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  • Some solid OOP criticism?

    - by Bubba88
    Hi! I want to ask you to provide me with some articles (maybe books), which you possibly have found very convincing criticising the OOP methodology. I have read some in the WWW on this topic and I didn't really find a 'definitive demotivator'. It's not much about my personal attitude to the OOP, but I really would like to have something constructive, rigorous foundation for any kind of discussion and just abstract thinking. You can post some original research too, but please be very constructive (as my personal request). Thank you very much!

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  • The Sound of Two Toilets Flushing: Constructive Criticism for Virgin Atlantic Complaints Department

    - by Geertjan
    I recently had the experience of flying from London to Johannesburg and back with Virgin Atlantic. The good news was that it was the cheapest flight available and that the take off and landing were absolutely perfect. Hence I really have no reason to complain. Instead, I'd like to offer some constructive criticism which hopefully Richard Branson will find sometime while googling his name. Or maybe someone from the Virgin Atlantic Complaints Department will find it, whatever, just want to put this information out there. Arrangement of restroom facilities. Maybe next time you design an airplane, consider not putting your toilets at a right angle right next to your rows of seats. Being able to reach, without even needing to stretch your arm, from your seat to close, yet again, a toilet door that someone, someone obviously sitting very far from the toilets, carelessly forgot to close is not an indicator of quality interior design. Have you noticed how all other airplanes have their toilets in a cubicle separated from the rows of seats? On those airplanes, people sitting in the seats near the toilets are not constantly being woken up throughout the night whenever someone enters/exits the toilet, whenever the light in the toilet is suddenly switched on, and whenever one of the toilets flushes. Bonus points for Virgin Atlantic passengers in the seats adjoining the toilets is when multiple toilets are flushed simultaneously and multiple passengers enter/exit them at the same time, a bit like an unasked for low budget musical of suddenly illuminated grumpy people in crumpled clothes. What joy that brings at 3 AM is hard to describe. Seats with extra leg room. You know how other airplanes have the seats with the extra leg room? You know what those seats tend to have? Extra leg room. It's really interesting how Virgin Atlantic's seats with extra leg room actually have no extra leg room at all. It should have been a give away, the fact that these special seats are found in the same rows as the standard seats, rather than on the cusp of real glory which is where most airlines put their extra leg room seats, with the only actual difference being that they have a slightly different color. Had you called them "seats with a different color" (i.e., almost not quite green, rather than something vaguely hinting at blue), at least I'd have known what I was getting. Picture the joy at 3 AM, rudely awakened from nightmarish slumber, partly grateful to have been released from a grayish dream of faceless zombies resembling one or two of those in a recent toilet line, by multiple adjoining toilets flushing simultaneously, while you're sitting in a seat with extra leg room that has exactly as much leg room as the seats in neighboring rows. You then have a choice of things to be sincerely annoyed about. Food from the '80's. In the '80's, airplane food came in soggy containers and even breakfast, the most important meal of the day, was a sad heap of vaguely gray colors. The culinary highlight tended to be a squashed tomato, which must have been mashed to a pulp with a brick prior to being regurgitated by a small furry animal, and there was also always a piece of immensely horrid pumpkin, as well as a slice of spongy something you'd never seen before. Sausages and mash at 6 AM on an airplane was always a heavy lump of horribleness. Thankfully, all airlines throughout the world changed from this puke inducing strategy around 1987 sometime. Not Virgin Atlantic, of course. The fatty sausages and mash are still there, bringing you flashbacks to Duran Duran, which is what you were listening to (on your walkman) the last time you saw it in an airplane. Even the golden oldie "squashed tomato attached by slime to three wet peas" is on the menu. How wonderful to have all this in a cramped seat with a long row of early morning bleariness lined up for the toilets, right at your side, bumping into your elbow, groggily, one by one, one after another, more and more, fumble-open-door-silence-flush-fumble-open-door, and on and on, while you tentatively push your fork through a soggy pile of colorless mush, fighting the urge to throw up on the stinky socks of whatever nightmarish zombie is bumping into your elbow at the time. But, then again, the plane landed without a hitch, in fact, extremely smoothly, so I'm certainly not blaming the pilots.

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  • Heavy Criticism on Patch Process Thrown Microsoft's Way

    Plus: McAfee explains patching problem; what security concerns make you lose sleep?; Patching in the dark....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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  • Constructive criticism for my bounce rate being so high [closed]

    - by Daniel
    The bounce rate on my website's product pages is 80%, which is terrible. Could you offer any opinions on whether you consider the user experience to be bad, and how I could possibly improve it? Other pages, such as the home and category pages, have acceptable bounce rates, but the vast majority of my traffic lands on the product pages. I already tried removing some Google ads for a couple of days, but this didn't seem to help at all. I'm working on doing A/B testing at the moment. (It's tricky, as the site is based on a CMS - I custom coded the [Joomla] component, so hopefully I can get this testing working.)

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  • Java code critique request [closed]

    - by davidk01
    Can you make sense of the following bit of java code and do you have any suggestions for improving it? Instead of writing four almost identical setOnClickListener method calls I opted to iterate over an array but I'm wondering if this was the best way to do it. Here's the code: /* Set up the radio button click listeners so two categories are not selected at the same time. When one of them is clicked it clears the others. */ final RadioButton[] buttons = {radio_books,radio_games,radio_dvds,radio_electronics}; for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) { final int k = i; buttons[i].setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() { @Override public void onClick(View v) { for (int j = 0; j < 4; j++) { if (buttons[j] != buttons[k]) { buttons[j].setChecked(false); } } } }); }

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  • What do you think was a poor design choice in Java

    - by Phobia
    Java has been one of the most (the most?) popular programming languages till this day, but this also brought controversy as well. A lot of people now like to bash Java simply because "it's slow", or simply because it's not language X, for example. My question isn't related to any of these arguments at all, I simply want to know what you consider a design flaw, or a poor design choice in Java, and how it might be improved from your point of view. Something like this.

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  • Who are the outspoken critics of Object-Oriented design?

    - by Xepoch
    Sure, object-oriented techniques are great and have stuck around for a while. I know only less than a handful of critics of the OO principles. It seems as though most non-OO designs and architectures are shunned, yet we continue to write a lot of good software in C and solve a lot of data changes via awk/sed and countless other examples. Correct tool for the correct job, yes? I'm having a hard time finding articles, presentations, or published criticisms of OO (even Fred Brooks has blessed information hiding). Are there any well-known, published and/or outspoken critics of OO?

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  • What would you change about C# if you could?

    - by Casebash
    Assume that your objectives are the same as for C#. I don't want an answer like "I'd write Python instead". I'm only interested in changes in the language itself - not in the standard library. Perhaps this would be interesting to discuss, but as it is shared between many languages it would be better to discuss this in another question instead. Please post a single idea per answer; if you want to post several ideas, post several separate answers. Thanks!

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  • Need some constructive criticism on my SSE/Assembly attempt

    - by Brett
    Hello, I'm working on converting a bit of code to SSE, and while I have the correct output it turns out to be slower than standard c++ code. The bit of code that I need to do this for is: float ox = p2x - (px * c - py * s)*m; float oy = p2y - (px * s - py * c)*m; What I've got for SSE code is: void assemblycalc(vector4 &p, vector4 &sc, float &m, vector4 &xy) { vector4 r; __m128 scale = _mm_set1_ps(m); __asm { mov eax, p //Load into CPU reg mov ebx, sc movups xmm0, [eax] //move vectors to SSE regs movups xmm1, [ebx] mulps xmm0, xmm1 //Multiply the Elements movaps xmm2, xmm0 //make a copy of the array shufps xmm2, xmm0, 0x1B //shuffle the array subps xmm0, xmm2 //subtract the elements mulps xmm0, scale //multiply the vector by the scale mov ecx, xy //load the variable into cpu reg movups xmm3, [ecx] //move the vector to the SSE regs subps xmm3, xmm0 //subtract xmm3 - xmm0 movups [r], xmm3 //Save the retun vector, and use elements 0 and 3 } } Since its very difficult to read the code, I'll explain what I did: loaded vector4 , xmm0 _ p = [px , py , px , py ] mult. by vector4, xmm1 _ cs = [c , c , s , s ] _____________mult---------------------------- result,______ xmm0 = [px*c, py*c, px*s, py*s] reuse result, xmm0 = [px*c, py*c, px*s, py*s] shuffle result, xmm2 = [py*s, px*s, py*c, px*c] ___________subtract---------------------------- result, xmm0 = [px*c-py*s, py*c-px*s, px*s-py*c, py*s-px*c] reuse result, xmm0 = [px*c-py*s, py*c-px*s, px*s-py*c, py*s-px*c] load m vector4, scale = [m, m, m, m] ______________mult---------------------------- result, xmm0 = [(px*c-py*s)*m, (py*c-px*s)*m, (px*s-py*c)*m, (py*s-px*c)*m] load xy vector4, xmm3 = [p2x, p2x, p2y, p2y] reuse, xmm0 = [(px*c-py*s)*m, (py*c-px*s)*m, (px*s-py*c)*m, (py*s-px*c)*m] ___________subtract---------------------------- result, xmm3 = [p2x-(px*c-py*s)*m, p2x-(py*c-px*s)*m, p2y-(px*s-py*c)*m, p2y-(py*s-px*c)*m] then ox = xmm3[0] and oy = xmm3[3], so I essentially don't use xmm3[1] or xmm3[4] I apologize for the difficulty reading this, but I'm hoping someone might be able to provide some guidance for me, as the standard c++ code runs in 0.001444ms and the SSE code runs in 0.00198ms. Let me know if there is anything I can do to further explain/clean this up a bit. The reason I'm trying to use SSE is because I run this calculation millions of times, and it is a part of what is slowing down my current code. Thanks in advance for any help! Brett

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  • At what point does "constructive" criticism of your code become unhelpful?

    - by user15859
    I recently started as a junior developer. As well as being one of the least experienced people on the team, I'm also a woman, which comes with all sorts of its own challenges working in a male-dominated environment. I've been having problems lately because I feel like I am getting too much unwarranted pedantic criticism on my work. Let me give you an example of what happened recently. Team lead was too busy to push in some branches I made, so he didn't get to them until the weekend. I checked my mail, not really meaning to do any work, and found that my two branches had been rejected on the basis of variable names, making error messages more descriptive, and moving some values to the config file. I don't feel that rejecting my branch on this basis is useful. Lots of people were working over the weekend, and I had never said that I would be working. Effectively, some people were probably blocked because I didn't have time to make the changes and resubmit. We are working on a project that is very time-sensitive, and it seems to me that it's not helpful to outright reject code based on things that are transparent to the client. I may be wrong, but it seems like these kinds of things should be handled in patch type commits when I have time. Now, I can see that in some environments, this would be the norm. However, the criticism doesn't seem equally distributed, which is what leads to my next problem. The basis of most of these problems was due to the fact that I was in a codebase that someone else had written and was trying to be minimally invasive. I was mimicking the variable names used elsewhere in the file. When I stated this, I was bluntly told, "Don't mimic others, just do what's right." This is perhaps the least useful thing I could have been told. If the code that is already checked in is unacceptable, how am I supposed to tell what is right and what is wrong? If the basis of the confusion was coming from the underlying code, I don't think it's my responsibility to spend hours refactoring a whole file that someone else wrote (and works perfectly well), potentially introducing new bugs etc. I'm feeling really singled out and frustrated in this situation. I've gotten a lot better about following the standards that are expected, and I feel frustrated that, for example, when I refactor a piece of code to ADD error checking that was previously missing, I'm only told that I didn't make the errors verbose enough (and the branch was rejected on this basis). What if I had never added it to begin with? How did it get into the code to begin with if it was so wrong? This is why I feel so singled out: I constantly run into this existing problematic code, that I either mimic or refactor. When I mimic it, it's "wrong", and if I refactor it, I'm chided for not doing enough (and if I go all the way, introducing bugs, etc). Again, if this is such a problem, I don't understand how any code gets into the codebase, and why it becomes my responsibility when it was written by someone else, who apparently didn't have their code reviewed. Anyway, how do I deal with this? Please remember that I said at the top that I'm a woman, and I'm sure these guys don't usually have to worry about decorum when they're reviewing other guys' code, but honestly that doesn't work for me, and it's causing me to be less productive. I'm worried that if I talk to my manager about it, he'll think I can't handled the environment, etc.

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  • How do you get positive criticism on your code?

    - by burnt1ce
    My team rarely does code review, mainly because we don't have enough time and people lack the energy and will to do so. But I would really like to know what people think about my code when they read it. This way, I have a better understanding how other people think and tailor my code accordingly so it's easier to read. So my question is, how do I get positive criticism on my code? My intent is to understand how people think so I can write more readable code.

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  • How can you get constructive criticism for your code?

    - by burnt1ce
    My team rarely does code review, mainly because we don't have enough time and people lack the energy and will to do so. But I would really like to know what people think about my code when they read it. This way, I have a better understanding how other people think and tailor my code accordingly so it's easier to read. So my question is, how can I get constructive criticism for my code? My intent is to understand how people think so I can write more readable code.

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  • Entity Framework Vote of No Confidence - relevant in .NET 4?

    - by Asaf R
    Hi, I'm deciding on an ORM for a big project and was determined to go for ADO.NET Entity Framework, specifically its new version that ships with .NET 4. During my search for information on EF I stumbled upon ADO .NET Entity Framework Vote of No Confidence which I'm not sure how to take. The Vote of No Confidence was written sometime in 2008 to convince Microsoft to listen to specific criticism for EF v1. It's not clear whether the claims made in the Vote of No Confidence are still valid (in .NET 4) and if they're serious enough to use other solutions. NHibernate is a mature alternative, but I don't know what problems it brings. I'm generally more inclined towards a Ms solution, mainly because I can count on integration with VS and on their developer support. I would appreciate examples of how the problems mentioned in the Vote of No Confidence affect in real world projects. More importantly, are the claims made there still relevant in EF for .NET 4? Thanks, Asaf

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  • What Programming Book would you NOT recommend to Developers?

    - by Ender
    Like a lot of people on Stack Overflow I love to read books about programming, almost as much as I love to read the lists that people add onto their websites, Blog's and this very website. However, for every gem there are a thousand turds, and to one developer a gem could just be a shiny turd to another. Whilst there are hundreds of book questions on this website asking users to recommend books that they have loved I have decided (after looking for a similar question and not finding it) to create a list of books that users have detested. After all, if we're going to fork out money for these books it'd be a good idea to get both positive and negative aspects out there. Please refer to a specific book, and with it add an image of either the latest version or the version you have read. Also, if you have the time please comment on the answers to provide your experiences with the books.

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  • What Makes a Good Design Critic? CHI 2010 Panel Review

    - by jatin.thaker
    Author: Daniel Schwartz, Senior Interaction Designer, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle Applications UX Chief Evangelist Patanjali Venkatacharya organized and moderated an innovative and stimulating panel discussion titled "What Makes a Good Design Critic? Food Design vs. Product Design Criticism" at CHI 2010, the annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The panelists included Janice Rohn, VP of User Experience at Experian; Tami Hardeman, a food stylist; Ed Seiber, a restaurant architect and designer; John Kessler, a food critic and writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Larry Powers, Chef de Cuisine at Shaun's restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. Building off the momentum of his highly acclaimed panel at CHI 2009 on what interaction design can learn from food design (for which I was on the other side as a panelist), Venkatacharya brought together new people with different roles in the restaurant and software interaction design fields. The session was also quite delicious -- but more on that later. Criticism, as it applies to food and product or interaction design, was the tasty topic for this forum and showed that strong parallels exist between food and interaction design criticism. Figure 1. The panelists in discussion: (left to right) Janice Rohn, Ed Seiber, Tami Hardeman, and John Kessler. The panelists had great insights to share from their respective fields, and they enthusiastically discussed as if they were at a casual collegial dinner. John Kessler stated that he prefers to have one professional critic's opinion in general than a large sampling of customers, however, "Web sites like Yelp get users excited by the collective approach. People are attracted to things desired by so many." Janice Rohn added that this collective desire was especially true for users of consumer products. Ed Seiber remarked that while people looked to the popular view for their target tastes and product choices, "professional critics like John [Kessler] still hold a big weight on public opinion." Chef Powers indicated that chefs take in feedback from all sources, adding, "word of mouth is very powerful. We also look heavily at the sales of the dishes to see what's moving; what's selling and thus successful." Hearing this discussion validates our design work at Oracle in that we listen to our users (our diners) and industry feedback (our critics) to ensure an optimal user experience of our products. Rohn considers that restaurateur Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, which is about creating successful restaurant experiences, has many applicable parallels to user experience design. Meyer actually argues that the customer is not always right, but that "they must always feel heard." Seiber agreed, but noted "customers are not designers," and while designers need to listen to customer feedback, it is the designer's job to synthesize it. Seiber feels it's the critic's job to point out when something is missing or not well-prioritized. In interaction design, our challenges are quite similar, if not parallel. Software tasks are like puzzles that are in search of a solution on how to be best completed. As a food stylist, Tami Hardeman has the demanding and challenging task of presenting food to be as delectable as can be. To present food in its best light requires a lot of creativity and insight into consumer tastes. It's no doubt then that this former fashion stylist came up with the ultimate catch phrase to capture the emotion that clients want to draw from their users: "craveability." The phrase was a hit with the audience and panelists alike. Sometime later in the discussion, Seiber remarked, "designers strive to apply craveability to products, and I do so for restaurants in my case." Craveabilty is also very applicable to interaction design. Creating straightforward and smooth workflows for users of Oracle Applications is a primary goal for my colleagues. We want our users to really enjoy working with our products where it makes them more efficient and better at their jobs. That's our "craveability." Patanjali Venkatacharya asked the panel, "if a design's "craveability" appeals to some cultures but not to others, then what is the impact to the food or product design process?" Rohn stated that "taste is part nature and part nurture" and that the design must take the full context of a product's usage into consideration. Kessler added, "good design is about understanding the context" that the experience necessitates. Seiber remarked how important seat comfort is for diners and how the quality of seating will add so much to the complete dining experience. Sometimes if these non-food factors are not well executed, they can also take away from an otherwise pleasant dining experience. Kessler recounted a time when he was dining at a restaurant that actually had very good food, but the photographs hanging on all the walls did not fit in with the overall décor and created a negative overall dining experience. While the tastiness of the food is critical to a restaurant's success, it is a captivating complete user experience, as in interaction design, which will keep customers coming back and ultimately making the restaurant a hit. Figure 2. Patanjali Venkatacharya enjoyed the Sardinian flatbread salad. As a surprise Chef Powers brought out a signature dish from Shaun's restaurant for all the panelists to sample and critique. The Sardinian flatbread dish showcased Atlanta's taste for fresh and local produce and cheese at its finest as a salad served on a crispy flavorful flat bread. Hardeman said it could be photographed from any angle, a high compliment coming from a food stylist. Seiber really enjoyed the colors that the dish brought together and thought it would be served very well in a casual restaurant on a summer's day. The panel really appreciated the taste and quality of the different components and how the rosemary brought all the flavors together. Seiber remarked that "a lot of effort goes into the appearance of simplicity." Rohn indicated that the same notion holds true with software user interface design. A tremendous amount of work goes into crafting straightforward interfaces, including user research, prototyping, design iterations, and usability studies. Design criticism for food and software interfaces clearly share many similarities. Both areas value expert opinions and user feedback. Both areas understand the importance of great design needing to work well in its context. Last but not least, both food and interaction design criticism value "craveability" and how having users excited about experiencing and enjoying the designs is an important goal. Now if we can just improve the taste of software user interfaces, people may choose to dine on their enterprise applications over a fresh organic salad.

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  • What Makes a Good Design Critic? CHI 2010 Panel Review

    - by Applications User Experience
    Author: Daniel Schwartz, Senior Interaction Designer, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle Applications UX Chief Evangelist Patanjali Venkatacharya organized and moderated an innovative and stimulating panel discussion titled "What Makes a Good Design Critic? Food Design vs. Product Design Criticism" at CHI 2010, the annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The panelists included Janice Rohn, VP of User Experience at Experian; Tami Hardeman, a food stylist; Ed Seiber, a restaurant architect and designer; Jonathan Kessler, a food critic and writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Larry Powers, Chef de Cuisine at Shaun's restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. Building off the momentum of his highly acclaimed panel at CHI 2009 on what interaction design can learn from food design (for which I was on the other side as a panelist), Venkatacharya brought together new people with different roles in the restaurant and software interaction design fields. The session was also quite delicious -- but more on that later. Criticism, as it applies to food and product or interaction design, was the tasty topic for this forum and showed that strong parallels exist between food and interaction design criticism. Figure 1. The panelists in discussion: (left to right) Janice Rohn, Ed Seiber, Tami Hardeman, and Jonathan Kessler. The panelists had great insights to share from their respective fields, and they enthusiastically discussed as if they were at a casual collegial dinner. Jonathan Kessler stated that he prefers to have one professional critic's opinion in general than a large sampling of customers, however, "Web sites like Yelp get users excited by the collective approach. People are attracted to things desired by so many." Janice Rohn added that this collective desire was especially true for users of consumer products. Ed Seiber remarked that while people looked to the popular view for their target tastes and product choices, "professional critics like John [Kessler] still hold a big weight on public opinion." Chef Powers indicated that chefs take in feedback from all sources, adding, "word of mouth is very powerful. We also look heavily at the sales of the dishes to see what's moving; what's selling and thus successful." Hearing this discussion validates our design work at Oracle in that we listen to our users (our diners) and industry feedback (our critics) to ensure an optimal user experience of our products. Rohn considers that restaurateur Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, which is about creating successful restaurant experiences, has many applicable parallels to user experience design. Meyer actually argues that the customer is not always right, but that "they must always feel heard." Seiber agreed, but noted "customers are not designers," and while designers need to listen to customer feedback, it is the designer's job to synthesize it. Seiber feels it's the critic's job to point out when something is missing or not well-prioritized. In interaction design, our challenges are quite similar, if not parallel. Software tasks are like puzzles that are in search of a solution on how to be best completed. As a food stylist, Tami Hardeman has the demanding and challenging task of presenting food to be as delectable as can be. To present food in its best light requires a lot of creativity and insight into consumer tastes. It's no doubt then that this former fashion stylist came up with the ultimate catch phrase to capture the emotion that clients want to draw from their users: "craveability." The phrase was a hit with the audience and panelists alike. Sometime later in the discussion, Seiber remarked, "designers strive to apply craveability to products, and I do so for restaurants in my case." Craveabilty is also very applicable to interaction design. Creating straightforward and smooth workflows for users of Oracle Applications is a primary goal for my colleagues. We want our users to really enjoy working with our products where it makes them more efficient and better at their jobs. That's our "craveability." Patanjali Venkatacharya asked the panel, "if a design's "craveability" appeals to some cultures but not to others, then what is the impact to the food or product design process?" Rohn stated that "taste is part nature and part nurture" and that the design must take the full context of a product's usage into consideration. Kessler added, "good design is about understanding the context" that the experience necessitates. Seiber remarked how important seat comfort is for diners and how the quality of seating will add so much to the complete dining experience. Sometimes if these non-food factors are not well executed, they can also take away from an otherwise pleasant dining experience. Kessler recounted a time when he was dining at a restaurant that actually had very good food, but the photographs hanging on all the walls did not fit in with the overall décor and created a negative overall dining experience. While the tastiness of the food is critical to a restaurant's success, it is a captivating complete user experience, as in interaction design, which will keep customers coming back and ultimately making the restaurant a hit. Figure 2. Patnajali Venkatacharya enjoyed the Sardian flatbread salad. As a surprise Chef Powers brought out a signature dish from Shaun's restaurant for all the panelists to sample and critique. The Sardinian flatbread dish showcased Atlanta's taste for fresh and local produce and cheese at its finest as a salad served on a crispy flavorful flat bread. Hardeman said it could be photographed from any angle, a high compliment coming from a food stylist. Seiber really enjoyed the colors that the dish brought together and thought it would be served very well in a casual restaurant on a summer's day. The panel really appreciated the taste and quality of the different components and how the rosemary brought all the flavors together. Seiber remarked that "a lot of effort goes into the appearance of simplicity." Rohn indicated that the same notion holds true with software user interface design. A tremendous amount of work goes into crafting straightforward interfaces, including user research, prototyping, design iterations, and usability studies. Design criticism for food and software interfaces clearly share many similarities. Both areas value expert opinions and user feedback. Both areas understand the importance of great design needing to work well in its context. Last but not least, both food and interaction design criticism value "craveability" and how having users excited about experiencing and enjoying the designs is an important goal. Now if we can just improve the taste of software user interfaces, people may choose to dine on their enterprise applications over a fresh organic salad.

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  • SQLAuthority News – SQL Server Cheat Sheet from MidnightDBA

    - by pinaldave
    When I read the article from MidnightDBA (I should say MidnightDBAs because it is about Jen and Sean) regarding T-SQL for the Absentminded DBA, my natural reaction was that it is a perfect extension. A year ago around the same month, I had created SQL Server Cheatsheet. I have distributed a lot of copies of it since I produced it. In fact, while attending TechMela in Nepal today, I am getting many requests to get copies of SQL Server Cheatsheet. When I checked my RSS feed, I realized that Jen and Sean have a perfect cheat sheet for intermediate level developers. I would like to suggest to all of you to read their post and download the Absentminded DBA’s Cheat Sheet for IntermediateTSQL. It is available in two formats: PDF and Docx. I just love how the members of the community help each other grow. I am fortunate that I have received excellent feedback/corrections and criticism on my blog posts for so many times. Criticism and corrections, after all, are absolutely needed and make a better community as a whole. Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Cheat Sheet

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  • Releasing an open source project without getting embarrassed

    - by Hopeful
    I've been working by myself on a fairly large open source project for quite a while and it's nearing the point where I'd like to release it. However, I'm self-taught and I don't really know anyone who could adequately review my project. A few years ago, I had released a small bit of code which pretty much got ripped apart (in a critical sense) on the forum where I released it. Even though the code worked, the criticism was accurate but brutal. It prompted me to begin searching for best practices for everything and in the end I feel that it made me a much better developer. I've gone over everything in my project so many times trying to make it perfect that I've lost count. I believe in my project and think it has the potential to help a lot of people and I feel like I've done some cool things in interesting ways with it. Still, because I'm self-taught, I can't help but wonder what gaps exist in my self-education. The way my code was ripped apart last time isn't something I'd like to repeat. I think my two biggest fears with releasing my project that I've poured countless hours into are being absolutely embarrassed because I missed some patently obvious things because of my self-education or, worse, releasing it to the sound of crickets. Is there anyone who has been in a similar situation? I'm not afraid of constructive criticism, so long as it is constructive and not just a rant on how I screwed up. I know there is a code review site on StackExchange, but it's not really set up for large projects and I didn't feel like the community there is large enough yet to get good feedback if I were to post parts of my project piecemeal (I tried with one file). What can I do to give my project at least some measure of success without getting embarrassed or devestated in the process?

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  • When are Getters and Setters Justified

    - by Winston Ewert
    Getters and setters are often criticized as being not proper OO. On the other hand most OO code I've seen has extensive getters and setters. When are getters and setters justified? Do you try to avoid using them? Are they overused in general? If your favorite language has properties (mine does) then such things are also considered getters and setters for this question. They are same thing from an OO methodology perspective. They just have nicer syntax. Sources for Getter/Setter Criticism (some taken from comments to give them better visibility): http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-2003/jw-0905-toolbox.html http://typicalprogrammer.com/?p=23 http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AccessorsAreEvil http://www.darronschall.com/weblog/2005/03/no-brain-getter-and-setters.cfm http://www.adam-bien.com/roller/abien/entry/encapsulation_violation_with_getters_and To state the criticism simply: Getters and Setters allow you to manipulate the internal state of objects from outside of the object. This violates encapsulation. Only the object itself should care about its internal state. And an example Procedural version of code. struct Fridge { int cheese; } void go_shopping(Fridge fridge) { fridge.cheese += 5; } Mutator version of code: class Fridge { int cheese; void set_cheese(int _cheese) { cheese = _cheese; } int get_cheese() { return cheese; } } void go_shopping(Fridge fridge) { fridge.set_cheese(fridge.get_cheese() + 5); } The getters and setters made the code much more complicated without affording proper encapsulation. Because the internal state is accessible to other objects we don't gain a whole lot by adding these getters and setters. The question has been previously discussed on Stack Overflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/565095/java-are-getters-and-setters-evil http://stackoverflow.com/questions/996179

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  • The Changing Face of PASS

    - by Bill Graziano
    I’m starting my sixth year on the PASS Board.  I served two years as the Program Director, two years as the Vice-President of Marketing and I’m starting my second year as the Executive Vice-President of Finance.  There’s a pretty good chance that if PASS has done something you don’t like or is doing something you don’t like, that I’m involved in one way or another. Andy Leonard asked in a comment on his blog if the Board had ever reversed itself based on community input.  He asserted that it hadn’t.  I disagree.  I’m not going to try and list all the changes we make inside portfolios based on feedback from and meetings with the community.  I’m going to focus on major governance issues since I was elected to the Board. Management Company The first big change was our management company.  Our old management company had a standard approach to running a non-profit.  It worked well when PASS was launched.  Having a ready-made structure and process to run the organization enabled the organization to grow quickly.  As time went on we were limited in some of the things we wanted to do.  The more involved you were with PASS, the more you saw these limitations.  Key volunteers were regularly providing feedback that they wanted certain changes that were difficult for us to accomplish.  The Board at that time wanted changes that were difficult or impossible to accomplish under that structure. This was not a simple change.  Imagine a $2.5 million dollar company letting all its employees go on a Friday and starting with a new staff on Monday.  We also had a very narrow window to accomplish that so that we wouldn’t affect the Summit – our only source of revenue.  We spent the year after the change rebuilding processes and putting on the Summit in Denver.  That’s a concrete example of a huge change that PASS made to better serve its members.  And it was a change that many in the community were telling us we needed to make. Financials We heard regularly from our members that they wanted our financials posted.  Today on our web site you can find audited financials going back to 2004.  We publish our budget at the start of each year.  If you ask a question about the financials on the PASS site I do my best to answer it.  I’m also trying to do a better job answering financial questions posted in other locations.  (And yes, I know I owe a few of you some blog posts.) That’s another concrete example of a change that our members asked for that the Board agreed was a good decision. Minutes When I started on the Board the meeting minutes were very limited.  The minutes from a two day Board meeting might fit on one page.  I think we did the bare minimum we were legally required to do.  Today Board meeting minutes run from 5 to 12 pages and go into incredible detail on what we talk about.  There are certain topics that are NDA but where possible we try to list the topic we discussed but that the actual discussion was under NDA.  We also publish the agenda of Board meetings ahead of time. This is another specific example where input from the community influenced the decision.  It was certainly easier to have limited minutes but I think the extra effort helps our members understand what’s going on. Board Q&A At the 2009 Summit the Board held its first public Q&A with our members.  We’d always been available individually to answer questions.  There’s a benefit to getting us all in one room and asking the really hard questions to watch us squirm.  We learn what questions we don’t have good answers for.  We get to see how many people in the crowd look interested in the various questions and answers. I don’t recall the genesis of how this came about.  I’m fairly certain there was some community pressure though. Board Votes Until last November, the Board only reported the vote totals and not how individual Board members voted.  That was one of the topics at a great lunch I had with Tim Mitchell and Kendal van Dyke at the Summit.  That was also the topic of the first question asked at the Board Q&A by Kendal.  Kendal expressed his opposition to to anonymous votes clearly and passionately and without trying to paint anyone into a corner.  Less than 24 hours later the PASS Board voted to make individual votes public unless the topic was under NDA.  That’s another area where the Board decided to change based on feedback from our members. Summit Location While this isn’t actually a governance issue it is one of the more public decisions we make that has taken some public criticism.  There is a significant portion of our members that want the Summit near them.  There is a significant portion of our members that like the Summit in Seattle.  There is a significant portion of our members that think it should move around the country.  I was one that felt strongly that there were significant, tangible benefits to our attendees to being in Seattle every year.  I’m also one that has been swayed by some very compelling arguments that we need to have at least one outside Seattle and then revisit the decision.  I can’t tell you how the Board will vote but I know the opinion of our members weighs heavily on the decision. Elections And that brings us to the grand-daddy of all governance issues.  My thesis for this blog post is that the PASS Board has implemented policy changes in response to member feedback.  It isn’t to defend or criticize our election process.  It’s just to say that is has been under going continuous change since I’ve been on the Board.  I ran for the Board in the fall of 2005.  I don’t know much about what happened before then.  I was actively volunteering for PASS for four years prior to that as a chapter leader and on the program committee.  I don’t recall any complaints about elections but that doesn’t mean they didn’t occur.  The questions from the Nominating Committee (NomCom) were trivial and the selection process rudimentary (For example, “Tell us about your accomplishments”).  I don’t even remember who I ran against or how many other people ran.  I ran for the VP of Marketing in the fall of 2007.  I don’t recall any significant changes the Board made in the election process for that election.  I think a lot of the changes in 2007 came from us asking the management company to work on the election process.  I was expecting a similar set of puff ball questions from my previous election.  Boy, was I in for a shock.  The NomCom had found a much better set of questions and really made the interview portion difficult.  The questions were much more behavioral in nature.  I’d already written about my vision for PASS and my goals.  They wanted to know how I handled adversity, how I handled criticism, how I handled conflict, how I handled troublesome volunteers, how I motivated people and how I responded to motivation. And many, many other things. They grilled me for over an hour.  I’ve done a fair bit of technical sales in my time.  I feel I speak well under pressure addressing pointed questions.  This interview intentionally put me under pressure.  In addition to wanting to know about my interpersonal skills, my work experience, my volunteer experience and my supervisory experience they wanted to see how I’d do under pressure.  They wanted to see who would respond under pressure and who wouldn’t.  It was a bit of a shock. That was the first big change I remember in the election process.  I know there were other improvements around the process but none of them stick in my mind quite like the unexpected hour-long grilling. The next big change I remember was after the 2009 elections.  Andy Warren was unhappy with the election process and wanted to make some changes.  He worked with Hannes at HQ and they came up with a better set of processes.  I think Andy moved PASS in the right direction.  Nonetheless, after the 2010 election even more people were very publicly clamoring for changes to our election process.  In August of 2010 we had a choice to make.  There were numerous bloggers criticizing the Board and our upcoming election.  The easy change would be to announce that we were changing the process in a way that would satisfy our critics.  I believe that a knee-jerk response to criticism is seldom correct. Instead the Board spent August and September and October and November listening to the community.  I visited two SQLSaturdays and asked questions of everyone I could.  I attended chapter meetings and asked questions of as many people as they’d let me.  At Summit I made it a point to introduce myself to strangers and ask them about the election.  At every breakfast I’d sit down at a table full of strangers and ask about the election.  I’m happy to say that I left most tables arguing about the election.  Most days I managed to get 2 or 3 breakfasts in. I spent less time talking to people that had already written about the election.  They were already expressing their opinion.  I wanted to talk to people that hadn’t spoken up.  I wanted to know what the silent majority thought.  The Board all attended the Q&A session where our members expressed their concerns about a variety of issues including the election. The PASS Board also chose to create the Election Review Committee.  We wanted people from the community that had been involved with PASS to look at our election process with fresh eyes while listening to what the community had to say and give us some advice on how we could improve the process.  I’m a part of this as is Andy Warren.  None of the other members are on the Board.  I’ve sat in numerous calls and interviews with this group and attended an open meeting at the Summit.  We asked anyone that wanted to discuss the election to come speak with us.  The ERC held an open meeting at the Summit and invited anyone to attend.  There are forums on the ERC web site where we’ve invited people to participate.  The ERC has reached to key people involved in recent elections.  The years that I haven’t mentioned also saw minor improvements in the election process.  Off the top of my head I don’t recall what exact changes were made each year.  Specifically since the 2010 election we’ve gone out of our way to seek input from the community about the process.  I’m not sure what more we could have done to invite feedback from the community. I think to say that we haven’t “fixed” the election process isn’t a fair criticism at this time.  We haven’t rushed any changes through the process.  If you don’t see any changes in our election process in July or August then I think it’s fair to criticize us for ignoring the community or ask for an explanation for what we’ve done. In Summary Andy’s main point was that the PASS Board hasn’t changed in response to our members wishes.  I think I’ve shown that time and time again the PASS Board has changed in response to what our members want.  There are only two outstanding issues: Summit location and elections.  The 2013 Summit location hasn’t been decided yet.  Our work on the elections is also in progress.  And at every step in the election review we’ve gone out of our way to listen to the community and incorporate their feedback on the process. I also hope I’m not encouraging everyone that wants some change in the organization to organize a “blog rush” against the Board.  We take public suggestions very seriously but we also take the time to evaluate those suggestions and learn what the rest of our members think and make a measured decision.

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