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• Getting up to speed on modern architecture

  - by Matt Thrower

  Hi, I don't have any formal qualifications in computer science, rather I taught myself classic ASP back in the days of the dotcom boom and managed to get myself a job and my career developed from there. I was a confident and, I think, pretty good programmer in ASP 3 but as others have observed one of the problems with classic ASP was that it did a very good job of hiding the nitty-gritty of http so you could become quite competent as a programmer on the basis of relatively poor understanding of the technology you were working with. When I changed on to .NET at first I treated it like classic ASP, developing stand-alone applications as individual websites simply because I didn't know any better at the time. I moved jobs at this point and spent the next several years working on a single site whose architecture relied heavily on custom objects: in other words I gained a lot of experience working with .NET as a middle-tier development tool using a quite old-fashioned approach to OO design along the lines of the classic "car" class example that's so often used to teach OO. Breaking down programs into blocks of functionality and basing your classes and methods around that. Although we worked under an Agile approach to manage the work the whole setup was classic client/server stuff. That suited me and I gradually got to grips with .NET and started using it far more in the manner that it should be, and I began to see the power inherent in the technology and precisely why it was so much better than good old ASP 3. In my latest job I have found myself suddenly dropped in at the deep end with two quite young, skilled and very cutting-edge programmers. They've built a site architecture which is modelling along a lot of stuff which is new to me and which, in truth I'm having a lot of trouble understanding. The application is built on a cloud computing model with multi-tenancy and the architecture is all loosely coupled using a lot of interfaces, factories and the like. They use nHibernate a lot too. Shortly after I joined, both these guys left and I'm now supposedly the senior developer on a system whose technology and architecture I don't really understand and I have no-one to ask questions of. Except you, the internet. Frankly I feel like I've been pitched in at the deep end and I'm sinking. I'm not sure if this is because I lack the educational background to understand this stuff, if I'm simply not mathematically minded enough for modern computing (my maths was never great - my approach to design is often to simply debug until it works, then refactor until it looks neat), or whether I've simply been presented with too much of too radical a nature at once. But the only way to find out which it is is to try and learn it. So can anyone suggest some good places to start? Good books, tutorials or blogs? I've found a lot of internet material simply presupposes a level of understanding that I just don't have. Your advice is much appreciated. Help a middle-aged, stuck in the mud developer get enthusastic again! Please!

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• Do you ever make a code change and just test rather than trying to fully understand the change you'v

  - by Clay Nichols

  I'm working in a 12 year old code base which I have been the only developer on. There are times that I'll make a a very small change based on an intuition (or quantum leap in logic ;-). Usually I try to deconstruct that change and make sure I read thoroughly the code. However sometimes, (more and more these days) I just test and make sure it had the effect I wanted. (I'm a pretty thorough tester and would test even if I read the code). This works for me and we have surprisingly (compared to most software I see) few bugs escape into the wild. But what I'm wondering is whether this is just the "art" side of coding. Yes, in an ideal world you would exhaustively read every bit of code that your change modified, but I in practice, if you're confident that it only affects a small section of code, is this a common practice? I can obviously see where this would be a disastrous approach in the hands of a poor programmer. But then, I've seen programmers who ostensibly are reading the code and break stuff left and right (in their own code based which only they have been working on).

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• What does the expression "Fail Early" mean, and when would you want to do so?

  - by Andrew Grimm

  What does the expression "Fail Early" mean, and under what circumstances is this approach most useful, and when would you avoid the approach?

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• MapReduce programming system in java-actionscript

  - by eco_bach

  Just finished reading ch23 in the excellent 'Beautiful Code' http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596510046 on Distributed Programming with MapReduce. I understand that MapReduce is a programming system designed for large-scale data processing problems, but I have a hard time getting my head around the basic examples given and how I might apply them in real world situations. Can someone give a simple example of MapReduce implemented using either java, javascript or actionscript?

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

  - 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?

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• Preprocessor #define vs. function pointer - best practice?

  - by Dustin

  I recently started a small personal project (RGB value to BGR value conversion program) in C, and I realised that a function that converts from RGB to BGR can not only perform the conversion but also the inversion. Obviously that means I don't really need two functions rgb2bgr and bgr2rgb. However, does it matter whether I use a function pointer instead of a macro? For example: int rgb2bgr (const int rgb); /* * Should I do this because it allows the compiler to issue * appropriate error messages using the proper function name, * not to mention possible debugging benefits? */ int (*bgr2rgb) (const int bgr) = rgb2bgr; /* * Or should I do this since it is merely a convenience * and they're really the same function anyway? */ #define bgr2rgb(bgr) (rgb2bgr (bgr)) I'm not necessarily looking for a change in execution efficiency as it's more of a subjective question out of curiosity. I am well aware of the fact that type safety is neither lost nor gained using either method. Would the function pointer merely be a convenience or are there more practical benefits to be gained of which I am unaware?

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• Access of private field of another object in copy constructors - Really a problem?

  - by DR

  In my Java application I have some copy-constructors like this public MyClass(MyClass src) { this.field1 = src.field1; this.field2 = src.field2; this.field3 = src.field3; ... } Now Netbeans 6.9 warns about this and I wonder what is wrong with this code? My concerns: Using the getters might introduce unwanted side-effects. The new object might no longer be considered a copy of the original. If it is recommended using the getters, wouldn't it be more consistent if one would use setters for the new instance as well?

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• Finding databases for use in applications

  - by JonF

  Does anyone have some recommendations on how I can find databases for random things that I might want to use in my application. For example, a database of zip code locations, area code cities, car engines, IP address locations, or whatever. I'm just asking generally when you decide you need a bunch of data where are some good places to start looking other than google?

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• Why is 'virtual' optional for overridden methods in derived classes?

  - by squelart

  When a method is declared as virtual in a class, its overrides in derived classes are automatically considered virtual as well, and the C++ language makes this keyword virtual optional in this case: class Base { virtual void f(); }; class Derived : public Base { void f(); // 'virtual' is optional but implied. }; My question is: What is the rationale for making virtual optional? I know that it is not absolutely necessary for the compiler to be told that, but I would think that developers would benefit if such a constraint was enforced by the compiler. E.g., sometimes when I read others' code I wonder if a method is virtual and I have to track down its superclasses to determine that. And some coding standards (Google) make it a 'must' to put the virtual keyword in all subclasses.

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• How to differentiate between exceptions i can show the user, and ones i can't?

  - by Ian Boyd

  i have some business logic that traps some logically invalid situations, e.g. trying to reverse a transaction that was already reversed. In this case the correct action is to inform the user: Transaction already reversed or Cannot reverse a reversing transaction or You do not have permission to reverse transactions or This transaction is on a session that has already been closed or This transaction is too old to be reversed The question is, how do i communicate these exceptional cases back to the calling code, so they can show the user? Do i create a separate exception for each case: catch (ETransactionAlreadyReversedException) MessageBox.Show('Transaction already reversed') catch (EReversingAReversingTransactionException) MessageBox.Show('Cannot reverse a reversing transaction') catch (ENoPermissionToReverseTranasctionException) MessageBox.Show('You do not have permission to reverse transactions') catch (ECannotReverseTransactionOnAlredyClosedSessionException) MessageBox.Show('This transaction is on a session that has already been closed') catch (ECannotReverseTooOldTransactionException) MessageBox.Show('This transaction is too old to be reversed') Downside for this is that when there's a new logical case to show the user: Tranasctions created by NSL cannot be reversed i don't simply show the user a message, and instead it leaks out as an unhandled excpetion, when really it should be handled with another MessageBox. The alternative is to create a single exception class: `EReverseTransactionException` With the understanding that any exception of this type is a logical check, that should be handled with a message box: catch (EReverseTransactionException) But it's still understood that any other exceptions, ones that involve, for example, an memory ECC parity error, continue unhandled. In other words, i don't convert all errors that can be thrown by the ReverseTransaction() method into EReverseTransactionException, only ones that are logically invalid cause of the user.

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• Creating an interface and swappable implementations in python

  - by Blankman

  Hi, Would it be possible to create a class interface in python and various implementations of the interface. Example: I want to create a class for pop3 access (and all methods etc.). If I go with a commercial component, I want to wrap it to adhere to a contract. In the future, if I want to use another component or code my own, I want to be able to swap things out and not have things very tightly coupled. Possible? I'm new to python.

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• Using typedefs (or #defines) on built in types - any sensible reason?

  - by jb

  Well I'm doing some Java - C integration, and throught C library werid type mappings are used (theres more of them;)): #define CHAR char /* 8 bit signed int */ #define SHORT short /* 16 bit signed int */ #define INT int /* "natural" length signed int */ #define LONG long /* 32 bit signed int */ typedef unsigned char BYTE; /* 8 bit unsigned int */ typedef unsigned char UCHAR; /* 8 bit unsigned int */ typedef unsigned short USHORT; /* 16 bit unsigned int */ typedef unsigned int UINT; /* "natural" length unsigned int*/ Is there any legitimate reason not to use them? It's not like char is going to be redefined anytime soon. I can think of: Writing platform/compiler portable code (size of type is underspecified in C/C++) Saving space and time on embedded systems - if you loop over array shorter than 255 on 8bit microprocessor writing: for(uint8_t ii = 0; ii < len; ii++) will give meaureable speedup.

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• Find recipes that can be cooked from provided ingridients

  - by skaurus

  Sorry for bad English :( Suppose i can preliminary organize recipes and ingredients data in any way. How can i effectively conduct search of recipes by user-provided ingredients, preferably sorted by max match - so, first going recipes that use maximum of provided ingridients and do not contain any other ingrs, after them recipes that uses less of provided set and still not any other ingrs, after them recipes with minimum additional requirements and so on? All i can think about is represent recipe ingridients like bitmasks, and compare required bitmask with all recipes, but it is obviously a bad way to go. And related things like Levenstein distance i don't see how to use here. I believe it should be quite common task...

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• How to pass non-fatal warnings from a library

  - by wRAR

  A library function parses a file and returns an object. If a parser encounters unknown data, missing values etc., it shouldn't throw an exception and stop parsing (because this is not fatal), but there should be a way to pass information about these things to a caller (so that warnings can be displayed in the UI, for example). How can these warning be returned? I'm thinking of passing a callback function/object into the library, are there any other possible solutions?

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• Can anyone suggest any good example R packages written using runit or roxygen

  - by PaulHurleyuk

  Hello all, I'm writing an R package that's going to be used by others, so I'm trying to get this one right ! I want to use roxygen for documentation and runit for unit testing, but I haven't used them before. Can anyone suggest any packages (either on CRAN or elsewhere) that use either of these tools well ?

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• C++ Headers/Source Files

  - by incrediman

  (Duplicate of C++ Code in Header Files) What is the standard way to split up C++ classes between header and source files? Am I supposed to put everything in the header file? Or should I declare the classes in the header file and define them in a .cpp file (source file)? Sorry if I'm shaky on the terminology here (declare, define, etc). So what's the standard?

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• What is the reason not to use select * ?

  - by Chris Lively

  I've seen a number of people claim that you should specifically name each column you want in your select query. Assuming I'm going to use all of the columns anyway, why would I not use SELECT *? Even considering the question from 9/24, I don't think this is an exact duplicate as I'm approaching the issue from a slightly different perspective. One of our principles is to not optimize before it's time. With that in mind, it seems like using SELECT * should be the preferred method until it is proven to be a resource issue or the schema is pretty much set in stone. Which, as we know, won't occur until development is completely done. That said, is there an overriding issue to not use SELECT *?

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• Bad Design? Constructor of composition uses `this`

  - by tanascius

  Example: class MyClass { Composition m_Composition; void MyClass() { m_Composition = new Composition( this ); } } I am interested in using depenency-injection here. So I will have to refactor the constructor to something like: void MyClass( Composition composition ) { m_Composition = composition; } However I get a problem now, since the Composition-object relies on the object of type MyClass which is just created. Can a dependency container resolve this? Is it supposed to do so? Or is it just bad design from the beginning on?

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• Technical non-terminating condition in a loop

  - by Snarfblam

  Most of us know that a loop should not have a non-terminating condition. For example, this C# loop has a non-terminating condition: any even value of i. This is an obvious logic error. void CountByTwosStartingAt(byte i) { // If i is even, it never exceeds 254 for(; i < 255; i += 2) { Console.WriteLine(i); } } Sometimes there are edge cases that are extremely unlikeley, but technically constitute non-exiting conditions (stack overflows and out-of-memory errors aside). Suppose you have a function that counts the number of sequential zeros in a stream: int CountZeros(Stream s) { int total = 0; while(s.ReadByte() == 0) total++; return total; } Now, suppose you feed it this thing: class InfiniteEmptyStream:Stream { // ... Other members ... public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count) { Array.Clear(buffer, offset, count); // Output zeros return count; // Never returns -1 (end of stream) } } Or more realistically, maybe a stream that returns data from external hardware, which in certain cases might return lots of zeros (such as a game controller sitting on your desk). Either way we have an infinite loop. This particular non-terminating condition stands out, but sometimes they don't. A completely real-world example as in an app I'm writing. An endless stream of zeros will be deserialized into infinite "empty" objects (until the collection class or GC throws an exception because I've exceeded two billion items). But this would be a completely unexpected circumstance (considering my data source). How important is it to have absolutely no non-terminating conditions? How much does this affect "robustness?" Does it matter if they are only "theoretically" non-terminating (is it okay if an exception represents an implicit terminating condition)? Does it matter whether the app is commercial? If it is publicly distributed? Does it matter if the problematic code is in no way accessible through a public interface/API? Edit: One of the primary concerns I have is unforseen logic errors that can create the non-terminating condition. If, as a rule, you ensure there are no non-terminating conditions, you can identify or handle these logic errors more gracefully, but is it worth it? And when? This is a concern orthogonal to trust.

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• How to track IIS server performance

  - by Chris Brandsma

  I have a reoccurring issue where a customer calls up and complains that the web site is too slow. Specifically, if they are inactive for a short period of time, then go back to the site, there will be a minute-two minute delay before the user sees a response. (the standard browser is Firefox in this case) I have Perfmon up and running, the cpu utilization is usually below 20% (single proc...don't ask). The database is humming along. And I'm pulling my hair out. So, what metrics/tools do you find useful when evaluating IIS performance?

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• package private static member class vs. package private class

  - by Helper Method

  I was writing two implementations of a linked list for an assignment, a doubly linked list and a circular doubly linked list. Now as the class representing a Link within the linked list is the same in both implementations, I want to use it in both. Now I wonder which approach would be better: Implement the Link class as a package private static member class in the first implementation and then use this class in the second implementation or make the Link class a package private class.

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• ASP.NET MVC Filters: How to set Viewdata for Dropdown based on action parameter

  - by CRice

  Hi, Im loading an entity 'Member' from its id in route data. [ListItemsForMembershipType(true)] public ActionResult Edit(Member someMember) {...} The attribute on the action loads the membership type list items for a dropdown box and sticks it in viewdata. This is fine for add forms, and search forms (it gets all active items) but I need the attribute to execute BASED ON THE VALUE someMember.MembershipTypeId, because its current value must always be present when loading the item (i.e. all active items, plus the one from the loaded record). So the question is, what is the standard pattern for this? How can my attribute accept the value or should I be loading the viewdata for the drop down in a controller supertype or during model binding or something else? It is in an attribute now because the code to set the viewdata would otherwise be duplicated in each usage in each action.

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• Tool that auto-generate a code for accesing a xml-file

  - by alex

  My application have a configuration xml-file. That file contains more than 50 program settings. At the present time I read and save each program setting separately. I guess It is not effi?iently for such tasks. I need something that can auto-generate a code for load and save my program settings using predefined xml-schema. I found a dataset in Add New Item dialog. Unfortunately, i cannot add new code to dataset1 such as events in set-accessors of properties because of this // Changes to this file may cause incorrect behavior and will be lost if // the code is regenerated. Maybe, there is a tool that allows a user to generate a wrapper for accesing a xml-file ? Such as DataSet1, but with availability to add events.

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• highlite text parts with jquery, best practice

  - by helle

  Hey guys, i have a list of items containig names. then i have a eventlistener, which ckecks for keypress event. if the user types i.g. an A all names starting with an A should be viewed with the A bold. so all starting As should be bold. what is the best way using jquery to highlite only a part of a string? thanks for your help

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• Simplest way to create a wrapper class around some strings for a WPF DataGrid?

  - by Joel

  I'm building a simple hex editor in C#, and I've decided to use each cell in a DataGrid to display a byte*. I know that DataGrid will take a list and display each object in the list as a row, and each of that object's properties as columns. I want to display rows of 16 bytes each, which will require a wrapper with 16 string properties. While doable, it's not the most elegant solution. Is there an easier way? I've already tried creating a wrapper around a public string array of size 16, but that doesn't seem to work. Thanks *The rational for this is that I can have spaces between each byte without having to strip them all out when I want to save my edited file. Also it seems like it'll be easier to label the rows and columns.

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