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  • Benchmarking MySQL Replication with Multi-Threaded Slaves

    - by Mat Keep
    0 0 1 1145 6530 Homework 54 15 7660 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;} The objective of this benchmark is to measure the performance improvement achieved when enabling the Multi-Threaded Slave enhancement delivered as a part MySQL 5.6. As the results demonstrate, Multi-Threaded Slaves delivers 5x higher replication performance based on a configuration with 10 databases/schemas. For real-world deployments, higher replication performance directly translates to: · Improved consistency of reads from slaves (i.e. reduced risk of reading "stale" data) · Reduced risk of data loss should the master fail before replicating all events in its binary log (binlog) The multi-threaded slave splits processing between worker threads based on schema, allowing updates to be applied in parallel, rather than sequentially. This delivers benefits to those workloads that isolate application data using databases - e.g. multi-tenant systems deployed in cloud environments. Multi-Threaded Slaves are just one of many enhancements to replication previewed as part of the MySQL 5.6 Development Release, which include: · Global Transaction Identifiers coupled with MySQL utilities for automatic failover / switchover and slave promotion · Crash Safe Slaves and Binlog · Optimized Row Based Replication · Replication Event Checksums · Time Delayed Replication These and many more are discussed in the “MySQL 5.6 Replication: Enabling the Next Generation of Web & Cloud Services” Developer Zone article  Back to the benchmark - details are as follows. Environment The test environment consisted of two Linux servers: · one running the replication master · one running the replication slave. Only the slave was involved in the actual measurements, and was based on the following configuration: - Hardware: Oracle Sun Fire X4170 M2 Server - CPU: 2 sockets, 6 cores with hyper-threading, 2930 MHz. - OS: 64-bit Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.1 - Memory: 48 GB Test Procedure Initial Setup: Two MySQL servers were started on two different hosts, configured as replication master and slave. 10 sysbench schemas were created, each with a single table: CREATE TABLE `sbtest` (    `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,    `k` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',    `c` char(120) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',    `pad` char(60) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',    PRIMARY KEY (`id`),    KEY `k` (`k`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 10,000 rows were inserted in each of the 10 tables, for a total of 100,000 rows. When the inserts had replicated to the slave, the slave threads were stopped. The slave data directory was copied to a backup location and the slave threads position in the master binlog noted. 10 sysbench clients, each configured with 10 threads, were spawned at the same time to generate a random schema load against each of the 10 schemas on the master. Each sysbench client executed 10,000 "update key" statements: UPDATE sbtest set k=k+1 WHERE id = <random row> In total, this generated 100,000 update statements to later replicate during the test itself. Test Methodology: The number of slave workers to test with was configured using: SET GLOBAL slave_parallel_workers=<workers> Then the slave IO thread was started and the test waited for all the update queries to be copied over to the relay log on the slave. The benchmark clock was started and then the slave SQL thread was started. The test waited for the slave SQL thread to finish executing the 100k update queries, doing "select master_pos_wait()". When master_pos_wait() returned, the benchmark clock was stopped and the duration calculated. The calculated duration from the benchmark clock should be close to the time it took for the SQL thread to execute the 100,000 update queries. The 100k queries divided by this duration gave the benchmark metric, reported as Queries Per Second (QPS). Test Reset: The test-reset cycle was implemented as follows: · the slave was stopped · the slave data directory replaced with the previous backup · the slave restarted with the slave threads replication pointer repositioned to the point before the update queries in the binlog. The test could then be repeated with identical set of queries but a different number of slave worker threads, enabling a fair comparison. The Test-Reset cycle was repeated 3 times for 0-24 number of workers and the QPS metric calculated and averaged for each worker count. MySQL Configuration The relevant configuration settings used for MySQL are as follows: binlog-format=STATEMENT relay-log-info-repository=TABLE master-info-repository=TABLE As described in the test procedure, the slave_parallel_workers setting was modified as part of the test logic. The consequence of changing this setting is: 0 worker threads:    - current (i.e. single threaded) sequential mode    - 1 x IO thread and 1 x SQL thread    - SQL thread both reads and executes the events 1 worker thread:    - sequential mode    - 1 x IO thread, 1 x Coordinator SQL thread and 1 x Worker thread    - coordinator reads the event and hands it to the worker who executes 2+ worker threads:    - parallel execution    - 1 x IO thread, 1 x Coordinator SQL thread and 2+ Worker threads    - coordinator reads events and hands them to the workers who execute them Results Figure 1 below shows that Multi-Threaded Slaves deliver ~5x higher replication performance when configured with 10 worker threads, with the load evenly distributed across our 10 x schemas. This result is compared to the current replication implementation which is based on a single SQL thread only (i.e. zero worker threads). Figure 1: 5x Higher Performance with Multi-Threaded Slaves The following figure shows more detailed results, with QPS sampled and reported as the worker threads are incremented. The raw numbers behind this graph are reported in the Appendix section of this post. Figure 2: Detailed Results As the results above show, the configuration does not scale noticably from 5 to 9 worker threads. When configured with 10 worker threads however, scalability increases significantly. The conclusion therefore is that it is desirable to configure the same number of worker threads as schemas. Other conclusions from the results: · Running with 1 worker compared to zero workers just introduces overhead without the benefit of parallel execution. · As expected, having more workers than schemas adds no visible benefit. Aside from what is shown in the results above, testing also demonstrated that the following settings had a very positive effect on slave performance: relay-log-info-repository=TABLE master-info-repository=TABLE For 5+ workers, it was up to 2.3 times as fast to run with TABLE compared to FILE. Conclusion As the results demonstrate, Multi-Threaded Slaves deliver significant performance increases to MySQL replication when handling multiple schemas. This, and the other replication enhancements introduced in MySQL 5.6 are fully available for you to download and evaluate now from the MySQL Developer site (select Development Release tab). You can learn more about MySQL 5.6 from the documentation  Please don’t hesitate to comment on this or other replication blogs with feedback and questions. Appendix – Detailed Results

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  • Sams Teach Yourself Windows Phone 7 Application Development in 24 Hours

    - by Nikita Polyakov
    I am extremely proud to announce that book I helped author is now out and available nationwide and online! Sams Teach Yourself Windows Phone 7 Application Development in 24 Hours It’s been a a great journey and I am honored to have worked with Scott Dorman, Joe Healy and Kevin Wolf on this title. Also worth mentioning the great work that editors from Sams and our technical reviewer Richard Bailey have put into this book! Thank you to everyone for support and encouragement! You can pick up the book from: http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0672335395 http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Windows-Application-Development/dp/0672335395  Here is the cover to look for in the stores: Description: Covers Windows Phone 7.5 In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, you’ll learn how to develop mobile applications for Windows Phone 7! Using this book’s straightforward, step-by-step approach, you’ll learn the fundamentals of Windows Phone 7 app development, how to leverage Silverlight or the XNA Framework, and how to get your apps into the Windows Marketplace. One step at a time, you’ll master new features ranging from the new sensors to using launchers and choosers. Each lesson builds on what you’ve already learned, helping you get the job done fast—and get it done right! Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common Windows Phone 7 app development tasks. Quizzes and exercises at the end of each chapter help you test your knowledge. By the Way notes present interesting information related to the discussion. Did You Know? tips offer advice or show you easier ways to perform tasks. Watch Out! cautions alert you to possible problems and give you advice on how to avoid them. Learn how to... Choose an application framework Use the sensors Develop touch-friendly apps Utilize push notifications Consume web data services Integrate with Windows Phone hubs Use the Bing Map control Get better performance out of your apps Work with data Localize your apps Use launchers and choosers Market and sell your apps Thank you!

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, November 26, 2011

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, November 26, 2011Popular ReleasesTerminals: Version 2 - Beta 4 Release: Beta 4 Refresh Build Dont forget to backup your config files BEFORE upgrading! As usual, please take time to use and abuse this release. We left logging in place, and this is a debug build so be sure to submit your logs on each bug reported, and please do report all bugs! Updated the About form to include the date and time of the build. Useful for CI builds to ensure we have the correct version "Favourites" and "History" save their expanded states after app restarts Code cleanup, secu...MiniTwitter: 1.76: MiniTwitter 1.76 ???? ?? ?????????? User Streams ???????????? User Streams ???????????、??????????????? REST ?????????? ?????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????Media Companion: MC 3.424b Weekly: Ensure .NET 4.0 Full Framework is installed. (Available from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718) Ensure the NFO ID fix is applied when transitioning from versions prior to 3.416b. (Details here) Movie Show Resolutions... Resolved issue when reverting multiselection of movies to "-none-" Added movie rename support for subtitle files '.srt' & '.sub' Finalised code for '-1' fix - radiobutton to choose either filename or title Fixed issue with Movie Batch Wizard Fanart - ...Advanced Windows Phone Enginering Tool: WPE Downloads: This version of WPE gives you basic updating, restoring, and, erasing for your Windows Phone device.ASP.NET Comet Ajax Library (Reverse Ajax - Server Push): ASP.NET Reverse Ajax Samples: Chat, MVC Razor, DesktopClient, Reverse Ajax for VB.NET and C#Anno 2070 Assistant: Beta v1.0 (STABLE): Anno 2070 Assistant Beta v1.0 Released! Features Included: Complete Building Layouts for Ecos, Tycoons & Techs Complete Production Chains for Ecos, Tycoons & Techs Completed Credits Screen Known Issues: Not all production chains and building layouts may be on the lists because they have not yet been discovered. However, data is still 99.9% complete. Currently the Supply & Demand, including Calculator screen are disabled until version 1.1.Oil Prices: Oil Prices V1.1: Oil Prices V1.1 Fix Bangchak price listTAXILISM: TAXILISM V1.0: TAXILISMExamine: v1.4 - Beta: A fairly mega release which borrows some behaviors from the currently under development v2.0 version, this means there are some breaking changes which are listed below, though I don't think these breaking changes will affect many. FeaturesUpgraded DLLs to .Net 4.0 runtime Azure support No more file queue, all asynchronous operations are handled by .Net 4.0's async Task scheduling system, this not only increases performance but better handles async operations. Running in async mode will...Minemapper: Minemapper v0.1.7: Including updated Minecraft Biome Extractor and mcmap to support the new Minecraft 1.0.0 release (new block types, etc).Metro Pandora: Metro Pandora SDK V1: Metro Pandora aims to ship a Pandora SDK and apps for XAML .net platforms. For more information on this release please see Metro Pandora SDK Introduction. Supported platforms in V1: Windows Phone 7 / Silverlight Windows 8 .Net 4.0, WPF, WinformsVisual Leak Detector for Visual C++ 2008/2010: v2.2.1: Enhancements: * strdup and _wcsdup functions support added. * Preliminary support for VS 11 added. Bugs Fixed: * Low performance after upgrading from VLD v2.1. * Memory leaks with static linking fixed (disabled calloc support). * Runtime error R6002 fixed because of wrong memory dump format. * version.h fixed in installer. * Some PVS studio warning fixed.NetSqlAzMan - .NET SQL Authorization Manager: 3.6.0.10: 3.6.0.10 22-Nov-2011 Update: Removed PreEmptive Platform integration (PreEmptive analytics) Removed all PreEmptive attributes Removed PreEmptive.dll assembly references from all projects Added first support to ADAM/AD LDS Thanks to PatBea. Work Item 9775: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/9775VideoLan DotNet for WinForm, WPF & Silverlight 5: VideoLan DotNet for WinForm, WPF, SL5 - 2011.11.22: The new version contains Silverlight 5 library: Vlc.DotNet.Silverlight. A sample could be tested here The new version add and correct many features : Correction : Reinitialize some variables Deprecate : Logging API, since VLC 1.2 (08/20/2011) Add subitem in LocationMedia (for Youtube videos, ...) Update Wpf sample to use Youtube videos Many others correctionsSharePoint 2010 FBA Pack: SharePoint 2010 FBA Pack 1.2.0: Web parts are now fully customizable via html templates (Issue #323) FBA Pack is now completely localizable using resource files. Thank you David Chen for submitting the code as well as Chinese translations of the FBA Pack! The membership request web part now gives the option of having the user enter the password and removing the captcha (Issue # 447) The FBA Pack will now work in a zone that does not have FBA enabled (Another zone must have FBA enabled, and the zone must contain the me...SharePoint 2010 Education Demo Project: Release SharePoint SP1 for Education Solutions: This release includes updates to the Content Packs for SharePoint SP1. All Content Packs have been updated to install successfully under SharePoint SP1SQL Monitor - managing sql server performance: SQLMon 4.1 alpha 6: 1. improved support for schema 2. added find reference when right click on object list 3. added object rename supportBugNET Issue Tracker: BugNET 0.9.126: First stable release of version 0.9. Upgrades from 0.8 are fully supported and upgrades to future releases will also be supported. This release is now compiled against the .NET 4.0 framework and is a requirement. Because of this the web.config has significantly changed. After upgrading, you will need to configure the authentication settings for user registration and anonymous access again. Please see our installation / upgrade instructions for more details: http://wiki.bugnetproject.c...Free SharePoint 2010 Sites Templates: SharePoint Server 2010 Sites Templates: here is the list of sites templates to be downloadedVsTortoise - a TortoiseSVN add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio: VsTortoise Build 30 Beta: Note: This release does not work with custom VsTortoise toolbars. These get removed every time when you shutdown Visual Studio. (#7940) Build 30 (beta)New: Support for TortoiseSVN 1.7 added. (the download contains both setups, for TortoiseSVN 1.6 and 1.7) New: OpenModifiedDocumentDialog displays conflicted files now. New: OpenModifiedDocument allows to group items by changelist now. Fix: OpenModifiedDocumentDialog caused Visual Studio 2010 to freeze sometimes. Fix: The installer didn...New Projects1Internet: Branch of 1Intranet.ANX.Framework: The ANX.Framework is a platform independent game framework which is compatible with Microsofts XNA Framework.CBMMark: Commodore 8-bit benchmarking suitecodeplanner: A nuget package that will help you with architecture and generate code from T4 templates. 1. Create a new MVC3 (C#) Project 2. Install-Package codeplanner 3. Create your domainmodel (see documentation or readme.txt) 4. Create system by -> Scaffold CodePlanner.ScaffoldAllCommonLib: ???? C#????CoverFlow Project: This is a proyect that can we use like a control for own apps , its need some improvements like differents view and also some memory issue to get fix... if anyone can help me to improve please... NOTE: This coverflow reads bytes and then convert it to images thanks Dev.Net: The project aims creating development help pages, where user can find useful information about each referenced assembly. It also have an in-place editor for each page section and a versioning system to work with previously modified pages.EasyFramework: ?.net framework?????,???????????EPioneerCenter: Project Name:EPioneer Programming Language:C#ErSE253: General application for geostatistics estimations. Entirely written in C# designed to be readable and perform efficient calculations.FontysIsa2: FontysIsa2Kaos: Klinik Administrations og Oversigts SystemKinect Cursor Move: Kinect Cursor Move is a library that uses the Kinect for Windows SDK and its skeletal tracking features to allow a user to use their hands to control the Windows mouse cursor. The project is developped in / for c# only ...Mitutoyo 264-007 RS232 SPC Data Input Tool: This tool allows measurements to be recorded from Mitutoyo SPC measurement tools using the Mitutoyo RS232 Data Input Tool (part#: 264-007) by emulating a keyboard. It has many configurable options. It's developed in C#.NAU Airplane speech engine: Generates speech for airplain simulator, based on networking eventsProASPNETMVCInvest: This is the source code example for the book: <<Pro ASP.NET MVC2 Framework>>School Helper: Keep track of grades and upcoming assignments.Sheva engine 2: XNA game engineSimple Job Management: Simple job management solution created to handle less complicated jobs not tied to a larger scale project.StoreOnline: the latest versionVectorlib: A Library.WP7 toolkit by MSP: Some controls and utilites are made by MSP??????Judge Online: ??????Judge Online????????????。??????????????(?C、C++)???,?????????????,????????????????????????。???????????,???SNS????????。

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  • The Other "C" in CRM

    - by [email protected]
    By Brian Dayton on April 5, 2010 7:04 PM Folks who know me know that I rarely, if ever, talk politics. And I never talk politicians. Having grown up in a household with one parent leaning left and the other leaning to the right it was the best way to keep the peace. This isn't about politics. It's about "constituents" and the need to improve the services and service levels for people--at the city, county, state/province, etc. level all the way up to national governments. As a citizen and tax payer it's also important to me that these services be provided at a reasonable cost. If there's a better and more efficient way to do something then it's my hope that a public sector organization takes advantage of technology the same way private sector companies do. Social services organizations have a complex job. They provide the services that people need, from healthcare and children's assistance to helping people find jobs. But many of these organizations are still managing these processes manually or outdated, home-grown applications that could have been written up to 30 years ago. A lot has changed in technology. On the (this is as political as I'm going to get) political front, stakeholders like you and me are expecting greater transparency on where and how funds are spent. I'll admit that most of the time, when I think about CRM systems, I think about my experience as a customer of my bank, utilities company or cable operator. But now that I'm older, have children and a house--I find myself interacting more and more with agencies and services organizations. My experiences are sometimes good and sometimes not so good. Along those lines, last week's announcement of Siebel CRM 8.2 for Public Sector caught my eye. You may not work in the public sector, but you are a constituent of some--actually a lot--of public sector organizations. I don't know which CRM systems city and county utilize but I'm going to start paying closer attention.

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  • Additional new content SOA & BPM Partner Community

    - by JuergenKress
    Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c (12.1.2.0.0) Released - Download (OTN, eDelivery) Whitepaper: Next Generation Service Integration Platform - PDF SOA Maturity This article in the Industrial SOA series offers exploration of the fundamentals of applying a factory approach to modern service-oriented software development. Read the article. Enterprise Service Bus The fifth article in the Industrial SOA series answers to some of the most important questions about the use of an enterprise service bus, using concrete examples to clarify areas of application that can be deemed correct for ESBs. Read the article. DevOps, Cloud, and Role Creep DevOps and cloud computing are changing the IT industry - and changing IT roles. An panel of community members discusses what’s happening and how it might affect your job. Listen to the podcast. Industrial SOA - Now chapters 1 to 5 available | Torsten Winterberg White Paper: Cloud Integration - A Comprehensive Solution White Paper: Next Generation Service Integration Platform : SOA Suite on Exalogic IT Briefcase Interview: An Integrated Approach to Mobile, Cloud, and API Management Technologies with Oracle Fusion Middleware Webcast: Oracle Cloud Integration – Information Week Webcast eBook: Oracle SOA Suite – In the Customers’ Words Podcast: Cloud Integration Transitioning from TIBCO to Oracle SOA Suite – Part 1 Events: Oracle Simplifying Integration of Cloud and On-Premise New B2B Book Published for Oracle SOA B2B 11g Get Fast-Data Accelerator in Your Hands Today: Mobile Data Offloading for Telecom Fast Data Accelerator - Blog New Oracle Process Accelerators in Financial Services & Teleco Detect, Analyze, Act Fast with BPM Improving the Quality of Healthcare with BPM Engineers Australia Improves and Automates Business Processes and Completes Engineer Enrollments up to 90% Faster with Middleware Platform - Case Study | PPT Specialized Partner Ataway on BPM Practice - Video eProseed Delivers Processes Skillfully with Oracle BPM Suite - Video Yarra Valley Water Uses SOA and BPM for Orchestration, Re-use and Visibility - Video Victoria University Discusses Oracle SOA & Oracle BPM - Video SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Mix Forum Technorati Tags: SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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  • Is knowledge of hacking mechanisms required for an MMO?

    - by Gabe
    Say I was planning on, in the future (not now! There is alot I need to learn first) looking to participating in a group project that was going to make a massively multiplayer online game (mmo), and my job would be the networking portion. I'm not that familiar with network programming (I've read a very basic book on PHP, MYSQL and I messed around a bit with WAMP). In the course of my studying of PHP and MYSQL, should I look into hacking? Hacking as in port scanning, router hacking, etc. In MMOs people are always trying to cheat, bots and such, but the worst scenario would be having someone hack the databases. This is just my conception of this, I really don't know. I do however understand networking fairly well, like subnetting/ports/IP's (local/global)/etc. In your professional opinion, (If you understand the topic, enlighten me) Should I learn about these things in order to counter the possibility of this happening? Also, out of the things I mentioned (port scanning, router hacking) Is there anything else that pertains to hacking that I should look into? I'm not too familiar with the malicious/Security aspects of Networking. And a note: I'm not some kid trying to learn how to hack. I just want to learn as much as possible before I go to college, and I really need to know if I need to study this or not.

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  • Malaysian Airlines bans kids under 12, creates separate cabins in basement of flight

    - by Gopinath
    Kids are lot of fun to watch and play as long as they don’t start crying. Once they start crying it’s tough job for parents to calm them down and for people around it’s painful to be part of it. If it happens to be on a flight, it’s a biggest annoyance one can ever experience. Especially on long journey over night flights, it’s a nightmare for passengers if couple of kids are uncontrollable. After receiving many complaints from its passengers who are disturbed by kids in flight, Malaysian Airlines decided to ban kids under 12 in their regular Economy class cabins of new Airbus A380s. Parents with under 12 years old kids are allowed only in to special kids zone created in the basement of  the multi-storied jumbo flights Airbus A380s. May be parents with under 12 kids does not appreciate this move, but the rest of travellers would be happy. Back in June 2011 Malaysian Airlines banned infants in first class of its Boeing 747-400 jets. The CEO of Malaysian Airlines defended on twitter about the decision as first classers spend pricy amount for a comfortable journey.  So if you are a parent of kids  under 12, think twice before you book tickets on Malaysian Airlines. Creative commons image courtesy: flickr/transworld

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  • Manager Self Service at your Fingertips

    - by Elaine Clement
    Last week we released new and improved Manager Self Service capabilities in PeopleSoft HCM 9.1. We delivered a new Manager Dashboard, streamlined many Manager Self Service transactions, provided new Pivot Grid capabilities, and implemented one-click Related Actions accessible from multiple places – all with the goal of improving every Manager’s self service experience. Manager Dashboard These new capabilities have the potential to significantly impact an organization’s bottom line, and here is why. Increased Efficiency The Manager Dashboard provides a ‘one-stop shop’ for your Managers with all of the key data they need consolidated into a single view. Alerts notifying managers of important tasks are immediately viewable and actionable. Administrators can configure the dashboard to include the most important pagelets needed for their organization, and Managers can personalize it to fit within their personal way of conducting their tasks. The Related Actions feature further improves the ease with which Managers get their work done by providing one-click access to Manager Self Service transactions.  Increased Job Satisfaction The streamlined Manager transactions, related actions, and the new Manager Dashboard provide an enhanced user experience. Managers are able to quickly get in, get the information they need, complete their transactions, and get out. Managers can spend their time focusing on getting the business results they need instead of their day to day HR tasks. Enhanced Decision Support Administrators can ensure the information and analytics they want their Managers to use are available from the Manager Dashboard, establishing best business practices. Additional pivot grids relevant to your own organization can be added to the Manager Dashboard. With this easy access to the relevant information in an easily understood format, Managers can make the right business decisions needed to improve their team and their team’s productivity. For more details on the Manager Dashboard and some of the other newly posted features, such as a new Talent Summary, check out this video and others: Oracle PeopleSoft Webcasts

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  • Masters or Second Bachelors Degree..or neither

    - by drD
    I have a degree in Business Administration, because at the time I didn't know what I wanted to do. I have been interested in programming for the past 2 years and have taken some action to self-teach. My experience/ knowledge base is limited to the following: -Read Kochan's Programming in C -Read IOS and Objective-C from the Big Nerd Ranch series -Obtained a C++ at NYU - thought it would be a good way to start to get a grasp on OO & design I would like to continue developing my skills, but most of all, re-orient how I am perceived as a professional. I am fully aware of how much a novice to this subject and would greatly appreciate any guidance anyone could give me. I currently have a job so full-time is not an option My goal is to become a software/ applications developer My questions are: -Should i take up a second bachelors in computer science? or a masters? or continue taking professional certificate programs (how are these viewed?) -If masters in computer science, would that make sense, if I dont have the formal foundation? (being a chief without ever being an Indian) -General advice for a novice to develop skill Thank You in advanced for helping me out.

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  • links for 2010-06-16

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Automating Enterprise Reporting with SOA and Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher In the latest article in the Enterprise Solution Cookbook series, authors John Chung and Harish Gaur take you step-by-step through the development of an automated reporting platform using Oracle's SOA Suite, WebCenter, and Business Intelligence Publisher. (tags: soa enterprise2.0 architect entarch bpm oracle otn) @ORACLENERD: Job: Infrastructure Technical Architect Oracle ACE Chet "ORACLENERD" Justice shares the 411 on a great new gig for the right architect.  (tags: jobs employment infrastructure architect oracleace) Andrew Ness: Building a training environment for RAC, ASM and Dataguard on OEL 5.4 "In all the environments I've worked in where Oracle DBAs are involved, " says Ness, "they would have chewed my arm off to have this level of control over where their data lives." (tags: oracle grid database dba) Chris Quenelle: Virtualization terms UNIXy Goodness blogger Chris Quenelle dives into Wikipedia to compile this short but valuable glossary of virtualization terms.  (tags: solaris hypervisor virtualization) William Vambenepe: CMDB in the Cloud: not your father's CMDB "Most [customers] will be dealing with a mix of old-style and Cloud applications and they’ll be looking for a unified management approach. This helps CMDB incumbents. If you doubt the power to continuity, take a minute to realize that the entire value proposition of hypervisor-style virtualization is centered around it." -- William Vambenepe (tags: oracle otn cloud virtualization) Merv Adrian: Oracle Exadata: a Data Management Tipping Point "In this second version of its newest platform, Oracle not only provides the latest technology in each part of the data-management architecture, but also integrates them under the full control of one vendor, with a unified approach to leveraging the full stack." -- Merv Adrian (tags: oracle exadata database)

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  • samba share not on network after upgrading to Ubuntu 12.04LTS.

    - by Sylvain Huard
    I just upgraded an old Ubuntu box to 12.04LTS (machine named A-Ubuntu). This is an upgrade not a format re-install. All the accounts and config were preserved. The basic setup is a local network with 2 Ubuntu machines (let say A-Ubuntu, B-Ubuntu) and a MAC (C-MAC). Before the upgrade, all of them could see each other by their names not only the IP address. The local network has a D-Link Router where everybody is connected with RJ-45 wired etherenet (not wi-fi). Since the A-Ubuntu upgrade, we can't see this machine name on the Network and its name is not on machine list in the D-Link router anymore. We can see it's IP address only. I can't access A-Ubuntu from the other two by its name but I can ping it with its address (192.168.0.109). From A-Ubuntu, I can connect and see the shared samba folders on B-Ubuntu and C-MAC. But from B-Ubuntu and C-MAc, I can't connect to A-Ubuntu. Correct me if I'm wrong but this tells me that Samba should be fine and the real problem is that A-Ubuntu does not advertise its name on the Network so the D-Link does not have it in its table so nobody else finds it. After a lot of googling, I see that it is the job of avahi and mdns to do so. Those packages are running, I checked multiple config files for samba, avahi, mdns to see as if it is like the examples on the WEB and also similar to what I find on the working B-Ubuntu machine. This is the same. I did multiple service restart with samba, avahi, remove the firewall to make sure it does not block the hostname broadcast. I rebooted multiple time to make sure the update I was making were effective. Still, Can't see the A-Ubuntu name on the network. Any idea what it can be?, Where to look next?

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  • Should I pick up a functional programming language?

    - by Statement
    I have recently been more concerned about the way I write my code. After reading a few books on design patterns (and overzealous implementation of them, I'm sure) I have shifted my thinking greatly toward encapsulating that which change. I tend to notice that I write less interfaces and more method-oriented code, where I love to spruce life into old classes with predicates, actions and other delegate tasks. I tend to think that it's often the actions that change, so I encapsulate those. I even often, although not always, break down interfaces to a single method, and then I prefer to use a delegate for the task instead of forcing client code to create a new class. So I guess it then hit me. Should I be doing functional programming instead? Edit: I may have a misconception about functional programming. Currently my language of choice is C#, and I come from a C++ background. I work as a game developer but I am currently unemployed. I have a great passion for architecture. My virtues are clean, flexible, reusable and maintainable code. I don't know if I have been poisoned by these ways or if it is for the better. Am I having a refactoring fever or should I move on? I understand this might be a question about "use the right tool for the job", but I'd like to hear your thoughts. Should I pick up a functional language? One of my fear factors is to leave the comfort of Visual Studio.

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  • Leveraging Code in Ever Bigger Games

    - by ashes999
    Summary: The same way that I continually build complex engines and libraries within a single platform and technology to allow me to build increasingly bigger and better games, how to continue this when development crosses into different platforms? If I switch platforms, how do I leverage past code and experiences? Games are hard to build. Big games are even harder to build. I've decided that to be able to make big games, I need to start building smaller games, and building up an asset base of code, assets (graphics, sounds), tools, and most importantly, game engines, so that I can eventually get there. One game at a time. Let me give an analogy. To build an MMO 3D RPG, I would approach this by building and releasing small games with increasingly more features. This could entail, for example: A simple 2D game A tile-based game A game with RPG elements (items, equipment, monsters, battle) A full-fledged RPG A 3D RPG The problem now is if I have to change platforms or tools, I don't know how to leverage past code-bases (and experience) to start with a mature product. Right now, I'm writing Silverlight (FlatRedBall) games. Let's say I stick with this for ten years, and then suddenly decide to write a PS6 game, which is in a different programming language entirely. Granted, I have ten years of game-development experience (and correspondingly ten years of professional software development experience from my day job) to back me up. But I would still like some way to transplant that 2D RPG engine into the new programming language, or else leverage it somehow. Is this even possible? What are my options?

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  • What platform to use for browser based turn based strategy game

    - by sunwukung
    I want to write a browser based strategy game that can be played by two players in separate locations. The game itself is predominantly turn based. To that end, I want to determine the correct platform on which to build this game. To prevent gamers "gaming" the system, the business logic needs to reside in the server. I could arguably use AJAX for a large part of the games functionality, but at two key points in the game loop, the opposing player can "counter" the current players move. In addition, when it's time for the players to swap, AJAX polling is likely to fall short, so it's starting to look like WebSockets is going to be a requirement to pull this off smoothly. So, the remaining question is regarding the back end. I'd kinda like to build this in Python/Flask - but this is primarily out of wanting to tackle a project with that language, not neccessarily because it's the appropriate tool for the job. The next most likely candidate has got to be NodeJS given it's (apparently) tighter integration with the WebSockets protocol. My question, then, is regarding the best platform on which to pursue this objective.

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  • Would you refactor this and if so, would you charge your client?

    - by Julius
    I am working on a freelance job at home. The client wants me to write some new functionality for his CMS, but it is taking me a lot of time to figure out what the code is doing, because it is written in a very unreadable style. Below is just an example of what I mean. The previous programmer made extensive use of anonymous functions, of eval(), he uses deeply nested ternary operators, he didn't indent code, didn't use comments, and he uses funny constructions like misusing the behaviour of logical operators || and && for creating if/else conditions (the second condition of && only gets tested if the first one is true, opening the possibility to use && as an if/else construction). All in all it's insane code and it's costing me a lot of time to find out how the current code works. return ($this->main->context != "ajax" || in_array($this->type, $this->definition->ajax)) ? eval('return method_exists($this,"Show'.ucfirst($this->type).'") ? $this->Show'.ucfirst($this->type).'('.(count($args) ? join(",",array_map(create_function('$a','return (is_numeric($a) || preg_match("/^array/",$a)) ? $a : "\"".$a."\"";'),$args)) : "").') : null;') : ''; Would you refactor this code and how would you handle this sort of thing with your client, I mean financially?

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  • VS 11 Beta merge tool is awesome, except for resovling conflicts

    - by deadlydog
    If you've downloaded the new VS 11 Beta and done any merging, then you've probably seen the new diff and merge tools built into VS 11.  They are awesome, and by far a vast improvement over the ones included in VS 2010.  There is one problem with the merge tool though, and in my opinion it is huge.Basically the problem with the new VS 11 Beta merge tool is that when you are resolving conflicts after performing a merge, you cannot tell what changes were made in each file where the code is conflicting.  Was the conflicting code added, deleted, or modified in the source and target branches?  I don't know (without explicitly opening up the history of both the source and target files), and the merge tool doesn't tell me.  In my opinion this is a huge fail on the part of the designers/developers of the merge tool, as it actually forces me to either spend an extra minute for every conflict to view the source and target file history, or to go back to use the merge tool in VS 2010 to properly assess which changes I should take.I submitted this as a bug to Microsoft, but they say that this is intentional by design. WHAT?! So they purposely crippled their tool in order to make it pretty and keep the look consistent with the new diff tool?  That's like purposely putting a little hole in the bottom of your cup for design reasons to make it look cool.  Sure, the cup looks cool, but I'm not going to use it if it leaks all over the place and doesn't do the job that it is intended for. Bah! but I digress.Because this bug is apparently a feature, they asked me to open up a "feature request" to have the problem fixed. Please go vote up both my bug submission and the feature request so that this tool will actually be useful by the time the final VS 11 product is released.

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  • Meet The MySQL Experts Podcast: MySQL Utilities

    - by Wei-Chen Chiu
    Managing a MySQL database server can become a full time job. In many occasions, one MySQL DBA needs to manage multiple, even tens of, MySQL servers, and tools that bundle a set of related tasks into a common utility can be a big time saver, allowing you spend more time improving performance and less time executing repeating tasks. While there are several such utility libraries to choose, it is often the case that you need to customize them to your needs. The MySQL Utilities library is the answer to that need. It is open source so you can modify and expand it as you see fit. In the latest episode of the "Meet the MySQL Experts" podcast series, Chuck Bell, Sr. MySQL Software Developer at Oracle, introduces a variety of recently released MySQL Utilities, and how DBAs can save significant time using the utilities. Listen to the podcast and learn the highlights in 10 minutes. If you want to gain further details, attend the on-demand webinar for a more complete introduction, including: Use cases for each utility How to group utilities for even more usability How to modify utilities for your needs How to develop and contribute new utilities  Enjoy!

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  • Dealing with the customer / developer culture mismatch on an agile project

    - by Eric Smith
    One of the tenets of agile is ... Customer collaboration over contract negotiation ... another one is ... Individuals and interactions over processes and tools But the way I see it, at least when it comes to interaction with the customer, there is a fundamental problem: How the customer thinks is fundamentally different to how a software engineer thinks That may be a bit of a generalisation, yes. Arguably, there are business domains where this is not necessarily true---these are few and far between though. In many domains though, the typical customer is: Interested in daily operational concerns--short-range tactics ... not strategy; Only concerned with the immediate solution; Generally one-dimensional, non-abstract thinkers; Primarily interested in "getting the job done" as opposed to coming up with a lasting, quality solution. On the other hand, software engineers who practice agile are: Professionals who value quality; Individuals who understand the notion of "more haste less speed" i.e., spending a little more time to do things properly will save lots of time down the road; Generally, very experienced analytical thinkers. So very clearly, there is a natural culture discrepancy that tends to inhibit "customer collaboration". What's the best way to address this?

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  • Should a programmer "think" for the client?

    - by P.Brian.Mackey
    I have gotten to the point where I hate requirements gathering. Customer's are too vague for their own good. In an agile environment, where we can show the client a piece of work to completion it's not too bad as we can make small regular corrections/updates to functionality. In a "waterfall" type in environment (requirements first, nearly complete product next) things can get ugly. This kind of environment has led me to constantly question requirements. E.G. Customer wants "automatically convert input to the number 1" (referring to a Qty in an order). But what they don't think about is that "input" could be a simple type-o. An "x" in a textbox could be a "woops" not I want 1 of those "toothpaste" products. But, there's so much in the air with requirements that I could stand and correct for hours on end smashing out what they want. This just isn't healthy. Working for a corporation, I could try to adjust the culture to fit the agile model that would help us (no small job, above my pay grade). Or, sweep ugly details under the rug and hope for the best. Maybe my customer is trying to get too close to the code? How does one handle the problem of "thinking for the client" without pissing them off with too many questions?

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  • Cannot copy MP3 files from a CD

    - by MountainX
    I purchased a set of spoken word audio CD's that have MP3 and FLAC audio files; I think they also play as regular audio CD's because I see a CDA directory and .cda files. But I'm only interested in playing the MP3 files by copying them to my phone. Dolphin file manager shows all the files on the CD. However, it will not copy any of them to my hard drive, which is what my goal is. Dolphin shows no error, but the copy progress is zero. Amarok will play the files but not easily. I only tried the flac files. To play a file, I click the file in Dolphin, then I have to cancel a job using KDE's notification system, then Amarok proceeds to copy the file to a tmp directory which takes a long time, then it finally plays. kb3 will rip the audio, but I would prefer to copy the files directly from the CD. Since Dolphin would not copy the files, I thought I would try the terminal, but I can't get that to work either. mount -t auto -o ro /dev/sr0 /mnt/temp that gives the error: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock, etc. I get the same error using -t iso9660 and -t udf. so I started troubleshooting: ~$ wodim --devices wodim: Overview of accessible drives (1 found) : ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 dev='/dev/sg1' rwrw-- : 'MATSHITA' 'DVD-RAM UJ8A0AS' ------------------------------------------------------------------------- /dev/sg1 is not a block device sudo file -s /dev/sr0 ERROR: cannot read /dev/sr0 (input/output error) sudo file -s /dev/sg1 just hangs How can I copy these files to my computer hard disk?

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  • My boss is feuding with his boss. My workload is expanding What should I do?

    - by steve
    These two have always had a somewhat shaky relationship when they were on the same level. The other guy was recently promoted to director and now my boss reports to him. On the surface, they appear to get along when they get together, but my boss despises the man and badmouths him every chance that he gets (to peers, subordinates, etc). He believe that the director is setting him up to fail. The Director and upper management is holding my boss responsible for the not-so-great performance by the team as of late. He's been playing games to make my boss look bad. Due to lay offs, we don't have the manpower to deliever the results that we did before...but expectations have not lowered...and my boss is taking the heat for it. Now he's on the warpath and starting to micromanage. He's giving everyone more work. He's forcing us midlevel guys to take responsibility for the level one techs' performance. I'm spending less and less time coding....and more time babysitting vendors, techs, etc. I'm not so sure that's a bad thing because I'm sorta burnt out on coding, but I don't really care for the idea of having to be responsible for others poor performance....isn't that the manager's job? Anyway, do you guys have any suggestions on dealing with the situation?

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  • How Mature is Your Database Change Management Process?

    - by Ben Rees
    .dbd-banner p{ font-size:0.75em; padding:0 0 10px; margin:0 } .dbd-banner p span{ color:#675C6D; } .dbd-banner p:last-child{ padding:0; } @media ALL and (max-width:640px){ .dbd-banner{ background:#f0f0f0; padding:5px; color:#333; margin-top: 5px; } } -- Database Delivery Patterns & Practices Further Reading Organization and team processes How do you get your database schema changes live, on to your production system? As your team of developers and DBAs are working on the changes to the database to support your business-critical applications, how do these updates wend their way through from dev environments, possibly to QA, hopefully through pre-production and eventually to production in a controlled, reliable and repeatable way? In this article, I describe a model we use to try and understand the different stages that customers go through as their database change management processes mature, from the very basic and manual, through to advanced continuous delivery practices. I also provide a simple chart that will help you determine “How mature is our database change management process?” This process of managing changes to the database – which all of us who have worked in application/database development have had to deal with in one form or another – is sometimes known as Database Change Management (even if we’ve never used the term ourselves). And it’s a difficult process, often painfully so. Some developers take the approach of “I’ve no idea how my changes get live – I just write the stored procedures and add columns to the tables. It’s someone else’s problem to get this stuff live. I think we’ve got a DBA somewhere who deals with it – I don’t know, I’ve never met him/her”. I know I used to work that way. I worked that way because I assumed that making the updates to production was a trivial task – how hard can it be? Pause the application for half an hour in the middle of the night, copy over the changes to the app and the database, and switch it back on again? Voila! But somehow it never seemed that easy. And it certainly was never that easy for database changes. Why? Because you can’t just overwrite the old database with the new version. Databases have a state – more specifically 4Tb of critical data built up over the last 12 years of running your business, and if your quick hotfix happened to accidentally delete that 4Tb of data, then you’re “Looking for a new role” pretty quickly after the failed release. There are a lot of other reasons why a managed database change management process is important for organisations, besides job security, not least: Frequency of releases. Many business managers are feeling the pressure to get functionality out to their users sooner, quicker and more reliably. The new book (which I highly recommend) Lean Enterprise by Jez Humble, Barry O’Reilly and Joanne Molesky provides a great discussion on how many enterprises are having to move towards a leaner, more frequent release cycle to maintain their competitive advantage. It’s no longer acceptable to release once per year, leaving your customers waiting all year for changes they desperately need (and expect) Auditing and compliance. SOX, HIPAA and other compliance frameworks have demanded that companies implement proper processes for managing changes to their databases, whether managing schema changes, making sure that the data itself is being looked after correctly or other mechanisms that provide an audit trail of changes. We’ve found, at Red Gate that we have a very wide range of customers using every possible form of database change management imaginable. Everything from “Nothing – I just fix the schema on production from my laptop when things go wrong, and write it down in my notebook” to “A full Continuous Delivery process – any change made by a dev gets checked in and recorded, fully tested (including performance tests) before a (tested) release is made available to our Release Management system, ready for live deployment!”. And everything in between of course. Because of the vast number of customers using so many different approaches we found ourselves struggling to keep on top of what everyone was doing – struggling to identify patterns in customers’ behavior. This is useful for us, because we want to try and fit the products we have to different needs – different products are relevant to different customers and we waste everyone’s time (most notably, our customers’) if we’re suggesting products that aren’t appropriate for them. If someone visited a sports store, looking to embark on a new fitness program, and the store assistant suggested the latest $10,000 multi-gym, complete with multiple weights mechanisms, dumb-bells, pull-up bars and so on, then he’s likely to lose that customer. All he needed was a pair of running shoes! To solve this issue – in an attempt to simplify how we understand our customers and our offerings – we built a model. This is a an attempt at trying to classify our customers in to some sort of model or “Customer Maturity Framework” as we rather grandly term it, which somehow simplifies our understanding of what our customers are doing. The great statistician, George Box (amongst other things, the “Box” in the Box-Jenkins time series model) gave us the famous quote: “Essentially all models are wrong, but some are useful” We’ve taken this quote to heart – we know it’s a gross over-simplification of the real world of how users work with complex legacy and new database developments. Almost nobody precisely fits in to one of our categories. But we hope it’s useful and interesting. There are actually a number of similar models that exist for more general application delivery. We’ve found these from ThoughtWorks/Forrester, from InfoQ and others, and initially we tried just taking these models and replacing the word “application” for “database”. However, we hit a problem. From talking to our customers we know that users are far less further down the road of mature database change management than they are for application development. As a simple example, no application developer, who wants to keep his/her job would develop an application for an organisation without source controlling that code. Sure, he/she might not be using an advanced Gitflow branching methodology but they’ll certainly be making sure their code gets managed in a repo somewhere with all the benefits of history, auditing and so on. But this certainly isn’t the case (yet) for the database – a very large segment of the people we speak to have no source control set up for their databases whatsoever, even at the most basic level (for example, keeping change scripts in a source control system somewhere). By the way, if this is you, Red Gate has a great whitepaper here, on the barriers people face getting a source control process implemented at their organisations. This difference in maturity is the same as you move in to areas such as continuous integration (common amongst app developers, relatively rare for database developers) and automated release management (growing amongst app developers, very rare for the database). So, when we created the model we started from scratch and biased the levels of maturity towards what we actually see amongst our customers. But, what are these stages? And what level are you? The table below describes our definitions for four levels of maturity – Baseline, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. As I say, this is a model – you won’t fit any of these categories perfectly, but hopefully one will ring true more than others. We’ve also created a PDF with a flow chart to help you find which of these groups most closely matches your team:  Download the Database Delivery Maturity Framework PDF here   Level D1 – Baseline Work directly on live databases Sometimes work directly in production Generate manual scripts for releases. Sometimes use a product like SQL Compare or similar to do this Any tests that we might have are run manually Level D2 – Beginner Have some ad-hoc DB version control such as manually adding upgrade scripts to a version control system Attempt is made to keep production in sync with development environments There is some documentation and planning of manual deployments Some basic automated DB testing in process Level D3 – Intermediate The database is fully version-controlled with a product like Red Gate SQL Source Control or SSDT Database environments are managed Production environment schema is reproducible from the source control system There are some automated tests Have looked at using migration scripts for difficult database refactoring cases Level D4 – Advanced Using continuous integration for database changes Build, testing and deployment of DB changes carried out through a proper database release process Fully automated tests Production system is monitored for fast feedback to developers   Does this model reflect your team at all? Where are you on this journey? We’d be very interested in knowing how you get on. We’re doing a lot of work at the moment, at Red Gate, trying to help people progress through these stages. For example, if you’re currently not source controlling your database, then this is a natural next step. If you are already source controlling your database, what about the next stage – continuous integration and automated release management? To help understand these issues, there’s a summary of the Red Gate Database Delivery learning program on our site, alongside a Patterns and Practices library here on Simple-Talk and a Training Academy section on our documentation site to help you get up and running with the tools you need to progress. All feedback is welcome and it would be great to hear where you find yourself on this journey! This article is part of our database delivery patterns & practices series on Simple Talk. Find more articles for version control, automated testing, continuous integration & deployment.

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  • Agile Testing Days 2012 – Day 3 – Agile or agile?

    - by Chris George
    Another early start for my last Lean Coffee of the conference, and again it was not wasted. We had some really interesting discussions around how to determine what test automation is useful, if agile is not faster, why do it? and a rather existential discussion on whether unicorns exist! First keynote of the day was entitled “Fast Feedback Teams” by Ola Ellnestam. Again this relates nicely to the releasing faster talk on day 2, and something that we are looking at and some teams are actively trying. Introducing the notion of feedback, Ola describes a game he wrote for his eldest child. It was a simple game where every time he clicked a button, it displayed “You’ve Won!”. He then changed it to be a Win-Lose-Win-Lose pattern and watched the feedback from his son who then twigged the pattern and got his younger brother to play, alternating turns… genius! (must do that with my children). The idea behind this was that you need that feedback loop to learn and progress. If you are not getting the feedback you need to close that loop. An interesting point Ola made was to solve problems BEFORE writing software. It may be that you don’t have to write anything at all, perhaps it’s a communication/training issue? Perhaps the problem can be solved another way. Writing software, although it’s the business we are in, is expensive, and this should be taken into account. He again mentions frequent releases, and how they should be made as soon as stuff is ready to be released, don’t leave stuff on the shelf cause it’s not earning you anything, money or data. I totally agree with this and it’s something that we will be aiming for moving forwards. “Exceptions, Assumptions and Ambiguity: Finding the truth behind the story” by David Evans started off very promising by making references to ‘Grim up North’ referring to the north of England. Not sure it was appreciated by most of the audience, but it made me laugh! David explained how there are always risks associated with exceptions, giving the example of a one-way road near where he lives, with an exception sign giving rights to coaches to go the wrong way. Therefore you could merrily swing around the corner of the one way road straight into a coach! David showed the danger in making assumptions with lyrical quotes from Lola by The Kinks “I’m glad I’m a man, and so is Lola” and with a picture of a toilet flush that needed instructions to operate the full and half flush. With this particular flush, you pulled the handle all the way down to half flush, and half way down to full flush! hmmm, a bit of a crappy user experience methinks! Then through a clever use of a passage from the Jabberwocky, David then went onto show how mis-translation/ambiguity is the can completely distort the original meaning of something, and this is a real enemy of software development. This was all helping to demonstrate that the term Story is often heavily overloaded in the Agile world, and should really be stripped back to what it is really for, stating a business problem, and offering a technical solution. Therefore a story could be worded as “In order to {make some improvement}, we will { do something}”. The first ‘in order to’ statement is stakeholder neutral, and states the problem through requesting an improvement to the software/process etc. The second part of the story is the verb, the doing bit. So to achieve the ‘improvement’ which is not currently true, we will do something to make this true in the future. My PM is very interested in this, and he’s observed some of the problems of overloading stories so I’m hoping between us we can use some of David’s suggestions to help clarify our stories better. The second keynote of the day (and our last) proved to be the most entertaining and exhausting of the conference for me. “The ongoing evolution of testing in agile development” by Scott Barber. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing Scott before… OMG I would love to have even half of the energy he has! What struck me during this presentation was Scott’s explanation of how testing has become the role/job that it is (largely) today, and how this has led to the need for ‘methodologies’ to make dev and test work! The argument that we should be trying to converge the roles again is a very valid one, and one that a couple of the teams at work are actively doing with great results. Making developers as responsible for quality as testers is something that has been lost over the years, but something that we are now striving to achieve. The idea that we (testers) should be testing experts/specialists, not testing ‘union members’, supports this idea so the entire team works on all aspects of a feature/product, with the ‘specialists’ taking the lead and advising/coaching the others. This leads to better propagation of information around the team, a greater holistic understanding of the project and it allows the team to continue functioning if some of it’s members are off sick, for example. Feeling somewhat drained from Scott’s keynote (but at the same time excited that alot of the points he raised supported actions we are taking at work), I headed into my last presentation for Agile Testing Days 2012 before having to make my way to Tegel to catch the flight home. “Thinking and working agile in an unbending world” with Pete Walen was a talk I was not going to miss! Having spoken to Pete several times during the past few days, I was looking forward to hearing what he was going to say, and I was not disappointed. Pete started off by trying to separate the definitions of ‘Agile’ as in the methodology, and ‘agile’ as in the adjective by pronouncing them the ‘english’ and ‘american’ ways. So Agile pronounced (Ajyle) and agile pronounced (ajul). There was much confusion around what the hell he was talking about, although I thought it was quite clear. Agile – Software development methodology agile – Marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace; Having a quick resourceful and adaptable character. Anyway, that aside (although it provided a few laughs during the presentation), the point was that many teams that claim to be ‘Agile’ but are not, in fact, ‘agile’ by nature. Implementing ‘Agile’ methodologies that are so prescriptive actually goes against the very nature of Agile development where a team should anticipate, adapt and explore. Pete made a valid point that very few companies intentionally put up roadblocks to impede work, so if work is being blocked/delayed, why? This is where being agile as a team pays off because the team can inspect what’s going on, explore options and adapt their processes. It is through experimentation (and that means trying and failing as well as trying and succeeding) that a team will improve and grow leading to focussing on what really needs to be done to achieve X. So, that was it, the last talk of our conference. I was gutted that we had to miss the closing keynote from Matt Heusser, as Matt was another person I had spoken too a few times during the conference, but the flight would not wait, and just as well we left when we did because the traffic was a nightmare! My Takeaway Triple from Day 3: Release often and release small – don’t leave stuff on the shelf Keep the meaning of the word ‘agile’ in mind when working in ‘Agile Look at testing as more of a skill than a role  

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  • Small-scale database options for .NET

    - by raney
    I have a .NET 4.0/WPF based application I've developed and maintain for my company that acts as a friendly GUI central-point-of-information, combining information pulled from a couple of SQL databases, as well as CSV exports from a few other applications. I would like to build out my own database to support the entirety of the information that the application accesses, so that I could have a service running on my server that would read in necessary remote SQL info and file exports, to provide the user's application with a single database to connect to, as well as to remove all of the file handling currently involved in the program (copying new CSV resources from network location, reading them into memory each launch.) I have complete control and flexibility here as long as the user's experience isn't affected, and this is as much a learning experience as it is tidying up. Caveat being, I don't have much in the way of a budget. Right now I recognize my options to be: SQL Express - I'm comfortable with the server setup, I like ADO.NET and LINQ to SQL. I feel that I have the least to learn here, but it would let me focus on SQL in a familiar environment. Perhaps in conjunction with Entity Framework? MongoDB - I don't know a whole lot about, but I've heard the name enough to make me curious. Brief research seems friendly enough, and there is .NET support. I like working with open source projects. My questions are: What's popular and extensible right now? I'm not far from starting to job-hunt, and I'd like this project to be relevant going forward. What am I missing? Pros, cons? Other options? What plays well with .NET? What are the things I should be considering, the questions I should be asking, when making a decision like this? Thanks for your time.

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  • Social IT guy barrier [closed]

    - by sergiol
    Possible Duplicate: How do you deal with people who ask you to fix their computer? Hello. Almost every person that deserves the title of being a programmer as faced the problem of persons that do not even remember the mere existence of those professionals, unless they have serious problems in their computer or some other IT related problem. May be my post will be considered off-topic, but I think it is a very important question. As Joel Spolsky says, IT guys are not Asperger geeks, and they need social life like everybody. But the people that is always asking for favors from us, can ruin deeply our social and personal life. I could experience this by myself. This fact as generated articles like http://www.lifereboot.com/2007/10-reasons-it-doesnt-pay-to-be-the-computer-guy/ and http://ecraazul.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/o-gajo-da-informatica-de-a-a-z/ (I received this one in my mailbox. It is in Portuguese, but I believe it is translated from English). Basically the idea is to criticize people that is always asking us favors. It is even more annoying if you are person very specialized in some subject and a person asks you a completely out-of-that-context question. For example, you are a VBA programmer and somebody says you to that his/her Mobile Internet Pen stopped to work five days ago and needs your help to put it working again. When you go to a doctor to fix your legs, you don't go to an ophthalmologist. You go to an orthopedist. And you pay. I don't how it works in other countries, but in Portugal being a doctor is so an overvalued job, that they earn very much money and almost nobody asks them free favors. So, my question is: what kind of social barrier (or whatever else) do you use to protect yourself from that situation?

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