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  • Refactoring a Single Rails Model with large methods & long join queries trying to do everything

    - by Kelseydh
    I have a working Ruby on Rails Model that I suspect is inefficient, hard to maintain, and full of unnecessary SQL join queries. I want to optimize and refactor this Model (Quiz.rb) to comply with Rails best practices, but I'm not sure how I should do it. The Rails app is a game that has Missions with many Stages. Users complete Stages by answering Questions that have correct or incorrect Answers. When a User tries to complete a stage by answering questions, the User gets a Quiz entry with many Attempts. Each Attempt records an Answer submitted for that Question within the Stage. A user completes a stage or mission by getting every Attempt correct, and their progress is tracked by adding a new entry to the UserMission & UserStage join tables. All of these features work, but unfortunately the Quiz.rb Model has been twisted to handle almost all of it exclusively. The callbacks began at 'Quiz.rb', and because I wasn't sure how to leave the Quiz Model during a multi-model update, I resorted to using Rails Console to have the @quiz instance variable via self.some_method do all the heavy lifting to retrieve every data value for the game's business logic; resulting in large extended join queries that "dance" all around the Database schema. The Quiz.rb Model that Smells: class Quiz < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user has_many :attempts, dependent: :destroy before_save :check_answer before_save :update_user_mission_and_stage accepts_nested_attributes_for :attempts, :reject_if => lambda { |a| a[:answer_id].blank? }, :allow_destroy => true #Checks every answer within each quiz, adding +1 for each correct answer #within a stage quiz, and -1 for each incorrect answer def check_answer stage_score = 0 self.attempts.each do |attempt| if attempt.answer.correct? == true stage_score += 1 elsif attempt.answer.correct == false stage_score - 1 end end stage_score end def winner return true end def update_user_mission_and_stage ####### #Step 1: Checks if UserMission exists, finds or creates one. #if no UserMission for the current mission exists, creates a new UserMission if self.user_has_mission? == false @user_mission = UserMission.new(user_id: self.user.id, mission_id: self.current_stage.mission_id, available: true) @user_mission.save else @user_mission = self.find_user_mission end ####### #Step 2: Checks if current UserStage exists, stops if true to prevent duplicate entry if self.user_has_stage? @user_mission.save return true else ####### ##Step 3: if step 2 returns false: ##Initiates UserStage creation instructions #checks for winner (winner actions need to be defined) if they complete last stage of last mission for a given orientation if self.passed? && self.is_last_stage? && self.is_last_mission? create_user_stage_and_update_user_mission self.winner #NOTE: The rest are the same, but specify conditions that are available to add badges or other actions upon those conditions occurring: ##if user completes first stage of a mission elsif self.passed? && self.is_first_stage? && self.is_first_mission? create_user_stage_and_update_user_mission #creates user badge for finishing first stage of first mission self.user.add_badge(5) self.user.activity_logs.create(description: "granted first-stage badge", type_event: "badge", value: "first-stage") #If user completes last stage of a given mission, creates a new UserMission elsif self.passed? && self.is_last_stage? && self.is_first_mission? create_user_stage_and_update_user_mission #creates user badge for finishing first mission self.user.add_badge(6) self.user.activity_logs.create(description: "granted first-mission badge", type_event: "badge", value: "first-mission") elsif self.passed? create_user_stage_and_update_user_mission else self.passed? == false return true end end end #Creates a new UserStage record in the database for a successful Quiz question passing def create_user_stage_and_update_user_mission @nu_stage = @user_mission.user_stages.new(user_id: self.user.id, stage_id: self.current_stage.id) @nu_stage.save @user_mission.save self.user.add_points(50) end #Boolean that defines passing a stage as answering every question in that stage correct def passed? self.check_answer >= self.number_of_questions end #Returns the number of questions asked for that stage's quiz def number_of_questions self.attempts.first.answer.question.stage.questions.count end #Returns the current_stage for the Quiz, routing through 1st attempt in that Quiz def current_stage self.attempts.first.answer.question.stage end #Gives back the position of the stage relative to its mission. def stage_position self.attempts.first.answer.question.stage.position end #will find the user_mission for the current user and stage if it exists def find_user_mission self.user.user_missions.find_by_mission_id(self.current_stage.mission_id) end #Returns true if quiz was for the last stage within that mission #helpful for triggering actions related to a user completing a mission def is_last_stage? self.stage_position == self.current_stage.mission.stages.last.position end #Returns true if quiz was for the first stage within that mission #helpful for triggering actions related to a user completing a mission def is_first_stage? self.stage_position == self.current_stage.mission.stages_ordered.first.position end #Returns true if current user has a UserMission for the current stage def user_has_mission? self.user.missions.ids.include?(self.current_stage.mission.id) end #Returns true if current user has a UserStage for the current stage def user_has_stage? self.user.stages.include?(self.current_stage) end #Returns true if current user is on the last mission based on position within a given orientation def is_first_mission? self.user.missions.first.orientation.missions.by_position.first.position == self.current_stage.mission.position end #Returns true if current user is on the first stage & mission of a given orientation def is_last_mission? self.user.missions.first.orientation.missions.by_position.last.position == self.current_stage.mission.position end end My Question Currently my Rails server takes roughly 500ms to 1 sec to process single @quiz.save action. I am confident that the slowness here is due to sloppy code, not bad Database ERD design. What does a better solution look like? And specifically: Should I use join queries to retrieve values like I did here, or is it better to instantiate new objects within the model instead? Or am I missing a better solution? How should update_user_mission_and_stage be refactored to follow best practices? Relevant Code for Reference: quizzes_controller.rb w/ Controller Route Initiating Callback: class QuizzesController < ApplicationController before_action :find_stage_and_mission before_action :find_orientation before_action :find_question def show end def create @user = current_user @quiz = current_user.quizzes.new(quiz_params) if @quiz.save if @quiz.passed? if @mission.next_mission.nil? && @stage.next_stage.nil? redirect_to root_path, notice: "Congratulations, you have finished the last mission!" elsif @stage.next_stage.nil? redirect_to [@mission.next_mission, @mission.first_stage], notice: "Correct! Time for Mission #{@mission.next_mission.position}", info: "Starting next mission" else redirect_to [@mission, @stage.next_stage], notice: "Answer Correct! You passed the stage!" end else redirect_to [@mission, @stage], alert: "You didn't get every question right, please try again." end else redirect_to [@mission, @stage], alert: "Sorry. We were unable to save your answer. Please contact the admministrator." end @questions = @stage.questions.all end private def find_stage_and_mission @stage = Stage.find(params[:stage_id]) @mission = @stage.mission end def find_question @question = @stage.questions.find_by_id params[:id] end def quiz_params params.require(:quiz).permit(:user_id, :attempt_id, {attempts_attributes: [:id, :quiz_id, :answer_id]}) end def find_orientation @orientation = @mission.orientation @missions = @orientation.missions.by_position end end Overview of Relevant ERD Database Relationships: Mission - Stage - Question - Answer - Attempt <- Quiz <- User Mission - UserMission <- User Stage - UserStage <- User Other Models: Mission.rb class Mission < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :orientation has_many :stages has_many :user_missions, dependent: :destroy has_many :users, through: :user_missions #SCOPES scope :by_position, -> {order(position: :asc)} def stages_ordered stages.order(:position) end def next_mission self.orientation.missions.find_by_position(self.position.next) end def first_stage next_mission.stages_ordered.first end end Stage.rb: class Stage < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :mission has_many :questions, dependent: :destroy has_many :user_stages, dependent: :destroy has_many :users, through: :user_stages accepts_nested_attributes_for :questions, reject_if: :all_blank, allow_destroy: true def next_stage self.mission.stages.find_by_position(self.position.next) end end Question.rb class Question < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :stage has_many :answers, dependent: :destroy accepts_nested_attributes_for :answers, :reject_if => lambda { |a| a[:body].blank? }, :allow_destroy => true end Answer.rb: class Answer < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :question has_many :attempts, dependent: :destroy end Attempt.rb: class Attempt < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :answer belongs_to :quiz end User.rb: class User < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :school has_many :activity_logs has_many :user_missions, dependent: :destroy has_many :missions, through: :user_missions has_many :user_stages, dependent: :destroy has_many :stages, through: :user_stages has_many :orientations, through: :school has_many :quizzes, dependent: :destroy has_many :attempts, through: :quizzes def latest_stage_position self.user_missions.last.user_stages.last.stage.position end end UserMission.rb class UserMission < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user belongs_to :mission has_many :user_stages, dependent: :destroy end UserStage.rb class UserStage < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user belongs_to :stage belongs_to :user_mission end

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  • Implementing Release Notes in TFS Team Build 2010

    - by Jakob Ehn
    In TFS Team Build (all versions), each build is associated with changesets and work items. To determine which changesets that should be associated with the current build, Team Build finds the label of the “Last Good Build” an then aggregates all changesets up unitl the label for the current build. Basically this means that if your build is failing, every changeset that is checked in will be accumulated in this list until the build is successful. All well, but there uis a dimension missing here, regarding to releases. Often you can run several release builds until you actually deploy the result of the build to a test or production system. When you do this, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to send the customer a nice release note that contain all work items and changeset since the previously deployed version? At our company, we have developed a Release Repository, which basically is a siple web site with a SQL database as storage. Every time we run a Release Build, the resulting installers, zip-files, sql scripts etc, gets pushed into the release repositor together with the relevant build information. This information contains things such as start time, who triggered the build etc. Also, it contains the associated changesets and work items. When deploying the MSI’s for a new version, we mark the build as Deployed in the release repository. The depoyed status is stored in the release repository database, but it could also have been implemented by setting the Build Quality for that build to Deployed. When generating the release notes, the web site simple runs through each release build back to the previous build that was marked as Deplyed, and aggregates the work items and changesets: Here is a sample screenshot on how this looks for a sample build/application The web site is available both for us and also for the customers and testers, which means that they can easily get the latest version of a particular application and at the same time see what changes are included in this version. There is a lot going on in the Release Build Process that drives this in our TFS 2010 server, but in this post I will show how you can access and read the changeset and work item information in a custom activity. Since Team Build associates changesets and work items for each build, this information is (partially) available inside the build process template. The Associate Changesets and Work Items for non-Shelveset Builds activity (located inside the Try  Compile, Test, and Associate Changesets and Work Items activity) defines and populates a variable called associatedWorkItems   You can see that this variable is an IList containing instances of the Changeset class (from the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client namespace). Now, if you want to access this variable later on in the build process template, you need to declare a new variable in the corresponding scope and the assign the value to this variable. In this sample, I declared a variable called assocChangesets in the RunAgent sequence, which basically covers the whol compile, test and drop part of the build process:   Now, you need to assign the value from the AssociatedChangesets to this variable. This is done using the Assign workflow activity:   Now you can add a custom activity any where inside the RunAgent sequence and use this variable. NB: Of course your activity must place somewhere after the variable has been poplated. To finish off, here is code snippet that shows how you can read the changeset and work item information from the variable.   First you add an InArgumet on your activity where you can pass i the variable that we defined. [RequiredArgument] public InArgument<IList<Changeset>> AssociatedChangesets { get; set; } Then you can traverse all the changesets in the list, and for each changeset use the WorkItems property to get the work items that were associated in that changeset: foreach (Changeset ch in associatedChangesets) { // Add change theChangesets.Add( new AssociatedChangeset(ch.ChangesetId, ch.ArtifactUri, ch.Committer, ch.Comment, ch.ChangesetId)); foreach (var wi in ch.WorkItems) { theWorkItems.Add( new AssociatedWorkItem(wi["System.AssignedTo"].ToString(), wi.Id, wi["System.State"].ToString(), wi.Title, wi.Type.Name, wi.Id, wi.Uri)); } } NB: AssociatedChangeset and AssociatedWorkItem are custom classes that we use internally for storing this information that is eventually pushed to the release repository.

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  • Any tool to make git build every commit to a branch in a seperate repository?

    - by Wayne
    A git tool that meets the specs below is needed. Does one already exists? If not, I will create a script and make it available on GitHub for others to use or contribute. Is there a completely different and better way to solve the need to build/test every commit to a branch in a git repository? Not just to the latest but each one back to a certain staring point. Background: Our development environment uses a separate continuous integration server which is wonderful. However, it is still necessary to do full builds locally on each developer's PC to make sure the commit won't "break the build" when pushed to the CI server. Unfortunately, with auto unit tests, those build force the developer to wait 10 or 15 minutes for a build every time. To solve this we have setup a "mirror" git repository on each developer PC. So we develop in the main repository but anytime a local full build is needed. We run a couple commands in a in the mirror repository to fetch, checkout the commit we want to build, and build. It's works extremely lovely so we can continue working in the main one with the build going in parallel. There's only one main concern now. We want to make sure every single commit builds and tests fine. But we often get busy and neglect to build several fresh commits. Then if it the build fails you have to do a bisect or manually figure build each interim commit to figure out which one broke. Requirements for this tool. The tool will look at another repo, origin by default, fetch and compare all commits that are in branches to 2 lists of commits. One list must hold successfully built commits and the other lists commits that failed. It identifies any commit or commits not yet in either list and begins to build them in a loop in the order that they were committed. It stops on the first one that fails. The tool appropriately adds each commit to either the successful or failed list after it as attempted to build each one. The tool will ignore any "legacy" commits which are prior to the oldest commit in the success list. This logic makes the starting point possible in the next point. Starting Point. The tool building a specific commit so that, if successful it gets added to the success list. If it is the earliest commit in the success list, it becomes the "starting point" so that none of the commits prior to that are examined for builds. Only linear tree support? Much like bisect, this tool works best on a commit tree which is, at least from it's starting point, linear without any merges. That is, it should be a tree which was built and updated entirely via rebase and fast forward commits. If it fails on one commit in a branch it will stop without building the rest that followed after that one. Instead if will just move on to another branch, if any. The tool must do these steps once by default but allow a parameter to loop with an option to set how many seconds between loops. Other tools like Hudson or CruiseControl could do more fancy scheduling options. The tool must have good defaults but allow optional control. Which repo? origin by default. Which branches? all of them by default. What tool? by default an executable file to be provided by the user named "buildtest", "buildtest.sh" "buildtest.cmd", or buildtest.exe" in the root folder of the repository. Loop delay? run once by default with option to loop after a number of seconds between iterations.

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  • how to create an object using self?

    - by Nick
    I thought I understood the use of self while referring to anything in the current class. After encountering this warning and subsequent run failure, I have googled many variants of "define self" or "usage of self" and gotten nowhere. This problem is how to create an object without the warning, and understand why. #import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h> @interface Foo : NSObject { Foo *obj; } -(void)beta; @end #import "Foo.h" @implementation Foo -(void)beta{ obj = [self new]; // 'Foo' may not respond to '-new' } @end Note, if I substitute Foo for self, there's no problem. I thought the class name and self were equivalent, but obviously the compiler doesn't think so. Perhaps an explanation of what's wrong here will not only solve my problem but also enlighten my understanding of the usage of self. Are there any tutorials about proper usage of self? I couldn't find anything beyond something like "self is the receiver of the message," which I didn't help me at all.

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  • Jack of all trades, master of none [closed]

    - by Rope
    I've got a question similar to this one: Is looking for code examples constantly a sign of a bad developer? though not entirely. I got off college 2 years ago and I'm currently struggling with a University study. Most likely I'll have to drop out and start working within the next couple of months. Now here's the pickle. I have no speciality what so ever. When I got out of college I had worked with C, C++ and Java. I had had an internship at NEC-Philips and got familiar with C# (.NET) and I taught myself how it worked. After college I started working with PHP, HTML,SQL, MySQL Javascript and Jquery. I'm currently teaching myself Ruby on Rails and thus Ruby. At my university I also got familiar with MATLAB. As you can see I've got a broad scope of languages and frameworks I'm familiar with, but none I know inside-out. So I guess this kinda applies to me: "Jack of all trades, master of none.". I've been looking for jobs and I've noticed that most of them require some years of experience with a certain language and some specifications that apply to that language. My question is: How do I pick a speciality? And how do I know if I'll actually enjoy it? As I've worked with loads of languages how would I be able to tell this is right for me? I don't like being tied down to a specific role and I quite like being a generalist. But in order to make more money I would need a specialisation. How would I pick something that goes against my nature? Thanks in advance, Rope.

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  • BUILD 2013 Session&ndash;What&rsquo;s New In XAML

    - by Tim Murphy
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/build-2013-sessionndashwhatrsquos-new-in-xaml.aspx If ever there was a session that you felt like your head was going to explode, this one would do it.  Tim Heuer proceeded to try to fit as many of the changes and additions to XAML as he could in one hour. There were a number of improvements that struck me.  The first was the fact that we no longer need to put stack panels in the AppBar in order to add buttons.  This has been changed to a CommandBar which at the very least makes the markup read more cleanly.  Now if they would just bring this same improvement to Windows Phone we would be set. There was a lot of cheering at the beginning of his talk when he showed that there are now date time pickers.  I understand that it makes life easier, but I just couldn’t get that excited. The couple of features that did grab my attention being able to select a group of tags and then add an encapsulating tag such as a StackPanel around them and the fact that they have optimized XAML so that now runs on average 25% faster. I’d go crazy trying to list off all the improvements and new features so be sure to go and review the recording of the session. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013,XAML,Windows 8.1

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  • BUILD 2013&ndash;Day 2 Summary

    - by Tim Murphy
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/28/build-2013ndashday-2-summary.aspx Day 1 rocked.  So how could they top that?  By having more goodies to give away!  During the keynote they announced that attendees would get one year of Office 365, 100 GB of SkyDrive and one year of Adobe Cloud Service.  Overall they key note was long with more information shot at you than you could possibly absorb.  They went about 20 minutes over time which made me think that they could have split it to a 3rd keynote and given us a better idea on some of these topics and perhaps addressed the one open question that was floating around Twitter.  That is, what is going to happen with XBox development.  It sounded like there was a quick side mention of that, but I missed it. The rest of the day was packed with great sessions full of Windows 8, Azure and Windows Phone goodness.  I had planned on attending Scott Hanselman’s talk, but they had so many people this they had to push to an overflow room.  Stay tuned from session summaries later. The day was topped off by an attendee party across from the San Francisco Giant’s ball park.  It was kind of quirky and and fun.  They set it up on one of the piers in the bay and had food served by food trucks.  You would be surprised how good the food was.  Add in some pool tables, fooseball, video games, a DJ, a comedian/musician and plenty of spirits and it was a great way to end day 2. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013

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  • BUILD 2013 Session&ndash;Testing Your C# Base Windows Store Apps

    - by Tim Murphy
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/build-2013-sessionndashtesting-your-c-base-windows-store-apps.aspx Testing an application is not what most people consider fun and the number of situation that need to be tested seems to grow exponentially when building mobile apps.  That is why I found the topic of this session interesting.  When I found out that the speaker, Francis Cheung, was from the Patterns and Practices group I knew I was in the right place.  I have admired that team since I first met Ron Jacobs around 2001.  So what did Francis have to offer? He started off in a rather confusing who’s on first fashion.  It seems that one of his tester was originally supposed to give the talk, but then it was decided that it would be better to have someone who does development present a testing topic.  This didn’t hinder the content of the talk in the least.  He broke the process down in a logical manner that would be straight forward to understand if not implement. Francis hit the main areas we usually think of such as tombstoning, network connectivity and asynchronous code, but he approached them with tools they we may not have thought of until now.  He relied heavily on Fiddler to intercept and change the behavior of network requests. Then there are the areas you might not normal think to check.  This includes localization, accessibility and updating client code to a new version.  These are important aspects of your app that can severely impact how customers feel about your app.  Take the time to view this session and get a new appreciation for testing and where it fits in your development lifecycle. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013,Testing,C#,Windows Store Apps,Fiddler

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  • Audiobooks for programmers?

    - by Zoot
    I'm a programmer with a two-hour round trip commute to work each day. I'd like to fill some of that time with audiobooks about software development. Any audiobooks that would help me become a better programmer would be appreciated. I'm thinking that books about design patterns and non-fiction about computing history might be good here, but I'm open to anything. Keeping in mind that I will be listening to this in a car, what are the best audiobooks that I can listen to? EDIT: Many people have also suggested podcasts. This is appreciated, but since podcasts arrive in a constantly arriving stream of data rather than as a finite amount of data, ways to juggle all of these different content streams would also be appreciated. To be more specific to my situation, my commuting vehicle has an MP3 CD player, USB input for MP3 files, and AUX input. I own Android and webOS devices that can be plugged into the AUX input.

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  • Learning and Developing with PHP [closed]

    - by KyelJmD
    I am here to ask you What is a good PHP Book that doesn't contain too much details but it is compose of all necessary information to develop in PHP such as (OO PHP, Handling Forms, Database etc etc) This may be subjective but I've tried to look php book recomendations here at Stackoverflow but I cannot find any. Next is What are the things I need to know in learning a PHp framework? specifically I want to learn CAKEPHP. NOTE I do not need those lenghty books that discuss loops and such I already have experience programming with java and C#.

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  • Could someone break this nasty habit of mine please?

    - by MimiEAM
    I recently graduated in cs and was mostly unsatisfied since I realized that I received only a basic theoretical approach in a wide range of subjects (which is what college is supposed to do but still...) . Anyway I took the habit of spending a lot of time looking for implementations of concepts and upon finding those I will used them as guides to writing my own implementation of those concepts just for fun. But now I feel like the only way I can fully understand a new concept is by trying to implement from scratch no matter how unoptimized the result may be. Anyway this behavior lead me to choose by default the hard way, that is time consuming instead of using a nicely written library until I hit my head again a huge wall and then try to find a library that works for my purpose.... Does anyone else do that and why? It seems so weird why would anyone (including me) do that ? Is it a bad practice ? and if so how can i stop doing that ?

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  • Doing practice jobsearch/technical interviews?

    - by Beekguk
    I graduated college last year & I've never gone through the interview process - my current programming position evolved out of projects I did in school, but in a few months I'm making a clean break and moving across the country so I'm going to have to face a "grown-up" jobsearch. I'm kind of scared of technical interviews - I think I'm pretty good at my job and my hobby programming projects ... but what if it turns out I'm part of that group that thinks they're qualified, but really just cause despair at the state of education in the hearts of interviewers? So, I'm thinking of doing a "practice" job hunt in my current city to get an idea of what it's like and what kind of experience/expertise employers are really looking for. Is this a dick move ethically (applying to/interviewing for jobs I can't take)? If so, is there another good way to prepare for technical interviews, especially those little trick puzzle-type questions?

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  • Opinion for my recruitment portal idea [closed]

    - by user1498503
    I am creating a recruitment portal for IT professionals. In this, recruiters while creating a job post would be asked to create a skills requirement matrix. Essential Skills : asp.net MVC Entity Framework Desired Skills : SQL Server 2008 IIS 7.0 On the other hand job seekers would also have their own skills matrix Jobseeker #1 Core Skills : asp.net MVC Entity Framework MangoDB Secondary Skills : SQL Server 2008 IIS 7.0 Jobseeker #2 Core Skills : asp.net Web forms Secondary Skills : SQL Server 2008 IIS 7.0 So when both job seekers apply for the same job. Would it be a good idea for both of them to see each other's skills matrix for comparison?Also no personal details and CVs are shared. I think comparisons would help job seekers to understand what their areas of improvement are and could motivate to fill the skills gap. Your opinion would be appreciated. Regards

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  • Topics for covering in-depth programming knowledge

    - by black_belt
    I pursued my bachelors' degree in business administration, but my interest in Information Technology led me to acquire some knowledge of PHP programming and MySQL database. I find programming so interesting that I haven't applied for any job since my graduation. Currently I am staying home and just trying to acquire in-depth knowledge of PHP programming. So far I have developed couple of websites and web applications including Inventory+ Point of Sale Software and an Accounting system for small organizations. I aim to have knowledge that a Computer Science graduate should have, and for that I want to read books but I have no idea where to start from. Could you please suggest me some books and topics that I should study on? Thanks a lot :)

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  • BUILD 2013 Session&ndash;Alive With Activity

    - by Tim Murphy
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/build-2013-sessionndashalive-with-activity.aspx Live tiles are what really add a ton of value to both Windows 8 and Windows Phone.  As a developer it is important that you leverage this capability in order to make your apps more informative and give your users a reason to keep opening the app to find out details hinted at by tile updates. In this session Kraig Brockschmidt cover a wide array of dos and don’ts for implementing live tiles.  I was actually worried whether I would get much out of this session when Kraig started it off with the fact that his background is in HTML5 based apps which I have little interest in, but the subject almost didn’t come up during his talk.  It focused on things like making sure you have all the right size graphics and implementing all of the tile event handlers.  The session went on to discuss the message format for push notification and implementing lock screen notification and badges. As with the other day 1 sessions it was like drinking from a fire hose, but it was good stuff.  Check it out when they post it on Channel 9. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013,Live Tiles,Windows 8.1

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  • BUILD 2013 Sessions&ndash;Building Great Windows Phone UI in XAML

    - by Tim Murphy
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/build-2013-sessionsndashbuilding-great-windows-phone-ui-in-xaml.aspx Even the simplest of smart phone apps can be a challenge to give a compelling UI regardless of the platform.  Windows Phone and XAML are no exception.  That is what got my interest in this session by Shawn Oster.  He took a checklist type approach to the subject is good considering that is about the only way that many us get things done. Shawn started out giving us a set of bad design/good design examples.  They very effectively showed how good design gives a sense of professionalism to your app that could determine if your wonderful idea actually makes money is DOA. I won’t go over all his points since you will be able to get the session online, but a few of his checklist points included design from the beginning instead of as an afterthought, not being afraid to leave white space and making sure your application elegantly supports both landscape and portrait modes.  The many gems make this a must watch for any developers who struggle with visual design. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013,Windows Phone,XAML,Design

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  • What should a programmer's yearly routine be to maximize their technical skills?

    - by sguptaet
    2 years ago I made a big career change into programming. I learned various technologies on my own without any prior experience. I really love it and feel lucky with all the resources around us to help us learn. Books, courses, open-source, etc. There are so many avenues. I'm wondering what a good routine would be to follow to maximize my software development skills. I don't believe just building software is the way, because that leaves no time for learning new concepts or technologies. I'm looking for an answer like this: Take a new concept sabbatical/workshop 2 weeks per year. Read 1 theoretical and 1 practical programming book per year. Learn 1 additional language every 2 years. Take a 1 week vacation every 6 months. Etc. I realize that the above might sound naive and unrealistic as there are so many factors. But I'd like to know the "recipe" that you think is best that will serve as a guide for people.

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  • At what point does programming become a useful skill?

    - by Elip
    This is probably a very difficult question to answer, because of its subjectivity, but even a vague guess would help me out: Now that Khan Academy is beginning to offer Computer Science lectures I'm getting an itch to learn programming again. I maybe am a bit more technical than your average computer user, using Ubuntu as my OS, LaTeX for writing and I know some small tricks like regular expressions or boolean search for google. However from my previous attempts to learn programming, I realized I do not have a natural aptitude for it and I also don't seem to enjoy the process. But I am fairly certain that a basic proficiency in programming could prove to be very beneficial for me career wise; I also often get ideas for little scripts that I cannot implement. My question is: Let's say you study programming 1 hour / day on average. At what point will you become good enough so that programming can be used for automating tasks and actually saving time? Do you think programming is worth picking up if you never have the ambition to make it your career or even your hobby, but use it strictly for utility purposes?

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  • Progressing past CRUD applications in PHP?

    - by Anonymous -
    I've been programming in PHP for about a year and am at the following stage: Have a good 'feel' for the language Can create CRUD applications competently Can utilize an MVC structure to allow for future expansion of code Using the points listed above, I've created a number of my own applications for practise - including but not limited to; a forum, social network etc. My question may be a little vague but should hopefully be answerable. I feel as though there isn't anything else I would need to know about PHP to allow me to create websites, though I'm sure I'm wrong. What advanced/complex PHP topics could I look at that have a real-world use and will allow me to enhance both my skill as a programmer and applications in general? Recently I've looked a lot more at javascript/jQuery allowing me to give my applications a richer user interface which has been a great learning experience and proving very useful.

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  • Recommended learning path?

    - by stairmast0r
    First, my current standing: I know C++ at an.. advanced beginner level? I've gone through a book, I know the syntax well enough, I know a fair amount of standard library functions, and I've programmed some simple console stuff with it. I'd probably be able to program more with it if I knew how to structure a program, but I just can't seem to wrap my head around the whole concept of structuring something remotely complex. I've messed around with Java for a day or two, and the syntax was extremely easy to get the hang of, except that I didn't really know any functions. I'm plenty willing to learn, and to work hard to do so, but I don't really know where to go from here. Now, at the risk of sounding cliche, what I'd like to become is someone like the great three of id; Carmack, Romero, and Abrash. To be considered a genius. I believe anything can be learned, and nothing mentally limits anyone except lack of desire to learn. But I don't know how to learn this. They learned by doing, and making do with what resources they had. On the other hand, I have access to almost any books I want, access to the internet, and access to a more than capable computer and software. Should I learn more languages? Assembly? LISP? BASIC? Haskell? Should I dive straight into advanced topics like OpenGL? Or should I wait until I feel I've come closer to mastering the simpler things, like console programs, first? Should I follow tutorials? Should I follow books? Should I just dive into writing something and follow a reference manual as I go? What order should I do all this in? How should I do it? I want to completely master this; to be considered a genius. The most perfect career I can imagine is to start the next id. I have the drive to do it, I just don't know where to begin...

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  • Microsoft BUILD 2013 Day 1&ndash;Keynote

    - by Tim Murphy
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/microsoft-build-2013-day-1ndashkeynote.aspx This one is going to be a little long because the keynote was jam-packed so bare with me. The keynote for the first day of BUILD 2013 was kicked off by Steve Balmer.  He made it very clear that Microsoft’s focus is on accelerating its time to market with products and product updates.  His quote was that “Rapid release” is the new norm.  He continued by showing off several new Lumias that have been buzzing around the internet for a while and announce that Sprint will now be carrying the HTC 8XT and Samsung ATIV. Balmer is known for repeating words or phrase for affect.  This time it was “Rapid release, rapid release” and “Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, …”.  This was fun, but even more fun was when he announce that all attendees would receive an Acer Iconia 8” tablet. SCORE! The next subject Balmer focused on is new apps.  The three new ones were Flipboard, Facebook and NFL Fantasy Football.  I liked the first two because these are ones that people coming from other platforms are missing.  The NFL app is great just because it targets a demographic that can be fanatical.  If these types of apps keep coming than the missing app argument goes away. While many Negative Nancy’s are describing Windows 8.1 as Windows 180 Steve Balmer chose to call it a “refined blend” as in a coffee that has been improved with a new mix.  This includes more multi-tasking options and leveraging Bing straight throughout the entire ecosystem. He ended this first section by explaining that this will also bring more Bing development opportunities to the community. Steve Balmer was followed by Julie Larson-Green who spent her time on stage selling us on Windows 8 all over again from my point of view.  Something that I would not have thought was needed until I had listened to some other attendees who had a number of concerns and complaints.  She showed a number of new gestures that will come with Windows 8.1, and while they were cool I was left wondering if they really improved the experience.  I guess only time will tell. I did like the fact that it the UI implementation to bring up “All Apps” now mirrors that of Windows Phone.  The consistency is a big step forward that I hope to see continue.  The cool factor went up from there as she swiped content from a desktop (mega-tablet) to the XBox One.  This seamless experience I believe is what is really needed for any future platform to be relevant. I was much more enthused by the presentation of Antoine Leblond who humbled us by letting us know that there are 5k new API.  How that can be or how anyone would ever use all of them is another question.  His announcement was that the Visual Studio 2013 preview would be available today along with the Windows 8.1 bits.  One of the features of VS2013 that he demonstrated is the power consumption profiler.  With battery life being a key factor with consumer consumption devices this is a welcome addition. He didn’t limit his presentation to VS2013 features though.  He showed how the Store has been redesigned to enable better search and discoverability of apps and how Win 8.1 can perform multiple screen scales depending on the resolution of the device automatically.  The last feature he demoed was the real time video streaming API which he made sure we understood by attaching a Surface to a little robot.  Oh, but there was one more thing.  Antoine and Julie announce that all attendees would also be getting Surface Pros.  BONUS! How much more could there be?  Gurdeep Singh Pall was about to pile on.  He introduced us to Bing as a platform (BaaP?).  He said if they (Microsoft) could do something with and API that is good 3rd party developers can do something that is dynamite and showed us some of the tools they had produced.  These included natural user interface improvements such as voice commands that looked to put Siri to shame.  Add to that 3D, OCR and translation capabilities and the future looks to be full of opportunities. Balmer then came out to show us one last thing.  Project Spark is a game design environment that will be available for Windows 8.1, XBox 360 and XBox One.  All I can say is that if my kids get their hands on this they are going to be able to learn some of what dad does in a much more enjoyable way. At the end of it all I was both exhausted and energized by what I saw.  What could they have possibly left for the day 2 keynote?  I hear it will feature Scott Hanselman.  If that is right we are in for a treat.  See you there. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013,Windows 8.1,Winodws Phone,XAML,Keynote,Bing,Visual Studio 2013,Project Spark

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  • Is it still cheaper to build your own PC?

    - by Jeff Yates
    With many companies offering build-to-order PCs, where they can source components at bulk purchase prices, is there any value in building your own PC. Is it still a good option for everyone or is it only cost-effective for those building fringe equipment like high spec gaming platforms? Don't forget to factor in the time and effort you spend building and configuring the machine. I know that it is often worthwhile as it builds understanding of your machine, gets you exactly what you want, etc., but is it still good for your wallet or would you be better off paying someone else to do it and spend more time doing something else?

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  • Creating a Build Definition using the TFS 2010 API

    - by Jakob Ehn
    In this post I will show how to create a new build definition in TFS 2010 using the TFS API. When creating a build definition manually, using Team Explorer, the necessary steps are lined out in the New Build Definition Wizard:     So, lets see how the code looks like, using the same order. To start off, we need to connect to TFS and get a reference to the IBuildServer object: TfsTeamProjectCollection server = newTfsTeamProjectCollection(newUri("http://<tfs>:<port>/tfs")); server.EnsureAuthenticated(); IBuildServer buildServer = (IBuildServer) server.GetService(typeof (IBuildServer)); General First we create a IBuildDefinition object for the team project and set a name and description for it: var buildDefinition = buildServer.CreateBuildDefinition(teamProject); buildDefinition.Name = "TestBuild"; buildDefinition.Description = "description here..."; Trigger Next up, we set the trigger type. For this one, we set it to individual which corresponds to the Continuous Integration - Build each check-in trigger option buildDefinition.ContinuousIntegrationType = ContinuousIntegrationType.Individual; Workspace For the workspace mappings, we create two mappings here, where one is a cloak. Note the user of $(SourceDir) variable, which is expanded by Team Build into the sources directory when running the build. buildDefinition.Workspace.AddMapping("$/Path/project.sln", "$(SourceDir)", WorkspaceMappingType.Map); buildDefinition.Workspace.AddMapping("$/OtherPath/", "", WorkspaceMappingType.Cloak); Build Defaults In the build defaults, we set the build controller and the drop location. To get a build controller, we can (for example) use the GetBuildController method to get an existing build controller by name: buildDefinition.BuildController = buildServer.GetBuildController(buildController); buildDefinition.DefaultDropLocation = @\\SERVER\Drop\TestBuild; Process So far, this wasy easy. Now we get to the tricky part. TFS 2010 Build is based on Windows Workflow 4.0. The build process is defined in a separate .XAML file called a Build Process Template. By default, every new team team project containtwo build process templates called DefaultTemplate and UpgradeTemplate. In this sample, we want to create a build definition using the default template. We use te QueryProcessTemplates method to get a reference to the default for the current team project   //Get default template var defaultTemplate = buildServer.QueryProcessTemplates(teamProject).Where(p => p.TemplateType == ProcessTemplateType.Default).First(); buildDefinition.Process = defaultTemplate;   There are several build process templates that can be set for the default build process template. Only one of these are required, the ProjectsToBuild parameters which contains the solution(s) and configuration(s) that should be built. To set this info, we use the ProcessParameters property of thhe IBuildDefinition interface. The format of this property is actually just a serialized dictionary (IDictionary<string, object>) that maps a key (parameter name) to a value which can be any kind of object. This is rather messy, but fortunately, there is a helper class called WorkflowHelpers inthe Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow namespace, that simplifies working with this persistence format a bit. The following code shows how to set the BuildSettings information for a build definition: //Set process parameters varprocess = WorkflowHelpers.DeserializeProcessParameters(buildDefinition.ProcessParameters); //Set BuildSettings properties BuildSettings settings = newBuildSettings(); settings.ProjectsToBuild = newStringList("$/pathToProject/project.sln"); settings.PlatformConfigurations = newPlatformConfigurationList(); settings.PlatformConfigurations.Add(newPlatformConfiguration("Any CPU", "Debug")); process.Add("BuildSettings", settings); buildDefinition.ProcessParameters = WorkflowHelpers.SerializeProcessParameters(process); The other build process parameters of a build definition can be set using the same approach   Retention  Policy This one is easy, we just clear the default settings and set our own: buildDefinition.RetentionPolicyList.Clear(); buildDefinition.AddRetentionPolicy(BuildReason.Triggered, BuildStatus.Succeeded, 10, DeleteOptions.All); buildDefinition.AddRetentionPolicy(BuildReason.Triggered, BuildStatus.Failed, 10, DeleteOptions.All); buildDefinition.AddRetentionPolicy(BuildReason.Triggered, BuildStatus.Stopped, 1, DeleteOptions.All); buildDefinition.AddRetentionPolicy(BuildReason.Triggered, BuildStatus.PartiallySucceeded, 10, DeleteOptions.All); Save It! And we’re done, lets save the build definition: buildDefinition.Save(); That’s it!

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  • Segmentation fault while switching QCompleter for QLineEdit [on hold]

    - by san
    I have a QLineEdit that uses autocompletion one which on focusIn event in which it shows paths from XML List(here I have used hardcoded list) but if user doesn't find the path from that list popped by QCompleter than I want user to be able to browse to path typing '/' in QLineEdit , I am not able to select the paths say /Users etc and on trying to type Segmentation fault occurs. from PyQt4.Qt import Qt, QObject,QLineEdit from PyQt4.QtCore import pyqtSlot,SIGNAL,SLOT from PyQt4 import QtGui, QtCore import sys class DirLineEdit(QLineEdit, QtCore.QObject): """docstring for DirLineEdit""" def __init__(self): super(DirLineEdit, self).__init__() self.defaultList = ['~/Development/python/searchMethod', '~/Development/Nuke_python', '~/Development/python/openexr', '~/Development/python/cpp2python'] self.textChanged.connect(self.__dirCompleter) def focusInEvent(self, event): if len(self.text()) == 0: self._pathsList() QtGui.QLineEdit.focusInEvent(self, event) self.completer().complete() def __dirCompleter(self): if len(self.text()) == 0: model = MyListModel(self.defaultList, self) completer = QtGui.QCompleter(model, self) completer.setModel(model) else: dirModel = QtGui.QFileSystemModel() dirModel.setRootPath(QtCore.QDir.currentPath()) dirModel.setFilter(QtCore.QDir.AllDirs | QtCore.QDir.NoDotAndDotDot | QtCore.QDir.Files) dirModel.setNameFilterDisables(0) completer = QtGui.QCompleter(dirModel, self) completer.setCaseSensitivity(QtCore.Qt.CaseInsensitive) completer.setModel(dirModel) self.setCompleter(completer) def _pathsList(self): completerList = QtCore.QStringList() for i in self.defaultList: completerList.append(QtCore.QString(i)) lineEditCompleter = QtGui.QCompleter(completerList) lineEditCompleter.setCompletionMode(QtGui.QCompleter.UnfilteredPopupCompletion) self.setCompleter(lineEditCompleter) class MyListModel(QtCore.QAbstractListModel): def __init__(self, datain, parent=None, *args): """ datain: a list where each item is a row """ QtCore.QAbstractTableModel.__init__(self, parent, *args) self.listdata = datain def rowCount(self, parent=QtCore.QModelIndex()): return len(self.listdata) def data(self, index, role): if index.isValid() and role == QtCore.Qt.DisplayRole: return QtCore.QVariant(self.listdata[index.row()]) else: return QtCore.QVariant() app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv) smObj = DirLineEdit() smObj.show() app.exec_() Please help fix this or suggest better way of implementation?

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