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• Waiting for Windows 8: A Long, Hot Summer

  - by andrewbrust

  Microsoft has revealed some things about Windows 8, and revealed a part of the developer story for new Windows 8 “tailored,” “immersive” applications.  In retrospect, very little was shared.  The bit that was revealed to us is that those applications can be developed using a combination of HTML 5 and JavaScript.  Not much else was said, except that additional details would be revealed at Microsoft’s //Build/ conference in Anaheim, California in September. This has left a lot of people in suspense, and it seems that suspended state is going to last all summer.  The problem, of course, is that in the absence of hard information, people fill the void with Speculation, Rumor and Gloom.  That’s a bit like Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, except that it’s self-imposed by the Microsoft community and not planted by Microsoft’s competitors. This is a less-than-perfect situation.  Not only is it causing developers to worry about the value of their skill sets, but I am already hearing from consulting shops that customers are getting nervous too and, in extreme cases, opting for non-Microsoft tools for their projects as a result.  I’m also hearing from dev tool ISVs that sales have suffered as a result. It’s quite possible that the customers moving off .NET wanted to do so anyway and it’s also possible that dev tool ISVs are suffering slower sales this year due a slowed rate of economic recovery. Without hard information, tend to people interpret things negatively.  Actually, that’s the major point in all of this. While there is multitude of opinions about what the Windows 8 development platform will look like once fully revealed, there is an emerging consensus around one thing: it sure would help if Microsoft revealed more of its strategy…just enough to quash absurd rumors, stabilize the .NET ecosystem and get people to stay calm. We’ve had some reassurances thus far: there will be a Windows desktop mode; we’ll still have Windows Explorer, we’ll still run Office, we’ll still have a task bar, and all the skills and tools we use now will still work there.  But with reassurances like that…people still feel insecure.  Because telling us that Windows 8 will have what is essentially a “classic” mode sure makes it sound like today’s skill sets will soon be “classic” too…and then maybe they’ll just become obsolete. Humans find change scary; it’s natural.  And when left alone with their fears – because no one is saying anything to dispel them – people can go from frightened to paranoid, and can start to viewing things in a downright conspiratorial light.  It would be great if Microsoft stepped into the void now and told us what is coming – especially because whatever they tell us is bound to be at least a little better than what people think they are going to hear. I don’t know what the announcements will be, but I do have it on authority, from a number of sources, that Microsoft isn’t gong to talk until //Build/.  That means no news until September September 13th.  Nothing until after Labor Day.  You get zippo until after the Back-to-School sales are done. What to do?  Try not to let the dark voices of gloom and doom fill your head.  Even in the absence of answers, we still have some important facts: The .NET developer community is huge. Microsoft’s customers have major investments in .NET, and in .NET skills. Political infighting in Redmond might make for irrational decisions, but ultimately public companies can’t just alienate their advocates and piss off their customers.  Spite doesn’t trump fiduciary responsibility. The computing device markets are changing, software is changing, software business models are changing and developers are changing.  Microsoft has to keep up. The HTML + JavaScript community is huge too, and it includes many of the “changed” developers. Public companies can’t ignore new markets nor the popular standards that can help them enter those new markets.  Loyalty doesn’t trump fiduciary responsibility either. If Microsoft can appeal to new developers, then it should. If Microsoft can keep catering to its existing developers and customers -- not just through legacy support, but also through empowering futures -- then it probably will. You don’t have to shove your old friends out into the rain to make room for new ones; you can bring those new constituents in under a bigger tent.  I hope Microsoft will enlarge the tent, and I have trouble imagining why it would not.

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• What Counts for A DBA: Observant

  - by drsql

  When walking up to the building where I work, I can see CCTV cameras placed here and there for monitoring access to the building. We are required to wear authorization badges which could be checked at any time. Do we have enemies?  Of course! No one is 100% safe; even if your life is a fairy tale, there is always a witch with an apple waiting to snack you into a thousand years of slumber (or at least so I recollect from elementary school.) Even Little Bo Peep had to keep a wary lookout.    We nerdy types (or maybe it was just me?) generally learned on the school playground to keep an eye open for unprovoked attack from simpler, but more muscular souls, and take steps to avoid messy confrontations well in advance. After we’d apprehensively negotiated adulthood with varying degrees of success, these skills of watching for danger, and avoiding it,  translated quite well to the technical careers so many of us were destined for. And nowhere else is this talent for watching out for irrational malevolence so appropriate as in a career as a production DBA.   It isn’t always active malevolence that the DBA needs to watch out for, but the even scarier quirks of common humanity.  A large number of the issues that occur in the enterprise happen just randomly or even just one time ever in a spurious manner, like in the case where a person decided to download the entire MSDN library of software, cross join every non-indexed billion row table together, and simultaneously stream the HD feed of 5 different sporting events, making the network access slow while the corporate online sales just started. The decent DBA team, like the going, gets tough under such circumstances. They spring into action, checking all of the sources of active information, observes the issue is no longer happening now, figures that either it wasn’t the database’s fault and that the reboot of the whatever device on the network fixed the problem.  This sort of reactive support is good, and will be the initial reaction of even excellent DBAs, but it is not the end of the story if you really want to know what happened and avoid getting called again when it isn’t even your fault.   When fires start raging within the corporate software forest, the DBA’s instinct is to actively find a way to douse the flames and get back to having no one in the company have any idea who they are.  Even better for them is to find a way of killing a potential problem while the fires are small, long before they can be classified as raging. The observant DBA will have already been monitoring the server environment for months in advance.  Most troubles, such as disk space and security intrusions, can be predicted and dealt with by alerting systems, whereas other trouble can come out of the blue and requires a skill of observing ongoing conditions and noticing inexplicable changes that could signal an emerging problem.  You can’t automate the DBA, because the bankable skill of a DBA is in detecting the early signs of unexpected problems, and working out how to deal with them before anyone else notices them.    To achieve this, the DBA will check the situation as it is currently happening,  and in many cases is likely to have been the person who submitted the problem to the level 1 support person in the first place, just to let the support team know of impending issues (always well received, I tell you what!). Database and host computer settings, configurations, and even critical data might be profiled and captured for later comparisons. He’ll use Monitoring tools, built-in, commercial (Not to be too crassly commercial or anything, but there is one such tool is SQL Monitor) and lots of homebrew monitoring tools to monitor for problems and changes in the server environment.   You will know that you have it right when a support call comes in and you can look at your monitoring tools and quickly respond that “response time is well within the normal range, the query that supports the failing interface works perfectly and has actually only been called 67% as often as normal, so I am more than willing to help diagnose the problem, but it isn’t the database server’s fault and is probably a client or networking slowdown causing the interface to be used less frequently than normal.” And that is the best thing for any DBA to observe…

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• IE9, LightSwitch Beta 2 and Zune HD: A Study in Risk Management?

  - by andrewbrust

  Photo by parl, 'Risk.’ Under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License This has been a busy week for Microsoft, and for me as well.  On Monday, Microsoft launched Internet Explorer 9 at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, TX.  That evening I flew from New York to Seattle.  On Tuesday morning, Microsoft launched Visual Studio LightSwitch, Beta 2 with a Go-Live license, in Redmond, and I had the privilege of speaking at the keynote presentation where the announcement was made.  Readers of this blog know I‘m a fan of LightSwitch, so I was happy to tell the app dev tools partners in the audience that I thought the LightSwitch extensions ecosystem represented a big opportunity – comparable to the opportunity when Visual Basic 1.0 was entering its final beta roughly 20 years ago.  On Tuesday evening, I flew back to New York (and wrote most of this post in-flight). Two busy, productive days.  But there was a caveat that impacts the accomplishments, because Monday was also the day reports surfaced from credible news agencies that Microsoft was discontinuing its dedicated Zune hardware efforts.  While the Zune brand, technology and service will continue to be a component of Windows Phone and a piece of the Xbox puzzle as well, speculation is that Microsoft will no longer be going toe-to-toe with iPod touch in the portable music player market. If we take all three of these developments together (even if one of them is based on speculation), two interesting conclusions can reasonably be drawn, one good and one less so. Microsoft is doubling down on technologies it finds strategic and de-emphasizing those that it does not.  HTML 5 and the Web are strategic, so here comes IE9, and it’s a very good browser.  Try it and see.  Silverlight is strategic too, as is SQL Server, Windows Azure and SQL Azure, so here comes Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 2 and a license to deploy its apps to production.  Downloads of that product have exceeded Microsoft’s projections by more than 50%, and the company is even citing analyst firms’ figures covering the number of power-user developers that might use it. (I happen to think the product will be used by full-fledged developers as well, but that’s a separate discussion.) Windows Phone is strategic too…I wasn’t 100% positive of that before, but the Nokia agreement has made me confident.  Xbox as an entertainment appliance is also strategic.  Standalone music players are not strategic – and even if they were, selling them has been a losing battle for Microsoft.  So if Microsoft has consolidated the Zune content story and the ZunePass subscription into Xbox and Windows Phone, it would make sense, and would be a smart allocation of resources.  Essentially, it would be for the greater good. But it’s not all good.  In this scenario, Zune player customers would lose out.  Unless they wanted to switch to Windows Phone, and then use their phone’s battery for the portable media needs, they’re going to need a new platform.  They’re going to feel abandoned.  Even if Zune lives, there have been other such cul de sacs for customers.  Remember SPOT watches?  Live Spaces?  The original Live Mesh?  Microsoft discontinued each of these products.  The company is to be commended for cutting its losses, as admitting a loss isn’t easy.  But Redmond won’t be well-regarded by the victims of those decisions.  Instead, it gets black marks. What’s the answer?  I think it’s a bit like the 1980’s New York City “don’t block the box” gridlock rules: don’t enter an intersection unless you see a clear path through it.  If the light turns red and you’re blocking the perpendicular traffic, that’s your fault in judgment.  You get fined and get points on your license and you don’t get to shrug it off as beyond your control.  Accountability is key.  The same goes for Microsoft.  If it decides to enter a market, it should see a reasonable path through success in that market. Switching analogies, Microsoft shouldn’t make investments haphazardly, and it certainly shouldn’t ask investors to buy into a high-risk fund that is sold as safe and which offers only moderate returns.  People won’t continue to invest with a fund manager with a track record of over-zealous, imprudent, sub-prime investments.  The same is true on the product side for Microsoft, and not just with music players and geeky wrist watches.  It’s true of Web browsers, and line-of-business app dev tools, and smartphones, and cloud platforms and operating systems too.  When Microsoft is casual about its own risk, it raises risk for its customers, and weakens its reputation, market share and credibility.  That doesn’t mean all risk is bad, but it does mean no product team’s risk should be taken lightly. For mutual fund companies, it’s the CEO’s job to give his fund managers autonomy, but to make sure they’re conforming to a standard of rational risk management.  Because all those funds carry the same brand, and many of them serve the same investors. The same goes for Microsoft, its product portfolio, its executive ranks and its product managers.

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• Windows 8 for productivity?

  - by Charles Young

  At long last I’ve started using Windows 8.  I boot from a VHD on which I have installed Office, Visio, Visual Studio, SQL Server, etc.  For a week, now, I’ve been happily writing code and documents and using Visio and PowerPoint.  I am, very much, a ‘productivity’ user rather than a content consumer.   I spend my days flitting between countless windows and browser tabs displayed across dual monitors.  I need to access a lot of different functionality and information in as fluid a fashion as possible. With that in mind, and like so many others, I was worried about Windows 8.  The Metro interface is primarily about content consumption on touch-enabled screens, and not really geared for people like me sitting in front of an 8-core non-touch laptop and an additional Samsung monitor.  I still use a mouse, not my finger.  And I create more than I consume. Clearly, Windows 8 won’t be viable for people like me unless Metro keeps out of my hair when using productivity and development tools.  With this in mind, I had long expected Microsoft to provide some mechanism for switching Metro off.  There was a registry hack in last year’s Developer Preview, but this capability has been removed.   That’s brave.  So, how have things worked out so far? Well, I am really quite surprised.  When I played with the Developer Preview last year, it was clear that Metro was unfinished and didn’t play well enough with the desktop.  Obviously I expected things to improve, but the context switching from desktop to full-screen seemed a heavy burden to place on users.  That sense of abrupt change hasn’t entirely gone away (how could it), but after a few days, I can’t say that I find it burdensome or irritating.   I’ve got used very quickly to ‘gesturing’ with my mouse at the bottom or top right corners of the screen to move between applications, using the Windows key to toggle the Start screen and generally finding my way around.   I am surprised at how effective the Start screen is, given the rather basic grouping features it provides.  Of course, I had to take control of it and sort things the way I want.  If anything, though, the Start screen provides a better navigation and application launcher tool than the old Start menu. What I didn’t expect was the way that Metro enhances the productivity story.  As I write this, I’ve got my desktop open with a maximised Word window.  However, the desktop extends only across about 85% of the width of my screen.  On the left hand side, I have a column that displays the new Metro email client.  This is currently showing me a list of emails for my main work account.  I can flip easily between different accounts and read my email within that same column.  As I work on documents, I want to be able to monitor my inbox with a quick glance. The desktop, of course, has its own snap feature.  I could run the desktop full screen and bring up Outlook and Word side by side.  However, this doesn’t begin to approach the convenience of snapping the Metro email client.  Consider that when I snap a window on the desktop, it initially takes up 50% of the screen.  Outlook doesn’t really know anything about snap, and doesn’t adjust to make effective use of the limited screen estate.  Even at 50% screen width, it is difficult to use, so forget about trying to use it in a Metro fashion. In any case, I am left with the prospect of having to manually adjust everything to view my email effectively alongside Word.  Worse, there is nothing stopping another window from overlapping and obscuring my email.  It becomes a struggle to keep sight of email as it arrives.  Of course, there is always ‘toast’ to notify me when things arrive, but if Outlook is obscured, this just feels intrusive. The beauty of the Metro snap feature is that my email reader now exists outside of my desktop.   The Metro app has been crafted to work well in the fixed width column as well as in full-screen.  It cannot be obscured by overlapping windows.  I still get notifications if I wish.  More importantly, it is clear that careful attention has been given to how things work when moving between applications when ‘snapped’.  If I decide, say to flick over to the Metro newsreader to catch up with current affairs, my desktop, rather than my email client, obligingly makes way for the reader.  With a simple gesture and click, or alternatively by pressing Windows-Tab, my desktop reappears. Another pleasant surprise is the way Windows 8 handles dual monitors.  It’s not just the fact that both screens now display the desktop task bar.  It’s that I can so easily move between Metro and the desktop on either screen.  I can only have Metro on one screen at a time which makes entire sense given the ‘full-screen’ nature of Metro apps.  Using dual monitors feels smoother and easier than previous versions of Windows. Overall then, I’m enjoying the Windows 8 improvements.  Strangely, for all the hype (“Windows reimagined”, etc.), my perception as a ‘productivity’ user is more one of evolution than revolution.  It all feels very familiar, but just better.

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• State of the (Commerce) Union: What the healthcare.gov hiccups teach us about the commerce customer experience

  - by Katrina Gosek

  Guest Post by Brenna Johnson, Oracle Commerce Product A lot has been said about the healthcare.gov debacle in the last week. Regardless of your feelings about the Affordable Care Act, there’s a hidden issue in this story that most of the American people don’t understand: delivering a great commerce customer experience (CX) is hard. It shouldn’t be, but it is. The reality of the government’s issues getting the healthcare site up and running smooth is something we in the online commerce community know too well.  If there’s one thing the botched launch of the site has taught us, it’s that regardless of the size of your budget or the power of an executive with a high-profile project, some of the biggest initiatives with the most attention (and the most at stake) don’t go as planned. It may even give you a moment of solace – we have the same issues! But why?  Organizations engage too many separate vendors with different technologies, running sections or pieces of a site to get live. When things go wrong, it takes time to identify the problem – and who or what is at the center of it. Unfortunately, this is a brittle way of setting up a site, making it susceptible to breaks, bugs, and scaling issues. But, it’s the reality of running a site with legacy technology constraints in today’s demanding, customer-centric market. This approach also means there’s also a lot of cooks in lots of different kitchens. You’ve got development and IT, the business and the marketing team, an external Systems Integrator to bring it all together, a digital agency or consultant, QA, product experts, 3rd party suppliers, and the list goes on. To complicate things, different business units are held responsible for different pieces of the site and managing different technologies. And again – due to legacy organizational structure and processes, this is all accepted as the normal State of the Union. Digital commerce has been commonplace for 15 years. Yet, getting a site live, maintained and performing requires orchestrating a cast of thousands (or at least, dozens), big dollars, and some finger-crossing. But it shouldn’t. The great thing about the advent of mobile commerce and the continued maturity of online commerce is that it’s forced organizations to think from the outside, in. Consumers – whether they’re shopping for shoes or a new healthcare plan – don’t care about what technology issues or processes you have behind the scenes. They just want it to work.  They want their experience to be easy, fast, and tailored to them and their needs – whatever they are. This doesn’t sound like a tall order to the American consumer – especially since they interact with sites that do work smoothly.  But the reality is that it takes scores of people, teams, check-ins, late nights, testing, and some good luck to get sites to run, and even more so at Black Friday (or October 1st) traffic levels.  The last thing on a customer’s mind is making excuses for why they can’t buy a product – just get it to work. So what is the government doing? My guess is working day and night to get the site performing  - and having to throw big money at the problem. In the meantime they’re sending frustrated online users to the call center, or even a location where a trained “navigator” can help them in-person to complete their selection. Sounds a lot like multichannel commerce (where broken communication between siloed touchpoints will only frustrate the consumer more). One thing we’ve learned is that consumers spend their time and money with brands they know and trust. When sites are easy to use and adapt to their needs, they tend to spend more, come back, and even become long-time loyalists. Achieving this may require moving internal mountains, but there’s too much at stake to ignore the sea change in how organizations are thinking about their customer. If the thought of re-thinking your internal teams, technologies, and processes sounds like a headache, think about the pain associated with losing valuable customers – and dollars. Regardless if you’re in B2B or B2C, it’s guaranteed that your competitors are making CX a priority. Those early to the game who have made CX a priority have already begun to outpace their competition. So as you’re planning for 2014, look to the news this week. Make sure the customer experience is a focus at your organization. Expectations are at record highs. Map your customer’s journey, and think from the outside, in. How easy is it for your customers to do business with you? If they interact with many touchpoints across your organization, are the call center, website, mobile environment, or brick and mortar location in sync? Do you have the technology in place to achieve this? It’s time to give the people what they want!

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• Are there Negative Impact of opensource on commercial environment?

  - by Lostsoul

  I know this is not a good fit for Stack Overflow but wasn't sure if it was good for this site also so let me know if its not and I'll delete it. I love programming for fun but my role in my company is not technical. I have always loved the hacker culture and have been trying to drive that openness within my company from day one. My company has a very broad range of products and there are a few that are not strategic to us so I wanted to open source them (so we can focus on what makes us unique and open source the products that every firm has). Our industry does not open source(we would be the first firm to try this) and the feedback I'm getting from my management team is either 1) we'll destroy the industry or 2) all competitive commercial firms will unite against us and we'll be wiped out either way. I disagreed on both points because I think transparency will only grow our industry and our firm (think of McDonalds/KFC sharing their recipe openly, people may copy you, competitors may target you, but customers also may feel more comfortable buying your product. The value add, I believe, is in the delivery and experience not in hoarding the recipe). It's a big battle in my firm right now between the IT people who have seen the positive effects of sharing and the business people who think we'll be giving up everything (they prefer we sell parts we want to opensource, but in their defense this is standard when divesting something). Our industry is very secretive and I don't want to put anyone(even my competitors employees) out of a job yet I don't want to protect inefficient people by not being open with everyone. Yet I've seen so many amazing technologies created in interesting ways just by giving people freedom to take apart code and put it back together. I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts(doesn't have to be to my specific situation, I'm looking for the general lessons). Its a very stressful decision(but one I feel I must make) because if we go the open source route then there will be no going back. So what are your thoughts? Does open sourcing apply generally or is it only really applicable to software? Is it overall good for people in the industry and outside? I'm actually more interested in the negativeness effects(although positive are welcomed as well) Update: Long story short, although code is involved this is not so much about code as it is more about the idea of open sourcing. We are a mid sized quant hedge fund. We have some unique strategies but also have the standard long/short, arbitrage, global macro, etc.. funds. We are keeping the unique funds we have but the other stuff that everyone else has we are considering open sourcing (We have put in years of work & millions of dollars into. Our funds is pretty popular and our performance is either in first or second quartile so I suspect there will be interest but I don't know to what extent). The goal is not to get a community to work for us or anything, the goal is to let anyone who wants to tinker with it do so and create anything they want (it will not be part of our product line although I may unofficially allocate some our of staff's time to assist any community that grows). Although the code base is quite large, the value in this is the industry knowledge and approaches we have acquired (there are many books on artificial intelligence and quant trading but they are often years behind what's really going on as most firms forbid their staff from discussing what they are doing). We are also considering after we move our clients out to let the software still run and output the resulting portfolios for free as well so people can at least see the results(as long as we have avail. infrastructure). I think our main choices are, we can continue to fight for market share in a products that are becoming commoditized, we can shut the funds/products down(and keep the code but no one outside of our firm will ever learn from it) or we can open source it and let people do what they want. By open sourcing it, my idea is that the talent pool in the industry will grow because right now most of our hires have the same background (CFA, MBA, similar school, same experience,etc.. because we can't spend time training people so the industry 'standardizes' most people and thus the firms themselves start to look/act similar) but this may allow us to identify talent that has never been in the industry before (if we put a GPU license then as people learn from what we did, we can learn from what they do as well and maybe apply it to other areas of our firm). I see a lot of benefits but not many negatives while my peers at the company see the opposite.

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• Giving an Error Object Expected Line 48 Char 1

  - by Leslie Peer

  Giving an Error Object Expected Line 48 Char 1------What did I do wrong??? *Note Line # are for reference only not on Original Web page****** <HTML><HEAD><TITLE></TITLE> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <META content="Leslie Peer" name=author> <META content="Created with Trellian WebPage" name=description> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16809" name=GENERATOR> <META content=Index name=keywords> <STYLE type=text/css>BODY { COLOR: #000000; BACKGROUND-REPEAT: repeat; FONT-FAMILY: Accent SF, Arial, Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Century Gothic, Comic Sans MS, Courier, Courier New, Georgia, Microsoft Sans Serif, Monotype Corsiva, Symbol, Tahoma, Times New Roman; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #666666 } A { FONT-SIZE: 14px; FONT-FAMILY: Arial Black, Bookman Old Style, DnD4Attack, Lucida Console, MS Serif, MS Outlook, MS Sans Serif, Rockwell Extra Bold, Roman, Star Time JL, Tahoma, Terminal, Times New Roman, Verdana, Wingdings 2, Wingdings 3, Wingdings } A:link { COLOR: #9966cc; TEXT-DECORATION: underline } A:visited { COLOR: #66ff66; TEXT-DECORATION: underline } A:hover { COLOR: #ffff00; TEXT-DECORATION: underline } A:active { COLOR: #ff0033; TEXT-DECORATION: underline } H1 { FONT-SIZE: 25px; COLOR: #9966cc; FONT-FAMILY: Century Gothic } H2 { FONT-SIZE: 20px; COLOR: #ff33cc; FONT-FAMILY: Century Gothic } H3 { FONT-SIZE: 18px; COLOR: #6666cc; FONT-FAMILY: Century Gothic } H4 { FONT-SIZE: 15px; COLOR: #00cc33; FONT-FAMILY: Century Gothic } H5 { FONT-SIZE: 10px; COLOR: #ffff33; FONT-FAMILY: Century Gothic } H6 { FONT-SIZE: 5px; COLOR: #996666; FONT-FAMILY: Century Gothic } </STYLE> line 46-<SCRIPT> line 47- CharNum=6; line 48-var Character=newArray();Character[0]="Larry Lightfoot";Character[1]="Sam Wrightfield";Character[2]="Gavin Hartfild";Character[3]="Gail Quickfoot";Character[4]="Robert Gragorian";Character[5]="Peter Shain"; line 49-var ExChar=newArray();ExChar[0]="Tabor Bloomfield"; line 50-var Class=newArray();Class[0]="MagicUser";Class[1]="Fighter";Class[2]="Fighter";Class[3]="Thief";Class[4]="Cleric";Class[5]="Fighter"; line 51-line 47var ExClass=newArray();ExClass[0]="MagicUser"; line 52-var Level=newArray();Level[0]="2";Level[1]="1";Level[2]="1";Level[3]="2";Level[4]="2";Level[5]="1"; line 53-var ExLevel=newArray();ExLevel[0]="23"; line 54-var Hpts=newArray();Hpts[0]="6";Hpts[1]="14";Hpts[2]="13";Hpts[3]="8";Hpts[4]="12";Hpts[5]="15"; line 55-var ExHpts=newArray();ExHpts[0]="145"; line 56-var Armor=newArray();Armor[0]="Cloak";Armor[1]="Splinted Armor";Armor[2]="Chain Armor";Armor[3]="Leather Armor";Armor[4]="Chain Armor";Armor[5]="Splinted Armor"; line 57-var ExArmor=newArray();ExArmor[0]="Robe of Protection +5"; line 58-var Ac1=newArray();Ac1[0]="0";Ac1[1]="3";Ac1[2]="3";Ac1[3]="4";Ac1[4]="2";Ac1[5]="3"; line 59-var ExAc=newArray();ExAc[0]="5"; line 60-var Armor1b=newArray();Armor1b[0]="Ring of Protection +1";Armor1b[1]="Small Shield";Armor1b[2]="Small Shield";Armor1b[3]="Wooden Shield";Armor1b[4]="Large Shield";Armor1b[5]="Small Shield"; line 61-var ExArmor1b=newArray();ExArmor1b[0]="Ring of Protection +5"; line 62-var Ac2=newArray();Ac2[0]="1";Ac2[1]="1";Ac2[2]="1";Ac2[3]="1";Ac2[4]="1";Ac2[5]="1"; line 63-var ExAc1b=newArray();ExAc1b[0]="5" line 64-var Str=newArray();Str[0]="15";Str[1]="16";Str[2]="14";Str[3]="13";Str[4]="14";Str[5]="13"; line 65-var ExStr=newArray();ExStr[0]=21; line 66-var Int=newArray();Int[0]="17";Int[1]="11";Int[2]="12";Int[3]="13";Int[4]="14";Int[5]="13"; line 67-var ExInt=newArray();ExInt[0]="19"; line 68-var Wis=newArray();Wis[0]="17";Wis[1]="12";Wis[2]="14";Wis[3]="13";Wis[4]="14";Wis[5]="12"; line 69-var ExWis=newArray();ExWis[0]="18"; line 70-var Dex=newArray();Dex[0]="15";Dex[1]="14";Dex[2]="13";Dex[3]="15";Dex[4]="14";Dex[5]="12"; line 71-var ExDex=newArray();ExDex[0]="19"; line 72-var Con=newArray();Con[0]="16";Con[1]="15";Con[2]="16";Con[3]="13";Con[4]="12";Con[5]="10"; line 73-var ExCon=newArray();ExCon[0]="19"; line 74-var Chr=newArray();Chr[0]="16";Chr[1]="14";Chr[2]="13";Chr[3]="12";Chr[4]="14";Chr[5]="13"; line 75-var ExChr=newArray();ExChr[0]="21"; line 76-var Expt=newArray();Expt[0]="45";Expt[1]="21";Expt[2]="16";Expt[3]="18";Expt[4]="22";Expt[5]="34"; line 77-var ExExpt=newArray();ExExpt[0]="245678"; line 78-var ExBp=newArray();ExBp[0]="Unknown";ExBp[1]="Extrademensional Plane World of Amborsia";ExBp[2]="Evil Wizard Banished for Mass Geniocodes"; line 79-</SCRIPT> line 80-</HEAD> line 81-<BODY> Giving an Error Object Expected Line 48 Char 1------What did I do wrong??? *Note Line # are for reference only not on Original Web page******

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• How to count each digit in a range of integers?

  - by Carlos Gutiérrez

  Imagine you sell those metallic digits used to number houses, locker doors, hotel rooms, etc. You need to find how many of each digit to ship when your customer needs to number doors/houses: 1 to 100 51 to 300 1 to 2,000 with zeros to the left The obvious solution is to do a loop from the first to the last number, convert the counter to a string with or without zeros to the left, extract each digit and use it as an index to increment an array of 10 integers. I wonder if there is a better way to solve this, without having to loop through the entire integers range. Solutions in any language or pseudocode are welcome. Edit: Answers review John at CashCommons and Wayne Conrad comment that my current approach is good and fast enough. Let me use a silly analogy: If you were given the task of counting the squares in a chess board in less than 1 minute, you could finish the task by counting the squares one by one, but a better solution is to count the sides and do a multiplication, because you later may be asked to count the tiles in a building. Alex Reisner points to a very interesting mathematical law that, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be relevant to this problem. Andres suggests the same algorithm I’m using, but extracting digits with %10 operations instead of substrings. John at CashCommons and phord propose pre-calculating the digits required and storing them in a lookup table or, for raw speed, an array. This could be a good solution if we had an absolute, unmovable, set in stone, maximum integer value. I’ve never seen one of those. High-Performance Mark and strainer computed the needed digits for various ranges. The result for one millon seems to indicate there is a proportion, but the results for other number show different proportions. strainer found some formulas that may be used to count digit for number which are a power of ten. Robert Harvey had a very interesting experience posting the question at MathOverflow. One of the math guys wrote a solution using mathematical notation. Aaronaught developed and tested a solution using mathematics. After posting it he reviewed the formulas originated from Math Overflow and found a flaw in it (point to Stackoverflow :). noahlavine developed an algorithm and presented it in pseudocode. A new solution After reading all the answers, and doing some experiments, I found that for a range of integer from 1 to 10n-1: For digits 1 to 9, n*10(n-1) pieces are needed For digit 0, if not using leading zeros, n*10n-1 - ((10n-1) / 9) are needed For digit 0, if using leading zeros, n*10n-1 - n are needed The first formula was found by strainer (and probably by others), and I found the other two by trial and error (but they may be included in other answers). For example, if n = 6, range is 1 to 999,999: For digits 1 to 9 we need 6*105 = 600,000 of each one For digit 0, without leading zeros, we need 6*105 – (106-1)/9 = 600,000 - 111,111 = 488,889 For digit 0, with leading zeros, we need 6*105 – 6 = 599,994 These numbers can be checked using High-Performance Mark results. Using these formulas, I improved the original algorithm. It still loops from the first to the last number in the range of integers, but, if it finds a number which is a power of ten, it uses the formulas to add to the digits count the quantity for a full range of 1 to 9 or 1 to 99 or 1 to 999 etc. Here's the algorithm in pseudocode: integer First,Last //First and last number in the range integer Number //Current number in the loop integer Power //Power is the n in 10^n in the formulas integer Nines //Nines is the resut of 10^n - 1, 10^5 - 1 = 99999 integer Prefix //First digits in a number. For 14,200, prefix is 142 array 0..9 Digits //Will hold the count for all the digits FOR Number = First TO Last CALL TallyDigitsForOneNumber WITH Number,1 //Tally the count of each digit //in the number, increment by 1 //Start of optimization. Comments are for Number = 1,000 and Last = 8,000. Power = Zeros at the end of number //For 1,000, Power = 3 IF Power 0 //The number ends in 0 00 000 etc Nines = 10^Power-1 //Nines = 10^3 - 1 = 1000 - 1 = 999 IF Number+Nines <= Last //If 1,000+999 < 8,000, add a full set Digits[0-9] += Power*10^(Power-1) //Add 3*10^(3-1) = 300 to digits 0 to 9 Digits[0] -= -Power //Adjust digit 0 (leading zeros formula) Prefix = First digits of Number //For 1000, prefix is 1 CALL TallyDigitsForOneNumber WITH Prefix,Nines //Tally the count of each //digit in prefix, //increment by 999 Number += Nines //Increment the loop counter 999 cycles ENDIF ENDIF //End of optimization ENDFOR SUBROUTINE TallyDigitsForOneNumber PARAMS Number,Count REPEAT Digits [ Number % 10 ] += Count Number = Number / 10 UNTIL Number = 0 For example, for range 786 to 3,021, the counter will be incremented: By 1 from 786 to 790 (5 cycles) By 9 from 790 to 799 (1 cycle) By 1 from 799 to 800 By 99 from 800 to 899 By 1 from 899 to 900 By 99 from 900 to 999 By 1 from 999 to 1000 By 999 from 1000 to 1999 By 1 from 1999 to 2000 By 999 from 2000 to 2999 By 1 from 2999 to 3000 By 1 from 3000 to 3010 (10 cycles) By 9 from 3010 to 3019 (1 cycle) By 1 from 3019 to 3021 (2 cycles) Total: 28 cycles Without optimization: 2,235 cycles Note that this algorithm solves the problem without leading zeros. To use it with leading zeros, I used a hack: If range 700 to 1,000 with leading zeros is needed, use the algorithm for 10,700 to 11,000 and then substract 1,000 - 700 = 300 from the count of digit 1. Benchmark and Source code I tested the original approach, the same approach using %10 and the new solution for some large ranges, with these results: Original 104.78 seconds With %10 83.66 With Powers of Ten 0.07 A screenshot of the benchmark application: If you would like to see the full source code or run the benchmark, use these links: Complete Source code (in Clarion): http://sca.mx/ftp/countdigits.txt Compilable project and win32 exe: http://sca.mx/ftp/countdigits.zip Accepted answer noahlavine solution may be correct, but l just couldn’t follow the pseudo code, I think there are some details missing or not completely explained. Aaronaught solution seems to be correct, but the code is just too complex for my taste. I accepted strainer’s answer, because his line of thought guided me to develop this new solution.

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• C# LINQ XML Query with duplicate element names that have attributes

  - by ncain187

  <Party id="Party_1"> <PartyTypeCode tc="1">Person</PartyTypeCode> <FullName>John Doe</FullName> <GovtID>123456789</GovtID> <GovtIDTC tc="1">Social Security Number US</GovtIDTC> <ResidenceState tc="35">New Jersey</ResidenceState> <Person> <FirstName>Frank</FirstName> <MiddleName>Roberts</MiddleName> <LastName>Madison</LastName> <Prefix>Dr.</Prefix> <Suffix>III</Suffix> <Gender tc="1">Male</Gender> <BirthDate>1974-01-01</BirthDate> <Age>35</Age> <Citizenship tc="1">United States of America</Citizenship> </Person> <Address> <AddressTypeCode tc="26">Bill Mailing</AddressTypeCode> <Line1>2400 Meadow Lane</Line1> <Line2></Line2> <Line3></Line3> <Line4></Line4> <City>Somerset</City> <AddressStateTC tc="35">New Jersey</AddressStateTC> <Zip>07457</Zip> <AddressCountryTC tc="1">United States of America</AddressCountryTC> </Address> </Party> <!-- *********************** --> <!-- Insured Information --> <!-- *********************** --> <Party id="Party_2"> <PartyTypeCode tc="1">Person</PartyTypeCode> <FullName>Dollie Robert Madison</FullName> <GovtID>123956239</GovtID> <GovtIDTC tc="1">Social Security Number US</GovtIDTC> <Person> <FirstName>Dollie</FirstName> <MiddleName>R</MiddleName> <LastName>Madison</LastName> <Suffix>III</Suffix> <Gender tc="2">Female</Gender> <BirthDate>1996-10-12</BirthDate> <Citizenship tc="1">United States of America</Citizenship> </Person> <!-- Insured Address --> <Address> <AddressTypeCode tc="26">Bill Mailing</AddressTypeCode> <Line1>2400 Meadow Lane</Line1> <City>Somerset</City> <AddressStateTC tc="35">New Jersey</AddressStateTC> <Zip>07457</Zip> <AddressCountryTC tc="1">United States of America</AddressCountryTC> </Address> <Risk> <!-- Disability Begin Effective Date --> <DisabilityEffectiveStartDate>2006-01-01</DisabilityEffectiveStartDate> <!-- Disability End Effective Date --> <DisabilityEffectiveStopDate>2008-01-01</DisabilityEffectiveStopDate> </Risk> </Party> <!-- ******************************* --> <!-- Company Information --> <!-- ****************************** --> <Party id="Party_3"> <PartyTypeCode tc="2">Organization</PartyTypeCode> <Organization> <DTCCMemberCode>1234</DTCCMemberCode> </Organization> <Carrier> <CarrierCode>105</CarrierCode> </Carrier> </Party> Here is my code which doesn't work because party 3 doesn't contain FullName, I know that partyelements contains 3 parties if I only return the name attribute. Is there a way to loop through each tag seperate? var partyElements = from party in xmlDoc.Descendants("Party") select new { Name = party.Attribute("id").Value, PartyTypeCode = party.Element("PartyTypeCode").Value, FullName = party.Element("FullName").Value, GovtID = party.Element("GovtID").Value, };

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• Silverlight 4 WCF RIA Services and MVVM is not as simple

  - by Thomas Jaskula

  [Disclaimer: I'm ASP.NET MVC Developer] Hi, I'm looking for some best practices with implementing MVVM pattern with WCF RIA in Silverlight 4. I'm not looking to use MEF of IoC for locating my ViewModels. What I would like to know is how to apply MVVM pattern with Silverlight 4 and WCF RIA. I don't want to use other stuff like Prism or MVVM Light toolkit. I found many examples on Internet showing how it is wonderful to drag and drop a datasource on the view and the job is done (it reminds me about my first VB6 developments). I tried to implement MVVM with WCF RIA and it's not strightforward at all. If I understand, the MVVM should contain all the logic in order to unit test it in isolation but when it comes to combine it with WCF RIA it's another story. I have the following questions. Can I use a generated metadata as model ? It would be easier to use it that if I write all from the scratch. As I saw the only way I could get data is through DomainContext or through direct binding in the view (local ressource). I don't want the direct binding in the view, not testable at all. On the other hand I can't use DomainContext, it doesn't expose any single entity !!! All I have is the EntitySet that I can bind to datagrid. How do I bind a single Entity to the DataForm from the ViewModel ? How do I udpate the model to the database ? How do I navigate from one Entity to a collection of it's itemps. For example if I have a Company Entity I would like to show a DataFrom to update a entite informations and a datagrid to show companies adresses. When saving a form would like to save information to Company and for example an information avout which adress was selected as active. Please help me understand how to do it well. Or maybe I should drop the WCF RIA and to do it with WCF from scratch ? What do you think ?

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• Automatically extracting inline XSD from WSDL into XSD file(s)

  - by Steven Geens

  I am using a third party Web Service whose definition and implementation are beyond my control. This web service will change in the future. The Web Service should be used to generate an XML file which contains some of the same data (represented by the same XSD types) as the Web Service plus some extra information generated by the program. My approach: create my own XSD referring to the XSD definitions of the WSDL of the called web service (This XSD also includes XSD types for the extra information obviously.) use a Java XML databinding framework (like ADB or JiXB) to generate the databinding classes from my own XSD file from step 1 use a Java SOAP framework (like Axis2 or CXF) with the same databinding framework to generate the databinding classes from the WSDL (This would enable me to use the objects retrieved by the web service directly in the generation of the XML.) The XSD types I am going to use in my own XSD file, but are defined in the WSDL, are subject to change. Whenever they change, I would like to automatically process the XSD and WSDL databinding again. (If the change is significant enough, this might trigger some development effort.(But usually not.)) My problem: In step 1 I need an XSD referring to the same types as used by the Web Service. The WSDL is referring to another WSDL, which is referring to another WSDL etc. Eventually there is an WSDL with the needed inline XSD types. As far as I know there is no way to directly reference the inline XSD types of a WSDL from an XSD. The approach I would think most viable, is to include an extra step in the automatic processing (before the databinding) that extracts the inline XSD from the WSDL into other XSD file(s). These other XSD file(s) can then be referred to by my own XSD file. Things I'd like to avoid: Manually copy pasting the inline XSD into an XSD file (I am looking for an automatic process.) Any manual steps.(Like the determining the WSDL that contains the inline types manually.(The location of that WSDL does change as well.)) Using xsd:any in my own XSD. I would like my own XSD file to be correct. Using a non-Java technology(like .NET) Huge amounts of implementation (but hints on how you would implement such an extraction are welcome anyway) PS: I found some similar questions, but they all had responses like: WTH would you want to do that? That is the reason for my rather large background story.

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• How to assess a job offer with stock options? [closed]

  - by seas

  Cannot help expressing my curiosity about this issue. First of all, Russia, a country, I live in, as far as I understand, is a virgin land on this matter. Motivation is purely developed here and options are not existed at all. So, I am absolutely not aware about this. I roughly understand the mechanism of options. And, as far as I understand, the major white spot in the whole that story, how much will a singe share cost. How much will I get from all those N x 1000 options? I see two ways one can get money from the business: 1. Business goes IPO !!! 2. Business is sold as a whole to another owner. Next way is rather questionable about getting money: 3. Business goes without IPO "forever" (a generation would rather die before it IPO). I am also interested some explanations about situation ?3. Situation ?1 is clear - market decides everything, you either wait for stock price you satisfied or sell everything now. But topic is rather about ?2 - business is sold to another business. I am considering the following model: I am well payed specialist with company X. Somebody, with a company Y makes me an offer. Y is a startup. They cannot offer me much money and cannot overbid my salary, but they grow fast and hope to be bought soon. Instead of money, they offer me N x 1000 options. My problem is "how to assess this offer against my current, stable and well-payed job"? Are there any average cost of virtual share during selling one company to another? Are there any average stock price companies prefer to go to IPO? Are there any barriers against spreading the value of sock before selling the company or IPO (hiring too much people with options package too fast will decrease each package value, I mean)? Are there any good articles with explanations? Is all that somehow written in the law?

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• Eventlet or gevent or Stackless + Twisted, Pylons, Django and SQL Alchemy

  - by Khorkrak

  We're using Twisted extensively for apps requiring a great deal of asynchronous io. There are some cases where stuff is cpu bound instead and for that we spawn a pool of processes to do the work and have a system for managing these across multiple servers as well - all done in Twisted. Works great. The problem is that it's hard to bring new team members up to speed. Writing asynchronous code in Twisted requires a near vertical learning curve. It's as if humans just don't think that way naturally. We're considering a mixed approach perhaps. Maybe do the xmlrpc server part and process management in Twisted still but the other stuff in code that at least looks synchronous while not being as such. Then again I like explicit over implicit so hmmm. Anyway onto greenlets - how well does that stuff work? So there's Stackless and as you can see from my Gallentean avatar I'm well aware of the tremendous success in it's use for CCP's flagship EVE Online game first hand. What about Eventlet or gevent? Well for now only Eventlet works with Twisted. However gevent claims to be faster since it's not a pure python implementation it instead uses libevent. It also has fewer idiosyncrasies and defects supposedly. The documentation there is minimal in comparison to Eventlet and it's maintained by 1 guy as far as I can tell. This makes me leery but all great projects start this way so... Then there's PyPy - I haven't even finished reading about that one yet - just saw it in this thread: Drawbacks of Stackless. So confusing - I'm wondering what the heck to do - sounds like Eventlet is probably the best bet but is it really stable enough? Anyone out there have any experience with it? Should we go with Stackless instead as it's been around and is proven technology - just like Twisted is as well - and they do work together nicely. But still I hate having to have a separate version of Python to do this. what to do.... This somewhat obnoxious blog entry hit the nail on the head for me though: Asynchronous IO for Grownups We're stuck using MySQL as well - I never knew how great PostgreSQL was until having had to work on a production OLTP system in MySQL instead - but that's another story. But if that monkey patch thing really works then wow. Just wow.

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• Best programming aids for a quadriplegic programmer

  - by Peter Rowell

  Before you jump to conclusions, yes, this is programming related. It covers a situation that comes under the heading of, "There, but for the grace of God, go you or I." This is brand new territory for me so I'm asking for some serious help here. A young man, Honza Ripa, in a nearby town did the classic Dumb Thing two weeks after graduating from High School -- he dove into shallow water in the Russian River and had a C-4/C-5 break, sometimes called a Swimming Pool break. In a matter of seconds he went from an exceptional golfer and wrestler to a quadriplegic. (Read the story ... all of us should have been so lucky as to have a girlfriend like Brianna.) That was 10 months ago and he has regained only tiny amounts of control of his right index finger and a couple of other hand/foot motions, none of them fine-grained. His total control of his computer (currently running Win7, but we can change that as needed) is via voice command. Honza's not dumb. He had a 3.7 GPA with AP math and physics. The Problems: Since all of his input is via voice command, he is concerned that the predominance of special characters in programming will require vast amount of verbose commands. Does anyone know of any well done voice input system specifically designed for programmers? I'm thinking about something that might be modal--e.g. you say "Python input" and it goes into a macro mode for doing class definitions, etc. Given all of the RSI in programmer-land there's got to be something out there. What OS(es) does it run on? I am planning on teaching him Python, which is my preferred language for programming and teaching. Are there any applications / whatevers that are written in Python and would be a particularly good match for engaging him mentally while supporting his disability? One of his expressed interests is in stock investing, but that not might be a good starting point for a brand-new programmer. There are a lot of environments (Flash, JavaScript, etc) that are not particularly friendly to people with accessibility challenges. I vaguely remember (but cannot find) a research project that basically created an overlay system on top of a screen environment and then allowed macro command construction on top of the screen image. If we can get/train this system, we may be able to remove many hurdles to using the net. I am particularly interested in finding open source Python-based robotics and robotic prostheses projects so that he can simultaneously learn advanced programming concepts while learning to solve some of his own immediate problems. I've done a ton of googling on this, but I know there things I'm missing. I'm asking the SO community to step up to the plate here. I know this group has the answers, so let me hear them! Overwhelm me with the opportunities that any of us might have/need to still program after such a life-changing event.

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• Best Practice for Images with Codeigniter : Generating Thumbs or Resizing on the Fly

  - by Steve K

  Hi all, I know there’s been a good deal written on thumbnail generation and the like with CI, but I wanted to explain what I’ve made and see what kind of best-practice advice I could find. Here’s my story… Currently, I have a site which allows users to upload collections of photos to projects they’ve created after first creating an account. Upon account creation, the site generates folders for the users in the following fashion for each of five pre-defined projects: /students/username/project_num/images/thumbs/ (This is to say that within a pre-created students folder, the username, project_num, images and thumbs folders are created recursively five times.) When a user uploads images to a project, I have a gallery controller which uploads the full images into the images folder for the project_num, and then creates a smaller thumbnail which maintains its ratio. So far so good. On the index page of the site, where these thumbnails and full images are displayed, I had a bit of a brain lapse, thinking I could simply output the full image while resizing it via css for a ‘medium-size’ image which would lead to the full-size image when clicked. (To be clear, the path is: Click on thumbnail— Load scaled full-size (medium-size) image via ajax into a display area above thumbs— Click on medium-sized image— Load full size image via lightbox, or something of that nature.) I have everything working to this point, except, as one might imagine, resizing the full-sized images with css doesn’t maintain aspect ratio for the thumbs, which means I need to find the best way to resize these. In thinking about it, I figured I had two options: I could resize the image on the fly when the user clicks a thumbnail to load the medium-sized image via ajax. (I have a method ‘get_image($url)’ in my gallery controller which simply loads a view with an image tag and the image source passed to it, etc.) I thought perhaps I could send it first to my gallery model, resize it there on the fly, and send it on to the view. The problem I’m having is that resizing it on the fly and echoing it out gives me the raw image data (I apologize, I don’t know that’s the right term). I’ve tried using data_uris to format the raw data into something echoable, but with no success. Is this method possible? The second option I considered was to generate a second medium-sized thumbnail when the user uploads the image with maintain_ratio set to true. This method is slightly less ideal, given that when providing a way for the user to delete their projects, I’ll need to scan for an additional set of images to delete. Not a huge deal, definitely, but something I figured could be avoided by generating the medium-sized image on the fly. I hope I’ve been clear in my explanations, if long-winded! I’m very curious to see what suggestions folks have about the best way to handle this. Much thanks for reading, and any suggestions are much-appreciated! Steve K.

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• Reliable way of generating unique hardware ID

  - by mr.b

  Question: what's the best way to accomplish following. I have to come up with unique ID for each networked client, such that: it (ID) should persist once client software is installed on target computer, and should continue to persist if software is re-installed on same computer and same OS installment, it should not change if hardware configuration is modified in most ways (except changing the motherboard) When hard drive with client software installed is cloned to another computer with identical hardware configuration (or, as similar as possible), client software should be aware of that change. A little bit of explanation and some back-story: This question is basically age old question that also touches topic of software copy-protection, as some of mechanisms used in that area are mentioned here. I should be clear at this point that I'm not looking for a copy-protection scheme. Please, read on. :) I'm working on a client-server software that is supposed to work in local network. One of problems I have to solve is to identify each unique client in network (not so much of a problem), so that I can apply certain attributes to every specific client, retain and enforce those attributes during deployment lifetime of a specific client. While I was looking for a solution, I was aware of following: Windows activation system uses some kind of heavy fingerprinting mechanism, that is extremely sensitive to hardware modifications, Disk imaging software copies along all Volume IDs (tied to each partition when formatted), and custom, uniquely generated IDs during installation process, during first run, or in any other way, that is strictly software in its nature, and stored in registry or on hard drive, so it's very easy to confuse two Obvious choice for this kind of problem would be to find out BIOS identifiers (not 100% sure if this is unique through identical motherboard models, though), as that's the only thing I can rely on, that isn't duplicated, transferred by cloning, and that can't be changed (at least not by using some user-space program). Everything else fails as either being not reliable (MAC cloning, anyone?), or too demanding (in terms that it's too sensitive to configuration changes). Am I missing something obvious here? Sub-question that I'd like to ask is, am I doing it correctly, architecture-wise? Perhaps there is a better tool for task that I have to accomplish... Another approach I had in mind is something similar to handshake mechanism, where server maintains internal lookup table of connected client IDs (which can be even completely software-based and non-unique at any given moment), and tells client to come up with different ID during handshake, if duplicate ID is provided upon connection. That approach, unfortunately, doesn't play nicely with one of requirements to tie attributes to specific client during lifetime.

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• Entity Attribute Value Database vs. strict Relational Model Ecommerce question

  - by Dr. Zim

  It is safe to say that the EAV/CR database model is bad. That said, Question: What database model, technique, or pattern should be used to deal with "classes" of attributes describing e-commerce products which can be changed at run time? In a good E-commerce database, you will store classes of options (like TV resolution then have a resolution for each TV, but the next product may not be a TV and not have "TV resolution"). How do you store them, search efficiently, and allow your users to setup product types with variable fields describing their products? If the search engine finds that customers typically search for TVs based on console depth, you could add console depth to your fields, then add a single depth for each tv product type at run time. There is a nice common feature among good e-commerce apps where they show a set of products, then have "drill down" side menus where you can see "TV Resolution" as a header, and the top five most common TV Resolutions for the found set. You click one and it only shows TVs of that resolution, allowing you to further drill down by selecting other categories on the side menu. These options would be the dynamic product attributes added at run time. Further discussion: So long story short, are there any links out on the Internet or model descriptions that could "academically" fix the following setup? I thank Noel Kennedy for suggesting a category table, but the need may be greater than that. I describe it a different way below, trying to highlight the significance. I may need a viewpoint correction to solve the problem, or I may need to go deeper in to the EAV/CR. Love the positive response to the EAV/CR model. My fellow developers all say what Jeffrey Kemp touched on below: "new entities must be modeled and designed by a professional" (taken out of context, read his response below). The problem is: entities add and remove attributes weekly (search keywords dictate future attributes) new entities arrive weekly (products are assembled from parts) old entities go away weekly (archived, less popular, seasonal) The customer wants to add attributes to the products for two reasons: department / keyword search / comparison chart between like products consumer product configuration before checkout The attributes must have significance, not just a keyword search. If they want to compare all cakes that have a "whipped cream frosting", they can click cakes, click birthday theme, click whipped cream frosting, then check all cakes that are interesting knowing they all have whipped cream frosting. This is not specific to cakes, just an example.

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• Weird exception in linkbutton in a datalist

  - by user308806

  Dear all, I have written this datalist : <div class="story" runat="server"> <asp:DataList ID="DataList2" runat="server" Height="16px" Width="412px"> <SeparatorTemplate> <hr /> </SeparatorTemplate> <ItemTemplate> <asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton1" runat ="server" Text='<%# Eval("Name") %>' PostBackUrl='<%#Eval("Url")%>' /> <br /> Description: <asp:Label ID="new" Text='<%#Eval("Description") %>' runat="server" /> </ItemTemplate> </asp:DataList> </div> It raises an exception saying that the linkbutton has to be placed in a tag that contains runat="server" although it exists. Here is the trace [HttpException (0x80004005): Le contrôle 'DataList2_ctl00_LinkButton1' de type 'LinkButton' doit être placé dans une balise form avec runat=server.] System.Web.UI.Page.VerifyRenderingInServerForm(Control control) +8689747 System.Web.UI.WebControls.LinkButton.AddAttributesToRender(HtmlTextWriter writer) +39 System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebControl.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriter writer) +20 System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebControl.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) +20 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter) +27 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter) +99 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer) +25 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildrenInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ICollection children) +134 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildren(HtmlTextWriter writer) +19 System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebControl.RenderContents(HtmlTextWriter writer) +10 System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataListItem.RenderItemInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, Boolean extractRows, Boolean tableLayout) +51 System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataListItem.RenderItem(HtmlTextWriter writer, Boolean extractRows, Boolean tableLayout) +57 System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataList.System.Web.UI.WebControls.IRepeatInfoUser.RenderItem(ListItemType itemType, Int32 repeatIndex, RepeatInfo repeatInfo, HtmlTextWriter writer) +64 System.Web.UI.WebControls.RepeatInfo.RenderVerticalRepeater(HtmlTextWriter writer, IRepeatInfoUser user, Style controlStyle, WebControl baseControl) +262 System.Web.UI.WebControls.RepeatInfo.RenderRepeater(HtmlTextWriter writer, IRepeatInfoUser user, Style controlStyle, WebControl baseControl) +27 System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataList.RenderContents(HtmlTextWriter writer) +208 System.Web.UI.WebControls.BaseDataList.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) +30 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter) +27 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter) +99 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer) +25 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildrenInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ICollection children) +134 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildren(HtmlTextWriter writer) +19 System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlContainerControl.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) +32 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter) +27 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter) +99 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer) +25 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildrenInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ICollection children) +134 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildren(HtmlTextWriter writer) +19 System.Web.UI.Page.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) +29 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter) +27 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter) +99 System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer) +25 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +1266

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• Using Apple’s Bonjour service from .NET?

  - by Martín Marconcini

  I have an iPhone app that publishes through Bonjour. The Mac counterpart works, they sync and exchange data. Now I have to port that little Mac app to Windows. I’ve decided to go with .NET (because that’s what I know). The app is not complex, but I’m in the early stages. I need to browse/discover Bonjour services. For this task, I’ve downloaded Mono.Zeroconf and Apple’s latest SDK (which includes a couple of C# Samples). I’m not really pasting code because I’m really copy/pasting the samples. In fact, Mono.Zeroconf has a MZClient.exe that can be used to test “all the API”. My 1st test was -on the same box- open two cmd.exe and launch a MZclient registering a service and on the other, launch it and “discover it”. It doesn’t work. Here’s the server: C:\MZ>MZClient -v -p "_http._tcp 80 mysimpleweb” *** Registering name = 'mysimpleweb', type = '_http._tcp', domain = 'local.' *** Registered name = ‘mysimpleweb’ On the other terminal: c:\MZ>MZClient -v -t "_http._tcp" Creating a ServiceBrowser with the following settings: Interface = 0 (All) Address Protocol = Any Domain = local Registration Type = _http._tcp Resolve Shares = False Hit ^C when you're bored waiting for responses. And that’s it. Nothing happens. I’ve of course tried with different services to no avail. Even played a little bit with that domain thing. Remember this is the same box. I tried on another computer, because this was a VM inside OSX, so I went ahead and tried on a “pure” win XP. Nothing. note: I have Apple Bonjour Service (up and running) and also the Apple SDK (installed later). Given that this didn’t work, I went ahead and decided to try the Apple SDK which has an Interop and a few pre-compiled samples (and its source code). Short story, neither the mDSNBrowser.exe nor the SimpleChat.exe work/see/discover anything. My box is a Win7 under Parallels, but that doesn’t seem to be affecting anything, given that the native XP exhibits the same problems. What am I doing so awfully wrong?

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• PHP: Can pcntl_alarm() and socket_select() peacefully exist in the same thread?

  - by DWilliams

  I have a PHP CLI script mostly written that functions as a chat server for chat clients to connect to (don't ask me why I'm doing it in PHP, thats another story haha). My script utilizes the socket_select() function to hang execution until something happens on a socket, at which point it wakes up, processes the event, and waits until the next event. Now, there are some routine tasks that I need performed every 30 seconds or so (check of tempbanned users should be unbanned, save user databases, other assorted things). From what I can tell, PHP doesn't have very great multi-threading support at all. My first thought was to compare a timestamp every time the socket generates an event and gets the program flowing again, but this is very inconsistent since the server could very well sit idle for hours and not have any of my cleanup routines executed. I came across the PHP pcntl extensions, and it lets me use assign a time interval for SIGALRM to get sent and a function get executed every time it's sent. This seems like the ideal solution to my problem, however pcntl_alarm() and socket_select() clash with each other pretty bad. Every time SIGALRM is triggered, all sorts of crazy things happen to my socket control code. My program is fairly lengthy so I can't post it all here, but it shouldn't matter since I don't believe I'm doing anything wrong code-wise. My question is: Is there any way for a SIGALRM to be handled in the same thread as a waiting socket_select()? If so, how? If not, what are my alternatives here? Here's some output from my program. My alarm function simply outputs "Tick!" whenever it's called to make it easy to tell when stuff is happening. This is the output (including errors) after allowing it to tick 4 times (there were no actual attempts at connecting to the server despite what it says): [05-28-10 @ 20:01:05] Chat server started on 192.168.1.28 port 4050 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:05] Loaded 2 users from file PHP Notice: Undefined offset: 0 in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 112 PHP Warning: socket_select(): unable to select [4]: Interrupted system call in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 116 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:15] Tick! PHP Warning: socket_accept(): unable to accept incoming connection [4]: Interrupted system call in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 126 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:25] Tick! PHP Warning: socket_getpeername() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 129 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:25] Accepting socket connection from PHP Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 112 PHP Warning: socket_select(): unable to select [4]: Interrupted system call in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 116 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:35] Tick! PHP Warning: socket_accept(): unable to accept incoming connection [4]: Interrupted system call in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 126 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:45] Tick! PHP Warning: socket_getpeername() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 129 [05-28-10 @ 20:01:45] Accepting socket connection from PHP Notice: Undefined offset: 2 in /home/danny/projects/PHPChatServ/ChatServ.php on line 112

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• Carousel not working in IE7/8

  - by user515990

  I am working with jquery.carouFredSel-4.0.3-packed.js for the carousal and it works good with IE9 and mozilla,but in IE7/8, it says "LOG: carouFredSel: Not enough items: not scrolling " whenever i am seeing it is not the case. The code i am using is <div class="carousel-wrapper"> <div class="mask"> <a class="arrow left off"><-</a> <a class="arrow left on" href="javascript:void(0);"><-</a> <ul> <dsp:droplet name="ForEach"> <dsp:param name="array" value="${listRecommended}"/> <dsp:oparam name="empty">no recommended apps</dsp:oparam> <dsp:oparam name="output"> <li> <a href="javascript:void(0);"><img src="${resourcePath}/images/apps/carousel-image1.jpg" alt="bakery story"/></a> <a href="javascript:void(0);"><dsp:valueof param="element.displayName"/></a><br/> <dsp:getvalueof var="averageRating" param="element.averageRating"/> <dsp:getvalueof var="rating" param="count"/> <div class="rating"> <div class="medium"> <dsp:droplet name="For"> <dsp:param name="howMany" value="${averageRating}"/> <dsp:oparam name="output"> <input checked="checked" class="star {split:1}" disabled="disabled" name="product-similar-'${rating}'" type="radio"> </dsp:oparam> </dsp:droplet> </div> </div> </li> </dsp:oparam> </dsp:droplet> </ul> </div> <a class="arrow right off">-></a> <a class="arrow right on" href="javascript:void(0);">-></a> </div> and javascript library is jquery.carouFredSel-4.0.3-packed.js. Please let me know if someone has faced similar problem. thanks in advance Hemish

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• Wiki-fying a text using LPeg

  - by Stigma

  Long story coming up, but I'll try to keep it brief. I have many pure-text paragraphs which I extract from a system and re-output in wiki format so that the copying of said data is not such an arduous task. This all goes really well, except that there are no automatic references being generated for the 'topics' we have pages for, which end up needing to be added by reading through all the text and adding it in manually by changing Topic to [[Topic]]. First requirement: each topic is only to be made clickable once, which is the first occurrence. Otherwise, it would become a really spammy linkfest, which would detract from readability. To avoid issues with topics that start with the same words Second requirement: overlapping topic names should be handled in such a way that the most 'precise' topic gets the link, and in later occurrences, the less precise topics do not get linked, since they're likely not correct. Example: topics = { "Project", "Mary", "Mr. Moore", "Project Omega"} input = "Mary and Mr. Moore work together on Project Omega. Mr. Moore hates both Mary and Project Omega, but Mary simply loves the Project." output = function_to_be_written(input) -- "[[Mary]] and [[Mr. Moore]] work together on [[Project Omega]]. Mr. Moore hates both Mary and Project Omega, but Mary simply loves the [[Project]]." Now, I quickly figured out a simple or complicated string.gsub() could not get me what I need to satisfy the second requirement, as it provides no way to say 'Consider this match as if it did not happen - I want you to backtrack further'. I need the engine to do something akin to: input = "abc def ghi" -- Looping over the input would, in this order, match the following strings: -- 1) abc def ghi -- 2) abc def -- 3) abc -- 4) def ghi -- 5) def -- 6) ghi Once a string matches an actual topic and has not been replaced before by its wikified version, it is replaced. If this topic has been replaced by a wikified version before, don't replace, but simply continue the matching at the end of the topic. (So for a topic "abc def", it would test "ghi" next in both cases.) Thus I arrive at LPeg. I have read up on it, played with it, but it is considerably complex, and while I think I need to use lpeg.Cmt and lpeg.Cs somehow, I am unable to mix the two properly to make what I want to do work. I am refraining from posting my practice attempts as they are of miserable quality and probably more likely to confuse anyone than assist in clarifying my problem. (Why do I want to use a PEG instead of writing a triple-nested loop myself? Because I don't want to, and it is a great excuse to learn PEGs.. except that I am in over my head a bit. Unless it is not possible with LPeg, the first is not an option.)

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• SSH login with expect(1). How to exit expect and remain in SSH?

  - by Koroviev

  So I wanted to automate my SSH logins. The host I'm with doesn't allow key authentication on this server, so I had to be more inventive. I don't know much about shell scripting, but some research showed me the command 'expect' and some scripts using it for exactly this purpose. I set up a script and ran it, it worked perfectly to login. #!/usr/bin/env expect -f set password "my_password" match_max 1000 spawn ssh -p 2222 "my_username"@11.22.11.22 expect "*?assword:*" send -- "$password\r" send -- "\r" expect eof Initially, it runs as it should. Last login: Wed May 12 21:07:52 on ttys002 esther:~ user$ expect expect-test.exp spawn ssh -p 2222 [email protected] [email protected]'s password: Last login: Wed May 12 15:44:43 2010 from 20.10.20.10 -jailshell-3.2$ But that's where the success ends. Commands do not work, but hitting enter just makes a new line. Arrow keys and other non-alphanumeric keys produce symbols like '^[[C', '^[[A', '^[OQ' etc.[1] No other prompt appears except the two initially created by the expect script. Any ignored commands will be executed by my local shell once expect times out. An example: -jailshell-3.2$ whoami ls pwd hostname (...time passes, expect times out...) esther:~ user$ whoami user esther:~ ciaran$ ls Books Documents Movies Public Code Downloads Music Sites Desktop Library Pictures expect-test.exp esther:~ ciaran$ pwd /Users/ciaran esther:~ ciaran$ hostname esther.local As I said, I have no shell scripting experience, but I think it's being caused because I'm still "inside of" expect, but not "inside of" SSH. Is there any way to terminate expect once I've logged in, and have it hand over the SSH session to me? I've tried commands like 'close' and 'exit', after " send -- "\r" ". Yeah, they do what I want and expect dies, but it vindictively takes the SSH session down with it, leaving me back where I started. What I really need is for expect to do its job and terminate, leaving the SSH session back in my hands as if I did it manually. All help is appreciated, thanks. [1] I know there's a name for this, but I don't know what it is. And this is one of those frightening things which can't be googled, because the punctuation characters are ignored. As a side question, what's the story here?

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• SVN: Create a dump file of a folder

  - by DarkJaff

  I'm trying to create a dump file of a folder in my SVN repository.(My goal is to import this dump on another repository, but that's another story). I've read like 20 pages about this and they all tell me to use svndumpfilter but I can't seem to make it work. Here is my command: C:\>svnadmin dump d:/SvnData/TestingSVN/ | svndumpfilter include /TestingSVN/Trunk/Fms/ > d:\FMS.txt The output in the command line is this strange thing: Including prefixes: '/TestingSVN/Trunk/Fms' * Dumped revision 0. Revision 0 com*m iDtutmepde da sr e0v.isi n 1. Revision 1 committed as 1. * Dumped revision 2. Revision 2 committed a*s D2u.mpe revision 3. Revisio*n D3u mcpoemdm irtetveids iaosn 34.. Revision* 4D ucmopmemdi trteevdi saiso n4 .5. Revision 5 com*m iDtutmepde da sr e5v.isi n 6. Revision 6 commi*t tDeudm paesd 6r.evi ion 7. Revisio*n D7u mcpoemdm irtetveids iaosn 78.. Revision *8 Dcuommpmeidt treedv iassi o8n. 9. Revision 9* cDoummmpietdt erde vaiss i9o.n 1 . Revisi*o nD u1m0p ecdo mrmeivtitseido na s1 11.0 . Revision 11 *c oDmummiptetde dr eavsi s1i1o.n 1 . Revision 12 committed* aDsu m1p2e.d r vision 13. Revision 13 committ*e dD uamsp e1d3 .rev sion 14. Revision 14 commit*t eDdu mapse d1 4r.evi ion 15. Revision 15 committed as 15. * Dumped revision 16. Revision 16 committed as 16. Dropped 83 nodes: '/Branches' '/Branches/305' '/Branches/305/New Text Document.txt' '/Fms' '/Fms/ADPropertySheet.cpp'** etc. for 83 nodes... Also, the dump file itself is only 3 kb and contain no real data, only things like that (this is not the complete dump, just a sample) SVN-fs-dump-format-version: 2 UUID: 592fc9f0-5994-e841-a4dc-653714c95216 Revision-number: 0 Prop-content-length: 56 Content-length: 56 K 8 svn:date V 27 2009-06-19T15:05:52.001352Z PROPS-END Revision-number: 1 Prop-content-length: 112 Content-length: 112 K 7 svn:log V 38 This is an empty revision for padding. K 8 svn:date V 27 2009-06-19T15:11:29.378511Z PROPS-END Can anybody help me sort this out?

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• GOTO still considered harmful?

  - by Kyle Cronin

  Everyone is aware of Dijkstra's Letters to the editor: go to statement considered harmful (also here .html transcript and here .pdf) and there has been a formidable push since that time to eschew the goto statement whenever possible. While it's possible to use goto to produce unmaintainable, sprawling code, it nevertheless remains in modern programming languages. Even the advanced continuation control structure in Scheme can be described as a sophisticated goto. What circumstances warrant the use of goto? When is it best to avoid? As a followup question: C provides a pair of functions, setjmp and longjmp, that provide the ability to goto not just within the current stack frame but within any of the calling frames. Should these be considered as dangerous as goto? More dangerous? Dijkstra himself regretted that title, of which he was not responsible for. At the end of EWD1308 (also here .pdf) he wrote: Finally a short story for the record. In 1968, the Communications of the ACM published a text of mine under the title "The goto statement considered harmful", which in later years would be most frequently referenced, regrettably, however, often by authors who had seen no more of it than its title, which became a cornerstone of my fame by becoming a template: we would see all sorts of articles under the title "X considered harmful" for almost any X, including one titled "Dijkstra considered harmful". But what had happened? I had submitted a paper under the title "A case against the goto statement", which, in order to speed up its publication, the editor had changed into a "letter to the Editor", and in the process he had given it a new title of his own invention! The editor was Niklaus Wirth. A well thought out classic paper about this topic, to be matched to that of Dijkstra, is Structured Programming with go to Statements (also here .pdf), by Donald E. Knuth. Reading both helps to reestablish context and a non-dogmatic understanding of the subject. In this paper, Dijkstra's opinion on this case is reported and is even more strong: Donald E. Knuth: I believe that by presenting such a view I am not in fact disagreeing sharply with Dijkstra's ideas, since he recently wrote the following: "Please don't fall into the trap of believing that I am terribly dogmatical about [the go to statement]. I have the uncomfortable feeling that others are making a religion out of it, as if the conceptual problems of programming could be solved by a single trick, by a simple form of coding discipline!"

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