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• How to become a good team player?

  - by Nick

  I've been programming (obsessively) since I was 12. I am fairly knowledgeable across the spectrum of languages out there, from assembly, to C++, to Javascript, to Haskell, Lisp, and Qi. But all of my projects have been by myself. I got my degree in chemical engineering, not CS or computer engineering, but for the first time this fall I'll be working on a large programming project with other people, and I have no clue how to prepare. I've been using Windows all of my life, but this project is going to be very unix-y, so I purchased a Mac recently in the hopes of familiarizing myself with the environment. I was fortunate to participate in a hackathon with some friends this past year -- both CS majors -- and excitingly enough, we won. But I realized as I worked with them that their workflow was very different from mine. They used Git for version control. I had never used it at the time, but I've since learned all that I can about it. They also used a lot of frameworks and libraries. I had to learn what Rails was pretty much overnight for the hackathon (on the other hand, they didn't know what lexical scoping or closures were). All of our code worked well, but they didn't understand mine, and I didn't understand theirs. I hear references to things that real programmers do on a daily basis -- unit testing, code reviews, but I only have the vaguest sense of what these are. I normally don't have many bugs in my little projects, so I have never needed a bug tracking system or tests for them. And the last thing is that it takes me a long time to understand other people's code. Variable naming conventions (that vary with each new language) are difficult (__mzkwpSomRidicAbbrev), and I find the loose coupling difficult. That's not to say I don't loosely couple things -- I think I'm quite good at it for my own work, but when I download something like the Linux kernel or the Chromium source code to look at it, I spend hours trying to figure out how all of these oddly named directories and files connect. It's a programming sin to reinvent the wheel, but I often find it's just quicker to write up the functionality myself than to spend hours dissecting some library. Obviously, people who do this for a living don't have these problems, and I'll need to get to that point myself. Question: What are some steps that I can take to begin "integrating" with everyone else? Thanks!

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• Handling bugs, quirks, or annoyances in vendor-supplied headers

  - by supercat

  If the header file supplied by a vendor of something with whom one's code must interact is deficient in some way, in what cases is it better to: Work around the header's deficiencies in the main code Copy the header file to the local project and fix it Fix the header file in the spot where it's stored as a vendor-supplied tool Fix the header file in the central spot, but also make a local copy and try to always have the two match Do something else As an example, the header file supplied by ST Micro for the STM320LF series contains the lines: typedef struct { __IO uint32_t MODER; __IO uint16_t OTYPER; uint16_t RESERVED0; .... __IO uint16_t BSRRL; /* BSRR register is split to 2 * 16-bit fields BSRRL */ __IO uint16_t BSRRH; /* BSRR register is split to 2 * 16-bit fields BSRRH */ .... } GPIO_TypeDef; In the hardware, and in the hardware documentation, BSRR is described as a single 32-bit register. About 98% of the time one wants to write to BSRR, one will only be interested in writing the upper half or the lower half; it is thus convenient to be able to use BSSRH and BSSRL as a means of writing half the register. On the other hand, there are occasions when it is necessary that the entire 32-bit register be written as a single atomic operation. The "optimal" way to write it (setting aside white-spacing issues) would be: typedef struct { __IO uint32_t MODER; __IO uint16_t OTYPER; uint16_t RESERVED0; .... union // Allow BSRR access as 32-bit register or two 16-bit registers { __IO uint32_t BSRR; // 32-bit BSSR register as a whole struct { __IO uint16_t BSRRL, BSRRH; };// Two 16-bit parts }; .... } GPIO_TypeDef; If the struct were defined that way, code could use BSRR when necessary to write all 32 bits, or BSRRH/BSRRL when writing 16 bits. Given that the header isn't that way, would better practice be to use the header as-is, but apply an icky typecast in the main code writing what would be idiomatically written as thePort->BSRR = 0x12345678; as *((uint32_t)&(thePort->BSSRH)) = 0x12345678;, or would be be better to use a patched header file? If the latter, where should the patched file me stored and how should it be managed?

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• Why is multithreading often preferred for improving performance?

  - by user1849534

  I have a question, it's about why programmers seems to love concurrency and multi-threaded programs in general. I'm considering 2 main approaches here: an async approach basically based on signals, or just an async approach as called by many papers and languages like the new C# 5.0 for example, and a "companion thread" that manages the policy of your pipeline a concurrent approach or multi-threading approach I will just say that I'm thinking about the hardware here and the worst case scenario, and I have tested this 2 paradigms myself, the async paradigm is a winner at the point that I don't get why people 90% of the time talk about multi-threading when they want to speed up things or make a good use of their resources. I have tested multi-threaded programs and async program on an old machine with an Intel quad-core that doesn't offer a memory controller inside the CPU, the memory is managed entirely by the motherboard, well in this case performances are horrible with a multi-threaded application, even a relatively low number of threads like 3-4-5 can be a problem, the application is unresponsive and is just slow and unpleasant. A good async approach is, on the other hand, probably not faster but it's not worst either, my application just waits for the result and doesn't hangs, it's responsive and there is a much better scaling going on. I have also discovered that a context change in the threading world it's not that cheap in real world scenario, it's in fact quite expensive especially when you have more than 2 threads that need to cycle and swap among each other to be computed. On modern CPUs the situation it's not really that different, the memory controller it's integrated but my point is that an x86 CPUs is basically a serial machine and the memory controller works the same way as with the old machine with an external memory controller on the motherboard. The context switch is still a relevant cost in my application and the fact that the memory controller it's integrated or that the newer CPU have more than 2 core it's not bargain for me. For what i have experienced the concurrent approach is good in theory but not that good in practice, with the memory model imposed by the hardware, it's hard to make a good use of this paradigm, also it introduces a lot of issues ranging from the use of my data structures to the join of multiple threads. Also both paradigms do not offer any security abut when the task or the job will be done in a certain point in time, making them really similar from a functional point of view. According to the X86 memory model, why the majority of people suggest to use concurrency with C++ and not just an async approach ? Also why not considering the worst case scenario of a computer where the context switch is probably more expensive than the computation itself ?

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• Tools for Enterprise Architects: OmniGraffle for iPad?

  - by pat.shepherd

  Well, I have to admit to being a bit of an Apple fan and, of course, and early adopter of gadgets and technology in general.  So, when FedEx showed up with my iPad 3G last week, I was a kid in a candy store.  One of the apps that my “buy finger” was hovering over for a while (like all of 3 days) was Omnigraffle for the iPad.  I imagined that it would be very cool to use this with a customer’s EA’s to sketch out Business, Application, Information and Technology architectures.  Instead of using the blackboard, this seemed to offer promise as a white-boarding tool with obvious benefits over a traditional white-board.  I figured I’d get a VGA adapter, plug it into the customer’s projector and off we would go with a great JAD tool.  The touch pad approach offered an additional hands-on kind of feel. So, I made the $49.99 purchase + the $29.99 VGA adapter and tried to give it a go.  Well, I was both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised.  It is both powerful and easy to use.  There are great stencils included for shapes, software icons, Visio shapes, and even UML notation.  There is even a free-hand tool that works well.  I created some diagrams pretty quickly.   The one below was just a test and took all of 10 minuets to do. The only problem was that Onmigraffle does not recognize the VGA output, so I was stopped dead in my tracks, as it were.  My use case was as a collaborative diagramming tool with other architects, though I can still use it off line.  I called Omnigraffle and they said that VGA support is on the feature request list so, hopefully, in a short amount of time, I can use the tool as I envisioned.   Review: Criteria Result Is it fun? Yes Is it Useful? Yes Does it Show Promise? Yes Did the VGA Output Work? No File/diagram Formats PDF, Onmigraffle proprietary, image   Quick Sample:     OmniGraffle for iPad - Products - The Omni Group

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• SFML 2.0 Too Many Variables in Class Preventing Draw To Screen

  - by Josh

  This is a very strange phenomenon to me. I have a class definition for a game, but when I add another variable to the class, the draw method does not print everything to the screen. It will be easier understood showing the code and output. Code for good draw output: class board { protected: RectangleShape rect; int top, left; int i, j; int rowSelect, columnSelect; CircleShape circleArr[4][10]; CircleShape codeArr[4]; CircleShape keyArr[4][10]; //int pegPresent[4]; public: board(void); void draw(RenderWindow& Window); int mouseOver(RenderWindow& Window); void placePeg(RenderWindow& Window, int pegSelect); }; Screen: Code for missing draw: class board { protected: RectangleShape rect; int top, left; int i, j; int rowSelect, columnSelect; CircleShape circleArr[4][10]; CircleShape codeArr[4]; CircleShape keyArr[4][10]; int pegPresent[4]; public: board(void); void draw(RenderWindow& Window); int mouseOver(RenderWindow& Window); void placePeg(RenderWindow& Window, int pegSelect); }; Screen: As you can see, all I do is un-comment the protected array and most of the pegs are gone from the right hand side. I have checked and made sure that I didn't accidentally created a variable with that name already. I haven't used it anywhere. Why does it not draw the remaining pegs as it should? My only thought is that maybe I am declaring too many variables for the class, but that doesn't really make sense to me. Any thoughts and help is greatly appreciated.

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• What are the drawbacks of sending XML to browsers and let them apply XSLT?

  - by MainMa

  Context Working as a freelance developer, I often made websites completely based on XSLT. In other words, on every request, an XML file is generated, containing everything we need to know about the page content: the name of the user currently logged in, the top menu entries, if this menu is dynamic/configurable, the text to display in a specific area of the page, etc. Then XSL process (caches, etc.) it to HTML/XHTML page to send to the browser. It has a good point to make it easier to create small-scale websites, especially with PHP. It is a sort of template engine, but which I prefer to other template engines because it's much more powerful than most of template engines, and because I know it better and like it. It is also possible, when need, to give an access to raw XML data on demand for an automated access, without the need to create separate APIs. Of course, it will fail completely on any medium-scale or large-scale website, since, even with good caching techniques, XSL still degrades overall website performance and requires more CPU serverside. Question Modern browsers have the ability to take an XML file and to transform it with an associated XSL file declared in XML like <?xml-stylesheet href="demo.xslt" type="text/xsl"?>. Firefox 3 can do it. Internet Explorer 8 can do it too. It means that it is possible to migrate XSL processing from the server to the client side for 50% of users (according on browser statistics on several websites where I may want to implement this). It means that those 50% of users will receive only the XML file at each request, thus reducing their and server's bandwidth (XML file being much shorter than its processed HTML analog), and reducing server's CPU usage. What are the drawbacks of this technique? I thought about several ones, but it doesn't apply in this situation: Difficult implementation and the need to choose, based on the browser request, when to send raw XML and when to transform it to HTML instead. Obviously, the system will not be much more difficult then the actual one. The only change to make is to add XSL file link to every XML, and to add a browser check. More IO and bandwidth usage, since the XSLT file will be downloaded by the browsers, instead of being cached by the server. I don't think it will be a problem, since XSLT file will be cached by the browsers (like images, or CSS, or JavaScript files are cached actually). Possibly some problems on client side, like maybe problems when saving a page in some browsers. Difficulty to debug code: it is impossible to obtain an HTML source the browser is actually using, since the only displayed source is the downloaded XML. On the other hand, I rarely go look at HTML code on client side, and in most cases, it is unusable directly (whitespace being removed).

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• Make the Taskbar Buttons Switch to the Last Active Window in Windows 7

  - by The Geek

  The new Windows 7 taskbar’s Aero Peek feature, with the live thumbnails of every window, is awesome… but sometimes you just want to be able to click the taskbar button and have the last open window show up instead. Here’s a quick hack to make it work better. To better understand the problem, imagine having nine windows of the same type open on your screen, but you are primarily working in just one of the windows at a time. So every time you want to switch back, you have to click the taskbar button, and then choose the one you are using from the list, which can be pretty annoying… Now if you know your Windows 7 shortcuts, you’d know that you can simply hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on the taskbar button, and the last window will show up. In fact, you can keep holding down the Ctrl key and keep clicking, and Windows will cycle through the open windows. It’s a useful shortcut, but hardly something you want to do every single time. Instead, we’ll use a quick registry hack to make the normal click switch to the last open window—if you still want to see the thumbnail list, just hover your mouse over the button for half a second to see the full list. Manual Registry Hack for Last Active Window Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then head down to the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced Once you’re there, create a new 32-bit DWORD value on the right hand side, give it the name LastActiveClick, and set the value to 1. Once you are done, it should look something like this: Once you are done, you’ll have to log off and back on, or you can kill Explorer.exe through Task Manager and re-open it. Download the Registry Hack Instead Since you probably don’t feel like registry hacking, we’ve provided you an easy downloadable version. You can simply download the file, extract it, and then double-click on the LastActiveClick.reg file. Once you are done, you’ll have to log off and back on, just like with the manual registry hack. Download LastActiveClick Registry Hack from howtogeek.com Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make the Windows 7 Taskbar Work More Like Windows XP or VistaStupid Geek Tricks: Select Multiple Windows on the TaskbarReorganize Your Taskbar Buttons and Tray Icons in XP/VistaKeyboard Ninja: Create a Hotkey to Switch to Your Open Outlook WindowTaskbar Eliminator Does What the Name Implies: Hides Your Windows Taskbar TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow

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• Unable to ping inside or outside network with default gateway 0.0.0.0

  - by agentroadkill

  I've been around here before and I could usually piece together everything to more or less get myself up and running, but this time I'm truly stumped. I'm trying to connect my new 14.04 install to a network, and I'm forced to be behind my college's router. Now I've tested the vary cable that is right now plugged into my Ubuntu box on a Windows, Mac OS X, and even my friend's Ubuntu 14.04 box, and they all connect no problem. I've been trying to track this down for about two days, but every time I get close to it, the bug jumps to some other piece of my connection. Anyway, as it sits ifconfig -a gives: eth2 Lninkencap:Ethernet HWaddr:00:1f:bc:08:31:1d inet addr:10.32.51.51 Bcast:10.32.51.155 Mask: 255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 RX bytes:0 TX bytes:0 as well as the local loopback, but I'm assuming that is not an issue here. sudo dhclient -v eth2 returns: Listening on LPF/<hardware address of my integrated NIC, above> Sending on <same> Sending on Socket/fallback DHCPREQUEST of 10.32.51.51 on eth2 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 (xid=0x6f4a66ba) <two more lines of same> DHCPDISCOVER on eth2 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3 (xid=0x156f9fb4) <many more of above with varying intervals> No DHCPOFFERS received. Trying recorded lease 10.32.51.51 RTNETLINK answers: File exists bound: renewal in <large number> seconds If I then try ping 8.8.8.8, I get: connect: Network is unreachable /etc/resolv.conf only contains the two lines telling you not to edit it, while /etc/network/interfaces only has the loopback interface block in it. I've tried commenting out the "option rfc3442" line in /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf which seemed to fix this issue for many people, as well as adding the line send vendor-class-indentifier "MSFT5.0" to dhclient.conf as well to tell the router I'm a windows box, in case they don't like Linux. Finally, route -n reveals: Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 10.32.51.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth2 I would like to apologize in advance for the doubtless butchered text alignment, but I'm obviously typing this all by hand, reading from the terminal as I type commands. I'm hoping this is an interesting problem, and not something I blithely stumbled past in my (apparent) over-confidence. TIA! Quick addendum before posting: The activity light on the ethernet port are lit and one blinks during boot, but they rarely (and seemingly randomly) do so afterwards (both are dark) even while running dhclient in the foreground. When I had the Ubuntu box tethered to my MacBook earlier, I got what looked like a normal power/uplink blinking pattern, but was unable to ping one from the other.

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• Duplicate ping response when running Ubuntu as virtual machine (VMWare)

  - by Stonerain

  I have the following setup: My router - 192.168.0.1 My host computer (Windows 7) - 192.168.0.3 And Ubuntu is running as virtual machine on the host. VMWare network settings is Bridged mode. I've modified Ubuntu network settings in /etc/netowrk/interfaces, set the following config: iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.0.220 netmask 255.255.255.0 network 192.168.0.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255 gateway 192.168.0.1 Internet works correctly, I can install packages. But it gets weird if I try to ping something I get this: PING belpak.by (193.232.248.80) 56(84) bytes of data. From 192.168.0.1 icmp_seq=1 Time to live exceeded From 192.168.0.1 icmp_seq=1 Time to live exceeded From 192.168.0.1 icmp_seq=1 Time to live exceeded From 192.168.0.1 icmp_seq=1 Time to live exceeded From 192.168.0.1 icmp_seq=1 Time to live exceeded 64 bytes from belhost.by (193.232.248.80): icmp_seq=1 ttl=250 time=17.0 ms 64 bytes from belhost.by (193.232.248.80): icmp_seq=1 ttl=249 time=17.0 ms (DUP! ) 64 bytes from belhost.by (193.232.248.80): icmp_seq=1 ttl=248 time=17.0 ms (DUP! ) 64 bytes from belhost.by (193.232.248.80): icmp_seq=1 ttl=247 time=17.0 ms (DUP! ) 64 bytes from belhost.by (193.232.248.80): icmp_seq=1 ttl=246 time=17.0 ms (DUP! ) ^CFrom 192.168.0.1 icmp_seq=2 Time to live exceeded --- belpak.by ping statistics --- 2 packets transmitted, 1 received, +4 duplicates, +6 errors, 50% packet loss, ti me 999ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 17.023/17.041/17.048/0.117 ms I think even more interesting are the results of pinging the router itself: stonerain@ubuntu:~$ ping 192.168.0.1 -c 1 PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data. From 192.168.0.3: icmp_seq=1 Redirect Network(New nexthop: 192.168.0.1) 64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=254 time=6.64 ms --- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 6.644/6.644/6.644/0.000 ms But if I set -c 2: ... 64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=252 time=13.5 ms (DUP!) 64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=251 time=13.5 ms (DUP!) 64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=254 time=13.5 ms (DUP!) 64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=253 time=13.5 ms (DUP!) 64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=252 time=13.5 ms (DUP!) 64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=251 time=13.5 ms (DUP!) From 192.168.0.3: icmp_seq=2 Redirect Network(New nexthop: 192.168.0.1) 64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=254 time=7.87 ms --- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics --- 2 packets transmitted, 2 received, +256 duplicates, 0% packet loss, time 1002ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 6.666/10.141/13.556/2.410 ms Pinging host machine on the other hand works absolutely correctly: no DUPs, no errors. What seems to be the problem and how can I fix it? Thank you.

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• Harnessing Business Events for Predictive Decision Making - part 1 / 3

  - by Sanjeev Sharma

  Businesses have long relied on data mining to elicit patterns and forecast future demand and supply trends. Improvements in computing hardware, specifically storage and compute capacity, have significantly enhanced the ability to store and analyze mountains of data in ever shrinking time-frames. Nevertheless, the reality is that data growth is outpacing storage capacity by a factor of two and computing power is still very much bounded by Moore's Law, doubling only every 18 months.Faced with this data explosion, businesses are exploring means to develop human brain-like capabilities in their decision systems (including BI and Analytics) to make sense of the data storm, in other words business events, in real-time and respond pro-actively rather than re-actively. It is more like having a little bit of the right information just a little bit before hand than having all of the right information after the fact. To appreciate this thought better let's first understand the workings of the human brain.Neuroscience research has revealed that the human brain is predictive in nature and that talent is nothing more than exceptional predictive ability. The cerebral-cortex, part of the human brain responsible for cognition, thought, language etc., comprises of five layers. The lowest layer in the hierarchy is responsible for sensory perception i.e. discrete, detail-oriented tasks whereas each of the above layers increasingly focused on assembling higher-order conceptual models. Information flows both up and down the layered memory hierarchy. This allows the conceptual mental-models to be refined over-time through experience and repetition. Secondly, and more importantly, the top-layers are able to prime the lower layers to anticipate certain events based on the existing mental-models thereby giving the brain a predictive ability. In a way the human brain develops a "memory of the future", some sort of an anticipatory thinking which let's it predict based on occurrence of events in real-time. A higher order of predictive ability stems from being able to recognize the lack of certain events. For instance, it is one thing to recognize the beats in a music track and another to detect beats that were missed, which involves a higher order predictive ability.Existing decision systems analyze historical data to identify patterns and use statistical forecasting techniques to drive planning. They are similar to the human-brain in that they employ business rules very much like mental-models to chunk and classify information. However unlike the human brain existing decision systems are unable to evolve these rules automatically (AI still best suited for highly specific tasks) and  predict the future based on real-time business events. Mistake me not,  existing decision systems remain vital to driving long-term and broader business planning. For instance, a telco will still rely on BI and Analytics software to plan promotions and optimize inventory but tap into business events enabled predictive insight to identify specifically which customers are likely to churn and engage with them pro-actively. In the next post, i will depict the technology components that enable businesses to harness real-time events and drive predictive decision making.

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-10-12

  - by Bob Rhubart

  This is your brain on IT architecture. Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Los Angeles, Oct 25 This is your brain on IT architecture. Stuff your cranium with architecture by attending Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Los Angeles, October 25, 2012, at the Sofitel Los Angeles, 8555 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048. Technical sessions, panel Q&A, and peer roundtables--plus a free lunch. Register now. WebCenter Sites Gadget Development Concepts Quickstart | John Brunswick What are Gadgets? "At their most basic level they can be thought of as lightweight portlets that run largely on the client side of an architecture," says John Brunswick. "Gadgets provide a cross-platform container to run reusable UI modules that generally expose dynamic information to an end user, allowing for some level of end user customization." ORCLville: OOW 2012 - A Not So Brief Recap Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter, an Applications & Apps Technology specialists, shares his personal, frank, and and extensive recap or Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Fusion Applications Technical Tips | Naveen Nahata "Setting memory parameters for Admin and Managed servers of various domains in Fusion Applications can be, let us say, a little daunting," says Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team member Naveen Nahata. "While all this may look complicated and intimidating, it is actually relatively simple once you understand how it all works." Following the Thread in OSB | Antony Reynolds Antony Reynolds recently led an Oracle Service Bus POC in which his team needed to get high throughput from an OSB pipeline. "Imagine our surprise when, on stressing the system, we saw it lock up, with large numbers of blocked threads." He shares the details of the problem and the solution in this extensive technical post. ExaLogic Hackers Night - November 19th Nürnberg Germany | WebLogic Partner Community EMEA Want to get your hands on Oracle Exalogic? Make your way to Nürnberg, Germany for this Exalogic Hacker's Night on November 19, 2012. Experts will be on hand to help you test your ideas. (The blog post is in English, but the event registration page is in German.) Thought for the Day "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds…" — Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• How do you automate a SharePoint 2010 deployment?

  - by Enrique Lima

  In the last couple of months SharePoint traffic (consulting, training and speaking) has picked up.  And with that also the requests for deployments.  There are good, great, bad and really bad things around this. But that is for another topic.  However part of the good and great has been the fact of organizations wanting to do a proof of concept deployment (even when WSS or MOSS has been deployed). We can go through a session (Microsoft has the SDPS concept, SharePoint Deployment Planning Services) of discovering what the customer wants to achieve from their investment in the platform and then also proceed to model the solution that would fit their needs.  But it should not stop there.  The next step should be a POC (as many have requested) to test out. Now, on to the meat of this post.  How do I deploy?  While it is a good process to watch and see all of it take place, not many have the time to sit through that.  Even more so, when that has been part of the description of deploying the platform in the sessions mentioned above. I will, though, break it into a deployment for development purposes and a deployment of a farm. Two tools (or scripts) for those two different types of deployment. First, let me address the development environment.  Around the last week in October, Chris Johnson (SharePoint Product Team) announced a SharePoint Easy Setup for Developers.  The kit itself will assist you in installing SharePoint Server (in standalone mode), the tools that go around Visual Studio, Expression Studio and the Office 2010 tools. Here is the link to Chris’ post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cjohnson/archive/2010/10/28/announcing-sharepoint-easy-setup-for-developers.aspx The other scenario is the use of a script in assisting you through the deployment of a farm. Now, this is not to override planning.  It should highlight the need for planning even more.  How?  Having your service accounts planned, the structure of the sites and the scale of your deployment.  Enter AutoSPInstaller.  This is a CodePlex project, and the intent behind this is not only to automate the installation but to give some meaning and get some sense out of what goes on during a SharePoint deployment. How?  Take for example the creation of the databases, when we do the initial OOB deployment by using the wizard, more times than not, we leave the names as they are.  How is that a “bad thing”?  Let’s make it a better practice to rename those Databases, and have them take on a name that is not “GUID-ized”. Having a better naming convention will not hurt, on the other hand will allow for consistency. Here is the link to AutoSPInstaller’s site on CodePlex: http://autospinstaller.codeplex.com/

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• What is 'Ubuntu Unity' (for the Desktop)?

  - by Martin

  Ok, so there's the buzz of Canonical (wanting to) switch for new Ubuntu version from the GNOME default desktop to their own Unity shell. (I hope that's accurate.) It seems I can not totally fathom what Unity actually is. For looking at its homepage it currently is firmly targeted at netbooks and the somehow different usage model on these. Is it a classical desktop? -- Taskbar? Shortcuts? Is the difference between Ubuntu(GNOME)+Unity more/less pronounced than the difference between Ubuntu and Kubuntu? Will "my parents" be able to get the interface if they've been using the classical gnome desktop so far? Edit: I would not like to split this up into more specific questions, as What is Unity? is exactly what the people I set up Ubuntu boxes for will ask me if they hear that the newer Ubuntu version is using that instead of the Desktop -- and it might well happen someone phrases it like that :-) I will certainly not give them the link to the HP as the explanation there does not lay out if it is a desktop or something more or something less: (It does not for me - therefore I'm asking here.) Unity is designed for netbooks and related touch-based devices. It includes [...] that makes it fast and easy to access [...] while removing screen elements that are rarely used in mobile and netbook computing. (emphasis mine) -- the explanation there doesn't even mention the desktop-PC! Unity has a vertical task management panel on the left-hand side and a menu panel at the top of the screen. [...] This sounds like a re-themed normal desktop. Clicking on an icon will give the target application focus if it is already running or launch it if it is not already running. If you click the ... Aha. Sounds like Windows 7. ... icon of an application that already has focus, Unity will activate an Expose-style view of all the open windows associated with that application. No clue what that's supposed to be. So it would really be nice if someone could explain for non desktop-design-terms experts what Unity is.

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• Agile Documentation

  - by Nick Harrison

  We all know that one of the premises of the agile manifesto is to value Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation. This is a wonderful idea and it takes a tremendous burden off of project implementations. I have seen as many projects fail because of the maintenance weight of the project documentations as I have for any reason. But this goal as important as it is may not always be practical. Sometimes the client will simply insist on tedious documentation despite the arguments against it. This may be to calm a nervous client. This may be to satisfy an audit / compliance requirement. This may be a non-too subtle attempt at sabotaging the project. Ok, it is probably not an all out attempt to sabotage the project, but it will probably feel that way. So what can we do to keep to the spirit of the Agile Manifesto but still meet the needs of the client wanting the documentation? This is a good question that I have been puzzling over lately! I hope to explore some possible answers more fully here. A common theme that my solutions are likely to follow is the same theme that I often follow with simplifying complex business logic. Make it table driven! My thought is that the sought after documentation could be a report or reports out of a metadata repository. Reports are much easier to maintain than hand written documentation. Here are a few additional advantages that we can explore over time: Reports will take advantage of the fact that different people have different needs and different format requirements Reports and the supporting metadata are more easily validated and the validation can be automated. If the application itself uses this metadata than there never has to be a question as to whether or not the metadata is up to date. It is up to date or the application would not work. In many cases we should be able to automatically gather most of the Meta data that we need using reflection, system tables, etc. I think that this will lower the total cost of ownership for the documentation and may provide something useful beyond having a pretty document to look at.  What are your thoughts?

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• How to display image in second layer in Cocos2d

  - by PeterK

  I am very new at Cocos2d and is testing to displaying an image over the "Hello World" text on a second layer and need help to get it work. I guess it is some basic stuff here and appreciate any tips etc. with this. I know that if i put the display-code (myLayer1) in the "init" it work or do the call [self goHere] from the "init" in myLayer1 it works but i want to call the "goHere" directly. I have the following code: HelloWorld.m: #import "HelloWorldLayer.h" #import "myLayer1.h" // HelloWorldLayer implementation @implementation HelloWorldLayer +(CCScene *) scene { // 'scene' is an autorelease object. CCScene *scene = [CCScene node]; // 'layer' is an autorelease object. HelloWorldLayer *layer = [HelloWorldLayer node]; myLayer1 *layer1 = [myLayer1 node]; // add layer as a child to scene [scene addChild: layer]; [scene addChild: layer1]; // return the scene return scene; } // on "init" you need to initialize your instance -(id) init { // always call "super" init // Apple recommends to re-assign "self" with the "super" return value if( (self=[super init])) { // create and initialize a Label CCLabelTTF *label = [CCLabelTTF labelWithString:@"Hello World" fontName:@"Marker Felt" fontSize:64]; // ask director the the window size CGSize size = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize]; // position the label on the center of the screen label.position = ccp( size.width /2 , size.height/2 ); // add the label as a child to this Layer [self addChild: label]; myLayer1 *a1 = [myLayer1 new]; [a1 goHere]; [myLayer1 release]; } return self; } myLayer1.m: #import "myLayer1.h" @implementation myLayer1 -(void)goHere { NSLog(@">>>>goHere<<<<"); CGSize size = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSize]; CCSprite *vv = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:@"hand.png"]; vv.position = ccp( size.width /2 , size.height/2 ); [self addChild:vv z:3]; } -(id) init { // always call "super" init // Apple recommends to re-assign "self" with the "super" return value if( (self=[super init])) { } return self; } @end

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• Are closures with side-effects considered "functional style"?

  - by Giorgio

  Many modern programming languages support some concept of closure, i.e. of a piece of code (a block or a function) that Can be treated as a value, and therefore stored in a variable, passed around to different parts of the code, be defined in one part of a program and invoked in a totally different part of the same program. Can capture variables from the context in which it is defined, and access them when it is later invoked (possibly in a totally different context). Here is an example of a closure written in Scala: def filterList(xs: List[Int], lowerBound: Int): List[Int] = xs.filter(x => x >= lowerBound) The function literal x => x >= lowerBound contains the free variable lowerBound, which is closed (bound) by the argument of the function filterList that has the same name. The closure is passed to the library method filter, which can invoke it repeatedly as a normal function. I have been reading a lot of questions and answers on this site and, as far as I understand, the term closure is often automatically associated with functional programming and functional programming style. The definition of function programming on wikipedia reads: In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids state and mutable data. It emphasizes the application of functions, in contrast to the imperative programming style, which emphasizes changes in state. and further on [...] in functional code, the output value of a function depends only on the arguments that are input to the function [...]. Eliminating side effects can make it much easier to understand and predict the behavior of a program, which is one of the key motivations for the development of functional programming. On the other hand, many closure constructs provided by programming languages allow a closure to capture non-local variables and change them when the closure is invoked, thus producing a side effect on the environment in which they were defined. In this case, closures implement the first idea of functional programming (functions are first-class entities that can be moved around like other values) but neglect the second idea (avoiding side-effects). Is this use of closures with side effects considered functional style or are closures considered a more general construct that can be used both for a functional and a non-functional programming style? Is there any literature on this topic? IMPORTANT NOTE I am not questioning the usefulness of side-effects or of having closures with side effects. Also, I am not interested in a discussion about the advantages / disadvantages of closures with or without side effects. I am only interested to know if using such closures is still considered functional style by the proponent of functional programming or if, on the contrary, their use is discouraged when using a functional style.

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• How can I diagnose/debug "maximum number of clients reached" X errors?

  - by jmtd

  Hi, I'm hitting a problem whereby X prevents processes from creating windows, uttering something like the following into ~/.xsession-errors: cannot open display: :0.0 Maximum number of clients reached Searching around there are lots of examples of people facing this problem, and sometimes people identify which program they are running is using up all the client slots. See e.g. LP 70872 (Firefox), LP 263211 (gnome-screensaver). For what it's worth, I run gnome-terminal, thunderbird, chromium-browser, empathy, tomboy and virtualbox nearly all the time, on top of the normal stuff you get with the GNOME desktop, and occasionally some other bits and pieces. However my question is not "which of my programs is causing this problem" but rather, how can one go about diagnosing this problem? In the above (and other) bugs, forum reports, etc., a number of tools are suggested: xlsclients - lists the client applications for the given display, but I don't think that corresponds to 'X clients' xrestop - a top-style X resources tool, one row per X client. Lots of '' clients, not shown in xlsclients output xwininfo -root -children lists X window objects From what I can gather, the problem might not be too many clients at all, but rather resources kept around in the X server for clients who have long-since detached. But it would also appear that you cannot (easily?) relate X resources back to their client. Can one effectively diagnose this issue once it has started to occur, or is a tedious divide-and-conquer approach for the apps I run the only approach open to me? Update Jan 2011: I think I have resolved this issue. For the benefit of anyone stumbling across this, nautilus and/or compiz or something in that chain of software was segfaulting due to a wallpaper I had. I had chosen an XML file as my wallpaper, which defined a rotating gallery of images. It was hand-made, but based on /usr/share/backgrounds/contest/background-1.xml or similar. Disabling the wallpaper and I have not had a crash since. I'm not marking this as answered yet, since the actual specific problem was not my question, but how to diagnose it was. Unfortunately this was mostly trial-and-error which sucks.

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• Best Practices for High Volume CPA Import Operations with ebXML in B2B 11g

  - by Shub Lahiri, A-Team

  Background B2B 11g supports ebXML messaging protocol, where multiple CPAs can be imported via command-line utilities.  This note highlights one aspect of the best practices for import of CPA, when large numbers of CPAs in the excess of several hundreds are required to be maintained within the B2B repository. Symptoms The import of CPA usually is a 2-step process, namely creating a soa.zip file using b2bcpaimport utility based on a CPA properties file and then using b2bimport to import the b2b repository.  The commands are provided below: ant -f ant-b2b-util.xml b2bcpaimport -Dpropfile="<Path to cpp_cpa.properties>" -Dstandard=true ant -f ant-b2b-util.xml b2bimport -Dlocalfile=true -Dexportfile="<Path to soa.zip>" -Doverwrite=true Usually the first command completes fairly quickly regardless of the number of CPAs in the repository. However, as the number of trading partners within the repository goes up, the time to complete the second command could go up to ~30 secs per operation. So, this could add up to a significant amount, if there is a need to import hundreds of CPA in a production system within a limited downtime, maintenance window.  Remedy In situations, where there is a large number of entries to be imported, it is best to setup a staging environment and go through the import operation of each individual CPA in an empty repository. Since, this will be done in an empty repository, the time taken for completion should be reasonable.  After all the partner profiles have been imported, a full repository export can be taken to capture the metadata for all the entries in one file.  If this single file with all the partner entries is imported in a loaded repository, the total time taken for import of all the CPAs should see a dramatic reduction. Results Let us take a look at the numbers to see the benefit of this approach. With a pre-loaded repository of ~400 partners, the individual import time for each entry takes ~30 secs. So, if we had to import another 100 partners, the individual entries will take ~50 minutes (100 times ~30 secs). On the other hand, if we prepare the repository export file of the same 100 partners from a staging environment earlier, the import takes about ~5 mins. The total processing time for the loading of metadata, specially in a production environment, can thus be shortened by almost a factor of 10. Summary The following diagram summarizes the entire approach and process. Acknowledgements The material posted here has been compiled with the help from B2B Engineering and Product Management teams.

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• I cannot remove/install software some dependency issue?

  - by Ryuzaki

  I'm having difficulty trying to install/uninstall applications in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I have this warning error that appears on my desktop in the form of a red icon with a line through it and it states: An error occurred, please run Package Manager from the right-click menu or apt-get in a terminal to see what is wrong. The error message was: 'Error: BrokenCount 0' — This usually means that your installed packages have unmet dependencies. I tried to repair automatically through ubuntu software center and I kept getting errors or it just didn't seem to work. Afterwards, I opened terminal and used sudo apt-get check command to see what the problem was and the results yielded: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these. The following packages have unmet dependencies: libjack-jackd2-0 : Breaks: libjack-jackd2-0:i386 (!= 1.9.8~dfsg.1-1ubuntu1) but 1.9.8~dfsg.2-1precise1 is installed libjack-jackd2-0:i386 : Breaks: libjack-jackd2-0 (!= 1.9.8~dfsg.2-1precise1) but 1.9.8~dfsg.1-1ubuntu1 is installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f. After I ran sudo apt-get -f install (in an attempt to fix the issue at hand), I encountered the following errors/code: okudaira@haru-kano:~$ sudo apt-get -f install Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies... Done The following extra packages will be installed: libjack-jackd2-0 Suggested packages: jackd2 The following packages will be upgraded: libjack-jackd2-0 1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 24 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 0 B/197 kB of archives. After this operation, 3,072 B of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y (Reading database ... 181702 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace libjack-jackd2-0 1.9.8~dfsg.1-1ubuntu1 (using .../libjack-jackd2-0_1.9.8~dfsg.2-1precise1_amd64.deb) ... Unpacking replacement libjack-jackd2-0 ... dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libjack-jackd2-0_1.9.8~dfsg.2-1precise1_amd64.deb (--unpack): './usr/share/doc/libjack-jackd2-0/buildinfo.gz' is different from the same file on the system dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe) Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/libjack-jackd2-0_1.9.8~dfsg.2-1precise1_amd64.deb localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/locale: 0 KiB localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/man: 0 KiB localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/gnome/help: 0 KiB localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/omf: 0 KiB Total disk space freed by localepurge: 0 KiB E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) The real problem I'm having is interpreting what is being stated. I'm fairly new to the ubuntu experience so I'm not very well-versed with the terminology and the entire in's and out's. Can someone tell me what's wrong with my system? I can no longer install/remove any programs at all.

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• C++11 Tidbits: Decltype (Part 2, trailing return type)

  - by Paolo Carlini

  Following on from last tidbit showing how the decltype operator essentially queries the type of an expression, the second part of this overview discusses how decltype can be syntactically combined with auto (itself the subject of the March 2010 tidbit). This combination can be used to specify trailing return types, also known informally as "late specified return types". Leaving aside the technical jargon, a simple example from section 8.3.5 of the C++11 standard usefully introduces this month's topic. Let's consider a template function like: template <class T, class U> ??? foo(T t, U u) { return t + u; } The question is: what should replace the question marks? The problem is that we are dealing with a template, thus we don't know at the outset the types of T and U. Even if they were restricted to be arithmetic builtin types, non-trivial rules in C++ relate the type of the sum to the types of T and U. In the past - in the GNU C++ runtime library too - programmers used to address these situations by way of rather ugly tricks involving __typeof__ which now, with decltype, could be rewritten as: template <class T, class U> decltype((*(T*)0) + (*(U*)0)) foo(T t, U u) { return t + u; } Of course the latter is guaranteed to work only for builtin arithmetic types, eg, '0' must make sense. In short: it's a hack. On the other hand, in C++11 you can use auto: template <class T, class U> auto foo(T t, U u) -> decltype(t + u) { return t + u; } This is much better. It's generic and a construct fully supported by the language. Finally, let's see a real-life example directly taken from the C++11 runtime library as implemented in GCC: template<typename _IteratorL, typename _IteratorR> inline auto operator-(const reverse_iterator<_IteratorL>& __x, const reverse_iterator<_IteratorR>& __y) -> decltype(__y.base() - __x.base()) { return __y.base() - __x.base(); } By now it should appear be completely straightforward. The availability of trailing return types in C++11 allowed fixing a real bug in the C++98 implementation of this operator (and many similar ones). In GCC, C++98 mode, this operator is: template<typename _IteratorL, typename _IteratorR> inline typename reverse_iterator<_IteratorL>::difference_type operator-(const reverse_iterator<_IteratorL>& __x, const reverse_iterator<_IteratorR>& __y) { return __y.base() - __x.base(); } This was guaranteed to work well with heterogeneous reverse_iterator types only if difference_type was the same for both types.

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• SharePoint Thoughts

  - by Tim Murphy

  I was listening to .NET Rocks episode #713 and it got me thinking about a number of SharePoint related topics. I have been working with SharePoint since the 2001 product came out and have watched it evolve over the years.  Today SharePoint is one of the most powerful and flexible products in the market.  Of course that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement (a lot of improvement in fact) and with much power comes much responsibility. My main gripe these days is that you have to develop on a server instance.  This adds a real barrier to entry for developers.  You either have to run VMWare or Hyper-V on your developer machine or actually develop on your dev server for most tasks.  Yes, there is a way to setup a Windows 7 machine with the SharePoint components but it is very hackish. Beyond that the tools in VS2010 are a great leap forward from past generations.  Not requiring a separate package creation tool is not the least of the improvements.  Better workflow and web part development have also eased the burden of many developers. The other thing the show brought up in my thoughts was more around usage.  Users want to be able to self server everything without regard to what affect that has on leveraging their data from a corporate perspective.  My coworkers who work on Lotus Notes ask why the user can’t just do what ever they want? Part of the reason is that those features have not been built, but the other part is that giving them those features is often like giving an infant a loaded hand gun.  You can do it but it doesn’t make it the smart thing to do. As with any tool that is going to be used in the enterprise it should be subject to governance.  If controls are not in place as they said in the episode of DNR the document libraries and I believe SharePoint in general starts to look as disarrayed and unusable as a shared drive.  Consider these factors before giving into every whim of the users.  You should be able to explain to them the tradeoffs of giving them full control versus being able to leverage the information they collect to the benefit of the organization. These are just a couple of the thoughts that were triggered by the show.  I’m sure there are more discussions that can be had.  Feel free to leave your comments about the pros and cons of SharePoint. del.icio.us Tags: .NET Rocks,SharePoint,software development

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• Portland Silverlight User Group: WP7 &amp; XNA &ndash; I survived.

  - by George Clingerman

  Last night I gave a talk to the Portland Silverlight User Group. http://www.portlandsilverlight.net/Meetings/Details/15 And I survived (which you should have probably already figured out since you’re reading this post AND that’s what I titled it…) Really though it was a fantastic time and I had a lot of fun! I was a little nervous getting ready for it, but I’m always a little nervous getting ready for things. I had the game all written,  I knew the general flow for what the talk was going to be. I read over Scott Hanselman’s 11 Top Tips for a Successful Technical presentation (which has become something I do EVERY time I’m preparing for a talk). I gave myself a brief list of points I wanted to make sure I covered or worked into the talk. But then I was ready and I waited. I hate the waiting. It makes me nervous. Once I was up in front of the room though with my laptop open and some XNA code in front of me, my nerves go away. Then I’m ready. I know XNA, I love talking about XNA and I love sharing what I know and hearing questions that make me think. And hopefully that came through while I was talking. I had a freaking blast. The swag went quickly (and I was even able to hand out some XNA 2.0 books that have been around forever!) and the pizza was been gobbled down. I started the talk at about 6:10 and managed to cover a very brief intro to programming against the game loop (it’s a different concept and one that seems to trip a lot of people up getting started with game development) and then rolled into making a basic 2D game for Windows Phone 7 using XNA. And I finished the whole thing before 8:30. Wahoo! I’m planning on posting the source code and assets on my site so those should be coming soon. And to make things even better, they recorded the whole thing on video so everyone will get to see me pretend I can speak! Just wait till you hear the new song I wrote for this talk…

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• Announcing the Next AppAdvantage IT Leader Documentary

  - by Tanu Sood

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Close on the heels of the very successful launch of Oracle BPM 12c, we are so excited to be announcing the next video in the Oracle AppAdvantage IT Leaders Series. As you know, the Oracle AppAdvantage IT Leaders Series profiles a successful executive in an industry leading organization that has embarked on a business transformation or platform modernization journey by taking full advantage of the Oracle AppAdvantage pace layered architecture. Tune in on Tuesday, September 9th at 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern to catch our IT executive, Regis Louis in an in-depth conversation with IT executives from Siram S.p.a., a major energy services management company in Italy. The documentary will explore how the company is doing process orchestration and business process management to build inter-department collaboration, maintain data integrity and offer complete transparency throughout their Request for Proposal (RFP) process. Oracle’s technology expert will then do a comprehensive walk-through of Siram’s IT model, the various components and how Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies are enabling their Oracle E-Business Suite processes. Experts will be at hand to answer your questions live. Check out this live documentary webcast and find out how organizations like yours are building business agility leveraging existing investments in Oracle Applications. Register today. And if you are on twitter, send your questions to @OracleMiddle with #ITLeader, #AppAdvantage. We look forward to connecting with you on Tue, Sep 9. Siram Achieves Commercial Efficiency with Improved Business Process Agility Date: Tuesday, September 9, 2014 Time: 10:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM ET /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Learning by doing (and programming by trial and error)

  - by AlexBottoni

  How do you learn a new platform/toolkit while producing working code and keeping your codebase clean? When I know what I can do with the underlying platform and toolkit, I usually do this: I create a new branch (with GIT, in my case) I write a few unit tests (with JUnit, for example) I write my code until it passes my tests So far, so good. The problem is that very often I do not know what I can do with the toolkit because it is brand new to me. I work as a consulant so I cannot have my preferred language/platform/toolkit. I have to cope with whatever the customer uses for the task at hand. Most often, I have to deal (often in a hurry) with a large toolkit that I know very little so I'm forced to "learn by doing" (actually, programming by "trial and error") and this makes me anxious. Please note that, at some point in the learning process, usually I already have: read one or more five-stars books followed one or more web tutorials (writing working code a line at a time) created a couple of small experimental projects with my IDE (IntelliJ IDEA, at the moment. I use Eclipse, Netbeans and others, as well.) Despite all my efforts, at this point usually I can just have a coarse understanding of the platform/toolkit I have to use. I cannot yet grasp each and every detail. This means that each and every new feature that involves some data preparation and some non-trivial algorithm is a pain to implement and requires a lot of trial-and-error. Unfortunately, working by trial-and-error is neither safe nor easy. Actually, this is the phase that makes me most anxious: experimenting with a new toolkit while producing working code and keeping my codebase clean. Usually, at this stage I cannot use the Eclipse Scrapbook because the code I have to write is already too large and complex for this small tool. In the same way, I cannot use any more an indipendent small project for my experiments because I need to try the new code in place. I can just write my code in place and rely on GIT for a safe bail-out. This makes me anxious because this kind of intertwined, half-ripe code can rapidly become incredibly hard to manage. How do you face this phase of the development process? How do you learn-by-doing without making a mess of your codebase? Any tips&tricks, best practice or something like that?

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• Self-Executing Anonymous Function vs Prototype

  - by Robotsushi

  In Javascript there are a few clearly prominent techniques for create and manage classes/namespaces in javascript. I am curious what situations warrant using one technique vs. the other. I want to pick one and stick with it moving forward. I write enterprise code that is maintained and shared across multiple teams, and I want to know what is the best practice when writing maintainable javascript ? I tend to prefer Self-Executing Anonymous Functions however I am curious what the community vote is on these techniques. Prototype : function obj() { } obj.prototype.test = function() { alert('Hello?'); }; var obj2 = new obj(); obj2.test(); Self-Closing Anonymous Function : //Self-Executing Anonymous Function (function( skillet, $, undefined ) { //Private Property var isHot = true; //Public Property skillet.ingredient = "Bacon Strips"; //Public Method skillet.fry = function() { var oliveOil; addItem( "\t\n Butter \n\t" ); addItem( oliveOil ); console.log( "Frying " + skillet.ingredient ); }; //Private Method function addItem( item ) { if ( item !== undefined ) { console.log( "Adding " + $.trim(item) ); } } }( window.skillet = window.skillet || {}, jQuery )); //Public Properties console.log( skillet.ingredient ); //Bacon Strips //Public Methods skillet.fry(); //Adding Butter & Fraying Bacon Strips //Adding a Public Property skillet.quantity = "12"; console.log( skillet.quantity ); //12 //Adding New Functionality to the Skillet (function( skillet, $, undefined ) { //Private Property var amountOfGrease = "1 Cup"; //Public Method skillet.toString = function() { console.log( skillet.quantity + " " + skillet.ingredient + " & " + amountOfGrease + " of Grease" ); console.log( isHot ? "Hot" : "Cold" ); }; }( window.skillet = window.skillet || {}, jQuery )); //end of skillet definition try { //12 Bacon Strips & 1 Cup of Grease skillet.toString(); //Throws Exception } catch( e ) { console.log( e.message ); //isHot is not defined } I feel that I should mention that the Self-Executing Anonymous Function is the pattern used by the jQuery team. Update When I asked this question I didn't truly see the importance of what I was trying to understand. The real issue at hand is whether or not to use new to create instances of your objects or to use patterns which do not require constructors of the use of the new keyword. I added my own answer, because in my opinion we should make use of patterns which don't use the new keyword. For more information please see my answer.

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