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  • database design - empty fields

    - by imanc
    Hey, I am currently debating an issue with a guy on my dev team. He believes that empty fields are bad news. For instance, if we have a customer details table that stores data for customers from different countries, and each country has a slightly different address configuration - plus 1-2 extra fields, e.g. French customer details may also store details for entry code, and floor/level plus title fields (madamme, etc.). South Africa would have a security number. And so on. Given that we're talking about minor variances my idea is to put all of the fields into the table and use what is needed on each form. My colleague believes we should have a separate table with extra data. E.g. customer_info_fr. But this seams to totally defeat the purpose of a combined table in the first place. His argument is that empty fields / columns is bad - but I'm struggling to find justification in terms of database design principles for or against this argument and preferred solutions. Another option is a separate mini EAV table that stores extra data with parent_id, key, val fields. Or to serialise extra data into an extra_data column in the main customer_data table. I think I am confused because what I'm discussing is not covered by 3NF which is what I would typically use as a reference for how to structure data. So my question specifically: - if you have slight variances in data for each record (1-2 different fields for instance) what is the best way to proceed?

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  • Documentation style: how do you differentiate variable names from the rest of the text within a comm

    - by Alix
    Hi, This is a quite superfluous and uninteresting question, I'm afraid, but I always wonder about this. When you're commenting code with inline comments (as opposed to comments that will appear in the generated documentation) and the name of a variable appears in the comment, how do you differentiate it from normal text? E.g.: // Try to parse type. parsedType = tryParse(type); In the comment, "type" is the name of the variable. Do you mark it in any way to signify that it's a symbol and not just part of the comment's text? I've seen things like this: // Try to parse "type". // Try to parse 'type'. // Try to parse *type*. // Try to parse <type>. // Try to parse [type]. And also: // Try to parse variable type. (I don't think the last one is very helpful; it's a bit confusing; you could think "variable" is an adjective there) Do you have any preference? I find that I need to use some kind of marker; otherwise the comments are sometimes ambiguous, or at least force you to reread them when you realise a particular word in the comment was actually the name of a variable. (In comments that will appear in the documentation I use the appropriate tags for the generator, of course: @code, <code></code>, etc) Thanks!

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  • PHP explode and set to empty string the missing pieces

    - by Marco Demaio
    What's the best way to accomplish the following. I have strings in this format: $s1 = "name1|type1"; //(pipe is the separator) $s2 = "name2|type2"; $s3 = "name3"; //(in some of them type can be missing) Let's assume namen/typen are strings and they can not contain a pipe. Since I need to exctract the name/type separetly, I do: $temp = explode($s1, '|'); $name = $temp[0]; $type = ( isset($temp[1]) ? $temp[1] : '' ); Is there an easier (smarter whatever faster) way to do this without having to do isset($temp[1]) or count($temp). Thanks!

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  • Where do I put the Current user query so as to not repeat per controller?

    - by Kevin
    I have a standard query that gets the current user object: @user = User.find_by_email(session[:email]) but I'm putting it as the first line in every single controller action which is obviously not the best way to do this. What is the best way to refactor this? Do I put this as a method in the Application controller (and if so, can you just show me a quick example)? Do I put the entire @user object into the session (has about 50 columns and some sensitive ones like is_admin)? Or is there another way to remove this kind of redundancy?

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  • Should I use block identifiers ("end;") in my code?

    - by JosephStyons
    Code Complete says it is good practice to always use block identifiers, both for clarity and as a defensive measure. Since reading that book, I've been doing that religiously. Sometimes it seems excessive though, as in the case below. Is Steve McConnell right to insist on always using block identifiers? Which of these would you use? //naughty and brief with myGrid do for currRow := FixedRows to RowCount - 1 do if RowChanged(currRow) then if not(RecordExists(currRow)) then InsertNewRecord(currRow) else UpdateExistingRecord(currRow); //well behaved and verbose with myGrid do begin for currRow := FixedRows to RowCount - 1 do begin if RowChanged(currRow) then begin if not(RecordExists(currRow)) then begin InsertNewRecord(currRow); end //if it didn't exist, so insert it else begin UpdateExistingRecord(currRow); end; //else it existed, so update it end; //if any change end; //for each row in the grid end; //with myGrid

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  • Best practice for near reuse of model components?

    - by Chris Knight
    I have a requirement to use a Fund model in my code. It will contain a fund name and fund code. In the interest of reuse I've poked around the package containing the other models used and found an existing Fund model. However the issue here is that, in addition to fund name and code, it also contains an amount. Amount isn't directly relevant in my context. So, do I: 1) Use the existing Fund model as is, ignoring the setters/getters for fund amount. 2) Put a FundDescription interface onto the existing Fund model for accessing only the information I'm interested in. 3) Make a FundDescription base class from which the existing Fund model could now extend 4) Create a whole new seperate model since the two are slightly contextually different

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  • Are ASCII diagrams worth my time?

    - by Jesse Stimpson
    Are ASCII diagrams within source code worth the time they take to create? I could create a bitmap diagram much faster, but images are much more difficult to in line in a source file (until VS2010). For the record, I'm not talking about decorative ASCII art. Here's an example of a diagram I recently created for my code that I probably could have constructed in half the time in MS Paint. Scenario A: v (U)_________________(N)_______<--(P) Legend: ' / | J = ... ' / | P = ... ' /d | U = ... ' / | v = ... ' / | d = ... '/ | N = ... (J) | | | |___________________|

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  • Why do I need to give my options a value attribute in my dropdown? JQuery related.

    - by Alex
    So far in my web developing experiences, I've noticed that almost all web developers/designers choose to give their options in a select a value like so: <select name="foo"> <option value="bar">BarCheese</option> // etc. // etc. </select> Is this because it is best practice to do so? I ask this because I have done a lot of work with jQuery and dropdown's lately, and sometimes I get really annoyed when I have to check something like: $('select[name=foo]').val() == "bar"); To me, many times that seems less clear than just being able to check the val() against BarCheese. So why is it that most web developers/designers specify a value paramater instead of just letting the options actual value be its value? And yes, if the option has a value attribute I know I can do something like this: $('select[name=foo] option:contains("BarCheese")').attr('selected', 'selected'); But I would still really like to know why this is done. Thanks!!

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  • SELECT product from subclass: How many queries do I need?

    - by Stefano
    I am building a database similar to the one described here where I have products of different type, each type with its own attributes. I report a short version for convenience product_type ============ product_type_id INT product_type_name VARCHAR product ======= product_id INT product_name VARCHAR product_type_id INT -> Foreign key to product_type.product_type_id ... (common attributes to all product) magazine ======== magazine_id INT title VARCHAR product_id INT -> Foreign key to product.product_id ... (magazine-specific attributes) web_site ======== web_site_id INT name VARCHAR product_id INT -> Foreign key to product.product_id ... (web-site specific attributes) This way I do not need to make a huge table with a column for each attribute of different product types (most of which will then be NULL) How do I SELECT a product by product.product_id and see all its attributes? Do I have to make a query first to know what type of product I am dealing with and then, through some logic, make another query to JOIN the right tables? Or is there a way to join everything together? (if, when I retrieve the information about a product_id there are a lot of NULL, it would be fine at this point). Thank you

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  • On Mac OS X, do you use the shipped python or your own?

    - by The MYYN
    On Tiger, I used a custom python installation to evaluate newer versions and I did not have any problems with that*. Now Snow Leopard is a little more up-to-date and by default ships with $ ls /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/ 2.3 2.5 2.6 @Current What could be considered best practice? Using the python shipped with Mac OS X or a custom compiled version in, say $HOME. Are there any advantages/disadvantages using the one option over the other? My setup was fairly simple so far and looked like this: Custom compiled Python in $HOME and a $PATH that would look into $HOME/bin first, and subsequently would use my private Python version. Also $PYTHONPATH pointed to this local installation. This way, I did not need to sudo–install packages - virtualenv took care of the rest.

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  • using ref to view error

    - by Avram
    Hello. I working now on firm that using ref in every function. The reason, is to catch errors. There example : //return true if the read is success //otherwise writing to the error ,the problem bool ReadFile(ref string error) Question: How do you catching errors? Using ref,exceptions or other way?

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  • Why do people keep parsing HTML using regex? [closed]

    - by polygenelubricants
    As much as I love regular expressions, it's obvious to me that it's not the best tool for parsing HTML, especially given the numerous good HTML parsers out there. And yet there are numerous questions on stackoverflow that attempts to parse HTML using regex. And people would always point out what a bad idea that is in the comments. And the accepted answer would often have a disclaimer how this isn't really the ideal way of doing things. But based on the constant flow of questions, it still seems that people keep parsing HTML using regex, despite the perceived difficulty in reading and maintaining it (and that's putting correctness aside for now). So my question is: why? Is it because it's easy to learn? Is it because it's faster? Is it because it's the industry standard? Is it because there are already so many reusable regexes to build from? Is it because 100% correctness is never really the objective? (90% good enough?) etc... I'd also like to hear from the downvoters why they did so. Is it because: There's absolutely nothing wrong with using regex to parse HTML and asking "Why?" is just dumb? The premise of the question is flawed because the people who are using regex to parse HTML is such a small minority?

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  • help me to choose between two designs

    - by alex
    // stupid title, but I could not think anything smarter I have a code (see below, sorry for long code but it's very-very simple): namespace Option1 { class AuxClass1 { string _field1; public string Field1 { get { return _field1; } set { _field1 = value; } } // another fields. maybe many fields maybe several properties public void Method1() { // some action } public void Method2() { // some action 2 } } class MainClass { AuxClass1 _auxClass; public AuxClass1 AuxClass { get { return _auxClass; } set { _auxClass = value; } } public MainClass() { _auxClass = new AuxClass1(); } } } namespace Option2 { class AuxClass1 { string _field1; public string Field1 { get { return _field1; } set { _field1 = value; } } // another fields. maybe many fields maybe several properties public void Method1() { // some action } public void Method2() { // some action 2 } } class MainClass { AuxClass1 _auxClass; public string Field1 { get { return _auxClass.Field1; } set { _auxClass.Field1 = value; } } public void Method1() { _auxClass.Method1(); } public void Method2() { _auxClass.Method2(); } public MainClass() { _auxClass = new AuxClass1(); } } } class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { // Option1 Option1.MainClass mainClass1 = new Option1.MainClass(); mainClass1.AuxClass.Field1 = "string1"; mainClass1.AuxClass.Method1(); mainClass1.AuxClass.Method2(); // Option2 Option2.MainClass mainClass2 = new Option2.MainClass(); mainClass2.Field1 = "string2"; mainClass2.Method1(); mainClass2.Method2(); Console.ReadKey(); } } What option (option1 or option2) do you prefer ? In which cases should I use option1 or option2 ? Is there any special name for option1 or option2 (composition, aggregation) ?

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  • best-practice on for loop's condition

    - by guest
    what is considered best-practice in this case? for (i=0; i<array.length(); ++i) or for (i=array.length(); i>0; --i) assuming i don't want to iterate from a certain direction, but rather over the bare length of the array. also, i don't plan to alter the array's size in the loop body. so, will the array.length() become constant during compilation? if not, then the second approach should be the one to go for..

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  • Python-based password tracker (or dictionary)

    - by Arrieta
    Hello: Where we work we need to remember about 10 long passwords which need to change every so often. I would like to create a utility which can potentially save these passwords in an encrypted file so that we can keep track of them. I can think of some sort of dictionary passwd = {'host1':'pass1', 'host2':'pass2'}, etc, but I don't know what to do about encryption (absolutely zero experience in the topic). So, my question is really two questions: Is there a Linux-based utility which lets you do that? If you were to program it in Python, how would you go about it? A perk of approach two, would be for the software to update the ssh public keys after the password has been changed (you know the pain of updating ~15 tokens once you change your password). As it can be expected, I have zero control over the actual network configuration and the management of scp keys. I can only hope to provide a simple utility to me an my very few coworkers so that, if we need to, we can retrieve a password on demand. Cheers.

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  • Building a life-critical System using Agile

    - by Ben Breen
    Looking at the general trend of comments in my question about Building an Aircraft using Agile, the biggest problem other than cost appears to be safety. Do people feel that it is not possible to build a safe system (or prove it is safe) using agile? Doesn’t all the iterative testing mitigate this? Is it likely that a piece of software developed using agile will never be as reliable as counterparts such as waterfall?

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  • What's a unit test? [closed]

    - by Tyler
    Possible Duplicates: What is unit testing and how do you do it? What is unit testing? I recognize that to 95% of you, this is a very WTF question. So. What's a unit test? I understand that essentially you're attempting to isolate atomic functionality but how do you test for that? When is it necessary? When is it ridiculous? Can you give an example? (Preferably in C? I mostly hear about it from Java devs on this site so maybe this is specific to Object Oriented languages? I really don't know.) I know many programmers swear by unit testing religiously. What's it all about? EDIT: Also, what's the ratio of time you typically spend writing unit tests to time spent writing new code?

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  • best practice when referring to a program's name in C

    - by guest
    what is considered best practice when referring to a program's name? i've seen #define PROGRAM_NAME "myprog" printf("this is %s\n", PROGRAM_NAME); as well as printf("this is %s\n", argv[0]); i know, that the second approach will give me ./myprog rather than myprog when the program is not called from $PATH and that the first approach will guarantee consistence regarding the program's name. but is there anything else, that makes one approach superior to the other?

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  • Why is Visual Basic used?

    - by Arrieta
    I don't mean to start a holy war here, but I cannot fathom why would anybody use Visual Basic for a new project. Can you explain me why is it used? What new applications (which a lay person may be familiar with) have been developed in it? Why is it chosen over other languages? Thanks.

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  • How to send complete POST to Model in Code Igniter

    - by Constant M
    Hi there, What would be the best way to send a complete post to a model in Code Igniter? Methods I know are as follow: Name form elements as array, eg. <input type="text" name="contact[name]"> <input type="text" name="contact[surname]"> and then use: $this->Model_name->add_contact($this->input->post('contact')); The other would be to add each element to an array and then send it to the model as such: <input type="text" name="name"> <input type="text" name="surname"> and $contact_array = array('name' => $this->input->post('name'), 'surname' => $this->input->post('surname')); $this->Model_name->add_contact($this->input->post('contact')); Which one of these would be best practice, and is there a way to directly send a whole POST to a model (or a whole form maybe?)

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