gave up on that. I'm running a Mac Mini with its main OS being Mac OS X 10.5.8. I have an alternate OS Windows XP installed, which was virtually destroyed by this Linux installation. I sacrificed my working, speedy Windows partition for something that won't even boot up. What was I thinking. My Mac partition is slow as crap. I've tried installing 12.04 many times with two different disks. The first time, I had one partition for Linux, then I had 2 (swap+main), then 3 (swap, main and BIOS), then 4 which is what I have now (swap, main, BIOS, and boot/grub). The only way I could get through the install without GRUB giving up was if I created a separate partition for it. Which was pointless, because it did install successfully, but it still doesn't boot up at all. Could rEFIt be booting off of the BIOS or one of the other partitions? Because if that's the case, there is no alternative, because Mac itself without rEFIt refuses to recognize a Linux ext4 (or 2 or 3) format partition. Apple always has to make everything so difficult. If I'm not mistaken, rEFIt is the only application of its kind for Mac. I can boot off of the CD back to the install/try screen. This is extremely upsetting, can you guys help? Please?

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  • Stackify Gives Devs a Crack at the Production Server

    - by Matt Watson
    Originally published on SDTimes.com on 7/9/2012 by David Rubinstein.It was one of those interviews where you get finished talking about a company’s product, and you wonder aloud, “Well, THAT makes sense! Why hasn’t anyone thought of that before?” Matt Watson, CEO of Kansas City, Mo.-based startup Stackify, was telling me that the 10-person company is getting ready to launch its product in August (it’s in beta now) that will give developers an app-centric look into production servers so they can support and troubleshoot apps and fix bugs. Of course, this hasn’t happened in the past because of the security concerns of IT administrators, and a decided lack of expertise on the part of developers. Stackify installs on a server and acts like a proxy for developers, collecting data about the environment, discovering all the applications, scanning for config file changes, and doing server monitoring. “We become the central point that developers can see everything they need to know about their applications,” he said. “Developers can look at the files that are deployed, and query databases in a safe way.”  In his words:“The big thing we’re hoping is just giving them (developers) visibility. Most companies want to hire the junior developers that they pay $50,000 a year right out of college to do application support and troubleshooting and fix bugs, but those people don’t have access to production servers to troubleshoot. It becomes very difficult for them to do their job, so they end up spending all of their day bugging the senior developers, the managers or the system administrators to track down this stuff, which creates a huge bottleneck. And so what we can do is give that visibility to those lower-level people so that they can do this work and free up the higher-level people so they can be working on the next big thing.”Stackify itself might just prove to be the next big thing.

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  • internet sharing over wifi between ubuntu 11.10 and windows7

    - by Vivek Pradhan
    So i have looked up a lot of forums for these solution but haven't really found one that works. I have a laptop running ubuntu 11.10 connected to the ethernet cord at home and i want to share the internet over wifi with my friend's laptop running windows7. I did not think it would be so difficult, I tried a lot of things: I went to networks and then wireless and set up a wifi hotspot, my laptop got connected to it and the ipv4 was set to "shared to other computers". Thankfully the network was discoverable and after some tries my friend was able to connect to the network, but it still showed that there was no internet access. I tried coniguring the tcp addresses of the wifi on his laptop. Bottom line: did not work. I went to the network manager, clicked on create a new wireless network, created one with security WEP 40/128 bit passphrase, tried the other 2 options later, and did the same thing as with the wifi, this network was also not discoverable initially and after some tries, we could connect to it but then ICS was not working although there was a working internet on my ubuntu laptop. I would really appreciate if some one who has faced a similar problem and got it fixed to please give me a step by step solution of how to get this work, because this is a prety common problem with ubuntu distros I have noticed. Note: This however seems to work with ubuntu to ubuntu connections, but specifically cross OS connections like windows or my phone running android ICS are not able to see or if connect not able to share internet on my laptop

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  • BDD/TDD vs JAD?

    - by Jonathan Conway
    I've been proposing that my workplace implement Behavior-Driven-Development, by writing high-level specifications in a scenario format, and in such a way that one could imagine writing a test for it. I do know that working against testable specifications tends to increase developer productivity. And I can already think of several examples where this would be the case on our own project. However it's difficult to demonstrate the value of this to the business. This is because we already have a Joint Application Development (JAD) process in place, in which developers, management, user-experience and testers all get together to agree on a common set of requirements. So, they ask, why should developers work against the test-cases created by testers? These are for verification and are based on the higher-level specs created by the UX team, which the developers currently work off. This, they say, is sufficient for developers and there's no need to change how the specs are written. They seem to have a point. What is the actual benefit of BDD/TDD, if you already have a test-team who's test cases are fully compatible with the higher-level specs currently given to the developers?

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  • The How-To Geek Video Guide to Using Windows 7 Speech Recognition

    - by YatriTrivedi
    Ever get the desire to control your computer, Star Trek-style? With Windows 7’s Speech Recognition, it’s easier than you might think. Microsoft has been working on its voice command steadily over the years. XP introduced it, Vista smoothed it, and 7 has it polished. It’s strangely not advertised as a feature, even though other voice command and speech recognition programs are hundreds of dollars. It may not be as perfect as some of them, but there’s definitely something amazing about vocally telling your computer to do things and it actually working Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop How Do You Block Annoying Text Message (SMS) Spam? How to Use and Master the Notoriously Difficult Pen Tool in Photoshop HTG Explains: What Are the Differences Between All Those Audio Formats? How To Use Layer Masks and Vector Masks to Remove Complex Backgrounds in Photoshop Bring Summer Back to Your Desktop with the LandscapeTheme for Chrome and Iron The Prospector – Home Dash Extension Creates a Whole New Browsing Experience in Firefox KinEmote Links Kinect to Windows Why Nobody Reads Web Site Privacy Policies [Infographic] Asian Temple in the Snow Wallpaper 10 Weird Gaming Records from the Guinness Book

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  • Organising levels / rooms in a MUD-style text based world

    - by Polynomial
    I'm thinking of writing a small text-based adventure game, but I'm not particularly sure how I should design the world from a technical standpoint. My first thought is to do it in XML, designed something like the following. Apologies for the huge pile of XML, but I felt it important to fully explain what I'm doing. <level> <start> <!-- start in kitchen with empty inventory --> <room>Kitchen</room> <inventory></inventory> </start> <rooms> <room> <name>Kitchen</name> <description>A small kitchen that looks like it hasn't been used in a while. It has a table in the middle, and there are some cupboards. There is a door to the north, which leads to the garden.</description> <!-- IDs of the objects the room contains --> <objects> <object>Cupboards</object> <object>Knife</object> <object>Batteries</object> </objects> </room> <room> <name>Garden</name> <description>The garden is wild and full of prickly bushes. To the north there is a path, which leads into the trees. To the south there is a house.</description> <objects> </objects> </room> <room> <name>Woods</name> <description>The woods are quite dark, with little light bleeding in from the garden. It is eerily quiet.</description> <objects> <object>Trees01</object> </objects> </room> </rooms> <doors> <!-- a door isn't necessarily a door. each door has a type, i.e. "There is a <type> leading to..." from and to are references the rooms that this door joins. direction specifies the direction (N,S,E,W,Up,Down) from <from> to <to> --> <door> <type>door</type> <direction>N</direction> <from>Kitchen</from> <to>Garden</to> </door> <door> <type>path</type> <direction>N</direction> <from>Garden</type> <to>Woods</type> </door> </doors> <variables> <!-- variables set by actions --> <variable name="cupboard_open">0</variable> </variables> <objects> <!-- definitions for objects --> <object> <name>Trees01</name> <displayName>Trees</displayName> <actions> <!-- any actions not defined will show the default failure message --> <action> <command>EXAMINE</command> <message>The trees are tall and thick. There aren't any low branches, so it'd be difficult to climb them.</message> </action> </actions> </object> <object> <name>Cupboards</name> <displayName>Cupboards</displayName> <actions> <action> <!-- requirements make the command only work when they are met --> <requirements> <!-- equivilent of "if(cupboard_open == 1)" --> <require operation="equal" value="1">cupboard_open</require> </requirements> <command>EXAMINE</command> <!-- fail message is the message displayed when the requirements aren't met --> <failMessage>The cupboard is closed.</failMessage> <message>The cupboard contains some batteires.</message> </action> <action> <requirements> <require operation="equal" value="0">cupboard_open</require> </requirements> <command>OPEN</command> <failMessage>The cupboard is already open.</failMessage> <message>You open the cupboard. It contains some batteries.</message> <!-- assigns is a list of operations performed on variables when the action succeeds --> <assigns> <assign operation="set" value="1">cupboard_open</assign> </assigns> </action> <action> <requirements> <require operation="equal" value="1">cupboard_open</require> </requirements> <command>CLOSE</command> <failMessage>The cupboard is already closed.</failMessage> <message>You closed the cupboard./message> <assigns> <assign operation="set" value="0">cupboard_open</assign> </assigns> </action> </actions> </object> <object> <name>Batteries</name> <displayName>Batteries</displayName> <!-- by setting inventory to non-zero, we can put it in our bag --> <inventory>1</inventory> <actions> <action> <requirements> <require operation="equal" value="1">cupboard_open</require> </requirements> <command>GET</command> <!-- failMessage isn't required here, it'll just show the usual "You can't see any <blank>." message --> <message>You picked up the batteries.</message> </action> </actions> </object> </objects> </level> Obviously there'd need to be more to it than this. Interaction with people and enemies as well as death and completion are necessary additions. Since the XML is quite difficult to work with, I'd probably create some sort of world editor. I'd like to know if this method has any downfalls, and if there's a "better" or more standard way of doing it.

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  • Message Queue: Which one is the best scenario?

    - by pandaforme
    I write a web crawler. The crawler has 2 steps: get a html page then parse the page I want to use message queue to improve performance and throughput. I think 2 scenarios: scenario 1: structure: urlProducer -> queue1 -> urlConsumer -> queue2 -> parserConsumer urlProducer: get a target url and add it to queue1 urlConsumer: according to the job info, get the html page and add it to queue2 parserConsumer: according to the job info, parse the page scenario 2: structure: urlProducer -> queue1 -> urlConsumer parserProducer-> queue2 -> parserConsumer urlProducer : get a target url and add it to queue1 urlConsumer: according to the job info, get the html page and write it to db parserProducer: get the html page from db and add it to queue2 parserConsumer: according to the job info, parse the page There are multiple producers or consumers in each structure. scenario1 likes a chaining call. It's difficult to find the point of problem, when occurring errors. scenario2 decouples queue1 and queue2. It's easy to find the point of problem, when occurring errors. I'm not sure the notion is correct. Which one is the best scenario? Or other scenarios? Thanks~

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  • How many of you *really* surf around without JavaScript enabled? [closed]

    - by Stephen
    I've decided to rephrase the question. After some deliberation on Meta, I've realized that my question needs to be a bit more focused. The question: Should we (web developers) continue to spend effort progressively enhancing our web applications with JavaScript, ensuring that features gracefully degrade, thereby ensuring accessibility? Or should we spend that time focused on new features or other areas of development? The subtext of that question would be: How many of our customers/clients/users utilize our websites or applications with JavaScript disabled? Do you have any projects with requirements that specifically demand JavaScript functionality (almost all of mine do), and do those requirements also demand graceful degradation? For the sake of asking this question, I pulled up programmers.stackexchange.com without JavaScript enabled, and I was greeted with this message: "Programmers - Stack Exchange works best with JavaScript enabled". It was difficult to log in, albeit the site seemed to generally work okay. (I wasn't able to vote up any questions.) I think this is a satisfactory approach to development. Imagine the effort involved in making all of the site's features work with plain old HTML and server-side logic. OTOH, I wonder how many users have been alienated by this approach. We've all been trained (at least the good developers among us) to use progressive enhancement and to ensure our web applications' dynamic features degrade gracefully. Is this progressive enhancement just pissing into the wind, or do some of our customers actually utilize certain web services without JavaScript enabled? I mean, like really, not figuratively or presumptuously.

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  • The Stub Proto: Not Just For Stub Objects Anymore

    - by user9154181
    One of the great pleasures of programming is to invent something for a narrow purpose, and then to realize that it is a general solution to a broader problem. In hindsight, these things seem perfectly natural and obvious. The stub proto area used to build the core Solaris consolidation has turned out to be one of those things. As discussed in an earlier article, the stub proto area was invented as part of the effort to use stub objects to build the core ON consolidation. Its purpose was merely as a place to hold stub objects. However, we keep finding other uses for it. It turns out that the stub proto should be more properly thought of as an auxiliary place to put things that we would like to put into the proto to help us build the product, but which we do not wish to package or deliver to the end user. Stub objects are one example, but private lint libraries, header files, archives, and relocatable objects, are all examples of things that might profitably go into the stub proto. Without a stub proto, these items were handled in a variety of ad hoc ways: If one part of the workspace needed private header files, libraries, or other such items, it might modify its Makefile to reach up and over to the place in the workspace where those things live and use them from there. There are several problems with this: Each component invents its own approach, meaning that programmers maintaining the system have to invest extra effort to understand what things mean. In the past, this has created makefile ghettos in which only the person who wrote the makefiles feels confident to modify them, while everyone else ignores them. This causes many difficulties and benefits no one. These interdependencies are not obvious to the make, utility, and can lead to races. They are not obvious to the human reader, who may therefore not realize that they exist, and break them. Our policy in ON is not to deliver files into the proto unless those files are intended to be packaged and delivered to the end user. However, sometimes non-shipping files were copied into the proto anyway, causing a different set of problems: It requires a long list of exceptions to silence our normal unused proto item error checking. In the past, we have accidentally shipped files that we did not intend to deliver to the end user. Mixing cruft with valuable items makes it hard to discern which is which. The stub proto area offers a convenient and robust solution. Files needed to build the workspace that are not delivered to the end user can instead be installed into the stub proto. No special exceptions or custom make rules are needed, and the intent is always clear. We are already accessing some private lint libraries and compilation symlinks in this manner. Ultimately, I'd like to see all of the files in the proto that have a packaging exception delivered to the stub proto instead, and for the elimination of all existing special case makefile rules. This would include shared objects, header files, and lint libraries. I don't expect this to happen overnight — it will be a long term case by case project, but the overall trend is clear. The Stub Proto, -z assert_deflib, And The End Of Accidental System Object Linking We recently used the stub proto to solve an annoying build issue that goes back to the earliest days of Solaris: How to ensure that we're linking to the OS bits we're building instead of to those from the running system. The Solaris product is made up of objects and files from a number of different consolidations, each of which is built separately from the others from an independent code base called a gate. The core Solaris OS consolidation is ON, which stands for "Operating System and Networking". You will frequently also see ON called the OSnet. There are consolidations for X11 graphics, the desktop environment, open source utilities, compilers and development tools, and many others. The collection of consolidations that make up Solaris is known as the "Wad Of Stuff", usually referred to simply as the WOS. None of these consolidations is self contained. Even the core ON consolidation has some dependencies on libraries that come from other consolidations. The build server used to build the OSnet must be running a relatively recent version of Solaris, which means that its objects will be very similar to the new ones being built. However, it is necessarily true that the build system objects will always be a little behind, and that incompatible differences may exist. The objects built by the OSnet link to other objects. Some of these dependencies come from the OSnet, while others come from other consolidations. The objects from other consolidations are provided by the standard library directories on the build system (/lib, /usr/lib). The objects from the OSnet itself are supposed to come from the proto areas in the workspace, and not from the build server. In order to achieve this, we make use of the -L command line option to the link-editor. The link-editor finds dependencies by looking in the directories specified by the caller using the -L command line option. If the desired dependency is not found in one of these locations, ld will then fall back to looking at the default locations (/lib, /usr/lib). In order to use OSnet objects from the workspace instead of the system, while still accessing non-OSnet objects from the system, our Makefiles set -L link-editor options that point at the workspace proto areas. In general, this works well and dependencies are found in the right places. However, there have always been failures: Building objects in the wrong order might mean that an OSnet dependency hasn't been built before an object that needs it. If so, the dependency will not be seen in the proto, and the link-editor will silently fall back to the one on the build server. Errors in the makefiles can wipe out the -L options that our top level makefiles establish to cause ld to look at the workspace proto first. In this case, all objects will be found on the build server. These failures were rarely if ever caught. As I mentioned earlier, the objects on the build server are generally quite close to the objects built in the workspace. If they offer compatible linking interfaces, then the objects that link to them will behave properly, and no issue will ever be seen. However, if they do not offer compatible linking interfaces, the failure modes can be puzzling and hard to pin down. Either way, there won't be a compile-time warning or error. The advent of the stub proto eliminated the first type of failure. With stub objects, there is no dependency ordering, and the necessary stub object dependency will always be in place for any OSnet object that needs it. However, makefile errors do still occur, and so, the second form of error was still possible. While working on the stub object project, we realized that the stub proto was also the key to solving the second form of failure caused by makefile errors: Due to the way we set the -L options to point at our workspace proto areas, any valid object from the OSnet should be found via a path specified by -L, and not from the default locations (/lib, /usr/lib). Any OSnet object found via the default locations means that we've linked to the build server, which is an error we'd like to catch. Non-OSnet objects don't exist in the proto areas, and so are found via the default paths. However, if we were to create a symlink in the stub proto pointing at each non-OSnet dependency that we require, then the non-OSnet objects would also be found via the paths specified by -L, and not from the link-editor defaults. Given the above, we should not find any dependency objects from the link-editor defaults. Any dependency found via the link-editor defaults means that we have a Makefile error, and that we are linking to the build server inappropriately. All we need to make use of this fact is a linker option to produce a warning when it happens. Although warnings are nice, we in the OSnet have a zero tolerance policy for build noise. The -z fatal-warnings option that was recently introduced with -z guidance can be used to turn the warnings into fatal build errors, forcing the programmer to fix them. This was too easy to resist. I integrated 7021198 ld option to warn when link accesses a library via default path PSARC/2011/068 ld -z assert-deflib option into snv_161 (February 2011), shortly after the stub proto was introduced into ON. This putback introduced the -z assert-deflib option to the link-editor: -z assert-deflib=[libname] Enables warning messages for libraries specified with the -l command line option that are found by examining the default search paths provided by the link-editor. If a libname value is provided, the default library warning feature is enabled, and the specified library is added to a list of libraries for which no warnings will be issued. Multiple -z assert-deflib options can be specified in order to specify multiple libraries for which warnings should not be issued. The libname value should be the name of the library file, as found by the link-editor, without any path components. For example, the following enables default library warnings, and excludes the standard C library. ld ... -z assert-deflib=libc.so ... -z assert-deflib is a specialized option, primarily of interest in build environments where multiple objects with the same name exist and tight control over the library used is required. If is not intended for general use. Note that the definition of -z assert-deflib allows for exceptions to be specified as arguments to the option. In general, the idea of using a symlink from the stub proto is superior because it does not clutter up the link command with a long list of objects. When building the OSnet, we usually use the plain from of -z deflib, and make symlinks for the non-OSnet dependencies. The exception to this are dependencies supplied by the compiler itself, which are usually found at whatever arbitrary location the compiler happens to be installed at. To handle these special cases, the command line version works better. Following the integration of the link-editor change, I made use of -z assert-deflib in OSnet builds with 7021896 Prevent OSnet from accidentally linking to build system which integrated into snv_162 (March 2011). Turning on -z assert-deflib exposed between 10 and 20 existing errors in our Makefiles, which were all fixed in the same putback. The errors we found in our Makefiles underscore how difficult they can be prevent without an automatic system in place to catch them. Conclusions The stub proto is proving to be a generally useful construct for ON builds that goes beyond serving as a place to hold stub objects. Although invented to hold stub objects, it has already allowed us to simplify a number of previously difficult situations in our makefiles and builds. I expect that we'll find uses for it beyond those described here as we go forward.

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  • Good Freelance models for web developers

    - by Matthew Underwood
    I am a web developer with four years of experience in PHP, MYSQL and experience in Javascript etc. One day I hope to develop a freelance career in web development. Areas of freelance that I am thinking of going towards includes Wordpress, Magento development along with bespoke applications. I am also thinking of doing some consultancy work for clients and businesses when I build up some more experience and technical knowledge. I want to offer a web development service to potential clients that plays on my strengths in what I know but most importantly has a market. Web development can cover so many subjects that its difficult to pick out the areas that have demand. I am also curious to find out if web developers offer services that bring in a monthly income e.g application maintenance or database maintenance? Is there a market for certain areas like WordPress plugins or bespoke applications? Are there certain things to avoid because of work duration, unrealistic client expectations or the fact that its impossible to find a market for it? As professional and experienced freelance web developers have you learned some important do's and don'ts? Is there certain services that the majority of web developers offer because its in high demand? This is the one area of web development freelancing that I cant get my head around. I know there is never a definitive answer but there must be some good practises and general consensus on this subject. Web designers design websites they offer a lump sum and get paid monthly sometimes to add new content, PPC and SEO consultants market sites to the top this will involve monthly payments, web development doesn’t seem so clear cut.

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  • is it possible to use shopify for just their shopping cart component or should I just roll my own

    - by timpone
    I'm working on an e-commerce site and am a rails developer; due to the nature of the items, I am managing them in their own database so I'm really looking for something that is only for the shopping cart aspect (there are things like heavy nesting and integration with other pieces of the app that would be very difficult to reproduce). It seems like there are two ways that I can go. (1) One way is rolling my own shopping cart and using something like Stripe (which I have been evaluating and am working fine with it). This literally could be as easy as creating an orders table and a line items table and a lot of front-end. (2) Or I could try to integrate into a third-party shopping cart like Shopify. I am not really sure if I can just use the shopify shopping cart or whether there is any advantage to this. If I already have most of my app done, would shopify (or another shopping cart app) provide any significant benefit (it clearly could)? Or would the integration be too much of a headache? Like for example, when a user 'adds to order' on my site, can I post to shopify and associate it with that user? thx

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  • Junior developer introduction to job industry

    - by lady_killer
    I am a junior developer at my second working experience, the first one using PHP with WordPress and currently on Groovy on Grails. I like coding, I attend meetup to discuss technology etc but I still did not understand how to become a real professional with the "know how" attitude. I read Clean Coder, the author advises to spend 20 hours per week of my spare time to learn new technologies and to keep myself up to date. I do not find this realistic, if you want to have a bit of a social life, and I also noticed that learning at work, at least in the places where I worked, is not ideal. No support from seniors for new projects, no pair programming and code reviews, no company trainings, one hour a week tech meetings where seniors walk away after a bit because they already know the topic discussed and so on. Sometimes is quite hard to keep the motivation... My questions are: Is our industry supposed to be like this? Is there real team working in the sense of sharing knowledge and help juniors to get up to speed? Are we supposed to learn new technologies or technology features just in our spare time?Clean Coder says football players do not train during official matches and our working hours are like official matches, we should just perform and learn in other moments. Is it really like this? How can I improve my skills with no support? Is it enough to read books and try out the exercises and perhaps some katas? In almost 5 month of Groovy on Grails experience at work, I have never had the opportunity to create anything from scratch, just worked on existing issues where it was even really difficult to get the domain knowledge from senior devs.

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  • How relevant are Brainbench scores when evaluating candidates?

    - by Newtopian
    I've seen many companies using certification services such as Brainbench when evaluating candidates. Most times they use it as a secondary screen prior to interview or as a validation to choose between candidates. What is your experience with Brainbench scores? Did you try the tests yourself, and if so do you feel the score is meaningful enough to be used as part of a hiring process? Difficult choice. Consensus seems to be that BB cert are not very good as a certification. The biggest argument was around the fact that some of the questions are too precise to form a good evaluation. this view can probably be tempered somewhat but still, to hold someone's future solely on the results of this evaluation would be irresponsible. That said, I still think it is possible to use them properly to gain additional objective knowledge on a candidate's level of expertise provided the test is done in a controlled environment ensuring that all taking it stand on equal footing. Thus I went with the answer that best reflected this view keeping in mind that it is still just an hour long 50ish multiple choice question to evaluate skills and knowledge that take years to acquire. To be taken with a grain of salt ! In short, The tests have value but weather or not they are worth the money is another debate. Thanks all for your time.

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  • How important is graceful degradation of JavaScript? [closed]

    - by Stephen
    Should web developers continue to spend effort progressively enhancing our web applications with JavaScript, ensuring that features gracefully degrade, thereby ensuring accessibility? Or should we spend that time focused on new features or other areas of development? The subtext of that question would be: How many of our customers/clients/users utilize our websites or applications with JavaScript disabled? Do you have any projects with requirements that specifically demand JavaScript functionality (almost all of mine do), and do those requirements also demand graceful degradation? For the sake of asking this question, I pulled up programmers.stackexchange.com without JavaScript enabled, and I was greeted with this message: "Programmers - Stack Exchange works best with JavaScript enabled". It was difficult to log in, albeit the site seemed to generally work okay. (I wasn't able to vote up any questions.) I think this is a satisfactory approach to development. Imagine the effort involved in making all of the site's features work with plain old HTML and server-side logic. On the other hand, I wonder how many users have been alienated by this approach. We've all been trained (at least the good developers among us) to use progressive enhancement and to ensure our web applications' dynamic features degrade gracefully. Is this progressive enhancement just pissing into the wind, or do some of our customers actually utilize certain web services without JavaScript enabled?

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