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  • How do I display a jquery dialog box before the entire page is loaded?

    - by obarshay
    On my site a number of operations can take a long time to complete. When I know a page will take a while to load, I would like to display a progress indicator while the page is loading. Ideally I would like to say something along the lines of: $("#dialog").show("progress.php"); and have that overlay on top of the page that is being loaded (disappearing after the operation is completed). Coding the progress bar and displaying progress is not an issue, the issue is getting a progress indicator to pop up WHILE the page is being loaded. I have been trying to use JQuery's dialogs for this but they only appear after the page is already loaded. This has to be a common problem but I am not familiar enough with JavaScript to know the best way to do this. Here's simple example to illustrate the problem. The code below fails to display the dialog box before the 20 second pause is up. I have tried in Chrome and Firefox. In fact I don't even see the "Please Wait..." text. Here's the code I am using: <html> <head> <link type="text/css" href="http://jqueryui.com/latest/themes/base/ui.all.css" rel="stylesheet" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://jqueryui.com/latest/jquery-1.3.2.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://jqueryui.com/latest/ui/ui.core.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://jqueryui.com/latest/ui/ui.dialog.js"></script> </head> <body> <div id="please-wait">My Dialog</div> <script type="text/javascript"> $("#please-wait").dialog(); </script> <?php flush(); echo "Waiting..."; sleep(20); ?> </body> </html>

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  • Why do some questions get closed for no reason? [closed]

    - by IVlad
    Recently there was a question asking about generating all subsets of a set using a stack and a queue, which was closed (and now deleted it seems) as not a real question for no good reason, since it didn't fit into any of these conditions: It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. No, it was clear what was being asked. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. Not ambiguous, not vague, not incomplete, definitely not rhetorical and could easily be answered if one knew the solution. Now, the exact same thing has happened with this question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2791982/a-shortest-path-problem-with-superheroes-and-intergalactic-journeys/2793746#2793746 I am interested in hearing a logical argument for why that question is either ambiguous, vague, incomplete, rhetorical or cannot reasonably be answered in its current form. It seems that (the same bunch of) people like to close questions that they think are homework questions, especially when they think people want to be served the solution on a platter, which is also not the case: Any suggestions or ideas of how this problem might be solved would be most welcomed. Most of the time the people asking these questions are very reasonable and appreciate even the most vague idea, yet their question is closed. Let's go further and assume that it IS a homework problem. So what? When I registered here I didn't see any rule that said not to post homework problems, nor do I see such a rule now. What is wrong with posting homework problems that makes people hunt them down with a passion to close them without even reading the entire question body? This site is full of questions asked by people who get paid to know the things they are asking, yet their questions are considered fine. How is solving someone's homework problem worse? In some places (like where I live), computer science is a mandatory high school subject, and not everyone is interested in it. How is helping at least those people worse than doing someone's JOB? Not answering homework questions is fine and it's everyone's choice, but I consider closing them to be an act of power abuse, selfishness, and an insult to the fellow community members who are also interested in a solution or want feedback on their proposed solution. So my questions are: - Why do questions like the above get closed for reasons that do not apply? Why do you close them? Why don't you? - Why doesn't a vote to reopen a question reopen it automatically? Needing 5 votes for a reopen takes too long, and it's not fair because one reopen vote basically cancels out a close vote, making it 4 close votes (or 5 to 1, which is the same as only 4 people wanting to close the question), which isn't enough to close the question. I think a question should only be closed when CloseVotes - ReopenVotes >= 5. I'm hoping this will stay up, but I realize it probably won't. In either case, I think this is worth saying and discussing, since it IS community-related.

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  • How to retain canvas state and use it in onDraw() method

    - by marqss
    I want to make a measure tape component for my app. It should look something like this with values from 0cm to 1000cm: Initially I created long bitmap image with repeated tape background. I drew that image to canvas in onDraw() method of my TapeView (extended ImageView). Then I drew a set of numbers with drawText() on top of the canvas. public TapeView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs){ ImageView imageView = new ImageView(mContext); LayoutParams params = new LayoutParams(LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT); imageView.setLayoutParams(params); mBitmap = createTapeBitmap(); imageView.setImageBitmap(mBitmap); this.addView(imageView); } private Bitmap createTapeBitmap(){ Bitmap mBitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(5000, 100, Config.ARGB_8888); //size of the tape Bitmap tape = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(),R.drawable.tape);//the image size is 100x100px Bitmap scaledTape = Bitmap.createScaledBitmap(tape, 100, 100, false); Canvas c = new Canvas(mBitmap); Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setColor(Color.WHITE); paint.setFakeBoldText(true); paint.setAntiAlias(true); paint.setTextSize(30); for(int i=0; i<=500; i++){ //draw background image c.drawBitmap(scaledTape,(i * 200), 0, null); //draw number in the middle of that background String text = String.valueOf(i); int textWidth = (int) paint.measureText(text); int position = (i * 100) + 100 - (textWidth / 2); c.drawText(text, position, 20, paint); } return mBitmap; } Finally I added this view to HorizontalScrollView. At the beginning everything worked beautifully but I realised that the app uses a Lot of memory and sometimes crashed with OutOfMemory exception. It was obvious because a size of the bitmap image was ~4mb! In order to increase the performance, instead of creating the bitmap I use Drawable (with the yellow tape strip) and set the tile mode to REPEAT: setTileModeX(TileMode.REPEAT); The view now is very light but I cannot figure out how to add numbers. There are too many of them to redraw them each time the onDraw method is called. Is there any way that I can draw these numbers on canvas and then save that canvas so it can be reused in onDraw() method?

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  • LINQ Query Returning Multiple Copies Of First Result

    - by Mike G
    I'm trying to figure out why a simple query in LINQ is returning odd results. I have a view defined in the database. It basically brings together several other tables and does some data munging. It really isn't anything special except for the fact that it deals with a large data set and can be a bit slow. I want to query this view based on a long. Two sample queries below show different queries to this view. var la = Runtime.OmsEntityContext.Positions.Where(p => p.AccountNumber == 12345678).ToList(); var deDa = Runtime.OmsEntityContext.Positions.Where(p => p.AccountNumber == 12345678).Select(p => new { p.AccountNumber, p.SecurityNumber, p.CUSIP }).ToList(); The first one should hand back a List. The second one will be a list of anonymous objects. When I do these queries in entities framework the first one will hand me back a list of results where they're all exactly the same. The second query will hand me back data where the account number is the one that I queried and the other values differ. This seems to do this on a per account number basis, ie if I were to query for one account number or another all the Position objects for one account would have the same value (the first one in the list of Positions for that account) and the second account would have a set of Position objects that all had the same value (again, the first one in it's list of Position objects). I can write SQL that is in effect the same as either of the two EF queries. They both come back with results (say four) that show the correct data, one account number with different securities numbers. Why does this happen??? Is there something that I could be doing wrong so that if I had four results for the first query above that the first record's data also appears in the 2-4th's objects??? I cannot fathom what would/could be causing this. I've searched Google for all kinds of keywords and haven't seen anyone with this issue. We partial class out the Positions class for added functionality (smart object) and some smart properties. There are even some constructors that provide some view model type support. None of this is invoked in the request (I'm 99% sure of this). However, we do this same pattern all over the app. The only thing I can think of is that the mapping in the EDMX is screwy. Is there a way that this would happen if the "primary keys" in the EDMX were not in fact unique given the way the view is constructed? I'm thinking that the dev who imported this model into the EDMX let the designer auto select what would be unique. Any help would give a haggered dev some hope!

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  • Loading the last related record instantly for multiple parent records using Entity framework

    - by Guillaume Schuermans
    Does anyone know a good approach using Entity Framework for the problem described below? I am trying for our next release to come up with a performant way to show the placed orders for the logged on customer. Of course paging is always a good technique to use when a lot of data is available I would like to see an answer without any paging techniques. Here's the story: a customer places an order which gets an orderstatus = PENDING. Depending on some strategy we move that order up the chain in order to get it APPROVED. Every change of status is logged so we can see a trace for statusses and maybe even an extra line of comment per status which can provide some extra valuable information to whoever sees this order in an interface. So an Order is linked to a Customer. One order can have multiple orderstatusses stored in OrderStatusHistory. In my testscenario I am using a customer which has 100+ Orders each with about 5 records in the OrderStatusHistory-table. I would for now like to see all orders in one page not using paging where for each Order I show the last relevant Status and the extra comment (if there is any for this last status; both fields coming from OrderStatusHistory; the record with the highest Id for the given OrderId). There are multiple scenarios I have tried, but I would like to see any potential other solutions or comments on the things I have already tried. Trying to do Include() when getting Orders but this still results in multiple queries launched on the database. Each order triggers an extra query to the database to get all orderstatusses in the history table. So all statusses are queried here instead of just returning the last relevant one, plus 100 extra queries are launched for 100 orders. You can imagine the problem when there are 100000+ orders in the database. Having 2 computed columns on the database: LastStatus, LastStatusInformation and a regular Linq-Query which gets those columns which are available through the Entity-model. The problem with this approach is the fact that those computed columns are determined using a scalar function which can not be changed without removing the formula from the computed column, etc... In the end I am very familiar with SQL and Stored procedures, but since the rest of the data-layer uses Entity Framework I would like to stick to it as long as possible, even though I have my doubts about performance. Using the SQL approach I would write something like this: WITH cte (RN, OrderId, [Status], Information) AS ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY OrderId ORDER BY Id DESC), OrderId, [Status], Information FROM OrderStatus ) SELECT o.Id, cte.[Status], cte.Information AS StatusInformation, o.* FROM [Order] o INNER JOIN cte ON o.Id = cte.OrderId AND cte.RN = 1 WHERE CustomerId = @CustomerId ORDER BY 1 DESC; which returns all orders for the customer with the statusinformation provided by the Common Table Expression. Does anyone know a good approach using Entity Framework?

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  • Blackberry ListField Text Wrapping - only two lines.

    - by Diego Tori
    Within my ListField, I want to be able to take any given long String, and just be able to wrap the first line within the width of the screen, and just take the remaining string and display it below and ellipsis the rest. Right now, this is what I'm using to detect wrapping within my draw paint call: int totalWidth = 0; int charWidth = 0; int lastIndex = 0; int spaceIndex = 0; int lineIndex = 0; String firstLine = ""; String secondLine = ""; boolean isSecondLine = false; for (int i = 0; i < longString.length(); i++){ charWidth = Font.getDefault().getAdvance(String.valueOf(longString.charAt(i))); //System.out.println("char width: " + charWidth); if(longString.charAt(i) == ' ') spaceIndex = i; if((charWidth + totalWidth) > (this.getWidth()-32)){ //g.drawText(longString.substring(lastIndex, spaceIndex), xpos, y +_padding, DrawStyle.LEFT, w - xpos); lineIndex++; System.out.println("current lines to draw: " + lineIndex); /*if (lineIndex = 2){ int idx = i; System.out.println("first line " + longString.substring(lastIndex, spaceIndex)); System.out.println("second line " + longString.substring(spaceIndex+1, longString.length())); }*/ //firstLine = longString.substring(lastIndex, spaceIndex); firstLine = longString.substring(0, spaceIndex); //System.out.println("first new line: " +firstLine); //isSecondLine=true; //xpos = 0; //y += Font.getDefault().getHeight(); i = spaceIndex + 1; lastIndex = i; System.out.println("Rest of string: " + longString.substring(lastIndex, longString.length())); charWidth = 0; totalWidth = 0; } totalWidth += charWidth; System.out.println("total width: " + totalWidth); //g.drawText(longString.substring(lastIndex, i+1), xpos, y + (_padding*3)+4, DrawStyle.ELLIPSIS, w - xpos); //secondLine = longString.substring(lastIndex, i+1); secondLine = longString.substring(lastIndex, longString.length()); //isSecondLine = true; } Now this does a great job of actually wrapping any given string (assuming the y values were properly offsetted and it only drew the text after the string width exceeded the screen width, as well as the remaining string afterwards), however, every time I try to get the first two lines, it always ends up returning the last two lines of the string if it goes beyond two lines. Is there a better way to do this sort of thing, since I am fresh out of ideas?

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  • Soften a colour border, maybe with a gradient, programmatically.

    - by ProfK
    I have a narrow header in corporate colour, bright red, with the content below on a just-off-white background. Ive tried softening the long line where these colours meet using border type divs with intermediate backgrounds, but I think I need the original type curved gradient 'area transitions'. I could copy the 1024px wide, and too narrow (vertically), header gif from their web site, and chop it up for eight border images, but that seems clumsy, and I'm looking for something I can apply anywhere, without needing images. I am able to do round borders in the x-y plane, but I'm curious as to how I can apply a gradient to any chosen colour transition. The extra divs I'm using as border elements above and below '#top-section' arose when I was toying with making many divs for one bordered element. This seemed the ultimate in border manipulation, sans code, but very tedious to spec in CSS and lay out a new border for each bordered element. <div id="topsection"> <div style="float: right; width: 300px; padding-right: 5px;"> <div style="font-size: small; text-align: right;"> Provantage Media Management System</div> <div style="font-size: x-small; text-align: right;"> <asp:LoginStatus ID="loginStatus" runat="server" LoginText="Log in" LogoutText="Log out" /> </div> </div> <span style="padding-left: 15px;">Main Menu</span><span id="content-title"> <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="titlePlaceHolder" runat="server"> </asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </span> <div style="background-color: white; height: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: white; height: 3px;"></div> And the CSS: #topsection { background-color: #EB2728; color: white; height: 35px; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; }

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  • How could I send live video stream to remote server from my phone !!!

    - by poc
    Hello , I have a problem about streaming my video to server in real-time from my phone. that is , let my phone be a IP Camera , and server can watch the live video from my phone I have googled many many solutions, but there is no one can solve my problem. I use MediaRecorder to record . it can save video file in the SD card correctly. then , I refered this page and used some method as followings skt = new Socket(InetAddress.getByName(hostname),port); pfd =ParcelFileDescriptor.fromSocket(skt); mediaRecorder.setOutputFile(pfd.getFileDescriptor()); now it seems I can send the video stream while recording however, I wrote a receiver-side program to receive the video stream from Android , but it doesn't work . is there any error? I can receive file , but I can not open the video file . I guess the problem may caused by file format ? there are outline of my code. in android side Socket skt = new Socket(hostIP,port); ParcelFileDescriptor pfd =ParcelFileDescriptor.fromSocket(skt); .... .... mediaRecorder.setAudioSource(MediaRecorder.AudioSource.MIC); mediaRecorder.setVideoSource(MediaRecorder.VideoSource.DEFAULT); mediaRecorder.setOutputFormat(MediaRecorder.OutputFormat.MPEG_4); mediaRecorder.setOutputFile(pfd.getFileDescriptor()); ..... mediaRecorder.setAudioEncoder(MediaRecorder.AudioEncoder.DEFAULT); mediaRecorder.setVideoEncoder(MediaRecorder.VideoEncoder.MPEG_4_SP); ..... mediaRecorder.start(); in receiver side (my ACER notebook) // anyway , I don't think the file extentions will do any effect File video = new File (strDate+".3gpp"); FileOutputStream fos; try { fos = new FileOutputStream(video); byte[] data = new byte[1024]; int count =-1; while( (count = fin.read(data,0,1024) ) !=-1) { fos.write(data,0,count); fos.flush(); } fos.close(); fin.close(); I confused a long time.... thanks in advance

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  • Google Map key in Android?

    - by Amandeep singh
    I am developing an android app in which i have to show map view i have done it once in a previous app but the key i used in the previous is not working int his app . It is just showing a pin in the application with blank screen. Do i have to use a different Map key for each project , If not Kindly help me how can i use my previous Key in this. and also I tried generating a new key but gave the the same key back . Here is the code i used public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.map); btn=(Button)findViewById(R.id.mapbtn); str1=getIntent().getStringExtra("LATITUDE"); str2=getIntent().getStringExtra("LONGITUDE"); mapView = (MapView)findViewById(R.id.mapView1); //View zoomView = mapView.getZoomControls(); mapView.setBuiltInZoomControls(true); //mapView.setSatellite(true); mc = mapView.getController(); btn.setOnClickListener(this); MapOverlay mapOverlay = new MapOverlay(); List<Overlay> listOfOverlays = mapView.getOverlays(); listOfOverlays.clear(); listOfOverlays.add(mapOverlay); String coordinates[] = {str1, str2}; double lat = Double.parseDouble(coordinates[0]); double lng = Double.parseDouble(coordinates[1]); p = new GeoPoint( (int) (lat * 1E6), (int) (lng * 1E6)); mc.animateTo(p); mc.setZoom(17); mapView.invalidate(); //mp.equals(o); } @Override protected boolean isRouteDisplayed() { // TODO Auto-generated method stub return false; } class MapOverlay extends com.google.android.maps.Overlay { @Override public boolean draw(Canvas canvas, MapView mapView, boolean shadow, long when) { super.draw(canvas, mapView, shadow); Paint mPaint = new Paint(); mPaint.setDither(true); mPaint.setColor(Color.RED); mPaint.setStyle(Paint.Style.FILL_AND_STROKE); mPaint.setStrokeJoin(Paint.Join.ROUND); mPaint.setStrokeCap(Paint.Cap.ROUND); mPaint.setStrokeWidth(2); //---translate the GeoPoint to screen pixels--- Point screenPts = new Point(); mapView.getProjection().toPixels(p, screenPts); //---add the marker--- Bitmap bmp = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.pin); canvas.drawBitmap(bmp, screenPts.x, screenPts.y-50, null); return true; } Thanks....

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  • C# - calling ext. DLL function containing Delphi "variant record" parameter

    - by CaldonCZE
    Hello, In external (Delphi-created) DLL I've got the following function that I need to call from C# application. function ReadMsg(handle: longword; var Msg: TRxMsg): longword; stdcall; external 'MyDll.dll' name 'ReadMsg'; The "TRxMsg" type is variant record, defined as follows: TRxMsg = record case TypeMsg: byte of 1: (accept, mask: longword); 2: (SN: string[6]); 3: (rx_rate, tx_rate: word); 4: (rx_status, tx_status, ctl0, ctl1, rflg: byte); end; In order to call the function from C#, I declared auxiliary structure "my9Bytes" containing array of bytes and defined that it should be marshalled as 9 bytes long array (which is exactly the size of the Delphi record). private struct my9Bytes { [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValArray, ArraySubType = UnmanagedType.U1, SizeConst = 9)] public byte[] data; } Then I declared the imported "ReadMsg" function, using the "my9bytes" struct. [DllImport("MyDll.dll")] private static extern uint ReadMsg(uint handle, ref my9Bytes myMsg); I can call the function with no problem... Then I need to create structure corresponding to the original "TRxMsg" variant record and convert my auxiliary "myMsg" array into this structure. I don't know any C# equivalent of Delphi variant array, so I used inheritance and created the following classes. public abstract class TRxMsg { public byte typeMsg; } public class TRxMsgAcceptMask:TRxMsg { public uint accept, mask; //... } public class TRxMsgSN:TRxMsg { public string SN; //... } public class TRxMsgMRate:TRxMsg { public ushort rx_rate, tx_rate; //... } public class TRxMsgStatus:TRxMsg { public byte rx_status, tx_status, ctl0, ctl1, rflg; //... } Finally I create the appropriate object and initialize it with values manually converted from "myMsg" array (I used BitConverter for this). This does work fine, this solution seems to me a little too complicated, and that it should be possible to do this somehow more directly, without the auxiliary "my9bytes" structures or the inheritance and manual converting of individual values. So I'd like to ask you for a suggestions for the best way to do this. Thanks a lot!

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  • How to access a matrix in a matlab struct's field from a mex function?

    - by B. Ruschill
    I'm trying to figure out how to access a matrix that is stored in a field in a matlab structure from a mex function. That's awfully long winded... Let me explain: I have a matlab struct that was defined like the following: matrixStruct = struct('matrix', {4, 4, 4; 5, 5, 5; 6, 6 ,6}) I have a mex function in which I would like to be able to receive a pointer to the first element in the matrix (matrix[0][0], in c terms), but I've been unable to figure out how to do that. I have tried the following: /* Pointer to the first element in the matrix (supposedly)... */ double *ptr = mxGetPr(mxGetField(prhs[0], 0, "matrix"); /* Incrementing the pointer to access all values in the matrix */ for(i = 0; i < 3; i++){ printf("%f\n", *(ptr + (i * 3))); printf("%f\n", *(ptr + 1 + (i * 3))); printf("%f\n", *(ptr + 2 + (i * 3))); } What this ends up printing is the following: 4.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 I have also tried variations of the following, thinking that perhaps it was something wonky with nested function calls, but to no avail: /* Pointer to the first location of the mxArray */ mxArray *fieldValuePtr = mxGetField(prhs[0], 0, "matrix"); /* Get the double pointer to the first location in the matrix */ double *ptr = mxGetPr(fieldValuePtr); /* Same for loop code here as written above */ Does anyone have an idea as to how I can achieve what I'm trying to, or what I am potentially doing wrong? Thanks! Edit: As per yuk's comment, I tried doing similar operations on a struct that has a field called array which is a one-dimensional array of doubles. The struct containing the array is defined as follows: arrayStruct = struct('array', {4.44, 5.55, 6.66}) I tried the following on the arrayStruct from within the mex function: mptr = mxGetPr(mxGetField(prhs[0], 0, "array")); printf("%f\n", *(mptr)); printf("%f\n", *(mptr + 1)); printf("%f\n", *(mptr + 2)); ...but the output followed what was printed earlier: 4.440000 0.000000 0.000000

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  • Why is javac 1.5 running so slowly compared with the Eclipse compiler?

    - by Simon Nickerson
    I have a Java Maven project with about 800 source files (some generated by javacc/JTB) which is taking a good 25 minutes to compile with javac. When I changed my pom.xml over to use the Eclipse compiler, it takes about 30 seconds to compile. Any suggestions as to why javac (1.5) is running so slowly? (I don't want to switch over to the Eclipse compiler permanently, as the plugin for Maven seems more than a little buggy.) I have a test case which easily reproduces the problem. The following code generates a number of source files in the default package. If you try to compile ImplementingClass.java with javac, it will seem to pause for an inordinately long time. import java.io.File; import java.io.FileNotFoundException; import java.io.PrintStream; public class CodeGenerator { private final static String PATH = System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir"); private final static int NUM_TYPES = 1000; public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException { PrintStream interfacePs = new PrintStream(PATH + File.separator + "Interface.java"); PrintStream abstractClassPs = new PrintStream(PATH + File.separator + "AbstractClass.java"); PrintStream implementingClassPs = new PrintStream(PATH + File.separator + "ImplementingClass.java"); interfacePs.println("public interface Interface<T> {"); abstractClassPs.println("public abstract class AbstractClass<T> implements Interface<T> {"); implementingClassPs.println("public class ImplementingClass extends AbstractClass<Object> {"); for (int i=0; i<NUM_TYPES; i++) { String nodeName = "Node" + i; PrintStream nodePs = new PrintStream(PATH + File.separator + nodeName + ".java"); nodePs.printf("public class %s { }\n", nodeName); nodePs.close(); interfacePs.printf("void visit(%s node, T obj);%n", nodeName); abstractClassPs.printf("public void visit(%s node, T obj) { System.out.println(obj.toString()); }%n", nodeName); } interfacePs.println("}"); abstractClassPs.println("}"); implementingClassPs.println("}"); interfacePs.close(); abstractClassPs.close(); implementingClassPs.close(); } }

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  • Is there a scheduling algorithm that optimizes for "maker's schedules"?

    - by John Feminella
    You may be familiar with Paul Graham's essay, "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule". The crux of the essay is that for creative and technical professionals, meetings are anathema to productivity, because they tend to lead to "schedule fragmentation", breaking up free time into chunks that are too small to acquire the focus needed to solve difficult problems. In my firm we've seen significant benefits by minimizing the amount of disruption caused, but the brute-force algorithm we use to decide schedules is not sophisticated enough to handle scheduling large groups of people well. (*) What I'm looking for is if there's are any well-known algorithms which minimize this productivity disruption, among a group of N makers and managers. In our model, There are N people. Each person pi is either a maker (Mk) or a manager (Mg). Each person has a schedule si. Everyone's schedule is H hours long. A schedule consists of a series of non-overlapping intervals si = [h1, ..., hj]. An interval is either free or busy. Two adjacent free intervals are equivalent to a single free interval that spans both. A maker's productivity is maximized when the number of free intervals is minimized. A manager's productivity is maximized when the total length of free intervals is maximized. Notice that if there are no meetings, both the makers and the managers experience optimum productivity. If meetings must be scheduled, then makers prefer that meetings happen back-to-back, while managers don't care where the meeting goes. Note that because all disruptions are treated as equally harmful to makers, there's no difference between a meeting that lasts 1 second and a meeting that lasts 3 hours if it segments the available free time. The problem is to decide how to schedule M different meetings involving arbitrary numbers of the N people, where each person in a given meeting must place a busy interval into their schedule such that it doesn't overlap with any other busy interval. For each meeting Mt the start time for the busy interval must be the same for all parties. Does an algorithm exist to solve this problem or one similar to it? My first thought was that this looks really similar to defragmentation (minimize number of distinct chunks), and there are a lot of algorithms about that. But defragmentation doesn't have much to do with scheduling. Thoughts? (*) Practically speaking this is not really a problem, because it's rare that we have meetings with more than ~5 people at once, so the space of possibilities is small.

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  • Keeping track of business rules within IT department?

    - by evaldas-alexander
    I am looking for the best way to keep track of the business rules for both developers and everybody else (support staff / management) in a startup enviroment. The challenge is that our business model requires quite a lot of different business rules, which are created pretty much on the fly and evolving organically after that. After running this project for 3+ years, we have so many of such rules that often the only way to be sure about what the application is supposed to do in a certain situation is to go find the module responsible for that process and analyze its code and comments. That is all fine as long as you have one single developer who created the entire application from the scratch, but every new developer needs to go over pretty much entire codebase in order to understand how the application works. Even bigger problem is that non technical employees don't even have that option and therefore are forced to ask me pretty much every day how some certain case would be handled by the application. Quick example - we only start charging for our customer campaigns once they have been active for at least 72 hours, but at the same time we stop creating invoices for campaigns that belong to insolvent accounts and close such accounts within a month of the first failed charge. That does not apply to accounts that are set to "non-chargeable" which most commonly belongs to us since we are using the service ourselves. The invoices are created on the 1st of each month and include charges from the previous month + any current balance that the account might have. However, some customers are charged only 4 days after their invoice has been generated due to issues with their billing department. In addition to that, invoices are also created when customer deactivates his campaign, but that can only be done once the campaign is not longer under mandatory 6 month contract, unless account manager approves early deactivation. I know, that's quite a lot of rules that need to be taken into account when answering a question "when do we bill our customers", but actually I could still append an asterisk at the end of each sentence in order to disclose some rare exceptions. Of course, it would be easiest just to keep the business rules to the minimum, but we need to adapt to changing marketplace - i.e. less than a year ago we had no contracts whatsoever. One idea that I had so far was a simplistic wiki with categories corresponding to areas such as "Account activation", "Invoicing", "Collection procedures" and so on. Another idea would be to have giant interactive flowchart showing the entire customer "life cycle" from prospecting to account deactivation. What are your experiences / suggestions?

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  • Generic linked list in c++

    - by itsaboy
    I have been struggling for too long a time now with a rather simple question about how to create a generic linked list in c++. The list should be able contain several types of structs, but each list will only contain one type of struct. The problem arises when I want to implement the getNode() function [see below], because then I have to specify which of the structs it should return. I have tried to substitute the structs with classes, where the getNode function returns a base class that is inherited by all the other classes, but it still does not do the trick, since the compiler does not allow the getNode function to return anything but the base class then. So here is some code snippet: typedef struct struct1 { int param1; (...) } struct1; typedef struct struct2 { double param1; (...) } struct2; typedef struct node { struct1 data; node* link; } node; class LinkedList { public: node *first; int nbrOfNodes; LinkedList(); void addNode(struct1); struct1 getNode(); bool isEmpty(); }; LinkedList::LinkedList() { first = NULL; nbrOfNodes = 0; } void LinkedList::addNode(struct1 newData) { if (nbrOfNodes == 0) { first = new node; first->data = newData; } else { node *it = first; for (int i = 0; i < nbrOfNodes; i++) { it = it->link; } node *newNode = new node; newNode->data = newData; it->link = newNode; } nbrOfNodes++; } bool LinkedList::isEmpty() { return !nbrOfNodes; } struct1 LinkedList::getNode() { param1 returnData = first->data; node* deleteNode = first; nbrOfNodes--; if (nbrOfNodes) first = deleteNode->link; delete deleteNode; return returnData; } So the question, put in one sentence, is as follows: How do I adjust the above linked list class so that it can also be used for struct2, without having to create a new almost identical list class for struct2 objects? As I said above, each instance of LinkedList will only deal with either struct1 or struct2. Grateful for hints or help

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  • Error in Print Function in Bubble Sort MIPS?

    - by m00nbeam360
    Sorry that this is such a long block of code, but do you see any obvious syntax errors in this? I feel like the problem is that the code isn't printing correctly since the sort and swap methods were from my textbook. Please help if you can! .data save: .word 1,2,4,2,5,6 size: .word 6 .text swap: sll $t1, $a1, 2 #shift bits by 2 add $t1, $a1, $t1 #set $t1 address to v[k] lw $t0, 0($t1) #load v[k] into t1 lw $t2, 4($t1) #load v[k+1] into t1 sw $t2, 0($t1) #swap addresses sw $t0, 4($t1) #swap addresses jr $ra #return sort: addi $sp, $sp, -20 #make enough room on the stack for five registers sw $ra, 16($sp) #save the return address on the stack sw $s3, 12($sp) #save $s3 on the stack sw $s2, 8($sp) #save Ss2 on the stack sw $s1, 4($sp) #save $s1 on the stack sw $s0, 0($sp) #save $s0 on the stack move $s2, $a0 #copy the parameter $a0 into $s2 (save $a0) move $s3, $a1 #copy the parameter $a1 into $s3 (save $a1) move $s0, $zero #start of for loop, i = 0 for1tst: slt $t0, $s0, $s3 #$t0 = 0 if $s0 S $s3 (i S n) beq $t0, $zero, exit1 #go to exit1 if $s0 S $s3 (i S n) addi $s1, $s0, -1 #j - i - 1 for2tst: slti $t0, $s1, 0 #$t0 = 1 if $s1 < 0 (j < 0) bne $t0, $zero, exit2 #$t0 = 1 if $s1 < 0 (j < 0) sll $t1, $s1, 2 #$t1 = j * 4 (shift by 2 bits) add $t2, $s2, $t1 #$t2 = v + (j*4) lw $t3, 0($t2) #$t3 = v[j] lw $t4, 4($t2) #$t4 = v[j+1] slt $t0, $t4, $t3 #$t0 = 0 if $t4 S $t3 beq $t0, $zero, exit2 #go to exit2 if $t4 S $t3 move $a0, $s2 #1st parameter of swap is v(old $a0) move $a1, $s1 #2nd parameter of swap is j jal swap #swap addi $s1, $s1, -1 j for2tst #jump to test of inner loop j print exit2: addi $s0, $s0, 1 #i = i + 1 j for1tst #jump to test of outer loop exit1: lw $s0, 0($sp) #restore $s0 from stack lw $s1, 4($sp) #resture $s1 from stack lw $s2, 8($sp) #restore $s2 from stack lw $s3, 12($sp) #restore $s3 from stack lw $ra, 16($sp) #restore $ra from stack addi $sp, $sp, 20 #restore stack pointer jr $ra #return to calling routine .data space:.asciiz " " # space to insert between numbers head: .asciiz "The sorted numbers are:\n" .text print:add $t0, $zero, $a0 # starting address of array add $t1, $zero, $a1 # initialize loop counter to array size la $a0, head # load address of print heading li $v0, 4 # specify Print String service syscall # print heading out: lw $a0, 0($t0) # load fibonacci number for syscall li $v0, 1 # specify Print Integer service syscall # print fibonacci number la $a0, space # load address of spacer for syscall li $v0, 4 # specify Print String service syscall # output string addi $t0, $t0, 4 # increment address addi $t1, $t1, -1 # decrement loop counter bgtz $t1, out # repeat if not finished jr $ra # return

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  • WLI domain with 3 servers - issues on JPD process startup

    - by XpiritO
    Hi there. I'm currently working on a clustered WLI environment which comprehends 3 servers: 1 admin server ("AdminServer") and 2 managed servers ("mn1" and "mn2") grouped as a cluster, as follows: Architecture diagram: http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/4112/clusterdiagram.jpg I've developed a JPD process to execute some scheduled tasks, invoked using a Message Broker. I've deployed this project into a single-server WLI domain (with AdminServer only) and it works as expected: the JPD process is invoked (I've configured a Timer Event Generator instance to start it up). Message broker: http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/1443/wlimessagebroker.jpg Timer event generator: http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/7358/wlitimereventgenerator.jpg In order to achieve fail-over and load-balancing capabilities, I'm currently trying to deploy this JPD process into this clustered WLI environment. Although, I'm having some issues with this, as I cannot get it to work properly, even if it still works. Here is a screenshot of the "WLI Process Instance Monitor" (with AdminServer and mn1 instances up and running): http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/8477/wliprocessinstancemonit.jpg According to this screen the process seems to be running, as it shows in this instance monitor screen. However, I don't see any output coming out neither at AdminServer console or mn1 console. In single-server domain it was visible output from JPD process "timeout" callback method, wich implementation is shown below: @com.bea.wli.control.broker.MessageBroker.StaticSubscription(xquery = "", filterValueMatch = "", channelName = "/SamplePrefix/Samples/SampleStringChannel", messageBody = "{x0}") public void subscription(java.lang.String x0) { String toReturn=""; try { Context myCtx = new InitialContext(); MBeanHome mbeanHome = (MBeanHome)myCtx.lookup("weblogic.management.home.localhome"); toReturn=mbeanHome.getMBeanServer().getServerName(); System.out.println("**** executed at **** " + System.currentTimeMillis() + " by: " + toReturn); } catch (Exception e) { System.out.println("Exception!"); e.printStackTrace(); } } (...) @org.apache.beehive.controls.api.events.EventHandler(field = "myT", eventSet = com.bea.control.WliTimerControl.Callback.class, eventName = "onTimeout") public void myT_onTimeout(long time, java.io.Serializable data) { // #START: CODE GENERATED - PROTECTED SECTION - you can safely add code above this comment in this method. #// // input transform System.out.println("**** published at **** " + System.currentTimeMillis()); publishControl.publish("aaaa"); // parameter assignment // #END : CODE GENERATED - PROTECTED SECTION - you can safely add code below this comment in this method. #// } and here is the output visible at "AdminServer" console in single-server domain testing: **** published at **** 1273238090713 **** executed at **** 1273238132123 by: AdminServer **** published at **** 1273238152462 **** executed at **** 1273238152562 by: AdminServer (...) What may be wrong with my clustered configuration? Am I missing something to accomplish clustered deployment? Thanks in advance for your help.

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  • How to define an extern, C struct returning function in C++ using MSVC?

    - by DK
    The following source file will not compile with the MSVC compiler (v15.00.30729.01): /* stest.c */ #ifdef __cplusplus extern "C" { #endif struct Test; extern struct Test make_Test(int x); struct Test { int x; }; extern struct Test make_Test(int x) { struct Test r; r.x = x; return r; } #ifdef __cplusplus } #endif Compiling with cl /c /Tpstest.c produces the following error: stest.c(8) : error C2526: 'make_Test' : C linkage function cannot return C++ class 'Test' stest.c(6) : see declaration of 'Test' Compiling without /Tp (which tells cl to treat the file as C++) works fine. The file also compiles fine in DigitalMars C and GCC (from mingw) in both C and C++ modes. I also used -ansi -pedantic -Wall with GCC and it had no complaints. For reasons I will go into below, we need to compile this file as C++ for MSVC (not for the others), but with functions being compiled as C. In essence, we want a normal C compiler... except for about six lines. Is there a switch or attribute or something I can add that will allow this to work? The code in question (though not the above; that's just a reduced example) is being produced by a code generator. As part of this, we need to be able to generate floating point nans and infinities as constants (long story), meaning we have to compile with MSVC in C++ mode in order to actually do this. We only found one solution that works, and it only works in C++ mode. We're wrapping the code in extern "C" {...} because we want to control the mangling and calling convention so that we can interface with existing C code. ... also because I trust C++ compilers about as far as I could throw a smallish department store. I also tried wrapping just the reinterpret_cast line in extern "C++" {...}, but of course that doesn't work. Pity. There is a potential solution I found which requires reordering the declarations such that the full struct definition comes before the function foward decl., but this is very inconvenient due to the way the codegen is performed, so I'd really like to avoid having to go down that road if I can.

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  • How do I handle the Maybe result of at in Control.Lens.Indexed without a Monoid instance

    - by Matthias Hörmann
    I recently discovered the lens package on Hackage and have been trying to make use of it now in a small test project that might turn into a MUD/MUSH server one very distant day if I keep working on it. Here is a minimized version of my code illustrating the problem I am facing right now with the at lenses used to access Key/Value containers (Data.Map.Strict in my case) {-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings, GeneralizedNewtypeDeriving, TemplateHaskell #-} module World where import Control.Applicative ((<$>),(<*>), pure) import Control.Lens import Data.Map.Strict (Map) import qualified Data.Map.Strict as DM import Data.Maybe import Data.UUID import Data.Text (Text) import qualified Data.Text as T import System.Random (Random, randomIO) newtype RoomId = RoomId UUID deriving (Eq, Ord, Show, Read, Random) newtype PlayerId = PlayerId UUID deriving (Eq, Ord, Show, Read, Random) data Room = Room { _roomId :: RoomId , _roomName :: Text , _roomDescription :: Text , _roomPlayers :: [PlayerId] } deriving (Eq, Ord, Show, Read) makeLenses ''Room data Player = Player { _playerId :: PlayerId , _playerDisplayName :: Text , _playerLocation :: RoomId } deriving (Eq, Ord, Show, Read) makeLenses ''Player data World = World { _worldRooms :: Map RoomId Room , _worldPlayers :: Map PlayerId Player } deriving (Eq, Ord, Show, Read) makeLenses ''World mkWorld :: IO World mkWorld = do r1 <- Room <$> randomIO <*> (pure "The Singularity") <*> (pure "You are standing in the only place in the whole world") <*> (pure []) p1 <- Player <$> randomIO <*> (pure "testplayer1") <*> (pure $ r1^.roomId) let rooms = at (r1^.roomId) ?~ (set roomPlayers [p1^.playerId] r1) $ DM.empty players = at (p1^.playerId) ?~ p1 $ DM.empty in do return $ World rooms players viewPlayerLocation :: World -> PlayerId -> RoomId viewPlayerLocation world playerId= view (worldPlayers.at playerId.traverse.playerLocation) world Since rooms, players and similar objects are referenced all over the code I store them in my World state type as maps of Ids (newtyped UUIDs) to their data objects. To retrieve those with lenses I need to handle the Maybe returned by the at lens (in case the key is not in the map this is Nothing) somehow. In my last line I tried to do this via traverse which does typecheck as long as the final result is an instance of Monoid but this is not generally the case. Right here it is not because playerLocation returns a RoomId which has no Monoid instance. No instance for (Data.Monoid.Monoid RoomId) arising from a use of `traverse' Possible fix: add an instance declaration for (Data.Monoid.Monoid RoomId) In the first argument of `(.)', namely `traverse' In the second argument of `(.)', namely `traverse . playerLocation' In the second argument of `(.)', namely `at playerId . traverse . playerLocation' Since the Monoid is required by traverse only because traverse generalizes to containers of sizes greater than one I was now wondering if there is a better way to handle this that does not require semantically nonsensical Monoid instances on all types possibly contained in one my objects I want to store in the map. Or maybe I misunderstood the issue here completely and I need to use a completely different bit of the rather large lens package?

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  • union marshalling issue in C#

    - by senthil
    I have union inside structure and the structure looks like struct tDeviceProperty { DWORD Tag; DWORD Size; union _DP value; }; typedef union _DP { short int i; LONG l; ULONG ul; float flt; double dbl; BOOL b; double at; FILETIME ft; LPSTR lpszA; LPWSTR lpszW; LARGE_INTEGER li; struct tBinary bin; BYTE reserved[40]; } __UDP; struct tBinary { ULONG size; BYTE * bin; }; from the tBinary structure bin has to be converted to tImage (structure is given below) struct tImage { DWORD x; DWORD y; DWORD z; DWORD Resolution; DWORD type; DWORD ID; diccid_t SourceID; const void *buffer; const char *Info; const char *UserImageID; }; to use the same in c# I have done marshaling but not giving proper values when converting the pointer to structure. The C# code is follows, tBinary tBin = new tBinary(); IntPtr tBinbuffer = Marshal.AllocCoTaskMem(Marshal.SizeOf(tBin)); Marshal.StructureToPtr(tBin.bin, tBinbuffer, false); tDeviceProperty tDevice = new tDeviceProperty(); tDevice.bin = tBinbuffer; IntPtr tDevicebuffer = Marshal.AllocCoTaskMem(Marshal.SizeOf(tDevice)); Marshal.StructureToPtr(tDevice.bin, tDevicebuffer, false); Battary tbatt = new Battary(); tbatt.value = tDevicebuffer; IntPtr tbattbuffer = Marshal.AllocCoTaskMem(Marshal.SizeOf(tbatt)); Marshal.StructureToPtr(tbatt.value, tbattbuffer, false); result = GetDeviceProperty(ref tbattbuffer); Battary v = (Battary)Marshal.PtrToStructure(tbattbuffer, typeof(Battary)); tDeviceProperty v2 = (tDeviceProperty)Marshal.PtrToStructure(tDevicebuffer, typeof(tDeviceProperty)); tBinary v3 = (tBinary)Marshal.PtrToStructure(tBinbuffer, typeof(tBinary));

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  • Large File Download - Connection With Server Reset

    - by daveywc
    I have an asp.net website that allows the user to download largish files - 30mb to about 60mb. Sometimes the download works fine but often it fails at some varying point before the download finishes with the message saying that the connection with the server was reset. Originally I was simply using Server.TransmitFile but after reading up a bit I am now using the code posted below. I am also setting the Server.ScriptTimeout value to 3600 in the Page_Init event. private void DownloadFile(string fname, bool forceDownload) { string path = MapPath(fname); string name = Path.GetFileName(path); string ext = Path.GetExtension(path); string type = ""; // set known types based on file extension if (ext != null) { switch (ext.ToLower()) { case ".mp3": type = "audio/mpeg"; break; case ".htm": case ".html": type = "text/HTML"; break; case ".txt": type = "text/plain"; break; case ".doc": case ".rtf": type = "Application/msword"; break; } } if (forceDownload) { Response.AppendHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=" + name.Replace(" ", "_")); } if (type != "") { Response.ContentType = type; } else { Response.ContentType = "application/x-msdownload"; } System.IO.Stream iStream = null; // Buffer to read 10K bytes in chunk: byte[] buffer = new Byte[10000]; // Length of the file: int length; // Total bytes to read: long dataToRead; try { // Open the file. iStream = new System.IO.FileStream(path, System.IO.FileMode.Open, System.IO.FileAccess.Read, System.IO.FileShare.Read); // Total bytes to read: dataToRead = iStream.Length; //Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream"; //Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + filename); // Read the bytes. while (dataToRead > 0) { // Verify that the client is connected. if (Response.IsClientConnected) { // Read the data in buffer. length = iStream.Read(buffer, 0, 10000); // Write the data to the current output stream. Response.OutputStream.Write(buffer, 0, length); // Flush the data to the HTML output. Response.Flush(); buffer = new Byte[10000]; dataToRead = dataToRead - length; } else { //prevent infinite loop if user disconnects dataToRead = -1; } } } catch (Exception ex) { // Trap the error, if any. Response.Write("Error : " + ex.Message); } finally { if (iStream != null) { //Close the file. iStream.Close(); } Response.Close(); } }

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  • Copying metadata over a database link in Oracle 10g

    - by Tunde
    Thanks in advance for your help experts. I want to be able to copy over database objects from database A into database B with a procedure created on database B. I created a database link between the two and have tweaked the get_ddl function of the dbms_metadata to look like this: create or replace function GetDDL ( p_name in MetaDataPkg.t_string p_type in MetaDataPkg.t_string ) return MetaDataPkg.t_longstring is -- clob v_clob clob; -- array of long strings c_SYSPrefix constant char(4) := 'SYS_'; c_doublequote constant char(1) := '"'; v_longstrings metadatapkg.t_arraylongstring; v_schema metadatapkg.t_string; v_fullength pls_integer := 0; v_offset pls_integer := 0; v_length pls_integer := 0; begin SELECT DISTINCT OWNER INTO v_schema FROM all_objects@ENTORA where object_name = upper(p_name); -- get DDL v_clob := dbms_metadata.get_ddl(p_type, upper(p_name), upper(v_schema)); -- get CLOB length v_fullength := dbms_lob.GetLength(v_clob); for nIndex in 1..ceil(v_fullength / 32767) loop v_offset := v_length + 1; v_length := least(v_fullength - (nIndex - 1) * 32767, 32767); dbms_lob.read(v_clob, v_length, v_offset, v_longstrings(nIndex)); -- Remove table’s owner from DDL string: v_longstrings(nIndex) := replace( v_longstrings(nIndex), c_doublequote || user || c_doublequote || '.', '' ); -- Remove the following from DDL string: -- 1) "new line" characters (chr(10)) -- 2) leading and trailing spaces v_longstrings(nIndex) := ltrim(rtrim(replace(v_longstrings(nIndex), chr(10), ''))); end loop; -- close CLOB if (dbms_lob.isOpen(v_clob) > 0) then dbms_lob.close(v_clob); end if; return v_longstrings(1); end GetDDL; so as to remove the schema prefix that usually comes with metadata. I get a null value whenever I run this function over the database link with the following queries. select getddl( 'TABLE', 'TABLE1') from user_tables@ENTORA where table_name = 'TABLE1'; select getddl( 'TABLE', 'TABLE1') from dual@ENTORA; t_string is varchar2(30) t_longstring is varchar2(32767) and type t_ArrayLongString is table of t_longstring I would really appreciate it if any one could help. Many thanks.

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  • What are the weaknesses of this user authentication method?

    - by byronh
    I'm developing my own PHP framework. It seems all the security articles I have read use vastly different methods for user authentication than I do so I could use some help in finding security holes. Some information that might be useful before I start. I use mod_rewrite for my MVC url's. Passwords are sha1 and md5 encrypted with 24 character salt unique to each user. mysql_real_escape_string and/or variable typecasting on everything going in, and htmlspecialchars on everything coming out. Step-by step process: Top of every page: session_start(); session_regenerate_id(); If user logs in via login form, generate new random token to put in user's MySQL row. Hash is generated based on user's salt (from when they first registered) and the new token. Store the hash and plaintext username in session variables, and duplicate in cookies if 'Remember me' is checked. On every page, check for cookies. If cookies set, copy their values into session variables. Then compare $_SESSION['name'] and $_SESSION['hash'] against MySQL database. Destroy all cookies and session variables if they don't match so they have to log in again. If login is valid, some of the user's information from the MySQL database is stored in an array for easy access. So far, I've assumed that this array is clean so when limiting user access I refer to user.rank and deny access if it's below what's required for that page. I've tried to test all the common attacks like XSS and CSRF, but maybe I'm just not good enough at hacking my own site! My system seems way too simple for it to actually be secure (the security code is only 100 lines long). What am I missing? I've also spent alot of time searching for the vulnerabilities with mysql_real_escape string but I haven't found any information that is up-to-date (everything is from several years ago at least and has apparently been fixed). All I know is that the problem was something to do with encoding. If that problem still exists today, how can I avoid it? Any help will be much appreciated.

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  • Smoke testing a .NET web application

    - by pdr
    I cannot believe I'm the first person to go through this thought process, so I'm wondering if anyone can help me out with it. Current situation: developers write a web site, operations deploy it. Once deployed, a developer Smoke Tests it, to make sure the deployment went smoothly. To me this feels wrong, it essentially means it takes two people to deploy an application; in our case those two people are on opposite sides of the planet and timezones come into play, causing havoc. But the fact remains that developers know what the minimum set of tests is and that may change over time (particularly for the web service portion of our app). Operations, with all due respect to them (and they would say this themselves), are button-pushers who need a set of instructions to follow. The manual solution is that we document the test cases and operations follow that document each time they deploy. That sounds painful, plus they may be deploying different versions to different environments (specifically UAT and Production) and may need a different set of instructions for each. On top of this, one of our near-future plans is to have an automated daily deploy environment, so then we'll have to instruct a computer as to how to deploy a given version of our app. I would dearly like to add to that instructions for how to smoke test the app. Now developers are better at documenting instructions for computers than they are for people, so the obvious solution seems to be to use a combination of nUnit (I know these aren't unit tests per se, but it is a built-for-purpose test runner) and either the Watin or Selenium APIs to run through the obvious browser steps and call to the web service and explain to the Operations guys how to run those unit tests. I can do that; I have mostly done it already. But wouldn't it be nice if I could make that process simpler still? At this point, the Operations guys and the computer are going to have to know which set of tests relate to which version of the app and tell the nUnit runner which base URL it should point to (say, www.example.com = v3.2 or test.example.com = v3.3). Wouldn't it be nicer if the test runner itself had a way of giving it a base URL and letting it download say a zip file, unpack it and edit a configuration file automatically before running any test fixtures it found in there? Is there an open source app that would do that? Is there a need for one? Is there a solution using something other than nUnit, maybe Fitnesse? For the record, I'm looking at .NET-based tools first because most of the developers are primarily .NET developers, but we're not married to it. If such a tool exists using other languages to write the tests, we'll happily adapt, as long as there is a test runner that works on Windows.

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  • The best way to separate admin functionality from a public site?

    - by AndrewO
    I'm working on a site that's grown both in terms of user-base and functionality to the point where it's becoming evident that some of the admin tasks should be separate from the public website. I was wondering what the best way to do this would be. For example, the site has a large social component to it, and a public sales interface. But at the same time, there's back office tasks, bulk upload processing, dashboards (with long running queries), and customer relations tools in the admin section that I would like to not be effected by spikes in public traffic (or effect the public-facing response time). The site is running on a fairly standard Rails/MySQL/Linux stack, but I think this is more of an architecture problem than an implementation one: mainly, how does one keep the data and business logic in sync between these different applications? Some strategies that I'm evaluating: 1) Create a slave database of the public facing database on another machine. Extract out all of the model and library code so that it can be shared between the applications. Create new controllers and views for the admin interfaces. I have limited experience with replication and am not even sure that it's supposed to be used this way (most of the time I've seen it, it's been for scaling out the read capabilities of the same application, rather than having multiple different ones). I'm also worried about the potential for latency issues if the slave is not on the same network. 2) Create new more task/department-specific applications and use a message oriented middleware to integrate them. I read Enterprise Integration Patterns awhile back and they seemed to advocate this for distributed systems. (Alternatively, in some cases the basic Rails-style RESTful API functionality might suffice.) But, I have nightmares about data synchronization issues and the massive re-architecting that this would entail. 3) Some mixture of the two. For example, the only public information necessary for some of the back office tasks is a read-only completion time or status. Would it make sense to have that on a completely separate system and send the data to public? Meanwhile, the user/group admin functionality would be run on a separate system sharing the database? The downside is, this seems to keep many of the concerns I have with the first two, especially the re-architecting. I'm sure the answers are going to be highly dependent on a site's specific needs, but I'd love to hear success (or failure) stories.

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