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• PARTNER News: Tips and Guidelines from Avago (formerly LSI)

  - by Zeynep Koch

  In this blog write-up we would like to focus our attention to one of our IHV partners, Avago (formerly LSI) . Avago and Oracle have been collaborating at many levels for many years.  At the lowest level, Avago and Oracle engineer solutions to inbox advanced features in our I/O device drivers.  We collaborate to test, verify and optimize these drivers in Oracle Linux with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. Both LSI Nytro and Sun F-Series PCIe flash devices are supported inbox in Oracle Linux with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. By collaborating early in the engineering design cycle we can find and resolve issues sooner and deliver to the end-customer a fully optimized platform for I/O efficiency and data protection.  Hear more about the partnership and benefits in this podcast  LSI and Oracle Partnership. Avago had also been working on technical whitepaper and video whiteboard to explain some of the optimizations you can achieve by using smart flash cache with Oracle Linux.  Technical Paper: Improve Database Performance Using Sun Flash Accelerator Card, Database Smart Flash Cache and Oracle Linux Video: Improving DB Performance with Database Smart Flash Cache If you want more information about the partnership and product benefits, you can visit the LSI Oracle alliance page. 

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• How to do integrated testing?

  - by Enthusiastic Programmer

  So I have been reading up on a lot of books surrounding testing. But all the books I've read have the same flaws. They will all tell you the definitions of testing. But I have not found a single book that will guide you into integration testing (or pretty much anything higher then unit testing). Is integration testing that elusive or am I reading the wrong books? I'm a hands on person, so I would appreciate it if someone could help me with a simple program: Let's say you need to make some sort of calculation program that calculates something (doesn't matter what) and exports it to *.txt file. Let's assume we use the Model View Controller design principle. And one class for the actual calculating which you'll use in the model and one for writing the textfile. So: View = Controller = Model = CalculationClass, FileClass So for unittesting: You'd test the calculationClass, I'd personally focus most of my unit tests there. And less time on unit testing the view/controller/FileClass. I personally wouldn't see the use of unittesting those unless you want a really robust program. Integration testing: Now this is where I run into a wall. What would I have to test to call it an integration test? I could stub the view and feed the controller data which it would pass on to the model and so forth. And then check what the view gets back in the end. But ... Couldn't I just run the (in this case small) program then and test it manually? Would this be considered a integration test too, or does it have to be automated? Also, can I check multiple items to see if they are correct? I cannot seem to find any book that offers a hands on approach to methods of integration testing.

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• Which metric/list should be used to evaluate whole software development team?

  - by adt

  Title might be seem vague, so let me tell you a little bit history what i am trying to clarify question. I have been hired as a consultant for a corporate's small developement divison ( The company also owns a couple of software dev. companies) My ex manager runs a BI team, with reportes, analyts and developers. He asked me to evaluate overall design, software developement process and code quality . Here what i found, Lots of copy/paste code everywhere ( no reuse ) Even though they have everything TFS, VS Ultimate etc, No Build process , No Cruise Control.net / team city... No unit tests Web Pages with 3700 lines of code, Lots of huge functions ( which can be divided into smaller one's ) No naming convention both db and c# code No 3r party or open source project No IoC No Seperation Of Concerns No Code Quality Check ( NDepend or FxCope or nothing ) No Code Review No Communication within the team They claim they wrote an application framework ( 6 months 3 persons), but I would hardly call a framework ( of course no unit test, there are some but all commented out). Framework contains 14 projects but there are some projects with 1 file 20 lines of code . Honestly, what people are doing fixing bug all thr day( which will provide more bugs eventually), they are kind of isolated from community, some team members even dont know github or stackoverflow they probably went there with google but they dont know about it. So here is question, Is This list ok ? Or am i being picky? Since I dont have any grudge against them, I just want to be fair, honest and I would like to hear you suggestions, before I would submit this list. And since this list also will be review by software division's manager, I dont want any heart break or something like this. http://www.hanselman.com/altnetgeekcode/ For example I would love to such lists, i cant make references. Thanks in advance.

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• Internationalization messages based in views or in model entities

  - by SJuan76

  I have a small webapp in java and I am adding the internationalization support, replacing texts with labels that are defined in dictionary files. While some texts are obviously unique to each view (v.g. the html title), other refer to concepts from the model (v.g. a ticket, the location or status of such ticket, etc.) As usual, some terms will appear many times in different locations (vg, in both the edition page and in the search page and in the listings I have a "ticketLocation" label). My question is: can I organize the labels around the model concepts (so I have a ticket.location label and I use it everywhere such field is labeled) or should I make a different label for each (so form.ticketLocation and filter.ticketLocation and list.ticketLocation). I would go for the first option; I have searched for tips and the only thing that I see that could hinder me is due to the length of the string disrupting the design, and even for that I would prefer having to add a ticket.locationShort for places where there is not much space. What is your opinion/tips/experience?

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• Many user stories share the same technical tasks: what to do?

  - by d3prok

  A little introduction to my case: As part of a bigger product, my team is asked to realize a small IDE for a DSL. The user of this product will be able to make function calls in the code and we are also asked to provide some useful function libraries. The team, together with the PO, put on the wall a certain number of user stories regarding the various libraries for the IDE user. When estimating the first of those stories, the team decided that the function call mechanism would have been an engaging but not completely obvious task, so the estimate for that user story raised up from a simple 3 to a more dangerous 5. Coming to the problem: The team then moved to the user stories regarding the other libraries, actually 10 stories, and added those 2 points of "function call mechanism" thing to each of those user story. This immediately raised up the total points for the product of 20 points! Everyone in the team knows that each user story could be picked up by the PO for the next iteration at any time, so we shouldn't isolate that part in one user story, but those 20 points feel so awfully unrealistic! I've proposed a solution, but I'm absolutely not satisfied: We created a "Design story" and put those annoying 2 points over it. However when we came to realize and demonstrate it to our customers, we were unable to show something really valuable for them about that story! Here the problem is whether we should ignore the principle of having isolated user stories (without any dependency between them). What would you do, or even better what have you done, in situations like this? (a small foot-note: following a suggestion I've moved this question from stackoverflow)

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• Partner Spotlight: Compasso

  - by Joe Diemer

  EVERY MONDAY at 2 PM Eastern Time (USA) Join Compasso, one of Oracle's Enterprise Manager partners that is Specialized in Application Quality Management, for a series of presentations focused on Oracle end to end performance management. The objective is to provide a comprehensive overview of Oracle's Enterprise Manager 12c software.  Attendees will learn how Oracle can provide a complete end to end management  solution, for not only for Oracle Databases, but also other aspects of the Oracle technology, such as Middleware and Oracle applications.  Key areas include: 1. Next-Generation Management Framework which cover: Better performance and scalability Modular, extensible architecture Easier to manage and diagnose Enhanced security Web 2.0 UI 2. Enhanced Application-to-Disk Management End-to-end application performance management Fusion Applications management Exadata and Exalogic management 3. Complete Lifecycle Management for Enterprise Private Cloud Self-service provisioning Policy based resource and workload management Chargeback There are two ways you can sign up: 1. Call Nicole Wakefield of Compasso at +1 (971) 245-5042 2. Email [email protected] with Subject Line of "Monday Enterprise Manager Presentations" WebEx Conference details will be provided with your confirmation For more information about partner opportunities with Enterprise Manager, including becoming Specialized, click here. For more information about Compasso, click here.

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• Alternatives to time tracking methodologies [closed]

  - by Brandon Wamboldt

  Question first: What are some feasible alternatives to time tracking for employees in a web/software development company, and why are they better options Explanation: I work at a company where we work like this. Everybody is paid salary. We have 3 types of work, Contract, Adhoc and Internal (Non billable). Adhoc is just small changes that take a few hours and we just bill the client at the end of the month. Contracts are signed and we have this big long process, the usual. We figure out how much to charge by getting an estimation of the time involved (From the design and the developers), multiplying it by our hourly rate and that's it. So say we estimate 50 hours for a website. We have time tracking software and have to record the time in 15 we spend on it (7:00 to 7:15 for example), the project name, and give it some comments. Now if we go over the 50 hours, we are both losing money and are inefficient. Now that I've explained how the system works, my question is how else can it be done if a better method exists (Which I'm sure one must). Nobody here likes the current system, we just can't find an alternative. I'd be more than willing to work after hours longer hours on a project to get it done in time, but I'm much inclined to do so with the current system. I'd love to be able to sum up (Or link) to this post for my manager to show them why we should use abc system instead of this system.

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• Should developers be involved in testing phases?

  - by LudoMC

  Hi, we are using a classical V-shaped development process. We then have requirements, architecture, design, implementation, integration tests, system tests and acceptance. Testers are preparing test cases during the first phases of the project. The issue is that, due to resources issues (*), test phases are too long and are often shortened due to time constraints (you know project managers... ;)). So my question is simple: should developers be involved in the tests phases and isn't it too 'dangerous'. I'm afraid it will give the project managers a false feeling of better quality as the work has been done but would the added man.days be of any value? I'm not really confident of developers doing tests (no offense here but we all know it's quite hard to break in a few clicks what you have made in severals days). Thanks for sharing your thoughts. (*) For obscure reasons, increasing the number of testers is not an option as of today. (Just upfront, it's not a duplicate of Should programmers help testers in designing tests? which talks about test preparation and not test execution, where we avoid the implication of developers)

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• Value my C++ knowledge

  - by PirateOwh

  I have only followed antiRTFM tutorials and read 2 books So, I'll list the things I know better : basic input output and all the variables : integers ( signed unsigned ), float, double, char arrays if, for, while, switch functions, and passing variables to functions and return type thing classes and the concept of oop with separating declaration and definition in the header and in the source pointers so this and some more i think is all i know of C++.. But, i need some exercises to test my knowledge because i want to move on to the library SDL, so I don't know if i should feel ready or not to move on to something totally different.. I feel I should know the basics for good at least. So the question is : How can i value my c++ knowledge? Is there any online tests? Is there any GDD ( Game Design Document ) for free to use and see if i can manage to do it so "i'd pass" ? ( I'm saying GDD since ill move on to SDL and try to make my own game ) When should I move to SDL? What are ALL the things I should "master" ( master is a big word to say.. but so you understand what i mean ) before moving on ? Please I'm really in need of expert advice. I think my question is detailed so i hope you understand what i mean and can give me a good reply. Thanks for the help!

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• Release Notes for 3/15/2012

  Here are the notes for today’s release: Updated the GNU Lesser General Public License for new projects to match the latest license version Deployed several bug fixes around HTTPS support: Fixed an issue where the advanced view filters in the issue tracker would fail to work under HTTPS. Fixed an issue where voting was not working properly under HTTPS. Fixed an issue where navigating using AJAX would fail under HTTPS. Fixed several other minor scripting errors for various scenarios under HTTPS. Fixed an issue where text in the Discussions List would appear cut off in Safari. Fixed an issue where shortcuts on the Work Items page conflicted with standard Mac shortcuts. Tweaked the design of code snippets in discussion to be consistent with wiki code snippets. 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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• New Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java (beta)

  - by Tori Wieldt

  Nokia recently launched the Asha 305, 306, and 311, which are full touch devices with smartphone-like functionality at a low price. This makes them particularly attractive to consumers in the developing and developed world who may not be able to afford a smartphone but have a strong demand for apps and the smartphone experience. The Asha phones are the latest addition to Nokia's Series 40 platform, all of which support Java ME. The SDK includes new Full Touch API's (e.g. supporting pinch zoom) and Sensor support delivering an enhanced App experience. It also adds improved Maps API support for creating socio-local apps. There are a number of improvements in the tools including the Nokia IDE for Java ME with in-build Device-SDK Manager. Many code examples, training videos, webinars and sample code will help get you started. Porting guides and sample code show you how to port your android app to Java ME. If you don't have access to the hardware you can use Remote Device Access to test on real hardware that's remotely hosted for free. You can also find Light Weight UI Toolkit (LWUIT) support, which can speed development significantly. Both In-App Advertising and In-App Purchase (beta) is supported. Here's a great revenue-making opportunity for developers and a great way of reaching a new app-hungry mass-market audience. Download the new Nokia SDK 2.0 for Java (Beta) and get developing! 

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• What is an effective way to familiarize yourself with a new application in a new language? [closed]

  - by codeninja

  Possible Duplicate: How do I pick up a new language quickly, given I know several others? I started a new job working on an application I'm vaguely familar with, and it's in PERL! I come from a PHP and Java background, so while I understand the basics, there are lot of nuances in PERL that make it troublesome. updated < Im supposed to be a UI developer, but the smallness of the office requires me to learn and do a lot more than just javascript. So that was slightly unexpected in some aspects and I'm just thinking about what approach to take with this /updated So far I've been sifting through the code to understand what each part does, printed out copies of code and try to lookup APIs I'm not familiar with, and so I dunno how effective this process is -- I feel like it's gonna take some time -- and I dont want my new employers to feel like I'm not being productive. Anyone have some ideas or approaches for this kind of situation? I read some of the questions about learning new languages, but I'm curious to see if anyone's had experience with this with PERL.

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• Cookie Settings Storage Method

  - by Paul

  I've got an web app that needs to store some non-sensitive preferences for the user. Right now I'm storing their language preference and what mode they want a window opened in by default in two cookies: "lang" can be "en" or "de" "mode" can be "design" or "view" I might add a few more in the future. I'm not sure how many, but probably never more than a dozen. Language is parsed on every request, whereas the mode cookie is only used occasionally. I saw a recommendation that made sense I shouldn't try to do what I was originally planning to do and strongly type a user settings class deserialized on each request because of the overhead involved. I see three options here and I'm not sure which is the best overall. Keep things as they are, add a new cookie for each new setting Combine the cookies into a single settings cookie and add future values to it Change the mode cookie to settings (leaving language alone), add new user settings values to the settings cookie All would work obviously. I'm leaning toward option three, but I'm not sure if there's a best practice for this?

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• A Brand-new Automated Testing Tool is the Result of Telerik and ArtOfTest Merger

  Im sure youve already heard the great news about Telerik expansion and the new Telerik Automated Testing Tools division. I am excited to share what we worked on and produced for the last couple of months. New Release The latest Telerik release that went live this week added a completely new tool to Teleriks automated testing product line. The new QA Edition is tailored for QA Professionals. The QA Edition is a standalone tool that allows QAs to freely create, execute and maintain their tests without having to install Visual Studio. If you are a developer and you want something much faster and lightweight than VS, then the Standalone tool is worth trying. New IDE The QA Edition is a WPF application with interface built on top of the latest and greatest RadControls for WPF. This allowed us to configure and build intuitive and easy-to-use UI. Additionally, the rich ...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Software Architecture: How to divide work to a network of computers?

  - by Morpork

  Imagine a scenario as follows: Lets say you have a central computer which generates a lot of data. This data must go through some processing, which unfortunately takes longer than to generate. In order for the processing to catch up with real time, we plug in more slave computers. Further, we must take into account the possibility of slaves dropping out of the network mid-job as well as additional slaves being added. The central computer should ensure that all jobs are finished to its satisfaction, and that jobs dropped by a slave are retasked to another. The main question is: What approach should I use to achieve this? But perhaps the following would help me arrive at an answer: Is there a name or design pattern to what I am trying to do? What domain of knowledge do I need to achieve the goal of getting these computers to talk to each other? (eg. will a database, which I have some knowledge of, be enough or will this involve sockets, which I have yet to have knowledge of?) Are there any examples of such a system? The main question is a bit general so it would be good to have a starting point/reference point. Note I am assuming constraints of c++ and windows so solutions pointing in that direction would be appreciated.

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• Release Notes for 5/18/2012

  Here are the notes for this week’s release: Pull Requests We’ve added the ability to see the snippets of code where a user commented inline in the discussion of pull requests. You can also add another line comment directly from the discussion area, rather than navigating to the code diff viewer. Note that there’s currently a known issue where the line associated with the comment isn’t being properly differentiated for existing pull requests (the line in the middle of each diff preview should be bolded). Apologies for the inconvenience! As part of this work, we also took some time to clean up our diff viewer UI to remove the dots and introduce a new color scheme where green is used for added lines. Bug Fixes Fixed an issue affecting the ability to assign pull requests. Fixed an issue where managing various team resources for a project was not working in Chrome or Firefox. Fixed an issue where a project’s RSS subscribe dialog popped up in the wrong place. Fixed an issue where editing wiki anchor links would insert extra characters, resulting in broken links. Fixed an issue where project logos did not display correctly when browsing the site with https in Chrome or Firefox. Fixed an issue where users could encounter errors when deleting remote Git branches. Fixed an issue affecting the ability of fork collaborators to push changes to the fork. Fixed an issue where the advanced work item filters would not persist when navigating through result pages. Fixed an issue where the issue tracker notifications link was not clickable in Chrome. Fixed an issue where pull request comments with line breaks would not be formatted properly when viewing the pull request. Other We upgraded our Git servers to version 1.7.10.1. 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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• How to handle notifications to several partial views of the same model?

  - by Seki

  I am working on refactoring an old simulation of a Turing machine. The application uses a class that contains the state and the logic of program execution, and several panels to display the tape representation and show the state, messages, and the GUI controls (start, stop, program listing, ...). I would like to refactor it using the MVC architecture that was not used originaly: the Frame is the only way to get access to the different panels and there is also a strong coupling between the "engine" class and the GUI updates in the way of frame.displayPanel.state.setText("halted"); or frame.outputPanel.messages.append("some thing"); It looks to me that I should put the state related code into an observable model class and make the different panels observers. My problem is that the java Observable class only provides a global notification to the Observers, while I would prefer not to refresh every Observers everytime, but only when the part that specificaly observe has changed. I am thinking of implementing myself several vectors of listeners (for the state / position, for the output messages, ...) but I feel like reinventing the wheel. I though also about adding some flags that the observers could check like isNewMessageAvailable(), hasTapeMoved(), etc but it sounds also approximative design. BTW, is it ok to keep the fetch / execute loop into the model or should I move it in another place? We can think in a theorical ideal way as I am completely revamping this small application.

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• Now that Apple's intending to deprecate Java on OS X, what language should I focus on?

  - by Smalltown2000

  After getting shot down on SO, I'll try this here: I'm sure you'll all know of Apple's recent announcement to deprecate Java on OS X (such as discussed here). I've recently come back to programming in the last year or so since I originally learnt on ye olde BASIC many years ago. I have a Mac at home and a PC at work and whilst I have got Windows and Ubuntu installed on my Mac as VMs, I chose to focus my "relearning" on VB first (as it was closest to BASIC) and then rapidly moved to Java as it was cross platform (with minimal effort) and so it was easiest to work on code from both OSes. So my question, if the winds of change on Mac are blowing away from Java and in this post-Sun era, what would be the best language to focus my new efforts on? Please note, this isn't a general "which language is better?" thread and or an opportunity for the associated flame-war. There's plenty of those and it's not the point. I realise that in the long term one shouldn't be allegiant to an individual language so, taking this as an excuse, the question is specifically which is going to be the most quick to be productive on given the background whilst bearing in mind minimum portability rewrites (aspiration rather then requirement) and with a long term value of usage. To that I see the main options as: C# - Closest in "style" to Java but M$ dependent (unless you consider Mono of course) C++ - Hugely complex but if even slightly conquered, then a win? Is it worth the climb up the learning curve? VB.Net - Already have background so easiest to go back to but who uses VB for .Net these days? Surely if using a CLI language I should use C#... Python - Cross-platform but what about UI for the end-user? EDIT: As a usage priority, I envision desktop application programming. Though the ability to branch in the future is always desirable. I guess graphics are the next direction once basics are in place.

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• From the Coalface - 3 - Work as hard as you can to be as lazy as you can!

  - by TATWORTH

  The saga of the Change Log A recent conversation reminded me of the need for change logs within a database, to record when various change scripts were run. Creating such the required table is simple. A typical table for this consists of: Id - identity Integer primary key ChangeFileName - NVARCHAR(128) to hold the name of the file run. DateAdded - DateTime non-null with default value of getutcdate() Purpose - NVARCHAR(128) Rerunnable - Bit non-null default 0. By good design of the table only two data values normally need to be supplied. Two stored procedures, one for inserting data and one to list in reverse sequence the log complete the database essentials. The complete implementation can be found in the CommonData solution at http://CommonData.CodePlex.Com By including a call the add Change Log stored procedure, each script can log its name and purpose for posterity. The scripts that were applied to say the UAT system and their sequence of application can be readily identified for running on the Live system. Formatting XML XML is often produced as one continous string with no embedded CR/LF. To get it into human readable form, open it in visual studio, swap to another tab and back and click the format document button. The XML will then be nicely formatted!

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• Iterative and Incremental Principle Series 5: Conclusion

  - by llowitz

  Thank you for joining me in the final segment in the Iterative and Incremental series.  During yesterday’s segment, I discussed Iteration Planning, and specifically how I planned my daily exercise (iteration) each morning by assessing multiple factors, while following my overall Implementation plan. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, regardless of the type of exercise or how many increment sets I decide to complete each day, I apply the 6 minute interval sets and a timebox approach.  When the 6 minutes are up, I stop the interval, even if I have more to give, saving the extra energy to apply to my next interval set.   Timeboxes are used to manage iterations.  Once the pre-determined iteration duration is reached – whether it is 2 weeks or 6 weeks or somewhere in between-- the iteration is complete.  Iteration group items (requirements) not fully addressed, in relation to the iteration goal, are addressed in the next iteration.  This approach helps eliminate the “rolling deadline” and better allows the project manager to assess the project progress earlier and more frequently than in traditional approaches. Not only do smaller, more frequent milestones allow project managers to better assess potential schedule risks and slips, but process improvement is encouraged.  Even in my simple example, I learned, after a few interval sets, not to sprint uphill!  Now I plan my route more efficiently to ensure that I sprint on a level surface to reduce of the risk of not completing my increment.  Project managers have often told me that they used an iterative and incremental approach long before OUM.   An effective project manager naturally organizes project work consistent with this principle, but a key benefit of OUM is that it formalizes this approach so it happens by design rather than by chance.    I hope this series has encouraged you to think about additional ways you can incorporate the iterative and incremental principle into your daily and project life.  I further hope that you will share your thoughts and experiences with the rest of us.

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• Creating my own PHP framework

  - by onlineapplab.com

  Disclaimer: I don't want to start any flame war so there will not be no name of any framework mentioned. I've been using quite many from the existing PHP frameworks and my experience in each case was similar: everything is nice a the beginning but in the moment you require something non standard you get into lot of problems to fix otherwise simple issues. In case of frameworks following the MVC design pattern there are some issues with the implementation of each layer for example there is a lot of codding used for model and data access with using ORM and presentation is not much more than pure phtml. Some frameworks use their own wrappers for existing PHP functionality and in some cases severely limiting original functionality. Depending on framework you can have additional problems like lack of documentation, slow or non existent development cycle and last but not least speed. While ago I made my own framework which while doing it's job and being used for few different applications after couple of years more of experience with PHP doesn't seem to be perfect piece of codding. I could write my own framework and use additional experience I've gathered during these years to make it better on the other hand I'm aware that there is quite many better programmers working on creating/upgrading existing frameworks. So does it make at all nay sense to write my own PHP framework if there is so many possibilities to choose from?

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• How many tasks to plan beforehand [closed]

  - by no__seriously

  As for my daily routine. Every morning when I come to work, I look at the items of my todo-list inbox (noted from the previous day). For each task I think about on which day I should get started and then group them accordingly. Once that's finished, I get started with my actual schedule for the day. Now, this pre-planning for each task (which could be concerning user interface to compiler programming) is mostly pretty sketchy. Serious thoughts about design and implementation comes when the task is about to be tackled. This approach works for me and I can't really complain. But I'm wondering. Since I'm personally most productive during the morning, would it make sense to already go into a deeper level of planning right away for each task? Or is that unproductive and would rather confuse than clarify? I think the latter. How do you handle your task management for each task / project and how far do you go with planning before even getting started with that item?

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• knowing all available entity types

  - by plofplof

  I'm making a game where at some point the game will create enemies of random types. Each type of enemy available is defined on its own class derived from an enemy superclass. To do this, obviously the different types of enemies should be known. This is what I have thought of: Just make a list manually. Very simple to do, but I don't like it because I'll be adding more enemy types over time, so any time I add a new class I have to remember to update this (same if I remove an enemy). I would like some kind of auto-updating list. A completely component based system. There are no different classes for each enemy, but definitions of enemies in some file where all enemy types can be found. I really don't need that level of complexity for my game. I'm still using a component based model to some degree, but each Enemy type gets defined on its own class. Java Annotation processing. Give each enemy subclass an annotation like @EnemyType("whatever"), then code an annotation processor that writes in a file all available enemy types. Any time a new class is added the file gets updated after compilation.This gives me a feeling of failure even if its a good solution, it's very dependant on Java, so it means I cant think of a general design good for any kind of language. Also I think that this would be too much work for something so simple. I would like to see comments on these ideas and other possible solutions Thanks

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• Localization of Database Strings in .Net

  - by Aligned

  I have several database tables that have a description column that I need to display in the UI. .Net has .resx files that will help with the translation of the strings, when the Thread.CurrentCulture.UICulture is set, but I needed a custom approach for the strings that are stored in the database and not in the .resx files. Here’s my approach: 1. Create a resource file for each database table and put them in the /Resources/Database/ directory. 2. Create a method in LocalizationHelpers (GetLocalizedString) that will get the string from the table for English (which should be cached to avoid unneeded service/database calls) or the resx when not English. 3. All database tables need to have a ResxKey field that matches the key in the resx file. 4. By convention the resx file will have the same name as the database table, and the key the same as the database ResxKey.   - if there are multiple columns that need translation, then one ResxKey will be used and Name or Description appended. Here’s the method I’m using to pull the string: public static string GetLocalizedString(string resourceName, string resourceKey) { if (executingAssembly == null) { executingAssembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); } ResourceManager manager = new ResourceManager(resourceName, executingAssembly); return manager.GetString(resourceKey); }

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• Should I be worrying about limiting the number of textures in my game?

  - by Donutz

  I am working on a GUI in XNA 4.0 at the moment. (Before you point out that there are many GUIs already in existance, this is as much a learning exercise as a practical project). As you may know, controls and dialogs in Windows actually consist of a number of system-level windows. For instance, a dialog box may consist of a window for the whole dialog, a child window for the client area, another window (barely showing) for the frame, and so on. This makes detecting mouse hits and doing clipping relatively easy. I'd like to design my XNA GUI along the same lines, but using overlapping Textures instead of windows obviously. My question (yes, there's actually a question in this drivel) is: am I at risk of adversely affecting game performance and/or running low in resources if I get too nuts with the creating of many small textures? I haven't been able to find much information on how resource-tight the XNA environment actually is. I grew up in the days of 64K ram so I'm used to obsessing about resources and optimization. Anyway, any feedback appreciated.

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