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• Hell and Diplomacy: Notes on Software Integration

  - by ericajanine

  Well, I'm getting cabin fever and short-timer's ADD all at the same time. I haven't been anywhere outside of my greater city area in FOREVER and I'm only days away from my vacation. I have brainlock because the last few days have been non-stop diffusing amazingly hostile conversations. I think I'll write about that. So then, I "do" software. At the end of the day, software is pretty straightforward. Software is that thing we love and try to make do things not currently in play, in existence. If a process around getting software to do something is broken (like most actually are), then we should acknowledge it and move on. We are professional. We are helpful beyond the normal call of duty. We live and breathe making the lives better for those apps being active in the world. But above all--the shocker: We are SERVICE. In a service frame of mind, all perspectives shift to what is best overall for system stabilization vs. what must be in production to meet business objectives. It doesn't matter how much you like or dislike the creator of said software. It doesn't matter what time you went to bed last night or if your mate appreciates your Death March attitude. Getting a product in and when is an age-old dilemma in a software environment where more than, say, 3 people are involved. We know this. Taking a servant's perspective eliminates the drama surrounding what a group of half-baked developers forgot to tell each other in the 11th hour about their trampling changes before check-in. We, my counterparts in society, get paid to deal with that drama. I get paid to diffuse that drama and make everything integrate as smoothly as possible. At the end of the day, attacking someone over a minor detail not only makes things worse, it's against the whole point of our real existence. Being in support or software integration means you are to keep your eyes on the end game. That end game? It's making a solution work for all stakeholders, not just you or your immediate superior. Development and technology groups exist because business groups need them to exist and solve their issues. The end game? Doing what is best for those business groups ultimately. Period. Note: That does not mean you let your business users solely dictate when and if something gets changed in an environment you ultimately own. That's just crazy. Software and its environments are legitimately owned by those who manage it directly, no matter how important a business group believes it is to the existence of mankind. So, you both negotiate the terms of changing that environment and only do so upon that negotiation. Diplomacy is in order. So, to finish my thoughts: If you have no ability to keep your mouth shut in a situation where a business or development group truly need your help to make something work even beyond a deadline, find another profession. Beating up someone verbally because they screw up means a service attitude is not at the forefront of your motivation for doing what is ultimately their work and their product. Software, especially integration, requires a strong will and a soft touch to keep it on track. Not a hammer covered in broken glass.

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• New spreadsheet accompanying SmartAssembly 6.0 provides statistics for prioritizing bug fixes

  - by Jason Crease

  One problem developers face is how to prioritize the many voices providing input into software bugs. If there is something wrong with a function that is the darling of a particular user, he or she tends to want action - now! The developer's dilemma is how to ascertain that the problem is major or minor, and when it should be addressed. Now there is a new spreadsheet accompanying SmartAssembly that provides exactly that information in an objective manner. This might upset those used to getting their way by being the loudest or pushiest, but ultimately it will ensure that the biggest problems get the priority they deserve. Here's how it works: Feature Usage Reporting (FUR) in SmartAssembly 6.0 provides a wealth of data about how your software is used by its end-users, but in the SmartAssembly UI the data isn't mined to its full extent. The new Excel spreadsheet for FUR extracts statistics from that data and presents them in easy-to-understand forms. I developed the spreadsheet feature in Microsoft Excel, using a fair amount of VBA. The spreadsheet connects directly to the database which stores the feature-usage data, and shows a wide variety of statistics and tables extracted from that data.  You want to know what percentage of users have used the 'Export as XML' button?  No problem.  How popular is v5.3 is compared to v5.1?  There's graphs for that. You need to know whether you have more users in Russia or Brazil? There's a big pie chart for that. I recently witnessed the spreadsheet in use here at Red Gate Software. My bug is exposed as minor While testing new features in .NET Reflector, I found a usability bug in the Refresh button and filed it in the Red Gate bug-tracking system. The bug was labelled "V.NEXT MINOR," which means it would be fixed in the next point release. Although I'm a professional tester, I'm not much different than most software users when they discover a bug that affects them personally: I wanted it fixed immediately. There was an ulterior motive at play here, of course. I would get to see my colleagues put the spreadsheet to work. The Reflector team loaded up the spreadsheet to view the feature-usage statistics that SmartAssembly collected for the refresh button. The resulting statistics showed that only 8% of users have ever pressed the Refresh button, and only 2.6% of sessions involve pressing the button. When Refresh is used, it's only pressed on average 1.6 times a session, with a maximum of 8 times during a session. This was in stark contrast to what I was doing as a conscientious tester: pressing it dozens of times per session. The spreadsheet provides evidence that my bug was a minor one. On to more serious things Based on the solid evidence uncovered by the spreadsheet, the Reflector team concluded that my experience does not represent that of the vast majority of Reflector's recorded users. The Reflector team had ample data to send me back to my desk and keep the bug classified as "V.NEXT MINOR." The team then went back to fixing more serious bugs. If I'm in the shoes of the user, I might not be thoroughly happy, but I cannot deny that the evidence clearly placed me in a very small minority. Next time I'm hoping the spreadsheet will prove that my bug is more important. Find out more about Feature-Usage Reporting here. The spreadsheet is available for free download here.

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• Where should instantiated classes be stored?

  - by Eric C.

  I'm having a bit of a design dilemma here. I'm writing a library that consists of a bunch of template classes that are designed to be used as a base for creating content. For example: public class Template { public string Name {get; set;} public string Description {get; set;} public string Attribute1 {get; set;} public string Attribute2 {get; set;} public Template() { //constructor } public void DoSomething() { //does something } ... } The problem is, not only is the library providing the templates, it will also supply quite a few predefined templates which are instances of these template classes. The question is, where do I put these instances of the templates? The three solutions I've come up with so far are: 1) Provide serialized instances of the templates as files. On the one hand, this solution would keep the instances separated from the library itself, which is nice, but it would also potentially add complexity for the user. Even if we provided methods for loading/deserializing the files, they'd still have to deal with a bunch of files, and some kind of config file so the app knows where to look for those files. Plus, creating the template files would probably require a separate app, so if the user wanted to stick with the files method of storing templates, we'd have to provide some kind of app for creating the template files. Also, this requires external dependencies for testing the templates in the user's code. 2) Add readonly instances to the template class Example: public class Template { public string Name {get; set;} public string Description {get; set;} public string Attribute1 {get; set;} public string Attribute2 {get; set;} public Template PredefinedTemplate { get { Template templateInstance = new Template(); templateInstance.Name = "Some Name"; templateInstance.Description = "A description"; ... return templateInstance; } } public Template() { //constructor } public void DoSomething() { //does something } ... } This method would be convenient for users, as they would be able to access the predefined templates in code directly, and would be able to unit test code that used them. The drawback here is that the predefined templates pollute the Template type namespace with a bunch of extra stuff. I suppose I could put the predefined templates in a different namespace to get around this drawback. The only other problem with this approach is that I'd have to basically duplicate all the namespaces in the library in the predefined namespace (e.g. Templates.SubTemplates and Predefined.Templates.SubTemplates) which would be a pain, and would also make refactoring more difficult. 3) Make the templates abstract classes and make the predefined templates inherit from those classes. For example: public abstract class Template { public string Name {get; set;} public string Description {get; set;} public string Attribute1 {get; set;} public string Attribute2 {get; set;} public Template() { //constructor } public void DoSomething() { //does something } ... } and public class PredefinedTemplate : Template { public PredefinedTemplate() { this.Name = "Some Name"; this.Description = "A description"; this.Attribute1 = "Some Value"; ... } } This solution is pretty similar to #2, but it ends up creating a lot of classes that don't really do anything (none of our predefined templates are currently overriding behavior), and don't have any methods, so I'm not sure how good a practice this is. Has anyone else had any experience with something like this? Is there a best practice of some kind, or a different/better approach that I haven't thought of? I'm kind of banging my head against a wall trying to figure out the best way to go. Thanks!

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• Writing a method to 'transform' an immutable object: how should I approach this?

  - by Prog

  (While this question has to do with a concrete coding dilemma, it's mostly about what's the best way to design a function.) I'm writing a method that should take two Color objects, and gradually transform the first Color into the second one, creating an animation. The method will be in a utility class. My problem is that Color is an immutable object. That means that I can't do color.setRGB or color.setBlue inside a loop in the method. What I can do, is instantiate a new Color and return it from the method. But then I won't be able to gradually change the color. So I thought of three possible solutions: 1- The client code includes the method call inside a loop. For example: int duration = 1500; // duration of the animation in milliseconds int steps = 20; // how many 'cycles' the animation will take for(int i=0; i<steps; i++) color = transformColor(color, targetColor, duration, steps); And the method would look like this: Color transformColor(Color original, Color target, int duration, int steps){ int redDiff = target.getRed() - original.getRed(); int redAddition = redDiff / steps; int newRed = original.getRed() + redAddition; // same for green and blue .. Thread.sleep(duration / STEPS); // exception handling omitted return new Color(newRed, newGreen, newBlue); } The disadvantage of this approach is that the client code has to "do part of the method's job" and include a for loop. The method doesn't do it's work entirely on it's own, which I don't like. 2- Make a mutable Color subclass with methods such as setRed, and pass objects of this class into transformColor. Then it could look something like this: void transformColor(MutableColor original, Color target, int duration){ final int STEPS = 20; int redDiff = target.getRed() - original.getRed(); int redAddition = redDiff / steps; int newRed = original.getRed() + redAddition; // same for green and blue .. for(int i=0; i<STEPS; i++){ original.setRed(original.getRed() + redAddition); // same for green and blue .. Thread.sleep(duration / STEPS); // exception handling omitted } } Then the calling code would usually look something like this: // The method will usually transform colors of JComponents JComponent someComponent = ... ; // setting the Color in JComponent to be a MutableColor Color mutableColor = new MutableColor(someComponent.getForeground()); someComponent.setForeground(mutableColor); // later, transforming the Color in the JComponent transformColor((MutableColor)someComponent.getForeground(), new Color(200,100,150), 2000); The disadvantage is - the need to create a new class MutableColor, and also the need to do casting. 3- Pass into the method the actual mutable object that holds the color. Then the method could do object.setColor or similar every iteration of the loop. Two disadvantages: A- Not so elegant. Passing in the object that holds the color just to transform the color feels unnatural. B- While most of the time this method will be used to transform colors inside JComponent objects, other kinds of objects may have colors too. So the method would need to be overloaded to receive other types, or receive Objects and have instanceof checks inside.. Not optimal. Right now I think I like solution #2 the most, than solution #1 and solution #3 the least. However I'd like to hear your opinions and suggestions regarding this.

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• jQuery slideToggle() Internet Explorer problem and jumpy animation

  - by UtothaX

  Hey yaa! I have a big problem with my jquery. I finally made it that my slidetoggle runs in firefox. The animation is a little bit jumpy in the end of the animation. I read a lot of workarounds, but somehow nothing helped me really. Perhaps anyone of you can rescue me out of this dilemma. The other bigger problem is that the hidden divs are unfortunately shown directly on start in internet explorer. I tested it in IE6&7. And the sliding effect is also very strange. Does anyone of you know if I have to give additional styling for IE??? Here is my site I am working on: http://www.haus-plan.de/%5F01%5FHausplan/ the red titles are slideable in the content area and the two Slide words on the right panel. I noticed that Internet Explorer runs the first Slide word on the right panel correctly. Here its div is first hidden and only shows up when we click and let it slide down. But for the other divs they are shown in the beginning which is very sh..... Please help meee....

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• Design patter to keep track UITableView rows correspondance to underlying data in constant time.

  - by DenNukem

  When my model changes I want to animate changes in UITableView by inserting/deleting rows. For that I need to know the ordinal of the given row (so I can construct NSIndexPath), which I find hard to do in better-than-linear time. For example, consider that I have a list of addressbook entries which are manualy sorted by the user, i.e. there is no ordering "key" that represents the sort order. There is also a corresponding UITableView that shows one row per addressbook entry. When UITableView queries the datasource I query the NSMUtableArray populated with my entries and return required data in constant time for each row. However, if there is a change in underlying model I am getting a notification "Joe Smith, id#123 has been removed". Now I have a dilemma. A naive approach would be to scan the array, determine the index at which Joe Smith is and then ask UITableView to remove that precise row from the view, also removing it form the array. However, the scan will take linear time to finish. Now I could have an NSDictionary which allows me to find Joe Smith in constant time, but that doesn't do me a lot of good because I still need to find his ordinal index within the array in order to instruct UITableView to remove that row, which is again a linear search. I could further decide to store each object's ordinal inside the object itself to make it constant, but it will become outdated after first such update as all subsequent index values will have changed due to removal of an object. So what is the correct design pattern to accurately reflect model changes in the UITableView in costant (or at least logarithmic) time?

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• Python coding test problem for interviews

  - by Kal

  I'm trying to come up with a good coding problem to ask interview candidates to solve with Python. They'll have an hour to work on the problem, with an IDE and access to documentation (we don't care what people have memorized). I'm not looking for a tough algorithmic problem - there are other sections of the interview where we do that kind of thing. The point of this section is to sit and watch them actually write code. So it should be something that makes them use just the data structures which are the everyday tools of the application developer - lists, hashtables (dictionaries in Python), etc, to solve a quasi-realistic task. They shouldn't be blocked completely if they can't think of something really clever. We have a problem which we use for Java coding tests, which involves reading a file and doing a little processing on the contents. It works well with candidates who are familiar with Java (or even C++). But we're running into a number of candidates who just don't know Java or C++ or C# or anything like that, but do know Python or Ruby. Which shouldn't exclude them, but leaves us with a dilemma: On the one hand, we don't learn much from watching someone struggle with the basics of a totally unfamiliar language. On the other hand, the problem we use for Java turns out to be pretty trivial in Python (or Ruby, etc) - anyone halfway competent can do it in 15 minutes. So, I'm trying to come up with something better. Surprisingly, Google doesn't show me anyone doing something like this, unless I'm just too dumb to enter the obvious search term. The best idea I've come up with involves scheduling workers to time slots, but it's maybe a little too open-ended. Have you run into a good example? Or a bad one? Or do you just have an idea?

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• Child objects in MongoDB

  - by Jeremy B.

  I have been following along with Rob Conery's Linq for MongoDB and have come across a question. In the example he shows how you can easily nest a child object. For my current experiment I have the following structure. class Content { ... Profile Profile { get; set; } } class Profile { ... } This works great when looking at content items. The dilemma I'm facing now is if I want to treat the Profile as an atomic object. As it stands, it appears as if I can not query the Profile object directly but that it comes packaged with Content results. If I want it to be inclusive, but also be able to query on just Profile I feel like my first instinct would be to make Profiles a top level object and then create a foreign key like structure under the Content class to tie the two together. To me it feels like I'm falling back on RDBMS practices and that feels like I'm most likely going against the spirit of Mongo. How would you treat an object you need to act upon independently yet also want as a child object of another object?

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• User avatar cropping/resizing with paperclip and jquery in rails

  - by Micke

  Hello fellow stackoverflow users. I am building my first Ruby on Rails app which is going to be my own little community. I have made the User model with several fields and information. But now i am thinking of adding avatar support for the users. And i've been researching and found that my best option would be using Paperclip. But then i've encountered a little dilemma. I want my users to be able to resie/crop their avatar image after they have chosen a image. I have googled alot and since i am using jQuery i found that imgAreaSelect would be best in my opinion. And i think MiniMagick looks best. So to my question. How can i best intergrate Paperclip and imgAreaSelect? I am new to Ruby and Rails so i don't know how i can resize the image. Do you folks know how to intergrate the to or maybe some other options that fits my needs best? I also need to apologize for my bad/misspelled english since i am not english :) Thanking you in advance. Yours sincerely, Micke.

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• How should I write Jquery Mobile app for browsers with and without javascript support?

  - by Adrian Grigore

  Hi, I'm trying to wrap my head around jQuery Mobile. My aim is to build a very fast application with a look and feel as close as possible to a native app (at least for modern devices). I understand there are two ways of navigating between pages: Loading each page as a separate page and linking to other pages with regular html anchors. Putting all (or many) pages on one single web page and navigating between them by means of javascript ($.mobile.changePage (method) and similar api functions. The first approach should work on all browsers, but performs quite poorly since there is a delay between each page transition. The second looks like it should be much faster, so I would definitely prefer this approach. But how would that work for mobile device browsers without javascript support? It certainly seems to violate jQuery Mobile's aim to provide a gracefully degraded experience for C-grade browsers. It looks to me like I need to implement my app twice, once optimized for browsers with javascript support, once for browsers without? Using may be another option, but that looks even more messy. What's the recommended way to approach this dilemma? Is there anything I have not noticed? Thanks, Adrian

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• Open Source CMS (.Net vs Java)

  - by CmsAndDotNetKindaGuy

  I must say up-front that this is not a strictly programming-related question and a very opinionated one. I am the lead developer of the dominant .Net CMS in my country and I don't like my own product :). Managerial decisions over what is important or not and large chunks of legacy code done before I joined gives me headache every day I go for work. Anyway, having a vast amount of experience in web industry and a very good grasp of C# and programming practices I'm designing my own CMS the past few months. Now the problem is that I'm an open source kinda guy so I have a dilemma. Should I use C# and .Net which has crippled multi-platform support or should I drop .Net entirely and start learning Java where I can create a truly open-source and cross-platform CMS? Please don't answer that I should contribute to an existing open source CMS. I ruled that out after spending a great deal of time searching for something similar in structure to what I have in mind. I am not a native speaker, so feel free to correct my syntax or rephrase my question.

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• Hopping from a C++ to a Perl/Unix job

  - by rocknroll

  Hi all, I have been a C++ / Linux Developer till now and I am adept in this stack. Of late I have been getting opportunities that require Perl, Unix (with knowledge of C++,shell scripting) expertise. Organizations are showing interest even though I don't have much scripting experience to boast off. The role is more in a Support, maintenance project involving SQL as well. Off late I am in a fix whether to forgo these offers or not. I don't know the dynamics of an IT organization and thus on one hand I fear that my C++ experience will be nullified and on the positive side I am getting to work on a new technology stack which will only add to my skill set. I am sure, most of you at some point of time have encountered such dilemmas and would have taken some decision. I want you to share your perspectives on such a scenario where a person is required to change his/her technology stack when changing his/her job. What are the merits and demerits in going with either of the choices? Also I know that C++ isn't going anywhere in the near future. What about perl? I have no clue as to what the future holds for perl developer? Whether there are enough opportunities for a perl developer? I am asking this question here because most of my fellow programmers face this career choice dilemma. Thanks.

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• Access SSAS cube from across domains without direct database connection

  - by SuperKing

  Hello, I'm working with SQL Server Analysis Services for the first time and have the dilemma of working on a project in which users must be able to access SSAS Cubes (via a custom web dashboard) that live across different servers and domains, but without having access to the other server's SSAS database connection strings. So Organization A and Organization B will have their own cubes on their own servers, but Organization A users must be able to view Organization B's cubes, and Organization B users must be able to view Organization A's cubes, but neither organization should have access to the connection string. I've read about allowing HTTP access to the SSAS server and cube from the link below, but that requires setting up users for authentication or allowing anonymous access to one organization's server for users of another organization, and I'm not sure this would be acceptable for this situation, or if this is the preferred way to do this. Is performance acceptable here? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc917711.aspx I also wonder if perhaps it makes sense to run a nightly/weekly process that accesses the other organization's SSAS database via a web service or something, and pull that data into a database on the organization's server, and then rebuild the cube. Then that cube would be queried without having to go and connect to the other organization server when viewing the cube. Has anyone else attempted to accomplish something similar? Is HTTP access the standard way to go for this? Or any other possible options? Thanks, and please let me know if you need more info, still unclear on how some of this works.

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• What am I missing in IIS7?

  - by faded19

  Hello All, Ok here is my dilemma, I have been developing on a shared host at discountasp.net (IIS 6)for some time now. All was going well, however now that app is complete we are moving it to its own dedicated server which is now server 2008 and IIS 7. I am currently using asp forms authentication (which again seems to work just fine on IIS6) The issue seems to occur after I click login, it pops the "Signing In" box..an error then arises in the JavaScript of Membership.js "Object Does not Support Membership.js" I verified that the code was making it to: membership.BeginLogin(uid, pwd, rememberme); and was in fact passing the correct variables. Another odd thing I noticed when setting the forms permissions is that when I went to select Users or Roles within the IIS 7 management console it would take forever, and then time out with the following error: A Network related or instance specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not or was not accessible, verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections (provider - named pipes provider: error 40 - could not open a connection to SQL Server.) I am rather weak on the hardware/configure side of the house so I am not really sure what the issue is, it’s almost as if IIS7 cannot see the DB. They both reside on the same server however. If anyone could help point me in the right direction as to how to resolve this I would be eternally grateful! Thanks in advance Bryan

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• Need help choosing database server

  - by The Pretender

  Good day everyone. Recently I was given a task to develop an application to automate some aspects of stocks trading. While working on initial architecture, the database dilemma emerged. What I need is a fast database engine which can process huge amounts of data coming in very fast. I'm fairly experienced in general programming, but I never faced a task of developing a high-load database architecture. I developed a simple MSSQL database schema with several many-to-many relationships during one of my projects, but that's it. What I'm looking for is some advice on choosing the most suitable database engine and some pointers to various manuals or books which describe high-load database development. Specifics of the project are as follows: OS: Windows NT family (Server 2008 / 7) Primary platform: .NET with C# Database structure: one table to hold primary items and two or three tables with foreign keys to the first table to hold additional information. Database SELECT requirements: Need super-fast selection by foreign keys and by combination of foreign key and one of the columns (presumably DATETIME) Database INSERT requirements: The faster the better :) If there'll be significant performance gain, some parts can be written in C++ with managed interfaces to the rest of the system. So once again: given all that stuff I just typed, please give me some advice on what the best database for my project is. Links or references to some manuals and books on the subject are also greatly appreciated. EDIT: I'll need to insert 3-5 rows in 2 tables approximately once in 30-50 milliseconds and I'll need to do SELECT with 0-2 WHERE clauses queries with similar rate.

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• Subversion svn:externals - What's wrong here?

  - by Brandon Montgomery

  I first want to say I've read the Subversion manual. I've read this question. I've also read this question. Here's my dilemma. Let's say I have 3 repositories laid out like this: DataAccessObject/ branches/ tags/ trunk/ DataAccessObject/ DataAccessObjectTests/ PlanObject/ branches/ tags/ trunk/ PlanObject/ PlanObjectTests/ WinFormsPlanViewer/ branches/ tags/ trunk/ WinFormsPlanViewer/ The PlanObject and DataAccessObject repositories contain shared projects. They are used by the WinFormsPlanViewer, but also by several other projects in several other repositories. Bear with me here. I put an svn:externals definition on the WinFormsPlanViewer/trunk folder like this: https://server/svn/PlanObject/trunk Objects https://server/svn/DataAccessObject/trunk Objects And here's what I see after I do an svn update. WinFormsPlanViewer/ branches/ tags/ trunk/ WinFormsPlanViewer/ Objects/ DataAccessObject/ DataAccessObjectTests/ The PlanObject stuff doesn't even come down in the update! I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but there's an externals definition on the PlanObject/trunk folder also: https://server/svn/DataAccessObject/trunk Objects What's going on here? What am I doing wrong? Are there bad consequences of referencing the PlanObject and the DataAccessObject from the WinFormsPlanViewer using svn:externals when the PlanObject references the DataAccessObject using svn:externals also?

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• Outputing value of TrueClass / FalseClass to integer or string/

  - by Nick Gorbikoff

  Hello. I'm trying to figure out if there is an easy way to do the following short of adding to_i method to TrueClass/FalseClass. Here is a dilemma: I have a boolean field in my rails app - that is obviously stored as Tinyint in mysql. However - I need to generate xml based of the data in mysql and send it to customer - there SOAP service requires the field in question to have 0 or 1 as the value of this field. So at the time of the xml generation I need to convert my False to 0 and my True to 1 ( which is how they are stored in the DB). Since True & False lack to_i method I could write some if statement that generate either 1 or 0 depending on true/false state. However I have about 10 of these indicators and creating and if/else for each is not very DRY. So what you recommend I do? Or I could add a to_i method to the True / False class. But I'm not sure where should I scope it in my rails app? Just inside this particular model or somewhere else?

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• Design pattern to keep track UITableView rows correspondance to underlying data in constant time.

  - by DenNukem

  When my model changes I want to animate changes in UITableView by inserting/deleting rows. For that I need to know the ordinal of the given row (so I can construct NSIndexPath), which I find hard to do in better-than-linear time. For example, consider that I have a list of addressbook entries which are manualy sorted by the user, i.e. there is no ordering "key" that represents the sort order. There is also a corresponding UITableView that shows one row per addressbook entry. When UITableView queries the datasource I query the NSMUtableArray populated with my entries and return required data in constant time for each row. However, if there is a change in underlying model I am getting a notification "Joe Smith, id#123 has been removed". Now I have a dilemma. A naive approach would be to scan the array, determine the index at which Joe Smith is and then ask UITableView to remove that precise row from the view, also removing it form the array. However, the scan will take linear time to finish. Now I could have an NSDictionary which allows me to find Joe Smith in constant time, but that doesn't do me a lot of good because I still need to find his ordinal index within the array in order to instruct UITableView to remove that row, which is again a linear search. I could further decide to store each object's ordinal inside the object itself to make it constant, but it will become outdated after first such update as all subsequent index values will have changed due to removal of an object. So what is the correct design pattern to accurately reflect model changes in the UITableView in costant (or at least logarithmic) time?

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• I'm trying to grasp the concept of creating a program that uses a MS SQL database, but I'm used to r

  - by Sergio Tapia

  How can I make a program use a MS SQL server, and have that program work on whatever computer it's installed on. If you've been following my string of questions today, you'd know that I'm making an open source and free Help Desk suite for small and medium businesses. The client application. The client application is a Windows Forms app. On installation and first launch on every client machine, it'll ask for the address of the main Help Desk server. The server. Here I plan to handle all incoming help requests, show them to the IT guys, and provide WCF services for the Client application to consume. My dilemma lies in that, I know how to make the program run on my local machine; but I'm really stumped on how to make this work for everyone who wants to download and install the server bit on their Windows Server. Would I have to make an SQL Script and have it run on the MS SQL server when a user wants to install the 'server' application? Many thanks to all for your valuable time and effort to teach me. It's really really appreciated. :)

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• Windows Batch file to echo a specific line number

  - by Lee

  So for the second part of my current dilemma, I have a list of folders in c:\file_list.txt. I need to be able to extract them (well, echo them with some mods) based on the line number because this batch script is being called by an iterative macro process. I'm passing the line number as a parameter. @echo off setlocal enabledelayedexpansion set /a counter=0 set /a %%a = "" for /f "usebackq delims=" %%a in (c:\file_list.txt) do ( if "!counter!"=="%1" goto :printme & set /a counter+=1 ) :printme echo %%a which gives me an output of %a. Doh! So, I've tried echoing !a! (result: ECHO is off.); I've tried echoing %a (result: a) I figured the easy thing to do would be to modify the head.bat code found here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/130116/dos-batch-commands-to-read-first-line-from-text-file except rather than echoing every line - I'd just echo the last line found. Not as simple as one might think. I've noticed that my counter is staying at zero for some reason; I'm wondering if the set /a counter+=1 is doing what I think it's doing.

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• Converting TrueClass / FalseClass to integer.

  - by Nick Gorbikoff

  Hello. I'm trying to figure out if there is an easy way to do the following short of adding to_i method to TrueClass/FalseClass. Here is a dilemma: I have a boolean field in my rails app - that is obviously stored as Tinyint in mysql. However - I need to generate xml based of the data in mysql and send it to customer - there SOAP service requires the field in question to have 0 or 1 as the value of this field. So at the time of the xml generation I need to convert my False to 0 and my True to 1 ( which is how they are stored in the DB). Since True & False lack to_i method I could write some if statement that generate either 1 or 0 depending on true/false state. However I have about 10 of these indicators and creating and if/else for each is not very DRY. So what you recommend I do? Or I could add a to_i method to the True / False class. But I'm not sure where should I scope it in my rails app? Just inside this particular model or somewhere else?

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• Login for webapp, needs to be availible for supportstaff

  - by Christian W

  I know the title is a little off, but it's hard to explain the problem in a short sentence. I am the administrator of a legacy webapp that lets users create surveys and distribute them to a group of people. We have two kinds of "users". 1. Authorized licenseholders which does all setup themselves. 2. Clients who just want to have a survey run, but still need a user (because the webapp has "User" as the top entity in a surveyenvironment.) Sometimes users in #1 want's us to do the setup for them (which we offer to do). This means that we have to login as them. This is also how we do support, we login as them and then follow them along, guiding them. Which brings me to my dilemma. Currently our security is below par. But this makes it simple for us to do support. We do want to increase our security, and one thing I have been considering is just doing the normal hashing to DB, however, we need to be able to login as a customer, and if they change their password without telling us, and the password is hashed in the db, we have no way of knowing it. So I was thinking of some kind of twoway encryption for the passwords. Either that or some kind of master password. Any suggestions? (The platform is classic ASP... I said it was legacy...)

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• Help with copy and deepcopy in Python

  - by Az

  Hi there, I think I tried to ask for far too much in my previous question so apologies for that. Let me lay out my situation in as simple a manner as I can this time. Basically, I've got a bunch of dictionaries that reference my objects, which are in turn mapped using SQLAlchemy. All fine with me. However, I want to make iterative changes to the contents of those dictionaries. The problem is that doing so will change the objects they reference---and using copy.copy() does no good since it only copies the references contained within the dictionary. Thus even if copied something, when I try to, say print the contents of the dictionary, I'll only get the latest updated values for the object. This is why I wanted to use copy.deepcopy() but that does not work with SQLAlchemy. Now I'm in a dilemma since I need to copy certain attributes of my object before making said iterative changes. In summary, I need to use SQLAlchemy and at the same time make sure I can have a copy of my object attributes when making changes so I don't change the referenced object itself. Any advice, help, suggestions, etc.?

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• echo POST array.. or other ideas?

  - by gamerzfuse

  Update: As seen in the Original Questions below, I am looking to echo an array. The problem is that when I send the Moneris gateway to return a POST array to my new file (cart.php) it gets a 500 Internal Server Error. This is the same error I received when it send to the script, which should have worked. Is there any reason that it would always send a 500 Internal Server Error? Cart.php Direct Link Craig ORIGINAL QUESTION: Hello there, I am back for another question. Here is my dilemma: I have a script (ImageFolio Commerce) that hasn't been updated on our server since.. probably 2003. The script had a Payment Gateway (Moneris) manually added to it by the company who offers the script. This costs $1000 to get them to add a gateway. I now have a new client who purchased this business from the previous owner. While switching the account to the new owner's Moneris account, we found out that things have been updated. Long story short.. The Moneris gateway can send 3 types of responses: POST with XML Data POST GET I imagine it is easiest to just use the POST array. I have the file that it sends the response to. As of now the file responds with a Internal Server error, but it does process the order. What I want to do is determine what the POST array is that is being sent, so that I can take it and echo it in a logical manner. Is there a way to capture and echo the entire POST? Or can someone suggest a better method of doing this? Thank you, Craig

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• Initial text and paperclipped-URL for action in UIActivityViewController & UIActivityItemSource?

  - by Benjamin Kreeger

  Finally been making it through Apple's (rather dismal) documentation on the new UIActivityViewController class and the UIActivityItemSource protocol, and I'm trying to send different data sets to different actions called from the activity view. To simplify things, I'm looking at two things. A Facebook posting action, which should say "Check this out!" and also attach a URL to the post (with that cute little paperclip). A Twitter posting action, which should say "Check this out, with #hashtag!" and also attach that same URL (with the same paperclip). Here's the code I've got implemented right now. - (id)activityViewController:(UIActivityViewController *)activityViewController itemForActivityType:(NSString *)activityType { if ([activityType isEqualToString:UIActivityTypePostToFacebook]) { return @"Check this out!"; } else if ([activityType isEqualToString:UIActivityTypePostToTwitter]) { return @"Check this out, with #hashtag!"; } return @""; } - (id)activityViewControllerPlaceholderItem:(UIActivityViewController *)activityViewController { return @""; } And then when I set up this activity view controller (it's in the same class), this is what I do. UIActivityViewController *activityView = [[UIActivityViewController alloc] initWithActivityItems:@[self] applicationActivities:nil]; [self presentViewController:activityView animated:YES completion:nil]; My dilemma is how to attach that NSURL object. It's relatively easy when calling the iOS 6 SL-class posting modals; you just call the individual methods to attach a URL or an image. How would I go about doing this here? I'll note that instead of returning NSString objects from -activityViewController:itemForActivityType, if I return just NSURL objects, they show up with that paperclip, with no body text in the post. If I return an array of those two items, nothing shows up at all.

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