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• Going by the eBook

  - by Tony Davis

  The book and magazine publishing world is rapidly going digital, and the industry is faced with making drastic changes to their ways of doing business. The sudden take-up of digital readers by the book-buying public has surprised even the most technological-savvy of the industry. Printed books just aren't selling like they did. In contrast, eBooks are doing well. The ePub file format is the standard around which all publishers are converging. ePub is a standard for formatting book content, so that it can be reflowed for various devices, with their widely differing screen-sizes, and can be read offline. If you unzip an ePub file, you'll find familiar formats such as XML, XHTML and CSS. This is both a blessing and a curse. Whilst it is good to be able to use familiar technologies that have been developed to a level of considerable sophistication, it doesn't get us all the way to producing a viable publication. XHTML is a page-description language, not a book-description language, as we soon found out during our initial experiments, when trying to specify headers, footers, indexes and chaptering. As a result, it is difficult to predict how any particular eBook application will decide to render a book. There isn't even a consensus as to how the cover image is specified. All of this is awkward for the publisher. Each book must be created and revised in a form from which can be generated a whole range of 'printed media', from print books, to Mobi for kindles, ePub for most Tablets and SmartPhones, HTML for excerpted chapters on websites, and a plethora of other formats for other eBook readers, each with its own idiosyncrasies. In theory, if we can get our content into a clean, semantic XML form, such as DOCBOOKS, we can, from there, after every revision, perform a series of relatively simple XSLT transformations to output anything from a HTML article, to an ePub file for reading on an iPad, to an ICML file (an XML-based file format supported by the InDesign tool), ready for print publication. As always, however, the task looks bigger the closer you get to the detail. On the way to the utopian world of an XML-based book format that encompasses all the diverse requirements of the different publication media, ePub looks like a reasonable format to adopt. Its forthcoming support for HTML 5 and CSS 3, with ePub 3.0, means that features, such as widow-and-orphan controls, multi-column flow and multi-media graphics can be incorporated into eBooks. This starts to make it possible to build an "app-like" experience into the eBook and to free publishers to think of putting context before container; to think of what content is required, be it graphical, textual or audio, from the point of view of the user, rather than what's possible in a given, traditional book "Container". In the meantime, there is a gap between what publishers require and what current technology can provide and, of course building this app-like experience is far from plain sailing. Real portability between devices is still a big challenge, and achieving the sort of wizardry seen in the likes of Theodore Grey's "Elements" eBook will require some serious device-specific programming skills. Cheers, Tony.

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• When row estimation goes wrong

  - by Dave Ballantyne

  Whilst working at a client site, I hit upon one of those issues that you are not sure if that this is something entirely new or a bug or a gap in your knowledge. The client had a large query that needed optimizing.  The query itself looked pretty good, no udfs, UNION ALL were used rather than UNION, most of the predicates were sargable other than one or two minor ones.  There were a few extra joins that could be eradicated and having fixed up the query I then started to dive into the plan. I could see all manor of spills in the hash joins and the sort operations,  these are caused when SQL Server has not reserved enough memory and has to write to tempdb.  A VERY expensive operation that is generally avoidable.  These, however, are a symptom of a bad row estimation somewhere else, and when that bad estimation is combined with other estimation errors, chaos can ensue. Working my way back down the plan, I found the cause, and the more I thought about it the more i came convinced that the optimizer could be making a much more intelligent choice. First step is to reproduce and I was able to simplify the query down a single join between two tables, Product and ProductStatus,  from a business point of view, quite fundamental, find the status of particular products to show if ‘active’ ,’inactive’ or whatever. The query itself couldn’t be any simpler The estimated plan looked like this: Ignore the “!” warning which is a missing index, but notice that Products has 27,984 rows and the join outputs 14,000. The actual plan shows how bad that estimation of 14,000 is : So every row in Products has a corresponding row in ProductStatus.  This is unsurprising, in fact it is guaranteed,  there is a trusted FK relationship between the two columns.  There is no way that the actual output of the join can be different from the input. The optimizer is already partly aware of the foreign key meta data, and that can be seen in the simplifiction stage. If we drop the Description column from the query: the join to ProductStatus is optimized out. It serves no purpose to the query, there is no data required from the table and the optimizer knows that the FK will guarantee that a matching row will exist so it has been removed. Surely the same should be applied to the row estimations in the initial example, right ?  If you think so, please upvote this connect item. So what are our options in fixing this error ? Simply changing the join to a left join will cause the optimizer to think that we could allow the rows not to exist. or a subselect would also work However, this is a client site, Im not able to change each and every query where this join takes place but there is a more global switch that will fix this error,  TraceFlag 2301. This is described as, perhaps loosely, “Enable advanced decision support optimizations”. We can test this on the original query in isolation by using the “QueryTraceOn” option and lo and behold our estimated plan now has the ‘correct’ estimation. Many thanks goes to Paul White (b|t) for his help and keeping me sane through this

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• Web Developer - How to enhance my skillset?

  - by atif089

  First of all pardon my English. I am not a native English speaker I have been a Web Developer for the past 4 years. In these 4 years I have spent my time on the internet to learn things. My current skillset comprises of HTML CSS PHP MySQL jQuery (I would not say js and rather say jQuery because I am good at using jQuery and bad with plain javascript.) The above things seemed like an easier part of my life as I quickly learned them. But now I would really like to enhance my skillset and I am pretty confused which way to move ahead considering that I have to learn things using the web and references on my own. Design My first option is towards design. Shall I get started with design and start using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash, Flex. Designing along with my previous skills looks like a money maker to me. As both are co-related to each other when web design is considered. And its easier to learn the first 2 and I hope I can get tutorials for the last 2 as well. Marketing A lot of my existing clients asked me if I do SEO. So this looked as a good field to me as well. I cannot estimate the scope of SEO but I assume it has a long future. Since I am business minded as well and there are a lot of tutorials around, should I start with SEO, SEM, Social Media, PPC or whatever it consists of. Software Development The complex plight and hardest thing (perhaps) but the easiest way to find a decent job in my location. If I go for software development what platform should be that I should be ideally going after? Should it be C# for windows development, or ASP.NET (once again enhances my skill set), J2EE (there are a lot of jobs for J2EE developers here) or plain C and C++. Also I think it is difficult to learn software languages right from Hello World, using internet? I have no clue how I learned PHP but I am sort of a pro now, but these other languages seems like a disaster to me? I cant figure out the reason if its because PHP is easier or there was a lot of tutorials around for PHP. Anyways is it also possible to learn software development right from Hello World using the web? Database / Server (Linux) / Network Administration Seems like a job with a decent pay but less number of jobs and a bit harder to learn online. (not sure) What should be the right track I should move ahead. P.S - Age is not a constraint for me as I am between 20-21, and I come from an IT background. I know quite little basics about C (upto structures) C++ (upto objects, I was not able to understand templates) Core Java (some basics and OOP concept) RDBMS Visual Basic 6 (used to do this long back) UNIX (a bunch of commands like who, finger, chmod, ls and a bit of #bash) Or is there anything else that I left out? I need you guys to please give me a feedback and the reason why I should select that field.

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• Deliberate Practice

  - by Jeff Foster

  It’s easy to assume, as software engineers, that there is little need to “practice” writing code. After all, we write code all day long! Just by writing a little each day, we’re constantly learning and getting better, right? Unfortunately, that’s just not true. Of course, developers do improve with experience. Each time we encounter a problem we’re more likely to avoid it next time. If we’re in a team that deploys software early and often, we hone and improve the deployment process each time we practice it. However, not all practice makes perfect. To develop true expertise requires a particular type of practice, deliberate practice, the only goal of which is to make us better programmers. Everyday software development has other constraints and goals, not least the pressure to deliver. We rarely get the chance in the course of a “sprint” to experiment with potential solutions that are outside our current comfort zone. However, if we believe that software is a craft then it’s our duty to strive continuously to raise the standard of software development. This requires specific and sustained efforts to get better at something we currently can’t do well (from Harvard Business Review July/August 2007). One interesting way to introduce deliberate practice, in a sustainable way, is the code kata. The term kata derives from martial arts and refers to a set of movements practiced either solo or in pairs. One of the better-known examples is the Bowling Game kata by Bob Martin, the goal of which is simply to write some code to do the scoring for 10-pin bowling. It sounds too easy, right? What could we possibly learn from such a simple example? Trust me, though, that it’s not as simple as five minutes of typing and a solution. Of course, we can reach a solution in a short time, but the important thing about code katas is that we explore each technique fully and in a controlled way. We tackle the same problem multiple times, using different techniques and making different decisions, understanding the ramifications of each one, and exploring edge cases. The short feedback loop optimizes opportunities to learn. Another good example is Conway’s Game of Life. It’s a simple problem to solve, but try solving it in a functional style. If you’re used to mutability, solving the problem without mutating state will push you outside of your comfort zone. Similarly, if you try to solve it with the focus of “tell-don’t-ask“, how will the responsibilities of each object change? As software engineers, we don’t get enough opportunities to explore new ideas. In the middle of a development cycle, we can’t suddenly start experimenting on the team’s code base. Code katas offer an opportunity to explore new techniques in a safe environment. If you’re still skeptical, my challenge to you is simply to try it out. Convince a willing colleague to pair with you and work through a kata or two. It only takes an hour and I’m willing to bet you learn a few new things each time. The next step is to make it a sustainable team practice. Start with an hour every Friday afternoon (after all who wants to commit code to production just before they leave for the weekend?) for month and see how that works out. Finally, consider signing up for the Global Day of Code Retreat. It’s like a daylong code kata, it’s on December 8th and there’s probably an event in your area!

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• Examples of bad variable names and reasons [on hold]

  - by user470184

  I'll start with a class in the jdk package : public final class Sdp { should be : public final class SocketsDirectProtocol { Sdp is class name, this is ambigious, should be : Class<?> cl = Class.forName("java.net.SdpSocketImpl", true, null); should be : Class<?> clazz = Class.forName("java.net.SdpSocketImpl", true, null); cl is ambiguous private static void setAccessible(final AccessibleObject o) { should be : private static void setAccessible(final AccessibleObject accessibleObject) { There are various other examples in this class, do you have similar and/or differing examples of variables that were named badly ? package com.oracle.net; public final class Sdp { private Sdp() { } /** * The package-privage ServerSocket(SocketImpl) constructor */ private static final Constructor<ServerSocket> serverSocketCtor; static { try { serverSocketCtor = (Constructor<ServerSocket>) ServerSocket.class.getDeclaredConstructor(SocketImpl.class); setAccessible(serverSocketCtor); } catch (NoSuchMethodException e) { throw new AssertionError(e); } } /** * The package-private SdpSocketImpl() constructor */ private static final Constructor<SocketImpl> socketImplCtor; static { try { Class<?> cl = Class.forName("java.net.SdpSocketImpl", true, null); socketImplCtor = (Constructor<SocketImpl>)cl.getDeclaredConstructor(); setAccessible(socketImplCtor); } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) { throw new AssertionError(e); } catch (NoSuchMethodException e) { throw new AssertionError(e); } } private static void setAccessible(final AccessibleObject o) { AccessController.doPrivileged(new PrivilegedAction<Void>() { public Void run() { o.setAccessible(true); return null; } }); } /** * SDP enabled Socket. */ private static class SdpSocket extends Socket { SdpSocket(SocketImpl impl) throws SocketException { super(impl); } } /** * Creates a SDP enabled SocketImpl */ private static SocketImpl createSocketImpl() { try { return socketImplCtor.newInstance(); } catch (InstantiationException x) { throw new AssertionError(x); } catch (IllegalAccessException x) { throw new AssertionError(x); } catch (InvocationTargetException x) { throw new AssertionError(x); } } /** * Creates an unconnected and unbound SDP socket. The {@code Socket} is * associated with a {@link java.net.SocketImpl} of the system-default type. * * @return a new Socket * * @throws UnsupportedOperationException * If SDP is not supported * @throws IOException * If an I/O error occurs */ public static Socket openSocket() throws IOException { SocketImpl impl = createSocketImpl(); return new SdpSocket(impl); } /** * Creates an unbound SDP server socket. The {@code ServerSocket} is * associated with a {@link java.net.SocketImpl} of the system-default type. * * @return a new ServerSocket * * @throws UnsupportedOperationException * If SDP is not supported * @throws IOException * If an I/O error occurs */ public static ServerSocket openServerSocket() throws IOException { // create ServerSocket via package-private constructor SocketImpl impl = createSocketImpl(); try { return serverSocketCtor.newInstance(impl); } catch (IllegalAccessException x) { throw new AssertionError(x); } catch (InstantiationException x) { throw new AssertionError(x); } catch (InvocationTargetException x) { Throwable cause = x.getCause(); if (cause instanceof IOException) throw (IOException)cause; if (cause instanceof RuntimeException) throw (RuntimeException)cause; throw new RuntimeException(x); } } /** * Opens a socket channel to a SDP socket. * * <p> The channel will be associated with the system-wide default * {@link java.nio.channels.spi.SelectorProvider SelectorProvider}. * * @return a new SocketChannel * * @throws UnsupportedOperationException * If SDP is not supported or not supported by the default selector * provider * @throws IOException * If an I/O error occurs. */ public static SocketChannel openSocketChannel() throws IOException { FileDescriptor fd = SdpSupport.createSocket(); return sun.nio.ch.Secrets.newSocketChannel(fd); } /** * Opens a socket channel to a SDP socket. * * <p> The channel will be associated with the system-wide default * {@link java.nio.channels.spi.SelectorProvider SelectorProvider}. * * @return a new ServerSocketChannel * * @throws UnsupportedOperationException * If SDP is not supported or not supported by the default selector * provider * @throws IOException * If an I/O error occurs */ public static ServerSocketChannel openServerSocketChannel() throws IOException { FileDescriptor fd = SdpSupport.createSocket(); return sun.nio.ch.Secrets.newServerSocketChannel(fd); } }

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• Customer owes me half my payment. Should I take ownership of his AWS account for charging? How?

  - by Cawas

  Background They paid me my first half (back in April 15th) before even we could get into an agreement. Very nice of him! Then I've finished the 2 weeks job of setting up the servers, using his AWS credentials he had just bought. I waited for another 2 weeks for everything settling up, and it was all running fine. He did what he needed with his sftp account, everyone were happy. Now, it has been almost 2 months since I've finished the job and I still didn't get the 2nd half. I must assume, it's not much money (about U$400, converted), but it would help me pay the bills at least. Heck, the Amazon bills they are paying are little less than that (for now). Measures I'm wondering how I can go to charge him now. First thought, of course, would be taking everything down and say "pay now, or be doomed". If that's not good enough, then I lost it. I have no contracts and I doubt I could get a law suit in this country for such a low value based only on emails. And I don't really want to get too agressive here - there might be a business chance in the future and I don't want to ruin it. Second though would be just changing the password. But then he probably could gain access again by some recovery means. That's where my question may mainly relay. How can I do it and not leaving any room for recovery from his side? I even got the first AWS "your account was created" mail from himself, showing me I could begin my job, back then. Lastly, do you have any other idea on what I can and what I should do in this case? Responding to Answers Please, consider reading the current answers and comments. This is not a very simple case. I've considered many, many options (including all lawful ones) before considering this ones I've listed here, and I am willing to take the loss and all that. That's not the point. The point is being practical here. I will call him again and talk about it. I will do terrorism on getting lawyers and getting contract. I am ready to go all forth while I have time and energy for it. But, in practice, there is this extra thing I can do to assure myself of the work I've done. I can basically take it back and delete everything! I'd only take his password because I can find no other way to do it within Amazon. Maybe, contacting Amazon and explaining the situation? I don't know. Give me ideas on this technical side! And thank everyone for the attention and helping me clarifying the issue so far! :)

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• What Color is your Jetpack ?

  - by JoshReuben

  I’m a programmer, Im approaching 40, and I’m fairly decent at my job – I’ll keep doing what I’m doing for as long as they let me!   So what are your career options if you know how to code? A Programmer could be ..   An Algorithm developer Pros Interesting High barriers of entry, potential for startup competitive factor Cons Do you have the skill, qualifications? What are working conditions n this mystery niche ? micro-focus An Academic Pros Low pressure Job security – or is this an illusion ? Cons Low Pay Need a PhD A Software Architect Pros: strategic, rather than tactical Setting technology platform and high level vision You say how it should work, others have to figure out why its not working the way its supposed to ! broad view – you are paid to learn (how do you con people into paying for you to learn ??) Cons: Glorified developer – more often than not! competitive – everyone wants to do it ! loose touch with underlying tech in tough times, first guy to get the axe ! A Software Engineer Pros: interesting, always more to learn fun I can do it Fallback Cons: Nothing new under the sun – been there, done that Dealing with poor requirements, deadlines, other peoples code, overtime C#, XAML, Web - Low barriers of entry –> à race to the bottom A Team leader Pros: Setting code standards and proposing technology choices Cons: Glorified developer – more often than not! Inspecting other peoples code and debugging the problems they cannot fix Dealing with mugbies and prima donas Responsible for QA of others A Project Manager Pros No need for debugging other peoples code Cons Low barrier of entry High pressure Responsible for QA of others Loosing touch with technology A lot of bullshit meetings Have to be an asshole A Product Manager Pros No need for debugging other peoples code Learning new skillset of sales and marketing Cons Travel (I'm a family man) May need to know the bs details of an uninteresting product things I want to work with: AI, algorithms, Numerical Computing, Mathematica, C++ AMP – unfortunately, the work here is few & far between. VS & TFS Extensibility, DSLs (Workflow , Lightswitch), Code Generation – one day, code will write code ! Unity3D, WebGL – fun, fun, fun ! Modern Web – Knockout, SignalR, MVC, Node.Js ??? (tentative – I'll wait until things stabilize as this area is undergoing a pre-Cambrian explosion) Things I don’t want to work with: (but will if I'm asked to !) C# – same old, same old – not learning anything new here Old code – blech ! Environment with code & fix mentality , ad hoc requirements, excessive overtime Pc support, System administration – even after 20 years, people still ask you to do this sometimes ! debugging – my skills are just not there yet Oracle Old tech: VB 6, XSLT, WinForms, Net 3.51 or less Old style Web dev Information Systems: ASP.NET webforms, Reporting services / crystal reports, SQL Server CRUD with manual data layer, XAML MVVM – variations of the same concept, ad nauseaum. Low barriers of entry –> race to the bottom.  Metro – an elegant API coupled to a horrendous UX – I'll wait for market penetration viability before investing further in this.   Conclusion So if you are in a slump, take heart: Programming is a great career choice compared to every other job !

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• I am trying to figure out the best way to understand how to cache domain objects

  - by Brett Ryan

  I've always done this wrong, I'm sure a lot of others have too, hold a reference via a map and write through to DB etc.. I need to do this right, and I just don't know how to go about it. I know how I want my objects to be cached but not sure on how to achieve it. What complicates things is that I need to do this for a legacy system where the DB can change without notice to my application. So in the context of a web application, let's say I have a WidgetService which has several methods: Widget getWidget(); Collection<Widget> getAllWidgets(); Collection<Widget> getWidgetsByCategory(String categoryCode); Collection<Widget> getWidgetsByContainer(Integer parentContainer); Collection<Widget> getWidgetsByStatus(String status); Given this, I could decide to cache by method signature, i.e. getWidgetsByCategory("AA") would have a single cache entry, or I could cache widgets individually, which would be difficult I believe; OR, a call to any method would then first cache ALL widgets with a call to getAllWidgets() but getAllWidgets() would produce caches that match all the keys for the other method invocations. For example, take the following untested theoretical code. Collection<Widget> getAllWidgets() { Entity entity = cache.get("ALL_WIDGETS"); Collection<Widget> res; if (entity == null) { res = loadCache(); } else { res = (Collection<Widget>) entity.getValue(); } return res } Collection<Widget> loadCache() { // Get widgets from underlying DB Collection<Widget> res = db.getAllWidgets(); cache.put("ALL_WIDGETS", res); Map<String, List<Widget>> byCat = new HashMap<>(); for (Widget w : res) { // cache by different types of method calls, i.e. by category if (!byCat.containsKey(widget.getCategory()) { byCat.put(widget.getCategory(), new ArrayList<Widget>); } byCat.get(widget.getCatgory(), widget); } cacheCategories(byCat); return res; } Collection<Widget> getWidgetsByCategory(String categoryCode) { CategoryCacheKey key = new CategoryCacheKey(categoryCode); Entity ent = cache.get(key); if (entity == null) { loadCache(); } ent = cache.get(key); return ent == null ? Collections.emptyList() : (Collection<Widget>)ent.getValue(); } NOTE: I have not worked with a cache manager, the above code illustrates cache as some object that may hold caches by key/value pairs, though it's not modelled on any specific implementation. Using this I have the benefit of being able to cache all objects in the different ways they will be called with only single objects on the heap, whereas if I were to cache the method call invocation via say Spring It would (I believe) cache multiple copies of the objects. I really wish to try and understand the best ways to cache domain objects before I go down the wrong path and make it harder for myself later. I have read the documentation on the Ehcache website and found various articles of interest, but nothing to give a good solid technique. Since I'm working with an ERP system, some DB calls are very complicated, not that the DB is slow, but the business representation of the domain objects makes it very clumsy, coupled with the fact that there are actually 11 different DB's where information can be contained that this application is consolidating in a single view, this makes caching quite important.

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• What is a good design pattern / lib for iOS 5 to synchronize with a web service?

  - by Junto

  We are developing an iOS application that needs to synchronize with a remote server using web services. The existing web services have an "operations" style rather than REST (implemented in WCF but exposing JSON HTTP endpoints). We are unsure of how to structure the web services to best fit with iOS and would love some advice. We are also interested in how to manage the synchronization process within iOS. Without going into detailed specifics, the application allows the user to estimate repair costs at a remote site. These costs are broken down by room and item. If the user has an internet connection this data can be sent back to the server. Multiple photographs can be taken of each item, but they will be held in a separate queue, which sends when the connection is optimal (ideally wifi). Our backend application controls the unique ids for each room and item. Thus, each time we send these costs to the server, the server echoes the central database ids back, thus, that they can be synchronized in the mobile app. I have simplified this a little, since the operations contract is actually much larger, but I just want to illustrate the basic requirements without complicating matters. Firstly, the web service architecture: We currently have two operations: GetCosts and UpdateCosts. My assumption is that if we used a strict REST architecture we would need to break our single web service operations into multiple smaller services. This would make the services much more chatty and we would also have to guarantee a delivery order from the app. For example, we need to make sure that containing rooms are added before the item. Although this seems much more RESTful, our perception is that these extra calls are expensive connections (security checks, database calls, etc). Does the type of web api (operation over service focus) determine chunky vs chatty? Since this is mobile (3G), are we better handling lots of smaller messages, or a few large ones? Secondly, the iOS side. What is the current advice on how to manage data synchronization within the iOS (5) app itself. We need multiple queues and we need to guarantee delivery order in each queue (and technically, ordering between queues). The server needs to control unique ids and other properties and echo them back to the application. The application then needs to update an internal database and when re-updating, make sure the correct ids are available in the update message (essentially multiple inserts and updates in one call). Our backend has a ton of business logic operating on these cost estimates. We don't want any of this in the app itself. Currently the iOS app sends the cost data, and then the server echoes that data back with populated ids (and other data). The existing cost data is deleted and the echoed response data is added to the client database on the device. This is causing us problems, because any photos might not have been sent, but the original entity tree has been removed and replaced. Obviously updating the costs tree rather than replacing it would remove this problem, but I'm not sure if there are any nice xcode libraries out there to do such things. I welcome any advice you might have.

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• Dependency injection: How to sell it

  - by Mel

  Let it be known that I am a big fan of dependency injection (DI) and automated testing. I could talk all day about it. Background Recently, our team just got this big project that is to built from scratch. It is a strategic application with complex business requirements. Of course, I wanted it to be nice and clean, which for me meant: maintainable and testable. So I wanted to use DI. Resistance The problem was in our team, DI is taboo. It has been brought up a few times, but the gods do not approve. But that did not discourage me. My Move This may sound weird but third-party libraries are usually not approved by our architect team (think: "thou shalt not speak of Unity, Ninject, NHibernate, Moq or NUnit, lest I cut your finger"). So instead of using an established DI container, I wrote an extremely simple container. It basically wired up all your dependencies on startup, injects any dependencies (constructor/property) and disposed any disposable objects at the end of the web request. It was extremely lightweight and just did what we needed. And then I asked them to review it. The Response Well, to make it short. I was met with heavy resistance. The main argument was, "We don't need to add this layer of complexity to an already complex project". Also, "It's not like we will be plugging in different implementations of components". And "We want to keep it simple, if possible just stuff everything into one assembly. DI is an uneeded complexity with no benefit". Finally, My Question How would you handle my situation? I am not good in presenting my ideas, and I would like to know how people would present their argument. Of course, I am assuming that like me, you prefer to use DI. If you don't agree, please do say why so I can see the other side of the coin. It would be really interesting to see the point of view of someone who disagrees. Update Thank you for everyone's answers. It really puts things into perspective. It's nice enough to have another set of eyes to give you feedback, fifteen is really awesome! This are really great answers and helped me see the issue from different sides, but I can only choose one answer, so I will just pick the top voted one. Thanks everyone for taking the time to answer. I have decided that it is probably not the best time to implement DI, and we are not ready for it. Instead, I will concentrate my efforts on making the design testable and attempt to present automated unit testing. I am aware that writing tests is additional overhead and if ever it is decided that the additional overhead is not worth it, personally I would still see it as a win situation since the design is still testable. And if ever testing or DI is a choice in future, the design can easily handle it.

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• Managing software projects - advice needed

  - by Callum

  I work for a large government department as part of an IT team that manages and develops websites as well as stand alone web applications. We’re running in to problems somewhere in the SDLC that don’t rear their ugly head until time and budget are starting to run out. We try to be “Agile” (software specifications are not as thorough as possible, clients have direct access to the developers any time they want) and we are also in a reasonably peculiar position in that we are not allowed to make profit from the services we provide. We only service the divisions within our government department, and can only charge for the time and effort we actually put in to a project. So if we deliver a project that we have over-quoted on, we will only invoice for the actual time spent. Our software specifications are not as thorough as they could be, but they always include at a minimum: Wireframe mockups for every form view A data dictionary of all field inputs Descriptions of any business rules that affect the system Descriptions of the outputs I’m new to software management, but I’ve overseen enough software projects now to know that as soon as users start observing demos of the system, they start making a huge amount of requests like “Can we add a few more fields to this report.. can we redesign the look of this interface.. can we send an email at this part of the workflow.. can we take this button off this view.. can we make this function redirect to a different screen.. can we change some text on this screen… can we create a special account where someone can log in and get access to X… this report takes too long to run can it be optimised.. can we remove this step in the workflow… there’s got to be a better image we can put here…” etc etc etc. Some changes are tiny and can be implemented reasonably quickly.. but there could be up to 50-100 or so of such requests during the course of the SDLC. Other change requests are what clients claim they “just assumed would be part of the system” even if not explicitly spelled out in the spec. We are having a lot of difficulty managing this process. With no experienced software project managers in our team, we need to come up with a better way to both internally identify whether work being requested is “out of spec”, and be able to communicate this to a client in such a manner that they can understand why what they are asking for is “extra” work. We need a way to track this work and be transparent with it. In the spirit of Agile development where we are not spec'ing software systems in to the ground and back again before development begins, and bearing in mind that clients have access to any developer any time they want it, I am looking for some tips and pointers from experienced software project managers on how to handle this sort of "scope creep" problem, in tracking it, being transparent with it, and communicating it to clients such that they understand it. Happy to clarify anything as needed. I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to offer some advice. Thanks.

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• Does *every* project benefit from written specifications?

  - by nikie

  I know this is holy war territory, so please read the question to the end before answering. There are many cases where written specifications make a lot of sense. For example, if you're a contractor and you want to get paid, you need written specs. If you're working in a team with 20 persons, you need written specs. If you're writing a programming language compiler or interpreter (and it's not perl), you'll usually write a formal specification. I don't doubt that there are many more cases where written specifications are a really good idea. I just think that there are cases where there's so little benefit in written specs, that it doesn't outweigh the costs of writing and maintaining them. EDIT: The close votes say that "it is difficult to say what is asked here", so let me clarify: The usefulness of written, detailed specifications is often claimed like a dogma. (If you want examples, look at the comments.) But I don't see the use of them for the kind of development I'm doing. So what is asked here is: How would written specifications help me? Background information: I work for a small company that's developing vertical market software. If our product is easier to use and has better performance than the competition, it sells. If it's harder to use, even if it behaves 100% as the specification says, it doesn't sell. So there are no "external forces" for having written specs. The advantage would have to be somewhere in the development process. Now, I can see how frozen specifications would make a developer's life easier. But we'll never have frozen specs. If we see in the middle of development that feature X is not intuitive to use the way it's specified, then we can only choose between changing the specification or developing a product that won't sell. You'll probably ask by now: How do you know when you're done? Well, we're continually improving our product. The competition does the same. So (hopefully) we're never done. We keep improving the software, and when we reach a point when the benefits of the improvements we've added since the last release outweigh the costs of an update, we create a new release that is then tested, localized, documented and deployed. This also means that there's rarely any schedule pressure. Nobody has to do overtime to make a deadline. If the feature isn't done by the time we want to release the next version, it'll simply go into the next version. The next question might be: How do your developers know what they're supposed to implement? The answer is: They have a lot of domain knowledge. They know the customers business well enough, so a high-level description of the feature (or even just the problem that the customer needs solved) is enough to implement it. If it's not clear, the developer creates a few fake screens to get feedback from marketing/management or customers, but this is nowhere near the level of detail of actual specifications. This might be inefficient for larger teams, but for a small team with low turnover it works quite well. It has the additional benefit that the developer in question often comes up with a better solution than the person writing the specs might have. This question is already getting very long, but let me address one last point: Testing. Like I said in the beginning, if our software behaves 100% like the spec says, it still can be crap. In fact, if it's so unintuitive that you need a spec to know how to test it, it probably is crap. It makes sense to have fixed, written tests for some core functionality and for regression bugs, but again, this is nowhere near a full written spec of how the software should behave when. The main test is: hand the software to a user who doesn't know it yet and tell him to use the new feature X. If she can figure out how to use it and it works, it works.

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• How should I define Pom.xml in each Module so that web module can communicate with the other two ejb modules?

  - by Kayser

  Maven, maven, maven. It must be very nice and it is nice by a small application. Now I want to build an ear project: with two EJB Modules, a web Module and ear module to build an ear file. Web Module is dependent on the other ejb modules.. How should I define Pom.xml in each Module so that web module can communicate with the other two ejb modules in ear and the ear module builds the right ear file? What I have done before: Module 1 -- Basic Module. All other modules are dependent to this Module. Basic functionality like login etc. <packaging>ejb</packaging> Module 1 -- Data Module. All Entites are here Type EJB <dependency> <groupId>com.myCompnay</groupId> <artifactId>Modul_Basic</artifactId> <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version> <type>ejb</type> </dependency Module 2 -- Business Module. Businnes Facades are here. Type EJB <dependency> <groupId>com.myCompnay</groupId> <artifactId>Modul_Basic</artifactId> <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version> <type>ejb</type> </dependency Web Module - Type is WAR <dependency> <groupId>com.myCompnay</groupId> <artifactId>Modul_Basic</artifactId> <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version> <type>ejb</type> </dependency EAR Module -- In this project I try to build the project. <packaging>ear</packaging> <dependencies> <dependency> <groupId>com.myCompnay</groupId> <artifactId>Modul_Basic</artifactId> <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version> <type>ejb</type> </dependency <dependency> <groupId>com.myCompnay</groupId> <artifactId>Modul_Business</artifactId> <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version> <type>ejb</type> </dependency <dependency> <groupId>com.myCompnay</groupId> <artifactId>Modul_WEB</artifactId> <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version> <type>war</type> </dependency </dependencies> <build> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-ear-plugin</artifactId> </plugin> </plugins> </build>

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• An observation on .NET loops – foreach, for, while, do-while

  It’s very common that .NET programmers use “foreach” loop for iterating through collections. Following is my observation whilst I was testing simple scenario on loops. “for” loop is 30% faster than “foreach” and “while” loop is 50% faster than “foreach”. “do-while” is bit faster than “while”. Someone may feel that how does it make difference if I’m iterating only 1000 times in a loop. This test case is only for simple iteration. According to the "Data structure" concepts, best and worst cases are completely based on the data we provide to the algorithm. so we can not conclude that a "foreach" algorithm is not good. All I want to tell that we need to be little cautious even choosing the loops. Example:- You might want to chose quick sort when you want to sort more numbers. At the same time bubble sort may be effective than quick sort when you want to sort less numbers. Take a simple scenario, a request of a simple web application fetches the data of 10000 (10K) rows and iterating them for some business logic. Think, this application is being accessed by 1000 (1K) people simultaneously. In this simple scenario you are ending up with 10000000 (10Million or 1 Crore) iterations. below is the test scenario with simple console application to test 100 Million records. using System;using System.Collections.Generic;using System.Diagnostics;namespace ConsoleApplication1{ class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var sw = new Stopwatch(); var numbers = GetSomeNumbers(); sw.Start(); foreach (var item in numbers) { } sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine( String.Format("\"foreach\" took {0} milliseconds", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds)); sw.Reset(); sw.Start(); for (int i = 0; i < numbers.Count; i++) { } sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine( String.Format("\"for\" loop took {0} milliseconds", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds)); sw.Reset(); sw.Start(); var it = 0; while (it++ < numbers.Count) { } sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine( String.Format("\"while\" loop took {0} milliseconds", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds)); sw.Reset(); sw.Start(); var it2 = 0; do { } while (it2++ < numbers.Count); sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine( String.Format("\"do-while\" loop took {0} milliseconds", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds)); } #region Get me 10Crore (100 Million) numbers private static List<int> GetSomeNumbers() { var lstNumbers = new List<int>(); var count = 100000000; for (var i = 1; i <= count; i++) { lstNumbers.Add(i); } return lstNumbers; } #endregion Get me some numbers }} In above example, I was just iterating through 100 Million numbers. You can see the time to execute various  loops provided in .NET Output "foreach" took 1108 milliseconds "for" loop took 727 milliseconds "while" loop took 596 milliseconds "do-while" loop took 594 milliseconds   Press any key to continue . . . So I feel we need to be careful while choosing the looping strategy. Please comment your thoughts. span.fullpost {display:none;}

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• When things go awry

  - by Phil Factor

  The moment the Entrepreneur opened his mouth on prime-time national TV, spelled out the URL and waxed big on how exciting ‘his’ new website was, I knew I was in for a busy night. I’d designed and built it. All at once, half a million people tried to log into the website. Although all my stress-testing paid off, I have to admit that the network locked up tight long before there was any danger of a database or website problem. Soon afterwards, the Entrepreneur and the Big Boss were there in the autopsy meeting. We picked through all our systems in detail to see how they’d borne the unexpected strain. Mercifully, in view of the sour mood of the Big Boss, it turned out that the only thing we could have done better was buy a bigger pipe to and from the internet. We’d specified that ‘big pipe’ when designing the system. The Big Boss had then railed at the cost and so we’d subsequently compromised. I felt that my design decisions were vindicated. The Big Boss brooded for a while. Then he made the significant comment: “What really ****** me off is the fact that, for ten minutes, we couldn’t take people’s money.” At that point I stopped feeling smug. Had the internet connection been better, the system would have reached its limit and failed rather precipitously, and that wasn’t what he wanted. Then it occurred to me that what had gummed up the connection was all those images on the site, that had made it so impressive for the visitors. If there had been a way to automatically pare down the site to the bare essentials under stress… Hmm. I began to consider disaster-recovery in the broadest sense – maintaining a service in spite of unusual or unexpected events. What he said makes a lot of sense: sacrifice whatever isn’t essential to keep the core service running when we approach the capacity limits. Maybe in IT we should borrow (or revive) the business concept of the ‘Skeleton service’, maintaining only the priority parts under stress, using a process that is well-prepared and carefully rehearsed. How might this work? Whatever the event we have to prepare for, it is all about understanding the priorities; knowing what one can dispense with when the going gets tough. In the event of database disaster, it’s much faster to deploy a skeletal system with only the essential data than to restore the entire system, though there would have to be a reconciliation process to update the revived database retrospectively, once the emergency was over. It isn’t just the database that could be designed for resilience. One could prepare for unusually high traffic in a website by designing a system that degraded gradually to a ‘skeletal’ site, one that maintained the commercial essentials without fat images, JavaScript libraries and razzmatazz. This is all what the Big Boss scathingly called ‘a mere technicality’. It seems to me that what is needed first is a culture of application and database design which acknowledges that we live in a very imperfect world, and react accordingly when things go awry.

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• Formatting made easy - Silverlight 4

  - by PeterTweed

  One of the simplest tasks in business apps is displaying different types of data to be read in the format that the user expects them.  In Silverlight versions until Silverlight 4 this has meant using a Converter to format data during binding.  This involves writing code for the formatting of the data to bind, instead of simply defining the formatting to use for the data in question where you bind the data to the control.   In Silverlight 4 we find the addition of the StringFormat markup extension that allows us to do exactly this.  Of course the nice thing is the ability to use the common formatting conventions available in C# through the String.Format function.   This post will show you how to use three of the common formatting conventions - currency, a defined number of decimal places for a number and a date format.   Steps:   1. Create a new Silverlight 4 application   2. In the body of the MainPage.xaml.cs file replace the MainPage class with the following code:       public partial class MainPage : UserControl     {         public MainPage()         {             InitializeComponent();             this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainPage_Loaded);         }           void MainPage_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)         {             info i = new info() { PriceValue = new Decimal(9.2567), DoubleValue = 1.2345678, DateValue = DateTime.Now };             this.DataContext = i;         }     }         public class info     {         public decimal PriceValue { get; set; }         public double DoubleValue { get; set; }         public DateTime DateValue { get; set; }     }   This code defines a class called info with different data types for the three properties.  A new instance of the class is created and bound to the DataContext of the page.   3.  In the MainPage.xaml file copy the following XAML into the LayoutRoot grid:           <Grid.RowDefinitions>             <RowDefinition Height="60*" />             <RowDefinition Height="28*" />             <RowDefinition Height="28*" />             <RowDefinition Height="30*" />             <RowDefinition Height="154*" />         </Grid.RowDefinitions>         <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>             <ColumnDefinition Width="86*" />             <ColumnDefinition Width="314*" />         </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>         <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock1" Text="Price Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Row="2" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock2" Text="Decimal Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Row="3" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="32,0,0,0" Name="textBlock3" Text="Date Value:" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Name="textBlock4" Text="{Binding PriceValue, StringFormat='C'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="6,0,0,0" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="2" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="6,0,0,0" Name="textBlock5" Text="{Binding DoubleValue, StringFormat='N3'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" />         <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="3" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="6,0,0,0" Name="textBlock6" Text="{Binding DateValue, StringFormat='yyyy MMM dd'}" VerticalAlignment="Top" />   This XAML defines three textblocks that use the StringFormat markup extension.  The three examples use the C for currency, N3 for a number with 3 decimal places and yyy MM dd for a date that displays year 3 letter month and 2 number date.   4. Run the application and see the data displayed with the correct formatting. It's that easy!

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• How can I work efficiently on a desktop sharing workflow?

  - by OSdave

  I am a freelance Magento developer, based in Spain. One of my clients is a Germany based web development company and they're asking me something I think it's impossible. OK, maybe not impossible but definitely not a preferred way of doing things. One of their clients has a Magento Entreprise installation, which is the paid (and I think proprietary) version of Magento. Their client has forbidden them to download the files from his server. My client is asking me now to study one particular module of the application in order to interact with it from a custom module I'll have to develop. As they have a read-only ssh access to their client's server, they came up with this solution: Set up a desktop/screen sharing session between one of their developer's station and mine, alongsides with a skype conversation. Their idea is that I'll say to the developer: show me file foo.php The developer will then open this foo.php file in his IDE. I'll have then to ask him to show me the bar method, the parent class, etc... Remember that it's a read-only session, so forget about putting a Zend_Debug::log() anywhere, and don't even think about a xDebug breakpoint (they don't use any kind of debugger, sic). Their client has also forbidden them to use any version control system... My first reaction when they explained to me this was (and I actually did say it outloud to them): Well, find another client. but they took it as a joke from me. I understand that in a business point of view rejecting a client is not a good practice, but I think that the condition of this assignment make it impossible to complete. At least according to my workflow. I mean, the way I work or learn a new framework/program is: download all files and copy of db on my pc create a git repository and a branch run the application locally use breakpoints use Zend_Debug::log() write the code and tests commit to git repo upload to (test/staging first if there is one, production if not) server I have agreed to try the desktop sharing session, although I think it will be a waste of time. On one hand I don't mind, they pay me for that time, but I know me and I don't like the sensation of loosing my time. On the other hand, I have other clients for whom I can work according to my workflow. I am about to say to them that I cannot (don't want to) do it. Well, I'll first try this desktop sharing session: maybe I'm wrong and it can actually work. But I like to consider myself as a professional, and I know that I don't know everything. So I try to keep an open mind and I am always willing to learn new stuff. So my questions are: Can this desktop-sharing workflow work? What should be done in order to take the most of it? Taking into account all the obstacles (geographic locations, no local, no git), is there another way for me to work on that project?

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• Hopping/Tumbling Windows Could Introduce Latency.

  This is a pre-article to one I am going to be writing on adjusting an event’s time and duration to satisfy business process requirements but it is one that I think is really useful when understanding the way that Hopping/Tumbling windows work within StreamInsight.  A Tumbling window is just a special shortcut version of  a Hopping window where the width of the window is equal to the size of the hop Here is the simplest and often used definition for a Hopping Window.  You can find them all here public static CepWindowStream<CepWindow<TPayload>> HoppingWindow<TPayload>(     this CepStream<TPayload> source,     TimeSpan windowSize,     TimeSpan hopSize,     WindowInputPolicy inputPolicy,     HoppingWindowOutputPolicy outputPolicy )   And here is the definition for a Tumbling Window public static CepWindowStream<CepWindow<TPayload>> TumblingWindow<TPayload>(     this CepStream<TPayload> source,     TimeSpan windowSize,     WindowInputPolicy inputPolicy,     HoppingWindowOutputPolicy outputPolicy )   These methods allow you to group events into windows of a temporal size.  It is a really useful and simple feature in StreamInsight.  One of the downsides though is that the windows cannot be flushed until an event in a following window occurs.  This means that you will potentially never see some events or see them with a delay.  Let me explain. Remember that a stream is a potentially unbounded sequence of events. Events in StreamInsight are given a StartTime.  It is this StartTime that is used to calculate into which temporal window an event falls.  It is best practice to assign a timestamp from the source system and not one from the system clock on the processing server.  StreamInsight cannot know when a window is over.  It cannot tell whether you have received all events in the window or whether some events have been delayed which means that StreamInsight cannot flush the stream for you.   Imagine you have events with the following Timestamps 12:10:10 PM 12:10:20 PM 12:10:35 PM 12:10:45 PM 11:59:59 PM And imagine that you have defined a 1 minute Tumbling Window over this stream using the following syntax var HoppingStream = from shift in inputStream.TumblingWindow(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1),HoppingWindowOutputPolicy.ClipToWindowEnd) select new WindowCountPayload { CountInWindow = (Int32)shift.Count() };   The events between 12:10:10 PM and 12:10:45 PM will not be seen until the event at 11:59:59 PM arrives.  This could be a real problem if you need to react to windows promptly This can always be worked around by using a different design pattern but a lot of the examples I see assume there is a constant, very frequent stream of events resulting in windows always being flushed. Further examples of using windowing in StreamInsight can be found here

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• Searching for context in Silverlight applications

  - by PeterTweed

  A common behavior in business applications that have developed through the ages is for a user to be able to get information or execute commands in relation to some information/function displayed by right clicking the object in question and popping up a context menu that offers relevant options to choose. The Silverlight Toolkit April 2010 release introduced the context menu object.  This can be added to other UI objects and display options for the user to choose.  The menu items can be enabled or disabled as per your application logic and icons can be added to the menu items to add visual effect.  This post will walk you through how to use the context menu object from the Silverlight Toolkit. Steps: 1. Create a new Silverlight 4 application 2. Copy the following namespace definition to the user control object of the MainPage.xaml file: xmlns:my="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Input.Toolkit"   3. Copy the following XAML into the LayoutRoot grid in MainPage.xaml:          <Border CornerRadius="15" Background="Blue" Width="400" Height="100">             <TextBlock Foreground="White" FontSize="20" Text="Context Menu In This Border...." HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center" >             </TextBlock>             <my:ContextMenuService.ContextMenu>                 <my:ContextMenu >                     <my:MenuItem                 Header="Copy"                 Click="CopyMenuItem_Click" Name="copyMenuItem">                         <my:MenuItem.Icon>                             <Image Source="copy-icon-small.png"/>                         </my:MenuItem.Icon>                     </my:MenuItem>                     <my:Separator/>                     <my:MenuItem Name="pasteMenuItem"                 Header="Paste"                 Click="PasteMenuItem_Click">                         <my:MenuItem.Icon>                             <Image Source="paste-icon-small.png"/>                         </my:MenuItem.Icon>                     </my:MenuItem>                 </my:ContextMenu>             </my:ContextMenuService.ContextMenu>         </Border>   The above code associates a context menu with two menu items and a separator between them to the border object.  The menu items has icons associated with them to add visual appeal.  The menu items have click event handlers that will be added in the MainPage.xaml.cs code behind in a later step. 4. Add two icon sized images to the ClientBin directory of the web project hosting the Silverlight application, named copy-icon-small.png and paste-icon-small.jpg respectively.  I used copy and paste icons as the names suggest. 5. Add the following code to the class in MainPage.xaml.cs file:         private void CopyMenuItem_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)         {             MessageBox.Show("Copy selected");         }           private void PasteMenuItem_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)         {             MessageBox.Show("Paste selected");         }   This code adds the event handlers for the menu items defined in step 3. 6. Run the application, right click on the border and select a menu option and see the appropriate message box displayed. Congratulations it’s that easy!   Take the Slalom Challenge at www.slalomchallenge.com!

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• How much am I worth hourly as a software/web developer? [closed]

  - by luckysmack

  I may be starting a new job very soon as a developer for both web and desktop software. The primary languages I will be using is ASP.NET with C# with some php for existing projects(I've already had one interview which went very well). The job deals primarily in advertising. But this is my first real job in the market, I have no degrees, but have some college time(~1yr). So I am primarily self taught. They are fully aware of my skill set and lack of degrees or certificates. I applied as an entry level developer. It will be a permanent and full time/hourly position, and not a per contract job. So since it my cherry job, im not really sure what to ask for. even though im self taught im pretty confident in my skills and know what im doing fairly well. I pick up on new concepts very well and find new things fairly easy to learn. Here is a very brief summary of my skills: PHP: ~2years C#/.NET: 2 months Python: Basics only. ~1 month OOP Familiarity: Great (1 year) MVC Familiarity: Great (1 year) PHP Frameworks used: CakePHP(6 months), Yii(3 months), Lithium(3 months) CMS Familiar with: Drupal(1.5 years), Wordpress(only basics) I also have ~2yrs experience in maintaining my own VPS server and the hassles all that entails (linux/debian) Pretty much all the above will be used at this job. Although I will be using C# a vast majority of the time. I only recently started learning it but am moving along fairly rapidly and its all going smooth as butter. So what have I built? I have one proprietary site built in drupal which is used an an order log for products, inventory, and their shipments. It is also able to process payments through paypal merchant services. I have worked on a handful of other small apps used here and there I'm not able to show but which worked fairly well (all in php using frameworks though). The business does fairly well and is far from a a typical corporate type environment. It is much closer to a small development studio. And it is based out of northern California. I don't know how/what more info I can give on them. I also want this to be able to be referenced by other people possibly so I am looking for general tips and ideas to get an answer as well. I had trouble finding a reasonable range on other websites which seemed to be either way to low, or showed what a veteran developer makes. I know this is a fairly subjective question, but it is difficult to get a reasonable answer or guesstimate anywhere else. Even if only a little bit help, its much appreciated. So as for the direct question, based on all this info (did I miss anything?), how much should I ask for hourly? How much am I worth as a software developer?

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• D&rsquo;Arcy&rsquo;s Book Club - The New Strategic Selling

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  The New Strategic Selling Miller and Heiman Amazon.ca Amazon.com Chapters Everybody is a salesmen. Every day, without knowing it, we sell something to someone. Now, the typical vision people think of when they hear the word “sales” is the sleazy used car salesperson who does whatever they can to get you to buy the clunker on their lot. But selling is not an action tied to money and products. Selling is about convincing people to see your point of view and act on it. If you want your company to cover a trip to a conference, you may have to sell the idea to your boss. If you want to buy that new big screen TV, you have to sell the idea to your significant other. If you want to go on a weekend fishing trip with the boys you might be called in to help sell the idea to your buddies wife. We all sell, but we don’t all sell very well. So enter The New Strategic Selling, a book based on the sales course put on by the Miller-Heiman group. In fact, this isn’t really a “New” strategy to selling as its been around for a number of years. But the concepts they present, the ideas about selling, these are still very radical based on what most of us have experienced. Gone are the high pressure, win at all cost, GlenGarry-GlenRoss style of sales…instead the book presents a framework to switch to need-based selling. It’s the idea that instead of going in raving about a product or service, you build a relationship where the buyer expresses what their needs are and your response is to present a solution that best fits that need. Instead of focussing on the amount of money you can squeeze out of a client, you focus on whether everyone wins, that they receive win-results from the engagement, that repeat business is developed over time delivering value over and over again. The great thing about the book is that what it teaches…things like how to identify different buying influencers, how to prepare for meetings, techniques to solicit information about what the buyer is really thinking/feeling…these things are entirely applicable in *any* situation that you need to sell to someone…and remember: selling is convincing people to see your point of view and act on it. So that new big screen TV you want to buy but need to convince your wife on? This book can help you. That training opportunity you want your company to send you on? This book can help you. The upgrade to your community park that you want to lobby the local civic authorities for? This book can help you. The book is a bit wordy. I found that the length could have been reduced and the points still have gotten across. That’s really the only knock that I have though; the insight that it provides is so worthwhile that having to chew through extra words is well worth it. You definitely don’t have to be a professional salesperson to benefit from this book. Rating: 4/5

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• Career-Defining Moments

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/robz/archive/2013/06/25/career-defining-moments.aspx Fear holds us back from many things. A little fear is healthy, but don’t let it overwhelm you into missing opportunities. In every career there is a moment when you can either step forward and define yourself, or sit down and regret it later. Why do we hold back: is it fear, constraints, family concerns, or that we simply can't do it? I think in many cases it comes to the unknown, and we are good at fearing the unknown. Some people hold back because they are fearful of what they don’t know. Some hold back because they are fearful of learning new things. Some hold back simply because to take on a new challenge it means they have to give something else up. The phrase sometimes used is “It’s the devil you know versus the one you don’t.” That fear sometimes allows us to miss great opportunities. In many people’s case it is the opportunity to go into business for yourself, to start something that never existed. Most hold back hear for a fear of failing. We’ve all heard the phrase “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”, which is intended to get people to think about the opportunities they might create. A better term I heard recently on the Ruby Rogues podcast was “What would be worth doing even if you knew you were going to fail?” I think that wording suits the intent better. If you knew (or thought) going in that you were going to fail and you didn’t care, it would open you up to the possibility of paying more attention to the journey and not the outcome. In my case it is a fear of acceptance. I am fearful that I may not learn what I need to learn or may not do a good enough job to be accepted. At the same time that fear drives me and makes me want to leap forward. Some folks would define this as “The Flinch”. I’m learning Ruby and Puppet right now. I have limited experience with both, limited to the degree it scares me some that I don’t know much about either. Okay, it scares me quite a bit! Some people’s defining moment might be going to work for Microsoft. All of you who know me know that I am in love with automation, from low-tech to high-tech automation. So for me, my “mecca” is a little different in that regard. Awhile back I sat down and defined where I wanted my career to go and it had to do more with DevOps, defined as applying developer practices to system administration operations (I could not find this definition when I searched). It’s an area that interests me and why I really want to expand chocolatey into something more awesome. I want to see Windows be as automatable and awesome as other operating systems that are out there. Back to the career-defining moment. Sometimes these moments only come once in a lifetime. The key is to recognize when you are in one of these moments and step back to evaluate it before choosing to dive in head first. So I am about to embark on what I define as one of these “moments.”  On July 1st I will be joining Puppet Labs and working to help make the Windows automation experience rock solid! I’m both scared and excited about the opportunity!

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• Can someone explain the true landscape of Rails vs PHP deployment, particularly within the context of Reseller-based web hosting (e.g., Hostgator)?

  - by rcd

  Currently, I have a reseller account with the company HostGator. I design websites, which up until now have occasionally been wrapped in Wordpress CMSs and the like (PHP applications). I then sell hosting (of the site I've designed) to the client, which is pretty simple, in that I can simply click a button and add a new shared hosting account/site with whatever settings I want. Furthermore, I then utilize WHMCS to automate billing and account management. It's a nice package and pretty simple. I pay something like $25 a month, and can sell a hundred accounts under this (because my clients bandwidth requirements are low). Now I am finding the need to develop more customized applications, including a minimalist CMS and several proprietary things. I soon anticipate developing these apps for clients as well. Thus, I've spent the past few months learning Rails, and it's coming along well now. The thing that has nagged at me all along, though, is the deployment issue. I can't wrap my brain around it. It seems like all of the popular options (Heroku, etc) have nice automation with git and are set up in the "Rails Way". I get that (sort of). But it's terribly expensive... a single dyno, a helper, and the cheapest database (which they say is mainly suitable for testing) that isn't limited to 5MB runs $51. This is for ONE app!!! Throw in a "production" DB and you're over $200. This is like... the same prices as getting a server somewhere, right? Meanwhile, going back to what I guess is a "traditional" hosting environment with Hostgator, their server only has Ruby 1.8.7 and Rails 2.3.5... No Rails 3. AND, no Passenger (not that I really understand the difference in CGI or mod_rails or whatever, but they say Passenger is the simplest). So I'm to understand that if I build an app in Rails 3, it won't run at all on this host? But damn, I already have these accounts under my reseller account there, all running static html and/or PHP stuff, right? So what now? How do I get all of this under one simple (and affordable) roof? Forgive my ignorance, but I just don't get it. Managing a VPS is cool and all, but entails learning server admin stuff and security... And it's expensive. I get that a shared and/or reseller "server-based" (forgive the terminology) may be inadequate for large-scale apps that use a lot of bandwidth... But what about for those of us who are building real (but small and low bandwidth) apps (with Rails) and who want to deploy them simply, cheaply, using the same conceptual approach as PHP? Even after learning all of this Ruby and Rails stuff for months, I'm questioning whether it's worth it when it comes to deployment. I want to build a small app, upload it to my home directory on a shared server account, and just make it run. Why should that be so hard? Am I just choosing the wrong language/framework? Forgive my ignorance in the subject; these questions are not rhetorical; just trying to learn here. So: 1) I'd appreciate if someone could give me a good rundown of how to understand deployment in Rails vs. PHP. 2) I'd appreciate if someone could address my issue with running a hosting/web business around reseller hosting (Hostgator) while also being able to host Rails apps. Can it be done? And how can a company like Hostgator completely ignore what's current in Rails/Ruby? Thanks.

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• What do you need to know to be a world-class master software developer? [closed]

  - by glitch

  I wanted to bring up this question to you folks and see what you think, hopefully advise me on the matter: let's say you had 30 years of learning and practicing software development in front of you, how would you dedicate your time so that you'd get the biggest bang for your buck. What would you both learn and work on to be a world-class software developer that would make a large impact on the industry and leave behind a legacy? I think that most great developers end up being both broad generalists and specialists in one-two areas of interest. I'm thinking Bill Joy, John Carmack, Linus Torvalds, K&R and so on. I'm thinking that perhaps one approach would be to break things down by categories and establish a base minimum of "software development" greatness. I'm thinking: Operating Systems: completely internalize the core concepts of OS, perhaps gain a lot of familiarity with an OSS one such as Linux. Anything from memory management to device drivers has to be complete second nature. Programming Languages: this is one of those topics that imho has to be fully grokked even if it might take many years. I don't think there's quite anything like going through the process of developing your own compiler, understanding language design trade-offs and so on. Programming Language Pragmatics is one of my favorite books actually, I think you want to have that internalized back to back, and that's just the start. You could go significantly deeper, but I think it's time well spent, because it's such a crucial building block. As a subset of that, you want to really understand the different programming paradigms out there. Imperative, declarative, logic, functional and so on. Anything from assembly to LISP should be at the very least comfortable to write in. Contexts: I believe one should have experience working in different contexts to truly be able to appreciate the trade-offs that are being made every day. Embedded, web development, mobile development, UX development, distributed, cloud computing and so on. Hardware: I'm somewhat conflicted about this one. I think you want some understanding of computer architecture at a low level, but I feel like the concepts that will truly matter will be slightly higher level, such as CPU caching / memory hierarchy, ILP, and so on. Networking: we live in a completely network-dependent era. Having a good understanding of the OSI model, knowing how the Web works, how HTTP works and so on is pretty much a pre-requisite these days. Distributed systems: once again, everything's distributed these days, it's getting progressively harder to ignore this reality. Slightly related, perhaps add solid understanding of how browsers work to that, since the world seems to be moving so much to interfacing with everything through a browser. Tools: Have a really broad toolset that you're familiar with, one that continuously expands throughout the years. Communication: I think being a great writer, effective communicator and a phenomenal team player is pretty much a prerequisite for a lot of a software developer's greatness. It can't be overstated. Software engineering: understanding the process of building software, team dynamics, the requirements of the business-side, all the pitfalls. You want to deeply understand where what you're writing fits from the market perspective. The better you understand all of this, the more of your work will actually see the daylight. This is really just a starting list, I'm confident that there's a ton of other material that you need to master. As I mentioned, you most likely end up specializing in a bunch of these areas as you go along, but I was trying to come up with a baseline. Any thoughts, suggestions and words of wisdom from the grizzled veterans out there who would like to share their thoughts and experiences with this? I'd really love to know what you think!

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• Query total page count via SNMP HP Laserjet

  - by Tim

  I was asked to get hold of the total pages counts for the 100+ printers we have at work. All of them are HP Laser or Business Jets of some description and the vast majority are connected via some form of HP JetDirect network card/switch. After many hours of typing in IP addresses and copying and pasting the relevant figure in to Excel I have now been asked to do this on a weekly basis. This led me to think there must be an easier way, as an IT professional I can surely work out some time saving method to solve this issue. Suffice it to say I do not feel very professional now after a day or so of trying to make SNMP work for me! From what I understand the first thing is to enable SNMP on the printer. Done. Next I would need something to query the SNMP bit. I decided to go open source and free and someone here recommended net-snmp as a decent tool (I would like to have just added the printers as nodes in SolarWinds but we are somewhat tight on licences apparently). Next I need the name of the MIB. For this I believe the HP-LASERJET-COMMON-MIB has the correct information in it. Downloaded this and added to net-snmp. Now I need the OID which I believe after much scouring is printed-media-simplex-count (we have no duplex printers, that we are interested in at least). Running the following command yields the following demoralising output: snmpget -v 2c -c public 10.168.5.1 HP-LASERJET-COMMON-MIB:.1.3.6.1.2.1.1.16.1.1.1 (the OID was derived from running: snmptranslate -IR -On printed-media-simplex-count Unlinked OID in HP-LASERJET-COMMON-MIB: hp ::= { enterprises 11 } Undefined identifier: enterprises near line 3 of C:/usr/share/snmp/mibs/HP-LASER JET-COMMON-MIB..txt .1.3.6.1.2.1.1.16.1.1.1 ) Unlinked OID in HP-LASERJET-COMMON-MIB: hp ::= { enterprises 11 } Undefined identifier: enterprises near line 3 of C:/usr/share/snmp/mibs/HP-LASER JET-COMMON-MIB..txt HP-LASERJET-COMMON-MIB:.1.3.6.1.2.1.1.16.1.1.1: Am I barking up the wrong tree completely with this? My aim was to script it all to output to a file for all the IP addresses of the printers and then plonk that in Excel for my lords and masters to digest at their leisure. I have a feeling I am using either the wrong MIB or the wrong OID from said MIB (or both). Does anyone have any pointers on this for me? Or should I give up and go back to navigationg each printers web page individually (hoping not).

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