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Should I be looking for developers with specific skill sets or generalists that need to learn?

- by Lostsoul

Thanks to the great help of this site and SO, I've been able to make a prototype of a software I want to sell but unfortunately although the prototype works I think my code quality is very low. I didn't use much OOP or design patterns so although my code is understandable to me, I think a normal developer would faint if they had to read it. So I wanted to hire a developer to make it a bit more better quality and improve some of my implementations of API's that I may have not done correctly. I'm having problems hiring a developer though. I have met 2 developers and had them read my software specs.The problem is, they lacked my business's domain knowledge(which is completely understandable and no biggie) but they also lacked knowledge of the underlying tech systems I used such as Hadoop, Hbase, Cuda, etc..I spent alot of time explaining map/reduce, bigtables and other technologies I used. I thought it was common knowledge because of my interactions with people on this site but the people I met with mentioned they never had to deal with these things so they didn't know it. My question is, for software projects that are hiring contractor developers is it a danger if the developer does not have experience with the underlying technologies? or can a general developer who is accomplished in another area realistically pick up new technologies? I did a very very quick back of envelope calculation and I think the upfront costs would be similar if I hire a student or developer with no experience in my technologies who will work many hours versus hiring a highly experienced developer who charges double but finishes in half the time but what other risks should I be considering or worried about? Also, should if I do hire a generalist, should I be paying for the time it takes them to learn hadoop or cuda if they are contractors(seems to make business sense but not sure how fair it is to them if they do not use the skill again). I'm a bit confused so any suggestions would be great.

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Deploying my first website!

- by test

I have built a data driven website - an asp.net website, using the entity framework. In my solution I have 4 projects - the web application PresentationLayer, and 3 class libraries - Data Layer, Business and Common Layer. In one of these libraries, Common Layer I have my Model (MyModel.edmx). I have always tested my application on Cassini - Asp.Net Development Server. I have never touched IIS in my life. I bought a domain and hosting on go daddy. My logic tells me to grab my four folders (1 for each layer) and simply move them to the root folder. But I know I'm wrong since then the home page would be mywebsite.org/presentationlayer/default.aspx and second of all I start getting a bunch of errors where files do not load or they are not found. I also know that I need to manage the web.config but I don't have any experience where to start. I'm not sure if this is a problem but I also have a web service included in my presentation layer.

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HTML Tidy in NetBeans IDE (Part 2)

- by Geertjan

This is what I was aiming for in the previous blog entry: What you can see above (especially if you click to enlarge it) is that I have HTML Tidy integrated into the NetBeans analyzer functionality, which is pluggable from 7.2 onwards. Well, if you set an implementation dependency on "Static Analysis Core", since it's not an official API yet. Also, the scopes of the analyzer functionality are not pluggable. That means you can 'only' set the analyzer's scope to one or more projects, one or more packages, or one or more files. Not one or more folders, which means you can't have a bunch off HTML files in a folder that you access via the Favorites window and then run the analyzer on that folder (or on multiple folders). Thus, to try out my new code, I had to put some HTML files into a package inside a Java application. Then I chose that package as the scope of the analyzer. Then I ran all the analyzers (i.e., standard NetBeans Java hints, FindBugs, as well as my HTML Tidy extension) on that package. The screenshot above is the result. Here's all the code for the above, which is a port of the Action code from the previous blog entry into a new Analyzer implementation: import java.io.IOException; import java.io.PrintWriter; import java.io.StringWriter; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.Collections; import java.util.List; import javax.swing.JComponent; import javax.swing.text.Document; import org.netbeans.api.fileinfo.NonRecursiveFolder; import org.netbeans.modules.analysis.spi.Analyzer; import org.netbeans.modules.analysis.spi.Analyzer.AnalyzerFactory; import org.netbeans.modules.analysis.spi.Analyzer.Context; import org.netbeans.modules.analysis.spi.Analyzer.CustomizerProvider; import org.netbeans.modules.analysis.spi.Analyzer.WarningDescription; import org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints.ErrorDescription; import org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints.ErrorDescriptionFactory; import org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints.Severity; import org.openide.cookies.EditorCookie; import org.openide.filesystems.FileObject; import org.openide.loaders.DataObject; import org.openide.util.Exceptions; import org.openide.util.lookup.ServiceProvider; import org.w3c.tidy.Tidy; public class TidyAnalyzer implements Analyzer { private final Context ctx; private TidyAnalyzer(Context cntxt) { this.ctx = cntxt; } @Override public Iterable<? extends ErrorDescription> analyze() { List<ErrorDescription> result = new ArrayList<ErrorDescription>(); for (NonRecursiveFolder sr : ctx.getScope().getFolders()) { FileObject folder = sr.getFolder(); for (FileObject fo : folder.getChildren()) { for (ErrorDescription ed : doRunHTMLTidy(fo)) { if (fo.getMIMEType().equals("text/html")) { result.add(ed); } } } } return result; } private List<ErrorDescription> doRunHTMLTidy(FileObject sr) { final List<ErrorDescription> result = new ArrayList<ErrorDescription>(); Tidy tidy = new Tidy(); StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter(); PrintWriter errorWriter = new PrintWriter(stringWriter); tidy.setErrout(errorWriter); try { Document doc = DataObject.find(sr).getLookup().lookup(EditorCookie.class).openDocument(); tidy.parse(sr.getInputStream(), System.out); String[] split = stringWriter.toString().split("\n"); for (String string : split) { //Bit of ugly string parsing coming up: if (string.startsWith("line")) { final int end = string.indexOf(" c"); int lineNumber = Integer.parseInt(string.substring(0, end).replace("line ", "")); string = string.substring(string.indexOf(": ")).replace(":", ""); result.add(ErrorDescriptionFactory.createErrorDescription( Severity.WARNING, string, doc, lineNumber)); } } } catch (IOException ex) { Exceptions.printStackTrace(ex); } return result; } @Override public boolean cancel() { return true; } @ServiceProvider(service = AnalyzerFactory.class) public static final class MyAnalyzerFactory extends AnalyzerFactory { public MyAnalyzerFactory() { super("htmltidy", "HTML Tidy", "org/jtidy/format_misc.gif"); } public Iterable<? extends WarningDescription> getWarnings() { return Collections.EMPTY_LIST; } @Override public <D, C extends JComponent> CustomizerProvider<D, C> getCustomizerProvider() { return null; } @Override public Analyzer createAnalyzer(Context cntxt) { return new TidyAnalyzer(cntxt); } } } The above only works on packages, not on projects and not on individual files.

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Will I be able to get programming interviews at good software companies with a non-CS degree?

- by friend

I'll be graduating in a year, but I'll have a degree in Economics. I'm pretty much done with my Economics coursework, and by the time next year comes around I will have devoted 1.5 years to learning CS. I will have almost finished the requirements to graduate with a degree in CS, but unfortunately my school requires a science series that would add another 6-9 months of study if I were to try and get the degree (not to mention a max unit cap). I have or will have taken: Objected Oriented Programming Discrete Math Data structures Calculus through multivariable (doubt this matters at all) Linear Algebra (same) Computer Organization Operating Systems Computational Statistics (many data mining projects in R) Parallel Programming Programming Languages Databases Algorithms Compilers Artificial Intelligence I've done well in the ones I've taken, and I hope to do well in the rest, but will that matter if I can't say to the HR people that I have a CS degree? I'd be happy to get an internship at first too, so should I just apply as if I'm an intern and not looking for fulltime, and then try and parlay that into something? Sidenote if you have time -- Is a computer networks or theory of computation class important? Would it be worth taking either of those in lieu of a class on my list? edit -- I know this isn't AskReddit or College Confidential; I know there will be some outrage at posting a question like this. I'm merely looking for insight into a situation that I've been struggling with, and I think this is the absolute best place to find an answer to this question. Thanks.

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Artists and music - i need help to decide wich cms to use.

- by infty

A friend has asked me to build a site with the following options: staff members must be able to add new music and artists to the page a gallery must be provided - it is also good if each artist has the ability to have his/her own, smaller, gallery users must be able to vote for artists users must be able to alter in discussions (forums or comments sections) staff members must be able to blog staff members must be able to write articles I did a small project where i actually implementet all of these features, but i want to use an existing content managment system for all of these features so that future devolpers can, hopefully, more easy extend the website. And also, so that i dont have to provide to much documentation. I have never developed a website using an external cms like drupal or wordpress and after seeing hours of tutorial videos of both systems, i still cant make up my mind on wheter i should : a) use Drupal 7 b) use Wordpress 3 c) create my own cms I can only imagine that staff members would also want to create content using iphone or android based mobile devices. But this is not a required feature. Can someone, with experience, please tell me about their experiences with bigger projects like this? The site will approx. have a total of 400 000 - 500 000 visitors (not daily visitors, based on numbers from last year in a period of 4 months)

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Process video (canon) mov files

- by user613326

Well i would like to program something to process HDR made by magic lantern a canon add on. That doesnt change the format its just some kind of add on, that can produce HDR video. Its a bit complex to make such videos so i would like to use some math and make it myself and makee the software freeware (as a thanks to the creators of magic lantern). The problem with that HDR that normal converts have a lot of artifacts, and i would like to make something (for free) using some new algorithms. I have made, this works fine on individual images, my ideas work. I would want to do this on that canon 60d video format. Canons mov format, and am so far out of luck to read that out. It must be possible dough as i know in some projects they do it too. I would not like to export a movie first to jpg and then back to video as that requires a lot of disk space, i would like to retrieve individual frames, do my math based multiple frames, and then build a new movie on it. The output video can be of any type, avi or mov again. Does anyone know of a library who can do that ? (read and save), So i could use it in a C# project (i prefer C# above c++, but c++ is an option to program in to for me).

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An entry-level programmer's best option [on hold]

- by user134409

I am facing a puzzle and I am not sure the best way to make a decision. In my spare time besides playing video games I got around to develop some games, nothing fancy, just small projects to get a better grasp at programming. After I finished college and got my BA in Computer Science, I got a job as web developer at a small firm. The next few months were very stressful as I had no previous experience and tried my best to make up for it. But after 6 months my boss told me I was inefficient and not very independent and let me go. To my credit, the help from the senior was very limited, I did learn a lot but I have learned by myself. For example they told me to do a UI in BackboneJS and I took me a while but I got it working (even if it was poorly designed). But I managed to do it all by myself because my senior was very busy and he did not have time even for my questions. Now I have found a new job again in web development but I am very afraid of what is going to happen next. I am afraid because I don't want to take the job and then be fired again after a couple of months, I get the feeling that this will be very bad on my CV, job hopping is like a red flag. They want to hire me but I am aware that they are working with new technologies and maybe I will end up not coping with it. So the question is: Should a entry-level programmer be better off with a starting job in QA, testing and work his way from there? I did learn allot from my first job but it was a moral blow when they decided to fire me. I do have a low self-esteem and I know my skills as a programmer are not that great. But I like programming and want to get better and I want to have a long career in it so that basically my pickle. Thank you in advance for the answers.

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why are transaction monitors on decline? or are they?

- by mrkafk

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/cics.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/tuxedo.do Look at the demand for programmers (% of job ads that the keyword appears), first graph under the table. It seems like demand for CICS, Tuxedo has fallen from 2.5%/1% respectively to almost zero. To me, it seems bizarre: now we have more networked and internet enabled machines than ever before. And most of them are talking to some kind of database. So it would seem that use of products whose developers spent last 20-30 years working on distributing and coordinating and optimizing transactions should be on the rise. And it appears they're not. I can see a few causes but can't tell whether they are true: we forgot that concurrency and distribution are really hard, and redoing it all by ourselves, in Java, badly. Erlang killed them all. Projects nowadays have changed character, like most business software has already been built and we're all doing internet services, using stuff like Node.js, Erlang, Haskell. (I've used RabbitMQ which is written in Erlang, "but it was small specialized side project" kind of thing). BigData is the emphasis now and BigData doesn't need transactions very much (?). None of those explanations seem particularly convincing to me, which is why I'm looking for better one. Anyone?

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How can I test linkable/executable files that require re-hosting or retargeting?

- by hagubear

Due to data protection, I cannot discuss fine details of the work itself so apologies PROBLEM CASE Sometimes my software projects require merging/integration with third party (customer or other suppliers) software. these software are often in linkable executables or object code (requires that my source code is retargeted and linked with it). When I get the executables or object code, I cannot validate its operation fully without integrating it with my system. My initial idea is that executables are not meant to be unit tested, they are meant to be linkable with other system, but what is the guarantee that post-linkage and integration behaviour will be okay? There is also no sufficient documentation available (from the customer) to indicate how to go about integrating the executables or object files. I know this is philosophical question, but apparently not enough research could be found at this moment to conclude to a solution. I was hoping that people could help me go to the right direction by suggesting approaches. To start, I have found out that Avionics OEM software is often rehosted and retargeted by third parties e.g. simulator makers. I wonder how they test them. Surely, the source code will not be supplied due to IPR rgulations. UPDATE I have received reasonable and very useful suggestions regarding this area. My current struggle has shifted into testing 3rd party OBJECT code that needs to be linked with my own source code (retargeted) on my host machine. How can I even test object code? Surely, I need to link them first to even think about doing anything. Is it the post-link behaviour that needs to be determined and scripted (using perl,Tcl, etc.) so that inputs and outputs could be verified? No clue!! :( thanks,

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PeopleSoft CRM 9.2 Release Value Proposition

- by Race Bannon

Oracle's PeopleSoft Customer Relationship Management (CRM) delivers solutions that have been tailored to fit your industry business processes, your customer strategies, and your success criteria. With PeopleSoft CRM 9.2, organizations will be able to deploy a solution that delivers built-in best practices specific to your industry with a highly configurable, tightly integrated platform, ensuring that solutions will be fast to implement. The result is less configuration, less customization, and less integration. PeopleSoft Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a world-class solution for organizations of every size and Oracle’s planned product roadmap for PeopleSoft applications is to deliver valuable, needed features for all of an organization’s constituents along three design principles — Simplicity, Productivity, and Lowered Total Cost of Ownership — as well as new application functionality as prioritized by our customers. The upcoming 9.2 release of PeopleSoft Customer Relationship Management focuses on these themes of Simplicity, Productivity, and Lower Total Cost of Ownership while also delivering robust new functionality to help your organization succeed. The recently published PeopleSoft CRM 9.2 Release Value Proposition provides overviews of the new features and enhancements planned for these applications for Release 9.2. This document offers customers a road map intended to help them assess the business benefits of upgrading to the 9.2 release while also helping them plan their IT projects and investments. (Link is to a My Oracle Support page, available to customers and partners.) Oracle continues to deliver enterprise-wide features that enhance our customer ownership experience and helps them run their businesses more efficiently and profitably. With the CRM 9.2 release, we continue to abide by this firm commitment we’ve made to our customers.

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Directx vs XNA - Which is better for me? [closed]

- by tristo

Recently I got Visual Studio 2012 from visual studio 2010, although did not expect Visual Studio to 2012 to designed the way it was. Anyway I am pleased with some of VS 2012 technology and have moved all of my projects to it. At this point of time since I got VS 2012 I have been into making windows applications and other non-game activities. ALTHOUGH have recently gotten into the spirit of game development and I am planning to make a 3d comical game, shader effects, not too complicated meshes, but it requires alot of lighting effects to emphasise certain parts of the game. When I was using VS 2010 I had a great time making 2d games with XNA, it uses a great language, and has a very awesome system. But I no longer have XNA with me, and the workarounds described in stackoverflow always gives me errors while using xna. Anyway it seems that microsoft have stuffed themselves up with xna anyway with the weirdness of Windows 8, and it being only avaliabe on pc and xbox. Due to these reasons I have decided to work with Directx and Direct3d to produce my new game, although the overflowing credits after each directx game gives me the shivers, and the low-level coding of directx also puts me on thin ice with my games, left in a confusional mess with what decision I should make. I don't know anything about directx or direct3d. I am an indie developer, but I am planning to take on alot of professional aspects of games. I don't have heaps of time(2-3 hours a day) I don't mind the complexity of how directx works, as long as I can learn how to make the fundementals of a game in a week. I am also unsure if directx is really for my situation, and keep with xna game development. Anyone can tell me the best technology for me would be great.

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Life Is Full Of Changes (Part 1)

- by Brian Jackett

Today will be my last day with Sogeti. I’ve been with Sogeti USA for just over 4 years. In that time I’ve gotten to work on some great projects, develop relationships with some brilliant and passionate people, participate in the .Net developer and SharePoint communities, and grow my skills in a number of areas I’m passionate about. As with all good things they must come to an end though. I’ve accepted a position with another company and will provide more details once the transition has completed. This decision was a difficult one to make but it provides a great career opportunity on many levels. As much as my new schedule allows I plan to continue participating in local user groups, speaking at conferences, and blogging. Speaking of which, you may have noticed my reduced blogging activity in the past few months. In addition to a career change I’m also in the process of moving to a new residence (only a few miles from my current residence, so I’ll still be in Columbus.) Searching for a new place, filling out paperwork, and all of the other work associated with this move has taken away a good chunk of the time I used to devote to blogging. Once everything gets settled out with the move and job change I’ll re-evaluate how much time I can devote to blogging. A big thanks to Sogeti and everyone who has been so supportive over my time with them. It’s hard to move on, but I am excited for the prospects that the future will bring. -Frog Out

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Developing an Interface to a Dynamic System

- by radix07

I work for a small company and have been designing a GUI to interface our embedded system. The problem with this embedded system is that it is not a finished product (may never be) and is constantly under development and being tweaked and updated for different customers and applications in small volumes. So to deal with this I made a program that can export all the data from a spreadsheet where most of the embedded system variables are sourced from and throw them into a small database for the GUI application to use. This database program I made also spits out a cross reference file for the embedded system which allows the GUI to look up all the variables. This system works pretty well so far, and is even integrated with version control among the GUI, database, and embedded system. The big problem is that there is constant development on several projects that use this system and it gets terribly tedious to keep the system up to date and bring in new changes. This has gotten to the point to where I have had to code the GUI to dynamically (generically) generate all interfaces since I am never guaranteed to find the same data the same way. I have not been able to come up with a good way to uniquely identify the data I import from excel since all fields are able to be changed (due to engineering stubbornness, code re-factoring and/or excel issues) and I cannot assign a fixed reference within the sheet itself. So, are there any good methods or ideas on how to handle the chaos?

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tips, guidelines, points to remember for rendering professional code?

- by ronnieaka

I'm talking about giving clients professional looking code. The whole nine yards, everything you hardcore professional highly experienced programmers here probably do when coding freelance or for the company you work in. I'm fresh out of college and I'm going into freelance. I just want to be sure that my first few projects leave a good after-taste of professionalism imprinted on the clients' minds. When I Googled what i'm asking here, I was given pages that showed various websites and tools that let you make flashy websites and templates etc. The $N package and such stuff. I can't recall the word experts use for it. Standard, framework [i know that's not it]. English isn't my first language so I'm sorry I don't really don't know the exact phrase for it. That abstract way of writing code so that you don't come across as a sloppy programmer. That above mentioned way for programming websites and desktop software [in python/C/C++/Java]. EDIT: i can work on the accruing vast knowledge and know-how and logic building etc. what i'm asking for is the programming standard/guidelines you guys follow so that the client on seeing code feels that its a professional solution. Like comment blocks, a particular indentation style something like that. Is there any book on it or specific list of points for enterprise type coding by them? Especially here as in my case, for building websites [php for now..], and desktop software [c/c++/java/python]

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Google+ Platform Office Hours for April 25, 2012: Q&A with the Hangouts API Team

Google+ Platform Office Hours for April 25, 2012: Q&A with the Hangouts API Team This week we were joined by Richard Dunn of the Hangouts API team who answered questions about the Hangouts API. Discuss this video on Google+: goo.gl 1:09 - What's going on with the Hangouts API? 3:43 - Jason shares information about his current projects 5:40 - Can I prevent a Hangout app from running within a Hangout On Air? 8:05 - Can we have APIs to control On Air features? 10:05 - Could a Silverlight / JavaScript bridge be created so we can use them in Hangout Apps? 12:01 - Is there a way to obfuscate the code for a Hangouts app? 15:24 - Are there plans to consolidate the various comment and chat channels for Hangouts On Air? 18:53 - When will Hangouts On Air come to Android? 20:48 - How can I access the OAuth token from the API? - developers.google.com 22:39 - When will we have Hangout apps on the mobile devices? 24:57 - Is it possible to search for 2 or more hash tags via the search REST API? 25:45 - Will we see a PHP REST API demo today? 26:20 - How can I restrict usage of a Hangout app? 30:07 - How do you hold a hangout that is simulcast on YouTube? 31:07 - Why do users show up as empty objects before they've authorized the app? 32:52 - What are the best practice for storing user specific configuration? 38:06 - Is anyone doing in application payment? 39:22 - Has anyone written any books about Hangout apps? From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 1619 19 ratings Time: 42:04 More in Science & Technology

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A Virtual Seat at the Architect’s Table

- by Bob Rhubart

I always have fun producing the Arch2Arch podcasts, but the latest batch was all that and a bag of chips, since I was required to do absolutely no preparation and very little talking, and since the conversation was reminiscent of those I’ve had with various architects (you know who you are) in various watering holes: free-ranging, extemporaneous, and far, far from dull. The three most recent programs were recorded during a virtual mini meet-up of architects back in February. You’ll find more detail here, but in a nutshell, I invited several previous Arch2Arch panelists to join me on Skype to talk about whatever was on their minds. The resulting conversation yielded the three latest programs. Check them out – it’s like you’re sitting at the table. Listen to Part 1 Listen to Part 2 Listen to Part 3 The conversation begins with the participant’s responses to my challenge to fill in the blank in the sentence “Most conversations about Enterprise Architecture are too ____.” From there the conversation morphed into a discussion of the sheer joy of finding funding for architecture projects. The architects seated at the virtual table in these programs are: Todd Biske, a veteran enterprise architect and the author of the book SOA Governace, from Packt Publishing. ( LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog | Oracle Mix ) Jordan Braunstein, an Oracle ACE Director and the Business Integration and Architecture Partner at TUSC. (Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Oracle Mix) Basheer Khan, also an Oracle ACE Director, and the founder and CEO of Innowave Technology (Blog | LinkedIn | Twitter | Oracle Mix) Pat Shepherd, an enterprise architect with the Oracle Enterprise Solutions Group. (Oracle Mix | LinkedIn | Blog) Coming Soon I was so pleased with the results of this meet-up format that I did the same thing for the next series of programs. These free-ranging conversations feature a different group of participants, covering a different set topics, including the fear of SOA, the misunderstanding and misinformation behind that fear, and the idea of beauty in architecture. Yeah, you read that right. So stay tuned: RSS Technorati Tags: oracle,otn,enterprise architecture,podcast. arch2arch,meet-up del.icio.us Tags: oracle,otn,enterprise architecture,podcast. arch2arch,meet-up

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TFS API The All New Team Project Picker – Beautiful!

- by Tarun Arora

The Team Project Picker in TFS 2011 looks gorgeous. I specially like the status bar on the working state, at least let’s you know that the project picker is still working on getting the details and of course the new icons for team project collection and team projects are stunning too. How do I get the Team Project Picker using the TFS API? That is fairly straight forward. Add a reference to the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client dll available in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\ReferenceAssemblies\v2.0 and use the below code, public void ConnectToTfs() { TeamProjectPicker tfsPP = new TeamProjectPicker(TeamProjectPickerMode.MultiProject, false, new UICredentialsProvider()); tfsPP.ShowDialog(); } Download a sample application here Why does my project picker look different? You might run into an issue, where the project picker looks like the below, When the Team Project Picker is run from inside of VS the colour theme will be picked up from VS itself. When running outside of VS the windows theme colours are used, so there can be differences between the two. Currently there isn’t a way to change that since the dialog itself is not public (just the wrapper that launches the dialog). So don’t be surprised if the Team Project Picker looks different then expected :-]

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Is there such thing like a "refactoring/maintainability group" role in software companies?

- by dukeofgaming

So, I work in a company that does embedded software development, other groups focus in the core development of different products' software and my department (which is in another geographical location) which is located at the factory has to deal with software development as well, but across all products, so that we can also fix things quicker when the lines go down due to software problems with the product. In other words, we are generalists while other groups specialize on each product. Thing is, it is kind of hard to get involved in core development when you are distributed geographically (well, I know it really isn't that hard, but there might be unintended cultural/political barriers when it comes to the discipline of collaborating remotely). So I figured that, since we are currently just putting fires out and somewhat being idle/sub-utilized (even though we are a new department, or maybe that is the reason), I thought that a good role for us could be detecting areas of opportunity of refactoring and rearchitecting code and all other implementations that might have to do with stewarding maintainability and modularity. Other groups aren't focused on this because they don't have the time and they have aggressive deadlines, which damage the quality of the code (eternal story of software projects) The thing is that I want my group/department to be recognized by management and other groups with this role officially, and I'm having trouble to come up with a good definition/identity of our group for this matter. So my question is: is this role something that already exists?, or am I the first one to make something like this up?

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Nullable types and ?? operator C# [en-US]

- by ruimachado

Nullable types vs Non-nullable types While developing our C# projects its frequent the null comparison operation to avoid null exceptions. This simple operation is mainly coded using the "var x = null" code example inside an if clause. However not all types of variables are nullable, which means that setting a variable to null is not allowed in every cases, it depends on what kind of type are you defining. But what if there was an extension to your non-nullable type that would convert your variable types to nullable? This extension really exists. As I said before in C# you have nullable types which represent all the values of an underlying type, and an additional null value and can be declared easily using "T?", where T is the type of the variable and for example the normal int type cannot be null, so its a non-nullable type, however if you define a "int?" your variable can be null, what you do is convert a non-nullable type to a nullable type. Example: int x=null; Not allowed int? x=null; Allowed While using nullable types you can check if a variable is null the same way you do it with nullable types: But what about setting a default value when a certain variable is null? In this cases the c# .net framework let you set a default value when you try to assign a nullable type to a non-nullable type, using the ?? operator. If you don't use this operator you can still catch the InvalidOperationException which is throw in this cases. For example without the ?? operator : Using the ?? operator your code becomes cleaner and more easy to read and you get a bonus, you can set a default value for multiple variables using the ?? in a chain set. That’s it, Thanks, Rui Machado rpmachado.wordpress.com

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CMS and Databases vs. DIY

- by hozza

I have been programming for many years now, primarily in PHP and the like and would consider myself an intermediate programmer. Some of my online projects have now gone global and very widely used, i am now in deep thought about scalability etc. All of my systems so far are written in PHP, no known database structure such as MySQL etc. Instead our databases use an 'operating system style' method of storing information, files and folders if you will. We also do not use any outside/third-party software or CMS, so far this has work out extremely well. Most people, when they hear about the way we do things, criticize and say that is an idiotic idea but normally after seeing our systems in more dept are converted to our way of doing things. Is it really that bad to not use a standard databasing systems and only using the one (slightly heavier than others) language of PHP? How well on the face of it will this kind of setup scale? N.B. Our systems include things such as account and user management, documentation development and task/project managing.

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Release Notes for 6/14/2012

Here are the notes for this week’s release: Diffs in Pull Requests and Commits We altered the way we display diffs across commits and pull requests to maximize the amount of vertical real estate devoted to the diff. Before, the viewport for diffs was always snapped to the height of the browser, which meant that on lower resolutions, the amount of space for viewing diffs could become very tiny. Now, the majority of the browser vertical space is devoted to viewing the diffs. Let us know what you think! Bug Fixes Fixed an issue where returning to the list of files changed from a diff would sometimes not show the list of files. Fixed the dialogs for approving and denying requests to join projects. Fixed various issues around validation of project details when publishing a project. Fixed an issue that caused the formatting of our tabs in pull requests to not display properly. Fixed an issue where users browsing Unicode files in a Git project would see error pages. Fixed various issues where the option to subscribe to notifications would not appear properly. Have ideas on how to improve CodePlex? Visit our ideas page! Vote for your favorite ideas or submit a new one. Got Twitter? Follow us and keep apprised of the latest releases and service status at @codeplex.

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Data Access Objects old fashioned? [on hold]

- by Bono

A couple of weeks ago I delivered some work for a university project. After a code review with some teachers I got some snarky remarks about the fact that I was (still) using Data Access Objects. The teacher in question who said this mentions the use of DAO's in his classes and always says something along the lines of "Back then we always used DAO's". He's a big fan of Object Relational Mapping, which I also think is a great tool. When I was talking about this with some of my fellow students, they also mentioned that they prefer the use of ORM, which I can understand. It did make me wonder though, is using DAO's really so old fashioned? I know that at my work DAO's are still being used, but this is due to the fact that some of the code is rather old and therefor can't be coupled with ORM. We also do use ORM at my work. Trying to find some more information on Google or Stack Exchange sites didn't really enlighten me. Should I step away from the use of DAO's and only start implementing ORM? I just feel that ORM's can be a bit overkill for some simple projects. I'd love to hear your opinions (or facts) about this.

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I am not the most logically-organized person. Do I have any chance at being a good 'low-level' programmer?

- by user217902

Background: I am entering college next year. I really enjoy making stuff and solving logical problems, so I'm thinking of majoring in compsci and working in software development. I hope to have the kind of job where I can work with implementing / improving algorithms and data structures on a regular basis.. as opposed to, say, a job that's purely concerned with mashing different libraries together, or 'finding the right APIs for the job'. (Hence the word 'low-level' in the title. No, I don't wish to write assembly all day.) Thing is, I've never been the most logically-sharp person. Thus far I have only worked on hobby projects, but I find that I make the silliest of errors ever so often, and it can take me ages to find it. Like anywhere between three hours to a day to locate a simple segfault, off-by-one error, or other logical mistake. (Of course, I do other things in the meantime, like browsing SO, reddit, and the like..) It's not like I'm 'new' to programming either; I first tried C++ maybe five years ago. My question is: is this normal? Should a programmer with any talent solve it in less time? Having read Spolsky's Smart and gets things done, where he talks about the large variance in programming speed, am I near the bottom of the curve, and therefore destined to work in companies that cannot afford to hire quality programmers? I'd like to think that conceptually I'm okay -- I can grasp algorithms and concepts pretty well, I do fine in math and science, although I probably drop signs in my equations more often than the next guy. Still, grokking concepts makes me happy, and is the reason why I want to work with algorithms. I'm hoping to hear from those of you with real-world programming experience. TL;DR: I make many careless mistakes, should I not consider programming as a career?

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How can I get non-programmer colleagues on board with bespoke software rather than Dynamics CRM + Sharepoint?

- by Bendos

I am working with a company which designs and builds one-off machines. They have been 'dabbling' with hosted Dynamics CRM and Sharepoint (on different servers!) in an attempt to centralise their data and help colleagues collaborate more effectively across projects. They haven't used either system to their potential. Now we are looking at the engineering department who already use a form of version control software for the various CAD files (Autodesk Vault) however it is becoming increasingly necessary to implement more of a generic file version control system as they use many more files than can be managed in Vault (sometimes just photos or scans of paper documents), hence why they were looking at using Sharepoint. However... as the 'programmer' of the bunch, I can see several scenarios which don't seem to fit well with the Dynamics + Sharepoint approach; simple reports based on cross-table queries, exporting certain metrics as a spreadsheet, defining project hierarchies and many-many relationships, and as such I have been pushing for an in-house developed 'ECM' / 'ERP' software package (perhaps in .NET or php). Some colleagues seem to attach a greater value to the MS software (perhaps becuase it has a logo!) but don't see that it's just a framework, not a solution. Can anyone provide a good example of when custom software would actually be better than using Dynamics + Sharepoint and how do I relate that to non-technical staff?

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JavaScript and callback nesting

- by Jake King

A lot of JavaScript libraries (notably jQuery) use chaining, which allows the reduction of this: var foo = $(".foo"); foo.stop(); foo.show(); foo.animate({ top: 0 }); to this: $(".foo").stop().show().animate({ top: 0 }); With proper formatting, I think this is quite a nice syntactic capability. However, I often see a pattern which I don't particularly like, but appears to be a necessary evil in non-blocking models. This is the ever-present nesting of callback functions: $(".foo").animate({ top: 0, }, { callback: function () { $.ajax({ url: 'ajax.php', }, { callback: function () { ... } }); } }); And it never ends. Even though I love the ease non-blocking models provide, I hate the odd nesting of function literals it forces upon the programmer. I'm interesting in writing a small JS library as an exercise, and I'd love to find a better way to do this, but I don't know how it could be done without feeling hacky. Are there any projects out there that have resolved this problem before? And if not, what are the alternatives to this ugly, meaningless code structure?

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