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• How to treat your genius team-mate [closed]

  - by Shiplu

  I am soon going to be in a team where a very talented programmer works. Everyone int the company likes him as he knows a lot of thing and does a lot of programming. The PM and the CEO likes him a lot. I am his fan as a programmer. But as a team mate? I always try to avoid him. The reason is, in the very early days of our company our CEO used to choose both of us in a same team we worked together. Then I had many terrible experiences. Most of the time he is doing others work. When team leader breaks the work load and distributes it, He used to work more than a workday everyday and also doing my own work. The result was same duplicate code. He is not working my working finishing his own, he is doing it in the middle. how do you treat such team-mates.

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• Ask the Readers: How Do You Set Up a Novice-Proof Computer?

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  You’re into technology, you like tweaking and tinkering with computers, and, most importantly, you know how to keep your computer from turning into a virus-laden and fiery wreck. What about the rest of your family and friends? How do you set up a novice-proof computer to keep them secure, updated, and happy? It’s no small task protecting a computer from an inexperienced user, but for the benefit of both the novice and the innocent computer it’s an important undertaking. This week we want to hear all about your tips, tricks, and techniques for configuring the computers of your friends and relatives to save them from themselves (and keep their computer running smoothly in the process). Sound off in the comments with your tricks and check back in on Friday for the What You Said roundup to add see how your fellow readers get the job done. How Hackers Can Disguise Malicious Programs With Fake File Extensions Can Dust Actually Damage My Computer? What To Do If You Get a Virus on Your Computer

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• How to make a queue switches from FIFO mode to priority mode?

  - by enzom83

  I would like to implement a queue capable of operating both in the FIFO mode and in the priority mode. This is a message queue, and the priority is first of all based on the message type: for example, if the messages of A type have higher priority than the messages of the B type, as a consequence all messages of A type are dequeued first, and finally the messages of B type are dequeued. Priority mode: my idea consists of using multiple queues, one for each type of message; in this way, I can manage a priority based on the message type: just take first the messages from the queue at a higher priority and progressively from lower priority queues. FIFO mode: how to handle FIFO mode using multiple queues? In other words, the user does not see multiple queues, but it uses the queue as if it were a single queue, so that the messages leave the queue in the order they arrive when the priority mode is disabled. In order to achieve this second goal I have thought to use a further queue to manage the order of arrival of the types of messages: let me explain better with the following code snippet. int NUMBER_OF_MESSAGE_TYPES = 4; int CAPACITY = 50; Queue[] internalQueues = new Queue[NUMBER_OF_MESSAGE_TYPES]; Queue<int> queueIndexes = new Queue<int>(CAPACITY); void Enqueue(object message) { int index = ... // the destination queue (ie its index) is chosen according to the type of message. internalQueues[index].Enqueue(message); queueIndexes.Enqueue(index); } object Dequeue() { if (fifo_mode_enabled) { // What is the next type that has been enqueued? int index = queueIndexes.Dequeue(); return internalQueues[index].Dequeue(); } if (priority_mode_enabled) { for(int i=0; i < NUMBER_OF_MESSAGE_TYPES; i++) { int currentQueueIndex = i; if (!internalQueues[currentQueueIndex].IsEmpty()) { object result = internalQueues[currentQueueIndex].Dequeue(); // The following statement is fundamental to a subsequent switching // from priority mode to FIFO mode: the messages that have not been // dequeued (since they had lower priority) remain in the order in // which they were queued. queueIndexes.RemoveFirstOccurrence(currentQueueIndex); return result; } } } } What do you think about this idea? Are there better or more simple implementations?

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• BI Applications overview

  - by sv744

  Welcome to Oracle BI applications blog! This blog will talk about various features, general roadmap, description of functionality and implementation steps related to Oracle BI applications. In the first post we start with an overview of the BI apps and will delve deeper into some of the topics below in the upcoming weeks and months. If there are other topics you would like us to talk about, pl feel free to provide feedback on that. The Oracle BI applications are a set of pre-built applications that enable pervasive BI by providing role-based insight for each functional area, including sales, service, marketing, contact center, finance, supplier/supply chain, HR/workforce, and executive management. For example, Sales Analytics includes role-based applications for sales executives, sales management, as well as front-line sales reps, each of whom have different needs. The applications integrate and transform data from a range of enterprise sources—including Siebel, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, and others—into actionable intelligence for each business function and user role. This blog  starts with the key benefits and characteristics of Oracle BI applications. In a series of subsequent blogs, each of these points will be explained in detail. Why BI apps? Demonstrate the value of BI to a business user, show reports / dashboards / model that can answer their business questions as part of the sales cycle. Demonstrate technical feasibility of BI project and significantly lower risk and improve success Build Vs Buy benefit Don’t have to start with a blank sheet of paper. Help consolidate disparate systems Data integration in M&A situations Insulate BI consumers from changes in the OLTP Present OLTP data and highlight issues of poor data / missing data – and improve data quality and accuracy Prebuilt Integrations BI apps support prebuilt integrations against leading ERP sources: Fusion Applications, E- Business Suite, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, SAP Co-developed with inputs from functional experts in BI and Applications teams. Out of the box dimensional model to source model mappings Multi source and Multi Instance support Rich Data Model    BI apps have a very rich dimensionsal data model built over 10 years that incorporates best practises from BI modeling perspective as well as reflect the source system complexities  Thanks for reading a long post, and be on the lookout for future posts.  We will look forward to your valuable feedback on these topics as well as suggestions on what other topics would you like us to cover. I Conformed dimensional model across all business subject areas allows cross functional reporting, e.g. customer / supplier 360 Over 360 fact tables across 7 product areas CRM – 145, SCM – 47, Financials – 28, Procurement – 20, HCM – 27, Projects – 18, Campus Solutions – 21, PLM - 56 Supported by 300 physical dimensions Support for extensive calendars; Gregorian, enterprise and ledger based Conformed data model and metrics for real time vs warehouse based reporting  Multi-tenant enabled Extensive BI related transformations BI apps ETL and data integration support various transformations required for dimensional models and reporting requirements. All these have been distilled into common patterns and abstracted logic which can be readily reused across different modules Slowly Changing Dimension support Hierarchy flattening support Row / Column Hybrid Hierarchy Flattening As Is vs. As Was hierarchy support Currency Conversion :-  Support for 3 corporate, CRM, ledger and transaction currencies UOM conversion Internationalization / Localization Dynamic Data translations Code standardization (Domains) Historical Snapshots Cycle and process lifecycle computations Balance Facts Equalization of GL accounting chartfields/segments Standardized values for categorizing GL accounts Reconciliation between GL and subledgers to track accounted/transferred/posted transactions to GL Materialization of data only available through costly and complex APIs e.g. Fusion Payroll, EBS / Fusion Accruals Complex event Interpretation of source data – E.g. o    What constitutes a transfer o    Deriving supervisors via position hierarchy o    Deriving primary assignment in PSFT o    Categorizing and transposition to measures of Payroll Balances to specific metrics to support side by side comparison of measures of for example Fixed Salary, Variable Salary, Tax, Bonus, Overtime Payments. o    Counting of Events – E.g. converting events to fact counters so that for example the number of hires can easily be added up and compared alongside the total transfers and terminations. Multi pass processing of multiple sources e.g. headcount, salary, promotion, performance to allow side to side comparison. Adding value to data to aid analysis through banding, additional domain classifications and groupings to allow higher level analytical reporting and data discovery Calculation of complex measures examples: o    COGs, DSO, DPO, Inventory turns  etc o    Transfers within a Hierarchy or out of / into a hierarchy relative to view point in hierarchy. Configurability and Extensibility support  BI apps offer support for extensibility for various entities as automated extensibility or part of extension methodology Key Flex fields and Descriptive Flex support  Extensible attribute support (JDE)  Conformed Domains ETL Architecture BI apps offer a modular adapter architecture which allows support of multiple product lines into a single conformed model Multi Source Multi Technology Orchestration – creates load plan taking into account task dependencies and customers deployment to generate a plan based on a customers of multiple complex etl tasks Plan optimization allowing parallel ETL tasks Oracle: Bit map indexes and partition management High availability support    Follow the sun support. TCO BI apps support several utilities / capabilities that help with overall total cost of ownership and ensure a rapid implementation Improved cost of ownership – lower cost to deploy On-going support for new versions of the source application Task based setups flows Data Lineage Functional setup performed in Web UI by Functional person Configuration Test to Production support Security BI apps support both data and object security enabling implementations to quickly configure the application as per the reporting security needs Fine grain object security at report / dashboard and presentation catalog level Data Security integration with source systems  Extensible to support external data security rules Extensive Set of KPIs Over 7000 base and derived metrics across all modules Time series calculations (YoY, % growth etc) Common Currency and UOM reporting Cross subject area KPIs (analyzing HR vs GL data, drill from GL to AP/AR, etc) Prebuilt reports and dashboards 3000+ prebuilt reports supporting a large number of industries Hundreds of role based dashboards Dynamic currency conversion at dashboard level Highly tuned Performance The BI apps have been tuned over the years for both a very performant ETL and dashboard performance. The applications use best practises and advanced database features to enable the best possible performance. Optimized data model for BI and analytic queries Prebuilt aggregates& the ability for customers to create their own aggregates easily on warehouse facts allows for scalable end user performance Incremental extracts and loads Incremental Aggregate build Automatic table index and statistics management Parallel ETL loads Source system deletes handling Low latency extract with Golden Gate Micro ETL support Bitmap Indexes Partitioning support Modularized deployment, start small and add other subject areas seamlessly Source Specfic Staging and Real Time Schema Support for source specific operational reporting schema for EBS, PSFT, Siebel and JDE Application Integrations The BI apps also allow for integration with source systems as well as other applications that provide value add through BI and enable BI consumption during operational decision making Embedded dashboards for Fusion, EBS and Siebel applications Action Link support Marketing Segmentation Sales Predictor Dashboard Territory Management External Integrations The BI apps data integration choices include support for loading extenral data External data enrichment choices : UNSPSC, Item class etc. Extensible Spend Classification Broad Deployment Choices Exalytics support Databases :  Oracle, Exadata, Teradata, DB2, MSSQL ETL tool of choice : ODI (coming), Informatica Extensible and Customizable Extensible architecture and Methodology to add custom and external content Upgradable across releases

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• Is there an excuse for excessively short variable names?

  - by KChaloux

  This has become a large frustration with the codebase I'm currently working in; many of our variable names are short and undescriptive. I'm the only developer left on the project, and there isn't documentation as to what most of them do, so I have to spend extra time tracking down what they represent. For example, I was reading over some code that updates the definition of an optical surface. The variables set at the start were as follows: double dR, dCV, dK, dDin, dDout, dRin, dRout dR = Convert.ToDouble(_tblAsphere.Rows[0].ItemArray.GetValue(1)); dCV = convert.ToDouble(_tblAsphere.Rows[1].ItemArray.GetValue(1)); ... and so on Maybe it's just me, but it told me essentially nothing about what they represented, which made understanding the code further down difficult. All I knew was that it was a variable parsed out specific row from a specific table, somewhere. After some searching, I found out what they meant: dR = radius dCV = curvature dK = conic constant dDin = inner aperture dDout = outer aperture dRin = inner radius dRout = outer radius I renamed them to essentially what I have up there. It lengthens some lines, but I feel like that's a fair trade off. This kind of naming scheme is used throughout a lot of the code however. I'm not sure if it's an artifact from developers who learned by working with older systems, or if there's a deeper reason behind it. Is there a good reason to name variables this way, or am I justified in updating them to more descriptive names as I come across them?

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• Why are so many questions closed? [closed]

  - by Kim Jong Woo

  Why is there so many questions on this stackexchange site closed? I mean far more than usual. Even very high quality discussions are closed. Doesn't this high number of closed questions with high number of views and good quality of content seem like that the current policy that governs the criteria for appropriate question might be going against nature? I mean it feels as if lot of questions or discussions are everything surrounding programmer, programming, and need not be objective or seeking definitive answer. It appears lot of questions are of inquisitive nature seeking insight into other programmers and finding common subjects of interest. Is it possible for mods to relax a bit? I mean lot of great questions with [closed] tag everywhere doesn't do justice. This question in itself is a perfect example of what I am talking about and it will be closed. But I think my point is clear.

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• Projects to learn web development

  - by David McDavidson

  I'm trying to get a job as a web developer, but the great majority of jobs offers requires previous experience and a portfolio to prove you've got the required skills. Unfortunately I don't have any real experience or anything to show. The best way to learn is to try and tackle real world problems, so I'd like to know what would be some nice projects to learn stuff and that will look good in a portfolio?

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• Making money from a custom built interpreter?

  - by annoying_squid

  I have been making considerable progress lately on building an interpreter. I am building it from NASM assembly code (for the core engine) and C (cl.exe the Microsoft compiler for the parser). I really don't have a lot of time but I have a lot of good ideas on how to build this so it appeals to a certain niche market. I'd love to finish this but I need to face reality here ... unless I can make some good monetary return on my investment, there is not a lot of time for me to invest. So I ask the following questions to anyone out there, especially those who have experience in monetizing their programs: 1) How easy is it for a programmer to make good money from one design? (I know this is vague but it will be interesting to hear from those who have experience or know of others' experiences). 2) What are the biggest obstacles to making money from a programming design? 3) For the parser, I am using the Microsoft compiler (no IDE) I got from visual express, so will this be an issue? Will I have to pay royalties or a license fee? 4) As far as I know NASM is a 2-clause BSD licensed application. So this should allow me to use NASM for commericial development unless I am missing something? It's good to know these things before launching into the meat and potatoes of the project.

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• Is slower performance, of programming languages, really, a bad thing?

  - by Emanuil

  Here's how I see it. There's machine code and it's all that computers needs in order to run something. Computers don't care about programming languages. It doesn't matter to them whether the machine code comes from Perl, Python or PHP. Programming languages don't serve computers. They serve programmers. Some programming languages run slower than others but that's not necessarily because there is something wrong with them. In many cases, it's because they do more things that programmers would otherwise have to do (i.e. memory management) and by doing these things, they are better in what they are supposed to do - serve programmers. So, is slower performance, of programming languages, really, a bad thing?

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• If the model is validating the data, shouldn't it throw exceptions on bad input?

  - by Carlos Campderrós

  Reading this SO question it seems that throwing exceptions for validating user input is frowned upon. But who should validate this data? In my applications, all validations are done in the business layer, because only the class itself really knows which values are valid for each one of its properties. If I were to copy the rules for validating a property to the controller, it is possible that the validation rules change and now there are two places where the modification should be made. Is my premise that validation should be done on the business layer wrong? What I do So my code usually ends up like this: <?php class Person { private $name; private $age; public function setName($n) { $n = trim($n); if (mb_strlen($n) == 0) { throw new ValidationException("Name cannot be empty"); } $this->name = $n; } public function setAge($a) { if (!is_int($a)) { if (!ctype_digit(trim($a))) { throw new ValidationException("Age $a is not valid"); } $a = (int)$a; } if ($a < 0 || $a > 150) { throw new ValidationException("Age $a is out of bounds"); } $this->age = $a; } // other getters, setters and methods } In the controller, I just pass the input data to the model, and catch thrown exceptions to show the error(s) to the user: <?php $person = new Person(); $errors = array(); // global try for all exceptions other than ValidationException try { // validation and process (if everything ok) try { $person->setAge($_POST['age']); } catch (ValidationException $e) { $errors['age'] = $e->getMessage(); } try { $person->setName($_POST['name']); } catch (ValidationException $e) { $errors['name'] = $e->getMessage(); } ... } catch (Exception $e) { // log the error, send 500 internal server error to the client // and finish the request } if (count($errors) == 0) { // process } else { showErrorsToUser($errors); } Is this a bad methodology? Alternate method Should maybe I create methods for isValidAge($a) that return true/false and then call them from the controller? <?php class Person { private $name; private $age; public function setName($n) { $n = trim($n); if ($this->isValidName($n)) { $this->name = $n; } else { throw new Exception("Invalid name"); } } public function setAge($a) { if ($this->isValidAge($a)) { $this->age = $a; } else { throw new Exception("Invalid age"); } } public function isValidName($n) { $n = trim($n); if (mb_strlen($n) == 0) { return false; } return true; } public function isValidAge($a) { if (!is_int($a)) { if (!ctype_digit(trim($a))) { return false; } $a = (int)$a; } if ($a < 0 || $a > 150) { return false; } return true; } // other getters, setters and methods } And the controller will be basically the same, just instead of try/catch there are now if/else: <?php $person = new Person(); $errors = array(); if ($person->isValidAge($age)) { $person->setAge($age); } catch (Exception $e) { $errors['age'] = "Invalid age"; } if ($person->isValidName($name)) { $person->setName($name); } catch (Exception $e) { $errors['name'] = "Invalid name"; } ... if (count($errors) == 0) { // process } else { showErrorsToUser($errors); } So, what should I do? I'm pretty happy with my original method, and my colleagues to whom I have showed it in general have liked it. Despite this, should I change to the alternate method? Or am I doing this terribly wrong and I should look for another way?

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• Skills for RAD developer.

  - by Janis Peisenieks

  I am about to embark on an exquisite journey. I have applied for an event, where in span of 48 straight hours, strangers meet, throw around some great ideas, decide on teams, and make a working prototype of IT project. All within 48 hours. I anticipate, that this will be very skill and ability intensive experience, and I want to be prepared. Since i will need to develop my part of the code quickly, I have a following question: What would be the most needed skills for these 48 hours? I do know, that things like proper documentation, version control and such are pretty important for a full fledged application/program/web development, but for this span of frantic coding? Background: I am a web developer, so answers applicable to web development would be more appreciated than others.

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• Why don't languages include implication as a logical operator?

  - by Maciej Piechotka

  It might be a strange question, but why there is no implication as a logical operator in many languages (Java, C, C++, Python Haskell - although as last one have user defined operators its trivial to add it)? I find logical implication much clearer to write (particularly in asserts or assert-like expressions) then negation with or: encrypt(buf, key, mode, iv = null) { assert (mode != ECB --> iv != null); assert (mode == ECB || iv != null); assert (implies(mode != ECB, iv != null)); // User-defined function }

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• Why appending to a list in Scala should have O(n) time complexity?

  - by Jubbat

  I am learning Scala at the moment and I just read that the execution time of the append operation for a list (:+) grows linearly with the size of the list. Appending to a list seems like a pretty common operation. Why should the idiomatic way to do this be prepending the components and then reversing the list? It can't also be a design failure as implementation could be changed at any point. From my point of view, both prepending and appending should be O(1). Is there any legitimate reason for this?

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• Is code like this a "train wreck" (in violation of Law of Demeter)?

  - by Michael Kjörling

  Browsing through some code I've written, I came across the following construct which got me thinking. At a first glance, it seems clean enough. Yes, in the actual code the getLocation() method has a slightly more specific name which better describes exactly which location it gets. service.setLocation(this.configuration.getLocation().toString()); In this case, service is an instance variable of a known type, declared within the method. this.configuration comes from being passed in to the class constructor, and is an instance of a class implementing a specific interface (which mandates a public getLocation() method). Hence, the return type of the expression this.configuration.getLocation() is known; specifically in this case, it is a java.net.URL, whereas service.setLocation() wants a String. Since the two types String and URL are not directly compatible, some sort of conversion is required to fit the square peg in the round hole. However, according to the Law of Demeter as cited in Clean Code, a method f in class C should only call methods on C, objects created by or passed as arguments to f, and objects held in instance variables of C. Anything beyond that (the final toString() in my particular case above, unless you consider a temporary object created as a result of the method invocation itself, in which case the whole Law seems to be moot) is disallowed. Is there a valid reasoning why a call like the above, given the constraints listed, should be discouraged or even disallowed? Or am I just being overly nitpicky? If I were to implement a method URLToString() which simply calls toString() on a URL object (such as that returned by getLocation()) passed to it as a parameter, and returns the result, I could wrap the getLocation() call in it to achieve exactly the same result; effectively, I would just move the conversion one step outward. Would that somehow make it acceptable? (It seems to me, intuitively, that it should not make any difference either way, since all that does is move things around a little. However, going by the letter of the Law of Demeter as cited, it would be acceptable, since I would then be operating directly on a parameter to a function.) Would it make any difference if this was about something slightly more exotic than calling toString() on a standard type? When answering, do keep in mind that altering the behavior or API of the type that the service variable is of is not practical. Also, for the sake of argument, let's say that altering the return type of getLocation() is also impractical.

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• Looking for a real-world example illustrating that composition can be superior to inheritance

  - by Job

  I watched a bunch of lectures on Clojure and functional programming by Rich Hickey as well as some of the SICP lectures, and I am sold on many concepts of functional programming. I incorporated some of them into my C# code at a previous job, and luckily it was easy to write C# code in a more functional style. At my new job we use Python and multiple inheritance is all the rage. My co-workers are very smart but they have to produce code fast given the nature of the company. I am learning both the tools and the codebase, but the architecture itself slows me down as well. I have not written the existing class hierarchy (neither would I be able to remember everything about it), and so, when I started adding a fairly small feature, I realized that I had to read a lot of code in the process. At the surface the code is neatly organized and split into small functions/methods and not copy-paste-repetitive, but the flip side of being not repetitive is that there is some magic functionality hidden somewhere in the hierarchy chain that magically glues things together and does work on my behalf, but it is very hard to find and follow. I had to fire up a profiler and run it through several examples and plot the execution graph as well as step through a debugger a few times, search the code for some substring and just read pages at the time. I am pretty sure that once I am done, my resulting code will be short and neatly organized, and yet not very readable. What I write feels declarative, as if I was writing an XML file that drives some other magic engine, except that there is no clear documentation on what the XML should look like and what the engine does except for the existing examples that I can read as well as the source code for the 'engine'. There has got to be a better way. IMO using composition over inheritance can help quite a bit. That way the computation will be linear rather than jumping all over the hierarchy tree. Whenever the functionality does not quite fit into an inheritance model, it will need to be mangled to fit in, or the entire inheritance hierarchy will need to be refactored/rebalanced, sort of like an unbalanced binary tree needs reshuffling from time to time in order to improve the average seek time. As I mentioned before, my co-workers are very smart; they just have been doing things a certain way and probably have an ability to hold a lot of unrelated crap in their head at once. I want to convince them to give composition and functional as opposed to OOP approach a try. To do that, I need to find some very good material. I do not think that a SCIP lecture or one by Rich Hickey will do - I am afraid it will be flagged down as too academic. Then, simple examples of Dog and Frog and AddressBook classes do not really connivence one way or the other - they show how inheritance can be converted to composition but not why it is truly and objectively better. What I am looking for is some real-world example of code that has been written with a lot of inheritance, then hit a wall and re-written in a different style that uses composition. Perhaps there is a blog or a chapter. I am looking for something that can summarize and illustrate the sort of pain that I am going through. I already have been throwing the phrase "composition over inheritance" around, but it was not received as enthusiastically as I had hoped. I do not want to be perceived as a new guy who likes to complain and bash existing code while looking for a perfect approach while not contributing fast enough. At the same time, my gut is convinced that inheritance is often the instrument of evil and I want to show a better way in a near future. Have you stumbled upon any great resources that can help me?

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• What are the most important programming skills you need to improve as a team Leader or project manager?

  - by Aba Dov

  I decided to ask this question after I read the valuable answers to the great question What is the single most effective thing you did to improve your programming skills? and after attending Ad Burns "Secrets of a rock star programmer". It made me think about me and what programming skills I try to improve. I came to realize that there should be a difference in the programming skills you try to improve as developer and the programming skills you should improve as a team leader or project manager. My question is: What are the most important programming skills you need to improve as a team Leader or project manager? What would you recommend to others that want to improve?

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• I've been told that Exceptions should only be used in exceptional cases. How do I know if my case is exceptional?

  - by tieTYT

  My specific case here is that the user can pass in a string into the application, the application parses it and assigns it to structured objects. Sometimes the user may type in something invalid. For example, their input may describe a person but they may say their age is "apple". Correct behavior in that case is roll back the transaction and to tell the user an error occurred and they'll have to try again. There may be a requirement to report on every error we can find in the input, not just the first. In this case, I argued we should throw an exception. He disagreed, saying, "Exceptions should be exceptional: It's expected that the user may input invalid data, so this isn't an exceptional case" I didn't really know how to argue that point, because by definition of the word, he seems to be right. But, it's my understanding that this is why Exceptions were invented in the first place. It used to be you had to inspect the result to see if an error occurred. If you failed to check, bad things could happen without you noticing. Without exceptions every level of the stack needs to check the result of the methods they call and if a programmer forgets to check in one of these levels, the code could accidentally proceed and save invalid data (for example). Seems more error prone that way. Anyway, feel free to correct anything I've said here. My main question is if someone says Exceptions should be exceptional, how do I know if my case is exceptional?

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• Programming habits, patterns, and standards that have developed out of appeal to tradition/by mistake? [closed]

  - by user828584

  Being self-taught, the vast majority of what I know about programming has come from reading other peoples' code on websites like this. I'm starting to wonder if I've developed bad or otherwise pointless habits from other people, or even just made invalid assumptions. For example, in javascript, void 0 is used in a lot of places, and until I saw this, I just assumed it was necessary and that 0 had some significance. Also, the http header, referer is misspelled but hasn't been changed because it would break a lot of applications. Also mentioned in Code Complete 2: The architecture should describe the motivations for all major decisions. Be wary of “we’ve always done it that way” justifications. One story goes that Beth wanted to cook a pot roast according to an award-winning pot roast recipe handed down in her husband’s family. Her husband, Abdul, said that his mother had taught him to sprinkle it with salt and pepper, cut both ends off, put it in the pan, cover it, and cook it. Beth asked, “Why do you cut both ends off?” Abdul said, “I don’t know. I’ve always done it that way. Let me ask my mother.” He called her, and she said, “I don’t know. I’ve always done it that way. Let me ask your grandmother.” She called his grandmother, who said, “I don’t know why you do it that way. I did it that way because it was too big to fit in my pan.” What are some other examples of this?

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• Reaching Intermediate Programming Status

  - by George Stocker

  I am a software engineer that's had positions programming in VBA (though I dare not consider that 'real' experience, as it was trial and error!), Perl w/ CGI, C#, and ASP.NET. The latter two are post-undergraduate, with my entrance into the 'real world'. I'm 2 years out of college, and have had 5 years of experience (total) across the languages I've mentioned. However, when it comes to my resume, I can only put 2 years down for C#, and less than a year down for ASP.NET. I feel like I know C#, but I still have to spend time going 'What does this method do?', whereas some of the more senior level engineers can immediately say, "Oh, Method X does this, without ever having looked at that method before." So I know empirically that there's a gulf there, but I'm not exactly sure how to bridge it. I've started programming in Project Euler, and I picked up a book on design patterns, but I still feel like I spend each day treading water, instead of moving forward. That isn't to say that I don't feel like I've made progress, it just means that as far as I come each day, I still see the mountain top way off in the distance. My question is this: How did you overcome this plateau? How long did it take you? What methods can you suggest to assist me in this? I've read through Code Complete, The Mythical Man Month, and CLR via C#, 2nd edition -- my question is: What do I do now? Edit: I just found this question on projects for an intermediate level programmer. I think it adds to the discussion (though it does not supplant my question). As such, I'm adding it to the question as a "For More Information".

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• What to answer to a customer who asks which one of two equivalent technologies must be used?

  - by MainMa

  As a freelancer, I am often asked by my customers what they must choose between similar elements, neither of which being better than another. Examples: “Do I need my e-commerce website be in PHP or ASP.NET?” “Do I need to host this ordinary web service in Cloud or use an ordinary hosting service?” “Which one is better for my new website: MySQL or Oracle?” etc. There is maybe at most 1% of cases where the choice is relevant, and there is a real, objective reason to use one over another, based on the precise metrics and studies. In all other cases, it doesn't matter at all. It is totally, completely irrelevant, either because there are no implications¹, or because those implications are too small to be taken in account², or, finally, because it's impossible to predict those implications³. If you know one thing and not another one, the answer to those questions is easy: “You can either write the application in C# or Java, both being probably equivalent in your case. Note that I'm a C# developer, so if you choose Java, I would not be able to work on your project and you would need to find another freelancer.” When you know both technologies, you can't answer that. In this case, how to explain to the customer that the question he asks is subject to flamewar and has no real consequences on his project? In other words, how to explain that you've chosen to use one technology rather than an equivalent one for the reasons related to human resources, without giving the impression to be unprofessional or to not care about the project? ¹ Example: Is MySQL better (worse?), performance-wise, compared to Oracle, for a personal website which will be accessed by, oh, let's be optimistic, two people per day? ² Example: for a given project, I was asked to asset if Windows Azure hosting would be cheaper than the hosting of the same application on a well-known ASP.NET hosting provider. The cost revealed to be exactly the same. ³ Example: your customer have an idea of a future application (the idea itself being extremely vague). There is no business plan, no requirements, nothing at all. Just an idea. You are asked if Java is better than C# for this app. What do you answer?

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• How to proceed when a bug in open source libraries is suspected?

  - by Suma

  We are using some open source libraries in our projects. Sometimes there are some issues found in some of them (most likely library bugs, but it may also be a wrong usage from our side, especially when sometimes documentation is not exactly 100 % complete). As the libraries are often quite complex, debugging them to pinpoint the source of the problem is sometimes quite hard. Can you help me to summarize what other options are there and how to exactly proceed with them? I have just recently hit some strange problems when using TCMalloc (Google scalable memory allocator) on Windows, so I would most welcome answers which would apply to this particular library, but more general answers are good as well. 1) Ask the maintainer/owner of the project for assistance. How can this be done? 2) Hire someone to identify and fix the issue. How to do this? How can I find someone with enough expertise in some particular library? ... any other options?

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• Why the static data members have to be defined outside the class separately in C++ (unlike Java)?

  - by iammilind

  class A { static int foo () {} // ok static int x; // <--- needed to be defined separately in .cpp file }; I don't see a need of having A::x defined separately in a .cpp file (or same file for templates). Why can't be A::x declared and defined at the same time? Has it been forbidden for historical reasons? My main question is, will it affect any functionality if static data members were declared/defined at the same time (same as Java) ?

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• When should one use "out" parameters?

  - by qegal

  In Objective-C, there are several methods like initWithContentsOfFile:encoding:error: where one passes in a reference to an NSError object for the error: parameter. In this example, the value of the NSError object passed in can change based on what goes on at runtime when the method is being called and whether the body of the method was executed in a certain way successfully. In a way I think of this NSError object as sort of like a second return value from the method, and only differs from an object anObject in the statement return anObject; in that when this statement is called, execution leaves the method. So my question is, not only in the context of error handling in Objective-C, but in general, when should one use an "out" parameter in place of returning said value in a return statement?

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• I'm Sick of Web Development - What avenues are open to me ...?

  - by 5arx

  I've been working as a web developer since 1998, mostly with ASP/ASP.Net/C# but began as a Java coder (JSP mostly). Its been fun but now I'm feeling jaded and can see the need for a change. I've considered iOS/Cocoa development and Android development recently (Objective-C looks hard while I'm a former Java developer) but I'm not sure of Career opportunities being proficient in either would afford The incline of the learning curve - I just turned 40 and I know I'm not as sharp or as quick as I once was. Does anyone have any experiences/ opinions/ advice for me? Thanks.

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• jQuery/AJAX on old Computers/Browsers

  - by Andresch Serj

  I am working on a plattform that will have a lot of users in the so called "developing countries". So many of them will be using old computers and old browsers in tiny internet cafes. We want to make sure to give them a good user Experience and make sure the website loads as fast as possible. Problem is, that while you can save a lot of requeasts and time, using jQuery/AJAX, it also brings along a lot of Problems: - Will the Computers be powerfull enough to deal with the client side scripts? - Will the old Browsers handle jQuery? Does anyone have any experience with these sort of problems or might know of some sort of article on the topic?

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