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  • Reading data in from file

    - by user667430
    Hi Here is link if you want to download application: Simple banking app Text file with data to read I am trying to create a simple banking application that reads in data from a text file. So far i have managed to read in all the customers which there are 20 of them. However when reading in the accounts and transactions stuff it only reads in 20 but there is alot more in the text file. Here is what i have so far. I think it has something to do with the nested for loop in the getNextCustomer method. using System; using System.Collections; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.IO; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; namespace e_SOFT_Banking { public partial class Form1 : Form { public static ArrayList bankDetails = new ArrayList(); public static ArrayList accDetails = new ArrayList(); public static ArrayList tranDetails = new ArrayList(); string inputDataFile = @"C:\e-SOFT_v1.txt"; const int numCustItems = 14; const int numAccItems = 7; const int numTransItems = 5; public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); setUpBank(); } private void btnShowData_Click_1(object sender, EventArgs e) { showListsOfCust(); } private void setUpBank() { readData(); } private void showListsOfCust() { listBox1.Items.Clear(); foreach (Customer c in bankDetails) listBox1.Items.Add(c.getCustomerNumber() + " " + c.getCustomerTitle() + " " + c.getFirstName() + " " + c.getInitials() + " " + c.getSurname() + " " + c.getDateOfBirth() + " " + c.getHouseNameNumber() + " " + c.getStreetName() + " " + c.getArea() + " " + c.getCityTown() + " " + c.getCounty() + " " + c.getPostcode() + " " + c.getPassword() + " " + c.getNumberAccounts()); foreach (Account a in accDetails) listBox1.Items.Add(a.getAccSort() + " " + a.getAccNumber() + " " + a.getAccNick() + " " + a.getAccDate() + " " + a.getAccCurBal() + " " + a.getAccOverDraft() + " " + a.getAccNumTrans()); foreach (Transaction t in tranDetails) listBox1.Items.Add(t.getDate() + " " + t.getType() + " " + t.getDescription() + " " + t.getAmount() + " " + t.getBalAfter()); } private void readData() { StreamReader readerIn = null; Transaction curTrans; Account curAcc; Customer curCust; bool anyMoreData; string[] customerData = new string[numCustItems]; string[] accountData = new string[numAccItems]; string[] transactionData = new string[numTransItems]; if (readOK(inputDataFile, ref readerIn)) { anyMoreData = getNextCustomer(readerIn, customerData, accountData, transactionData); while (anyMoreData == true) { curCust = new Customer(customerData[0], customerData[1], customerData[2], customerData[3], customerData[4], customerData[5], customerData[6], customerData[7], customerData[8], customerData[9], customerData[10], customerData[11], customerData[12], customerData[13]); curAcc = new Account(accountData[0], accountData[1], accountData[2], accountData[3], accountData[4], accountData[5], accountData[6]); curTrans = new Transaction(transactionData[0], transactionData[1], transactionData[2], transactionData[3], transactionData[4]); bankDetails.Add(curCust); accDetails.Add(curAcc); tranDetails.Add(curTrans); anyMoreData = getNextCustomer(readerIn, customerData, accountData, transactionData); } if (readerIn != null) readerIn.Close(); } } private bool getNextCustomer(StreamReader inNext, string[] nextCustomerData, string[] nextAccountData, string[] nextTransactionData) { string nextLine; int numCItems = nextCustomerData.Count(); int numAItems = nextAccountData.Count(); int numTItems = nextTransactionData.Count(); for (int i = 0; i < numCItems; i++) { nextLine = inNext.ReadLine(); if (nextLine != null) { nextCustomerData[i] = nextLine; if (i == 13) { int cItems = Convert.ToInt32(nextCustomerData[13]); for (int q = 0; q < cItems; q++) { for (int a = 0; a < numAItems; a++) { nextLine = inNext.ReadLine(); nextAccountData[a] = nextLine; if (a == 6) { int aItems = Convert.ToInt32(nextAccountData[6]); for (int w = 0; w < aItems; w++) { for (int t = 0; t < numTItems; t++) { nextLine = inNext.ReadLine(); nextTransactionData[t] = nextLine; } } } } } } } else return false; } return true; } private bool readOK(string readFile, ref StreamReader readerIn) { try { readerIn = new StreamReader(readFile); return true; } catch (FileNotFoundException notFound) { MessageBox.Show("ERROR Opening file (when reading data in)" + " - File could not be found.\n" + notFound.Message); return false; } catch (Exception e) { MessageBox.Show("ERROR Opening File (when reading data in)" + "- Operation failed.\n" + e.Message); return false; } } } } I also have three classes one for customers, one for accounts and one for transactions, which follow in that order. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; namespace e_SOFT_Banking { class Customer { private string customerNumber; private string customerTitle; private string firstName; private string initials; //not required - defaults to null private string surname; private string dateOfBirth; private string houseNameNumber; private string streetName; private string area; //not required - defaults to null private string cityTown; private string county; private string postcode; private string password; private int numberAccounts; public Customer(string theCustomerNumber, string theCustomerTitle, string theFirstName, string theInitials, string theSurname, string theDateOfBirth, string theHouseNameNumber, string theStreetName, string theArea, string theCityTown, string theCounty, string thePostcode, string thePassword, string theNumberAccounts) { customerNumber = theCustomerNumber; customerTitle = theCustomerTitle; firstName = theFirstName; initials = theInitials; surname = theSurname; dateOfBirth = theDateOfBirth; houseNameNumber = theHouseNameNumber; streetName = theStreetName; area = theArea; cityTown = theCityTown; county = theCounty; postcode = thePostcode; password = thePassword; setNumberAccounts(theNumberAccounts); } public string getCustomerNumber() { return customerNumber; } public string getCustomerTitle() { return customerTitle; } public string getFirstName() { return firstName; } public string getInitials() { return initials; } public string getSurname() { return surname; } public string getDateOfBirth() { return dateOfBirth; } public string getHouseNameNumber() { return houseNameNumber; } public string getStreetName() { return streetName; } public string getArea() { return area; } public string getCityTown() { return cityTown; } public string getCounty() { return county; } public string getPostcode() { return postcode; } public string getPassword() { return password; } public int getNumberAccounts() { return numberAccounts; } public void setCustomerNumber(string inCustomerNumber) { customerNumber = inCustomerNumber; } public void setCustomerTitle(string inCustomerTitle) { customerTitle = inCustomerTitle; } public void setFirstName(string inFirstName) { firstName = inFirstName; } public void setInitials(string inInitials) { initials = inInitials; } public void setSurname(string inSurname) { surname = inSurname; } public void setDateOfBirth(string inDateOfBirth) { dateOfBirth = inDateOfBirth; } public void setHouseNameNumber(string inHouseNameNumber) { houseNameNumber = inHouseNameNumber; } public void setStreetName(string inStreetName) { streetName = inStreetName; } public void setArea(string inArea) { area = inArea; } public void setCityTown(string inCityTown) { cityTown = inCityTown; } public void setCounty(string inCounty) { county = inCounty; } public void setPostcode(string inPostcode) { postcode = inPostcode; } public void setPassword(string inPassword) { password = inPassword; } public void setNumberAccounts(string inNumberAccounts) { try { numberAccounts = Convert.ToInt32(inNumberAccounts); } catch (FormatException invalidInput) { System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("ERROR" + invalidInput.Message + "Please enter a valid number"); } } } } Accounts: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; namespace e_SOFT_Banking { class Account { private string accSort; private Int64 accNumber; private string accNick; private string accDate; //not required - defaults to null private double accCurBal; private double accOverDraft; private int accNumTrans; public Account(string theAccSort, string theAccNumber, string theAccNick, string theAccDate, string theAccCurBal, string theAccOverDraft, string theAccNumTrans) { accSort = theAccSort; setAccNumber(theAccNumber); accNick = theAccNick; accDate = theAccDate; setAccCurBal(theAccCurBal); setAccOverDraft(theAccOverDraft); setAccNumTrans(theAccNumTrans); } public string getAccSort() { return accSort; } public long getAccNumber() { return accNumber; } public string getAccNick() { return accNick; } public string getAccDate() { return accDate; } public double getAccCurBal() { return accCurBal; } public double getAccOverDraft() { return accOverDraft; } public int getAccNumTrans() { return accNumTrans; } public void setAccSort(string inAccSort) { accSort = inAccSort; } public void setAccNumber(string inAccNumber) { try { accNumber = Convert.ToInt64(inAccNumber); } catch (FormatException invalidInput) { System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("ERROR" + invalidInput.Message + "Please enter a valid number"); } } public void setAccNick(string inAccNick) { accNick = inAccNick; } public void setAccDate(string inAccDate) { accDate = inAccDate; } public void setAccCurBal(string inAccCurBal) { try { accCurBal = Convert.ToDouble(inAccCurBal); } catch (FormatException invalidInput) { System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("ERROR" + invalidInput.Message + "Please enter a valid number"); } } public void setAccOverDraft(string inAccOverDraft) { try { accOverDraft = Convert.ToDouble(inAccOverDraft); } catch (FormatException invalidInput) { System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("ERROR" + invalidInput.Message + "Please enter a valid number"); } } public void setAccNumTrans(string inAccNumTrans) { try { accNumTrans = Convert.ToInt32(inAccNumTrans); } catch (FormatException invalidInput) { System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("ERROR" + invalidInput.Message + "Please enter a valid number"); } } } } Transactions: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; namespace e_SOFT_Banking { class Transaction { private string date; private string type; private string description; private double amount; //not required - defaults to null private double balAfter; public Transaction(string theDate, string theType, string theDescription, string theAmount, string theBalAfter) { date = theDate; type = theType; description = theDescription; setAmount(theAmount); setBalAfter(theBalAfter); } public string getDate() { return date; } public string getType() { return type; } public string getDescription() { return description; } public double getAmount() { return amount; } public double getBalAfter() { return balAfter; } public void setDate(string inDate) { date = inDate; } public void setType(string inType) { type = inType; } public void setDescription(string inDescription) { description = inDescription; } public void setAmount(string inAmount) { try { amount = Convert.ToDouble(inAmount); } catch (FormatException invalidInput) { System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("ERROR" + invalidInput.Message + "Please enter a valid number"); } } public void setBalAfter(string inBalAfter) { try { balAfter = Convert.ToDouble(inBalAfter); } catch (FormatException invalidInput) { System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("ERROR" + invalidInput.Message + "Please enter a valid number"); } } } } Any help greatly appreciated.

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  • Hosting and domain registrations for multiple clients

    - by letseatfood
    I am finally getting regular work desiging, developing, and deploying websites for small businesses and individuals. So far the websites utilize single-user content management systems, so the websites create, as far as I know, minimal load on the shared servers. I have always required that each of my clients purchase annual shared hosting at Dreamhost. For domain registration, I ask that they register with Dreamhost, but some already have a registered domain elsewhere and this is fine with me. I do this so the billing issues are the client's responsibility, not mine. My question is: Since I can register unlimited domains and connect them to my one shared hosting account at Dreamhost, should I not be requiring clients to individually pay for shared hosting and a domain? Should I actually be paying for one hosting account and then hosting all of my client's websites on that account? As I said before, I currently have each client buy their own hosting, because I feel that, for example, if there is high traffic to their site, there would be less a chance of the site going down than if their site was hosted with many others on one account. I am famous for being long-winded, please let me know if I can clarify at all. Thanks!

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  • Is my client correct that I cannot take a vacation as a subcontractor? [closed]

    - by Rae Ann
    I have 2 clients who I do ongoing work for as a subcontractor. Both are sporadic and part-time. Company A sent me to a 3 day certification course out of state. The following week I was scheduled for a 3 day vacation. I warned company B three weeks prior to these events. During my training that Company A was paying for, Company B asked me to leave the training to workon something for them that needed immediate attention. I declined. However I made arrangements to work on it in the evening and in the early mornings after they threatened to take the work and all subsequent work for this client to someone else. I lost all networking and fun from that trip... The following week I was in Florida and was again asked to do more work on the project after the feedback from the client. The integrated product personnel would not cooperate/return any of our calls so I did the best I could. I turned in the work, explained the issue and then was gone for 3 hours. When I returned, all my access to the project had been revoked and after a week of my calls and emails I found out they replaced me. I sent an invoice 3 weeks ago and they tell me they owe me nothing because I did not do the whole project and they cannot bill the client for what I did, because they are billing for the second contractor who started over. I was told that they realize I was on vacation but as a subcontractor I lose the ability to just disappear. I was gone 3 hours! Is this normal, correct, legal?? Not only did they ruin my class and my vacation, but now they expect me to not demand payment? They ended our relationship and I was in the middle of another project of theirs too. They told me to immediately cease all work for them. How do I get paid for the work I have yet to invoice this month?

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  • What technologies are needed to be a freelance web developer / designer targeting small businesses?

    - by Jason Wirth
    First off, I'm not looking for this answer: "learn PHP/MySQL, JQuery, HTML/CSS...." My background, I wear many hats, and do many things. Currently I manage investment accounts with a business partner who is also a friend. He happens to be attending business / law school perusing a joint JD and MBA. As a result, we're putting our into "coast", maintaining our current clients, but not acquiring more. Recently I've picked up some freelance graphic design / web development / online marketing side work (Photoshop, HTML/CSS, WordPress) through some personal networks. The work is enjoyable; now I'm thinking about expanding it into a larger business with these primary goals: augment my finances (I'm shooting for about $1,000-2,000 per mo.), learn new technologies, involve myself with meaningful work. As an entrepreneur I don't mind the aspects of running a business that hassle other freelancers... -- the marketing -- the billing -- etc. I'm considering targeting the small to middle market businesses and organizations where I can contribute in marketing, design, and development building projects from the ground up. Thus I'll have freedom to decide the specific technology (I won't have to work with an existing code base). What kinds of projects should I focus on? What technologies are a good fit for this style of work? For example: It might be fun to develop with Ruby on Rails. However, maybe a lot of projects would be rolling out e-commerce solutions. Thus, I should focus on PHP due to more shopping cart options, skipping ROR entirely.

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  • Synchronizing 3 servers over IP

    - by user93078
    I'm setting up a medical server for a hospital that has doctors located in 3 different locations, meaning there would be 3 servers (1 in each location). All 3 servers would just have the following software: Ubuntu Server 12.04 minimal MySQL, PHP 5, Apache The medical software which would read/write to the MySQL database Remote admin apps like Nagios & Webmin Rsync for backup (rsync-over-ssh) as a cron job and the doctors at each location would access patient & billing data from their respective servers. What I'd like is, that each of these servers all have synchronized info (especially the mySQL database's) - let's say on an hourly basis each of these servers synchronize data to a common remote server and the data is then brought down to each of the servers. I know an easier way would be to have the medical app running on a remote web server, but since this is medical that we're talking about and knowing how common it is in our area for the net to go gown, I wouldn't like a web based scenatio. Is such a setup possible? Would this be the right way to do things or is there a better way to this? Would really appreciate views and comments (or how to set this up) on this.

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  • New Versions of Whitepapers are available

    - by Anthony Shorten
    The set of whitepapers that are available are progressively being updated and republished to reflect new versions of the products as well new advice for existing customers. A number of whitepapers are now available that have been updated (the My Oracle Support Doc Id is indicated): What’s New in Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4 (Doc Id: 1177265.1) -  This has been updated for the latest facilities in Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4.1. Batch Best Practices (Doc Id: 836362.1) – This has been updated for newer advice including more details of how CLUSTERED mode works, how to migrate to CLUSTERED mode and some configuration examples to cover typical configuration scenarios. Oracle Utilities Application Framework Architecture Guidelines (Doc Id: 807068.1) – This has been updated to reflect additional architecture advice. Performance Troubleshooting Guides (Doc Id: 560382.1) – This has been updated for the latest facilities in Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4.1 and includes additional techniques that have been used by customers to track performance. The whitepapers apply to all Oracle Utilities Application Framework Products which at the present time includes: Oracle Utilities Customer Care And Billing (V2.x) Oracle Enterprise Taxation Management (V2.x) Oracle Utilities Business Intelligence (V2.x) Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (V2.x) Oracle Utilities Mobile Workforce Management (V2.x) Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway (V2.x) Additional whitepapers and updates will be posted as they are available.

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  • How do I make my customers not like me too much?

    - by fuzzbone
    In 2004 I went to work for a consulting firm because I like variety, challenges, working with new technologies, etc. However, I've been a developer for 25 years - and spent the majority of my career as a direct-hire (12 years) then as an independent consultant for another 3 years (ah the DotCom bubble!) for one firm. So my instincts are more like a good internal developer than a consultant. My problem is what I call the "catch-22" of consulting. You go into consulting because you want to work at a lot of different engagements, but if you do a really good job your clients never want to let you go. And of course the salespeople are happy to keep you billing (and don’t want to alienate a good customer) So my question is – how do I overcome this? I have had some colleagues who had just the right type of “arrogance” (for lack of a better term) that made them initially attractive to some clients, but would grate on them over time – but that just isn’t my style. I want to do good work and be successful for my clients, but be able to “gracefully” move on after a reasonable amount of time.

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  • Why is this PHP loop rendering every row twice?

    - by Christopher
    I'm working on a real frankensite here not of my own design. There's a rudimentary CMS and one of the pages shows customer records from a MySQL DB. For some reason, it has no probs picking up the data from the DB - there's no duplicate records - but it renders each row twice. <?php $limit = 500; $area = 'customers_list'; $prc = 'customer_list.php'; if($_GET['page']) { include('inc/functions.php'); $page = $_GET['page']; } else { $page = 1; } $limitvalue = $page * $limit - ($limit); $customers_check = get_customers(); $customers = get_customers($limitvalue, $limit); $totalrows = count($customers_check); ?> <!-- pid: customer_list --> <table border="0" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 20px;"> <tr> <td class="col_title" width="200">Name</td> <td></td> <td class="col_title" width="200">Town/City</td> <td></td> <td class="col_title">Telephone</td> <td></td> </tr> <?php for ($i = 0; $i < count($customers); $i++) { ?> <tr> <td colspan="2" class="cus_col_1"><a href="customer_details.php?id=<?php echo $customers[$i]['customer_id']; ?>"><?php echo $customers[$i]['surname'].', '.$customers[$i]['first_name']; ?></a></td> <td colspan="2" class="cus_col_2"><?php echo $customers[$i]['town']; ?></td> <td class="cus_col_1"><?php echo $customers[$i]['telephone']; ?></td> <td class="cus_col_2"> <a href="javascript: single_execute('prc/customers.prc.php?delete=yes&id=<?php echo $customers[$i]['customer_id']; ?>')" onClick="return confirmdel();" class="btn_maroon_small" style="margin: 0px; float: right; margin-right: 10px;"><div class="btn_maroon_small_left"> <div class="btn_maroon_small_right">Delete Account</div> </div></a> <a href="customer_edit.php?id=<?php echo $customers[$i]['customer_id']; ?>" class="btn_black" style="margin: 0px; float: right; margin-right: 10px;"><div class="btn_black_left"> <div class="btn_black_right">Edit Account</div> </div></a> <a href="mailto: <?php echo $customers[$i]['email']; ?>" class="btn_black" style="margin: 0px; float: right; margin-right: 10px;"><div class="btn_black_left"> <div class="btn_black_right">Email Customer</div> </div></a> </td> </tr> <tr><td class="col_divider" colspan="6"></td></tr> <?php }; ?> </table> <!--///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////--> <!--// PAGINATION--> <!--///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////--> <div class="pagination_holder"> <?php if($page != 1) { $pageprev = $page-1; ?> <a href="javascript: change('<?php echo $area; ?>', '<?php echo $prc; ?>?page=<?php echo $pageprev; ?>');" class="pagination_left">Previous</a> <?php } else { ?> <div class="pagination_left, page_grey">Previous</div> <?php } ?> <div class="pagination_middle"> <?php $numofpages = $totalrows / $limit; for($i = 1; $i <= $numofpages; $i++) { if($i == $page) { ?> <div class="page_number_selected"><?php echo $i; ?></div> <?php } else { ?> <a href="javascript: change('<?php echo $area; ?>', '<?php echo $prc; ?>?page=<?php echo $i; ?>');" class="page_number"><?php echo $i; ?></a> <?php } } if(($totalrows % $limit) != 0) { if($i == $page) { ?> <div class="page_number_selected"><?php echo $i; ?></div> <?php } else { ?> <a href="javascript: change('<?php echo $area; ?>', '<?php echo $prc; ?>?page=<?php echo $i; ?>');" class="page_number"><?php echo $i; ?></a> <?php } } ?> </div> <?php if(($totalrows - ($limit * $page)) > 0) { $pagenext = $page+1; ?> <a href="javascript: change('<?php echo $area; ?>', '<?php echo $prc; ?>?page=<?php echo $pagenext; ?>');" class="pagination_right">Next</a> <?php } else { ?> <div class="pagination_right, page_grey">Next</div> <?php } ?> </div> <!--///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////--> <!--// END PAGINATION--> <!--///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////--> I'm not the world's best PHP expert but I think I can see an error in a for loop when there is one... But everything looks ok to me. You'll notice that the customer name is clickable; clicking takes you to another page where you can view their full info as held in the DB - and for both rows, the customer ID is identical, and manually checking the DB shows there's no duplicate entries. The code is definitely rendering each row twice, but for what reason I have no idea. All pointers / advice appreciated.

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  • How can I use Perl regular expressions to parse XML data?

    - by Luke
    I have a pretty long piece of XML that I want to parse. I want to remove everything except for the subclass-code and city. So that I am left with something like the example below. EXAMPLE TEST SUBCLASS|MIAMI CODE <?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?> <web-export> <run-date>06/01/2010 <pub-code>TEST <ad-type>TEST <cat-code>Real Estate</cat-code> <class-code>TEST</class-code> <subclass-code>TEST SUBCLASS</subclass-code> <placement-description></placement-description> <position-description>Town House</position-description> <subclass3-code></subclass3-code> <subclass4-code></subclass4-code> <ad-number>0000284708-01</ad-number> <start-date>05/28/2010</start-date> <end-date>06/09/2010</end-date> <line-count>6</line-count> <run-count>13</run-count> <customer-type>Private Party</customer-type> <account-number>100099237</account-number> <account-name>DOE, JOHN</account-name> <addr-1>207 CLARENCE STREET</addr-1> <addr-2> </addr-2> <city>MIAMI</city> <state>FL</state> <postal-code>02910</postal-code> <country>USA</country> <phone-number>4014612880</phone-number> <fax-number></fax-number> <url-addr> </url-addr> <email-addr>[email protected]</email-addr> <pay-flag>N</pay-flag> <ad-description>DEANESTATES2BEDS2BATHSAPPLIANCED</ad-description> <order-source>Import</order-source> <order-status>Live</order-status> <payor-acct>100099237</payor-acct> <agency-flag>N</agency-flag> <rate-note></rate-note> <ad-content> MIAMI&#47;Dean Estates&#58; 2 beds&#44; 2 baths&#46; Applianced&#46; Central air&#46; Carpets&#46; Laundry&#46; 2 decks&#46; Pool&#46; Parking&#46; Close to everything&#46;No smoking&#46; No utilities&#46; &#36;1275 mo&#46; 401&#45;578&#45;1501&#46; </ad-content> </ad-type> </pub-code> </run-date> </web-export> PERL So what I want to do is open an existing file read the contents then use regular expressions to eliminate the unnecessary XML tags. open(READFILE, "FILENAME"); while(<READFILE>) { $_ =~ s/<\?xml version="(.*)" standalone="(.*)"\?>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<subclass-code>//g; $_ =~ s/<\/subclass-code>\n.*/|/g; $_ =~ s/(.*)PJ RER Houses /PJ RER Houses/g; $_ =~ s/\G //g; $_ =~ s/<city>//g; $_ =~ s/<\/city>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)web-export>(.*)\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)run-date>(.*)\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)pub-code>(.*)\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)ad-type>(.*)\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)cat-code>(.*)<(\/?)cat-code>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)class-code>(.*)<(\/?)class-code>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)placement-description>(.*)<(\/?)placement-description>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)position-description>(.*)<(\/?)position-description>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)subclass3-code>(.*)<(\/?)subclass3-code>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)subclass4-code>(.*)<(\/?)subclass4-code>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)ad-number>(.*)<(\/?)ad-number>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)start-date>(.*)<(\/?)start-date>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)end-date>(.*)<(\/?)end-date>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)line-count>(.*)<(\/?)line-count>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)run-count>(.*)<(\/?)run-count>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)customer-type>(.*)<(\/?)customer-type>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)account-number>(.*)<(\/?)account-number>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)account-name>(.*)<(\/?)account-name>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)addr-1>(.*)<(\/?)addr-1>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)addr-2>(.*)<(\/?)addr-2>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)state>(.*)<(\/?)state>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)postal-code>(.*)<(\/?)postal-code>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)country>(.*)<(\/?)country>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)phone-number>(.*)<(\/?)phone-number>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)fax-number>(.*)<(\/?)fax-number>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)url-addr>(.*)<(\/?)url-addr>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)email-addr>(.*)<(\/?)email-addr>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)pay-flag>(.*)<(\/?)pay-flag>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)ad-description>(.*)<(\/?)ad-description>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)order-source>(.*)<(\/?)order-source>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)order-status>(.*)<(\/?)order-status>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)payor-acct>(.*)<(\/?)payor-acct>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)agency-flag>(.*)<(\/?)agency-flag>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<(\/?)rate-note>(.*)<(\/?)rate-note>\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<ad-content>(.*)\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/\t(.*)\n.*//g; $_ =~ s/<\/ad-content>(.*)\n.*//g; } close( READFILE1 ); Is there an easier way of doing this? I don't want to use any modules. I know that it might make this easier but the file I am reading has a lot of data in it.

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  • What would cause ANY .NET application to crash immediately... except a project I create and Debug in

    - by blak3r
    My software recently got deployed to a customer who said that the application was crashing immediately after it started. After some initial debugging, the customer provided me remote access to one of the computers which was unable to run the application. I found that the crash wasn't specific to my application. Any application which depended on the .NET framework crashed immediately. Conveniently, Visual Studio 2008 was installed so I created a quick hello world application on it and clicked Debug. The application worked fine. But, then when I tried to execute the generated binaries in the /bin/Debug/HelloWorld.exe directory outside of visual studio it crashed. List of things i've tried (UPDATED): I checked that "Everyone" has Read&Execute permissions for c:\Windows. To test that the problem was with the .NET Framework (and not my application), I attempted to download Paint .NET on to the computers. The setup frontend crashed in the same manner. Performed a repair of the .NET framework as outlined in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908077 (Boy was this fun and time consuming). No luck. Installed .NET 3.5 SP1 (before it just had .NET 3.5) Note: my application targets 2.0 so I did this more as a long shot... but i learned in the process that .NET 3.5 SP1 also updates the underlying frameworks. Ran Aaron Stebner's .NET Setup Verification Tool. This tool indicated that .NET was successfully installed. (I forget if i checked all the versions but at least 2.0 worked). Tested some mini hello world applications which were targeted for .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.5 and both crashed in the same way. Tried launching .NET apps via windbg cmd line. Doing this did allow me invoke my simple hello world applications. So, simple .NET hello world works when invoked by windbg or by launching via debug in visual studio... but doesn't if i try to execute it standalone. I created a dump file using WinDbg. It wasn't all that revealing to me. FAULTING_IP: mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+21 79f4ff9d f6401010 test byte ptr [eax+10h],10h EXCEPTION_RECORD: 0012f710 -- (.exr 0x12f710) ExceptionAddress: 79f4ff9d (mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+0x00000021) ExceptionCode: c0000005 (Access violation) ExceptionFlags: 00000000 NumberParameters: 2 Parameter[0]: 00000000 Parameter[1]: 00000010 Attempt to read from address 00000010 FAULTING_THREAD: 00000b44 PROCESS_NAME: MyProcess.exe ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0x80000003 - {EXCEPTION} Breakpoint A breakpoint has been reached. EXCEPTION_CODE: (HRESULT) 0x80000003 (2147483651) - One or more arguments are invalid DETOURED_IMAGE: 1 NTGLOBALFLAG: 0 APPLICATION_VERIFIER_FLAGS: 0 MANAGED_STACK: !dumpstack -EE OS Thread Id: 0xb44 (0) Current frame: ChildEBP RetAddr Caller,Callee EXCEPTION_OBJECT: !pe cb10b4 Exception object: 00cb10b4 Exception type: System.ExecutionEngineException Message: <none> InnerException: <none> StackTrace (generated): <none> StackTraceString: <none> HResult: 80131506 MANAGED_OBJECT_NAME: System.ExecutionEngineException CONTEXT: 0012f72c -- (.cxr 0x12f72c) eax=00000000 ebx=00000000 ecx=00000000 edx=0000000e esi=001a1490 edi=00000001 eip=79f4ff9d esp=0012f9f8 ebp=0012fa1c iopl=0 nv up ei pl zr na pe nc cs=001b ss=0023 ds=0023 es=0023 fs=003b gs=0000 efl=00010246 mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+0x21: 79f4ff9d f6401010 test byte ptr [eax+10h],10h ds:0023:00000010=?? Resetting default scope READ_ADDRESS: 00000010 FOLLOWUP_IP: mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+21 79f4ff9d f6401010 test byte ptr [eax+10h],10h BUGCHECK_STR: APPLICATION_FAULT_NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE_SHUTDOWN PRIMARY_PROBLEM_CLASS: NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE_SHUTDOWN DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE_SHUTDOWN LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from 79ef02b5 to 79f4ff9d STACK_TEXT: 79f4ff9d mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+0x21 79ef02b5 mscorwks!PEFile::GetEntryPointToken+0xa0 79eefeaf mscorwks!SystemDomain::ExecuteMainMethod+0xd4 79fb9793 mscorwks!ExecuteEXE+0x59 79fb96df mscorwks!_CorExeMain+0x15c 7900b1b3 mscoree!_CorExeMain+0x2c 7c817077 kernel32!BaseProcessStart+0x23 SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 0 SYMBOL_NAME: mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+21 FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner MODULE_NAME: mscorwks IMAGE_NAME: mscorwks.dll DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 471ef729 STACK_COMMAND: .cxr 0012F72C ; kb ; dds 12f9f8 ; kb FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE_SHUTDOWN_80000003_mscorwks.dll!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken BUCKET_ID: APPLICATION_FAULT_NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE_SHUTDOWN_DETOURED_mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+21 WATSON_STAGEONE_URL: http://watson.microsoft.com/StageOne/MyProcess_exe/2_4_4_39/4a8a192c/unknown/0_0_0_0/bbbbbbb4/80000003/00000000.htm?Retriage=1 Followup: MachineOwner Edit 1:The event log details for this error say it's a .NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.3053 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (7A097706)(80131506). Edit 2 (10-7-09): This issue is still active. Edit 3 (3-29-10): This update is to let everyone know that I never did successfully solve the problem. The customer who's machine this was on lost interest in solving it and just reimaged the machine :(. Thanks for all the contributions though.

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  • NHibernate unmapped class exception

    - by John Prideaux
    I am trying to implement a one-to-many relationship using NHibernate 2.1.2 but keep getting "Association references unmapped class" exceptions. I have verified that my hbm.xml files are embedded resource. Here are my classes and mappings. Any ideas? public class OrderStatus { public virtual decimal MainCommit { get; set; } public virtual decimal CommitNumber { get; set; } public virtual string InvoiceNumber { get; set; } public virtual string ShipTo { get; set; } public virtual string CustomerOrderNumber { get; set; } public virtual string Station { get; set; } public virtual DateTime RequestedShipDate { get; set; } public virtual decimal EstimatedValue { get; set; } public virtual decimal EstimatedWeight { get; set; } public virtual string Customer { get; set; } public virtual DateTime InvoiceDate { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<Promise> Promises { get; set; } } <class name="AladdinDb.Models.OrderStatus, AladdinDb" table="vorder_status"> <id name="CommitNumber" type="decimal" column="commit_no"> <generator class="assigned"> <param name="property"> Plan </param> </generator> </id> <property name="MainCommit" column="main_commit" type="decimal" /> <property name="InvoiceNumber" column="invoice_no" type="string" /> <property name="ShipTo" column="ship_to" type ="string"/> <property name="CustomerOrderNumber" column="cust_order_no" type="string" /> <property name="Station" column="station" type="string" /> <property name="RequestedShipDate" column="req_ship_date" type="DateTime" /> <property name="EstimatedValue" column="estimated_value" type="decimal"/> <property name="EstimatedWeight" column="estimated_weight" type="decimal" /> <property name="Customer" column="customer" type="string" /> <property name="InvoiceDate" column="invoice_date" /> <set name="Promises"> <key column="commit_no"></key> <one-to-many class="Promise" /> </set> </class> public class Promise { public virtual decimal CommitNumber { get; set; } public virtual DateTime PromiseDate { get; set; } public virtual string WhoAsked { get; set; } public virtual string WhoGave { get; set; } public virtual string Iffy { get; set; } } <class name="AladdinDb.Models.Promise, AladdinDb" table="promise"> <id name="CommitNumber" type="decimal" column="commit_no"> <generator class="assigned" /> </id> <property name="PromiseDate" column="promise_date" /> <property name="WhoAsked" column="who_asked" /> <property name="WhoGave" column="who_gave" /> <property name="Iffy" column="iffy" /> </class>

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  • Recommended ASP.NET Shared Hosting (USA)

    - by coffeeaddict
    Ok, I have to admit I'm getting fed up with www.discountasp.net's pricing model and this annoyance has built up over the past 8 years or so. I've been with them for years and absolutely love them on the technical side, however it's getting ridiculously expensive for so little that you get. I mean here's my scenario: 1) I am running 2 SQL Server databases which costs me $10/ea per month so that's $20/month for 2 and I only get 500 mb disk space which is horrible 2) I am paying $10/mo just for the hosting itself which I only get 1 gig of disk space! I mean common! 3) I am simply running 2 small apps (Screwturn Wiki & Subtext Blog)...so I don't really care if it's up 99% or not, it's not worth paying a total of $300 just to keep these 2 apps running over discountasp.net Anyone else feel the same? Yes, I know they have great support, probably have great servers running behind this but in the end I really don't care as long as my site is up 95% or better. Yes, the hosting toolset rocks. But you know I bet you I can find a similar set somewhere else. I like how I can totally control IIS 7 at discountasp and I can control my own app pool etc. That's very powerful and essential. But anyone have any good alternatives to discountasp that gives me close to the same at a much more reasonable cost point? I mean http://www.m6.net/prices.aspx gives you 10 SQL Databases for $7 and 200 gigs disk space! I don't know about their tools or support but just looking at those numbers and some other hosts I've seen, I feel that discountasp.net is way out of line. They don't even offer any purchasing discounts such as it would be nice if my 2nd SQL Server is only $5/month not $10...stuff like this, to make it much more realistic and fair. Opinions (people who do have discountasp.net, people who have left them, or people who have another host they like)??? But geez $300 just to host a couple DBs and lightweight open source apps? Not worth the price they are charging. I'm almost at a price point that enables me to get a decent dedicated server! I really don't care about beta ASP.NET frameworks support. Not a big deal to me. If you have alternative suggestions rather than your experience with discountasp, I'd like to know how their toolset is. Do you have complete control over your DB in terms of adding users, and same goes for the web app pool, etc.? Discountasp.net's control panel rocks. I don't want to loose the ability to at least control and add virtual directories, recycle my dedicated app pool myself, backup my sql database myself, through tools which is what discountasp does give you. I'd also want to know that the hoster at least gets the latest and greatest in terms of non-beta ASP.NET related frameworks available to its shared hosters.

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  • Magento Onepage Success Conversion Tracking Design Pattern

    - by user1734954
    My intent is to track conversions through multiple channels by inserting third party javascript (for example google analytics, optimizely, pricegrabber etc.) into the footer of onepage success . I've accomplished this by adding a block to the footer reference inside of the checkout success node within local.xml and everything works appropriately. My questions are more about efficiency and extensibility. It occurred to me that it would be better to combine all of the blocks into a single block reference and then use a various methods acting on a single call to the various related models to provide the data needed for insertion into the javascript for each of the conversion tracking scripts. Some examples of the common data that conversion tracking may rely on(pseudo): Order ID , Order Total, Order.LineItem.Name(foreach) and so on Currently for each of the scripts I've made a call to the appropriate model passing the customers last order id as the load value and the calling a get() assigning the return value to a variable and then iterating through the data to match the values with the expectations of the given third party service. All of the data should be pulled once when checkout is complete each third party services may expect different data in different formats Here is an example of one of the conversion tracking template files which loads at the footer of checkout success. $order = Mage::getModel('sales/order')->loadByIncrementId(Mage::getSingleton('checkout/session')->getLastRealOrderId()); $amount = number_format($order->getGrandTotal(),2); $customer = Mage::helper('customer')->getCustomer()->getData(); ?> <script type="text/javascript"> popup_email = '<?php echo($customer['email']);?>'; popup_order_number = '<?php echo $this->getOrderId() ?>'; </script> <!-- PriceGrabber Merchant Evaluation Code --> <script type="text/javascript" charset="UTF-8" src="https://www.pricegrabber.com/rating_merchrevpopjs.php?retid=<something>"></script> <noscript><a href="http://www.pricegrabber.com/rating_merchrev.php?retid=<something>" target=_blank> <img src="https://images.pricegrabber.com/images/mr_noprize.jpg" border="0" width="272" height="238" alt="Merchant Evaluation"></a></noscript> <!-- End PriceGrabber Code --> Having just a single piece of code like this is not that big of a deal, but we are doing similar things with a number of different third party services. Pricegrabber is one of the simpler examples. A more sophisticated tracking service expects a comma separated list of all of the product names, ids, prices, categories , order id etc. I would like to make it all more manageable so my idea to do the following: combine all of the template files into a single file Develop a helper class or library to deliver the data to the conversion template Goals Include Extensibility Minimal Model Calls Minimal Method Calls The Questions 1. Is a Mage helper the best route to take? 2. Is there any design pattern you may recommend for the "helper" class? 3. Why would this the design pattern you've chosen be best for this instance?

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  • When should I use Areas in TFS instead of Team Projects

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    Well, it depends…. If you are a small company that creates a finite number of internal projects then you will find it easier to create a single project for each of your products and have TFS do the heavy lifting with reporting, SharePoint sites and Version Control. But what if you are not… Update 9th March 2010 Michael Fourie gave me some feedback which I have integrated. Ed Blankenship via @edblankenship offered encouragement and a nice quote. Ewald Hofman gave me a couple of Cons, and maybe a few more soon. Ewald’s company, Avanade, currently uses Areas, but it looks like the manual management is getting too much and the project is getting cluttered. What if you are likely to have hundreds of projects, possibly with a multitude of internal and external projects? You might have 1 project for a customer or 10. This is the situation that most consultancies find themselves in and thus they need a more sustainable and maintainable option. What I am advocating is that we should have 1 “Team Project” per customer, and use areas to create “sub projects” within that single “Team Project”. "What you describe is what we generally do internally and what we recommend. We make very heavy use of area path to categorize the work within a larger project." - Brian Harry, Microsoft Technical Fellow & Product Unit Manager for Team Foundation Server   "We tend to use areas to segregate multiple projects in the same team project and it works well." - Tiago Pascoal, Visual Studio ALM MVP   "In general, I believe this approach provides consistency [to multi-product engagements] and lowers the administration and maintenance costs. All good." - Michael Fourie, Visual Studio ALM MVP   “@MrHinsh BTW, I'm very much a fan of very large, if not huge, team projects in TFS. Just FYI :) Use Areas & Iterations.” Ed Blankenship, Visual Studio ALM MVP   This would mean that SSW would have a single Team Project called “SSW” that contains all of our internal projects and consequently all of the Areas and Iteration move down one hierarchy to accommodate this. Where we would have had “\SSW\Sprint 1” we now have “\SSW\SqlDeploy\Sprint1” with “SqlDeploy” being our internal project. At the moment SSW has over 70 internal projects and more than 170 total projects in TFS. This method has long term benefits that help to simplify the support model for companies that often have limited internal support time and many projects. But, there are implications as TFS does not provide this model “out-of-the-box”. These implications stretch across Areas, Iterations, Queries, Project Portal and Version Control. Michael made a good comment, he said: I agree with your approach, assuming that in a multi-product engagement with a client, they are happy to adopt the same process template across all products. If they are not, then it’ll either be easy to convince them or there is a valid reason for having a different template - Michael Fourie, Visual Studio ALM MVP   At SSW we have a standard template that we use and this is applied across the board, to all of our projects. We even apply any changes to the core process template to all of our existing projects as well. If you have multiple projects for the same clients on multiple templates and you want to keep it that way, then this approach will not work for you. However, if you want to standardise as we have at SSW then this approach may benefit you as well. Implications around Areas Areas should be used for topological classification/isolation of work items. You can think of this as architecture areas, organisational areas or even the main features of your application. In our scenario there is an additional top level item that represents the Project / Product that we want to chop our Team Project into. Figure: Creating a sub area to represent a product/project is easy. <teamproject> <teamproject>\<Functional Area/module whatever> Becomes: <teamproject> <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\ <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\<Functional Area/module whatever> Implications around Iterations Iterations should be used for chronological classification/isolation of work items. This could include isolated time boxes, milestones or release timelines and really depends on the logical flow of your project or projects. Due to the new level in Area we need to add the same level to Iteration. This is primarily because it is unlikely that the sprints in each of your projects/products will start and end at the same time. This is just a reality of managing multiple projects. Figure: Adding the same Area value to Iteration as the top level item adds flexibility to Iteration. <teamproject>\Sprint 1 Or <teamproject>\Release 1\Sprint 1 Becomes: <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\Sprint 1 Or <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\Release 1\Sprint 1 Implications around Queries Queries are used to filter your work items based on a specified level of granularity. There are a number of queries that are built into a project created using the MSF Agile 5.0 template, but we now have multiple projects and it would be a pain to have to edit all of the work items every time we changed project, and that would only allow one team to work on one project at a time.   Figure: The Queries that are created in a normal MSF Agile 5.0 project do not quite suit our new needs. In order for project contributors to be able to query based on their project we need a couple of things. The first thing I did was to create an “_Area Template” folder that has a copy of the project layout with all the queries setup to filter based on the “_Area Template” Area and the “_Sprint template” you can see in the Area and Iteration views. Figure: The template is currently easily drag and drop, but you then need to edit the queries to point at the right Area and Iteration. This needs a tool. I then created an “Areas” folder to hold all of the area specific queries. So, when you go to create a new TFS Sub-Project you just drag “_Area Template” while holding “Ctrl” and drop it onto “Areas”. There is a little setup here. That said I managed it in around 10 minutes which is not so bad, and I can imagine it being quite easy to build a tool to create these queries Figure: These new queries can be configured in around 10 minutes, which includes setting up the Area and Iteration as well. Version Control What about your source code? Well, that is the easiest of the lot. Just create a sub folder for each of your projects/products.   Figure: Creating sub folders in source control is easy as “Right click | Create new folder”. <teamproject>\DEV\Main\ Becomes: <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\DEV\Main\ Conclusion I think it is up to each company to make a call on how you want to configure your Team Projects and it depends completely on how many projects/products you are going to have for each customer including yourself. If we decide to utilise this route it will require some configuration to get our 170+ projects into this format, and I will probably be writing some tools to help. Pros You only have one project to upgrade when a process template changes – After going through an upgrade of over 170 project prior to the changes in the RC I can tell you that that many projects is no fun. Standardises your Process Template – You will always have the same Process implementation across projects/products without exception You get tighter control over the permissions – Yes, you can do this on a standard Team Project, but it gets a lot easier with practice. You can “move” work items from one “product” to another – Have we not always wanted to do that. You can rename your projects – Wahoo: everyone wants to do this, now you can. One set of Reporting Services reports to manage – You set an area and iteration to run reports anyway, so you may as well set both. Simplified Check-In Policies– There is only one set of check-in policies per client. This simplifies administration of policies. Simplified Alerts – As alerts are applied across multiple projects this simplifies your alert rules as per client. Cons All of these cons could be mitigated by a custom tool that helps automate creation of “Sub-projects” within Team Projects. This custom tool could create areas, Iteration, permissions, SharePoint and queries. It just does not exist yet :) You need to configure the Areas and Iterations You need to configure the permissions You may need to configure sub sites for SharePoint (depends on your requirement) – If you have two projects/products in the same Team Project then you will not see the burn down for each one out-of-the-box, but rather a cumulative for the Team Project. This is not really that much of a problem as you would have to configure your burndown graphs for your current iteration anyway. note: When you create a sub site to a TFS linked portal it will inherit the settings of its parent site :) This is fantastic as it means that you can easily create sub sites and then set the Area and Iteration path in each of the reports to be the correct one. Every team wants their own customization (via Ewald Hofman) - small teams of 2 persons against teams of 30 – or even outsourcing – need their own process, you cannot allow that because everybody gets the same work item types. note: Luckily at SSW this is not a problem as our template is standardised across all projects and customers. Large list of builds (via Ewald Hofman) – As the build list in Team Explorer is just a flat list it can get very cluttered. note: I would mitigate this by removing any build that has not been run in over 30 days. The build template and workflow will still be available in version control, but it will clean the list. Feedback Now that I have explained this method, what do you think? What other pros and cons can you see? What do you think of this approach? Will you be using it? What tools would you like to support you?   Technorati Tags: Visual Studio ALM,TFS Administration,TFS,Team Foundation Server,Project Planning,TFS Customisation

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  • Implementing a generic repository for WCF data services

    - by cibrax
    The repository implementation I am going to discuss here is not exactly what someone would call repository in terms of DDD, but it is an abstraction layer that becomes handy at the moment of unit testing the code around this repository. In other words, you can easily create a mock to replace the real repository implementation. The WCF Data Services update for .NET 3.5 introduced a nice feature to support two way data bindings, which is very helpful for developing WPF or Silverlight based application but also for implementing the repository I am going to talk about. As part of this feature, the WCF Data Services Client library introduced a new collection DataServiceCollection<T> that implements INotifyPropertyChanged to notify the data context (DataServiceContext) about any change in the association links. This means that it is not longer necessary to manually set or remove the links in the data context when an item is added or removed from a collection. Before having this new collection, you basically used the following code to add a new item to a collection. Order order = new Order {   Name = "Foo" }; OrderItem item = new OrderItem {   Name = "bar",   UnitPrice = 10,   Qty = 1 }; var context = new OrderContext(); context.AddToOrders(order); context.AddToOrderItems(item); context.SetLink(item, "Order", order); context.SaveChanges(); Now, thanks to this new collection, everything is much simpler and similar to what you have in other ORMs like Entity Framework or L2S. Order order = new Order {   Name = "Foo" }; OrderItem item = new OrderItem {   Name = "bar",   UnitPrice = 10,   Qty = 1 }; order.Items.Add(item); var context = new OrderContext(); context.AddToOrders(order); context.SaveChanges(); In order to use this new feature, you first need to enable V2 in the data service, and then use some specific arguments in the datasvcutil tool (You can find more information about this new feature and how to use it in this post). DataSvcUtil /uri:"http://localhost:3655/MyDataService.svc/" /out:Reference.cs /dataservicecollection /version:2.0 Once you use those two arguments, the generated proxy classes will use DataServiceCollection<T> rather than a simple ObjectCollection<T>, which was the default collection in V1. There are some aspects that you need to know to use this feature correctly. 1. All the entities retrieved directly from the data context with a query track the changes and report those to the data context automatically. 2. A entity created with “new” does not track any change in the properties or associations. In order to enable change tracking in this entity, you need to do the following trick. public Order CreateOrder() {   var collection = new DataServiceCollection<Order>(this.context);   var order = new Order();   collection.Add(order);   return order; } You basically need to create a collection, and add the entity to that collection with the “Add” method to enable change tracking on that entity. 3. If you need to attach an existing entity (For example, if you created the entity with the “new” operator rather than retrieving it from the data context with a query) to a data context for tracking changes, you can use the “Load” method in the DataServiceCollection. var order = new Order {   Id = 1 }; var collection = new DataServiceCollection<Order>(this.context); collection.Load(order); In this case, the order with Id = 1 must exist on the data source exposed by the Data service. Otherwise, you will get an error because the entity did not exist. These cool extensions methods discussed by Stuart Leeks in this post to replace all the magic strings in the “Expand” operation with Expression Trees represent another feature I am going to use to implement this generic repository. Thanks to these extension methods, you could replace the following query with magic strings by a piece of code that only uses expressions. Magic strings, var customers = dataContext.Customers .Expand("Orders")         .Expand("Orders/Items") Expressions, var customers = dataContext.Customers .Expand(c => c.Orders.SubExpand(o => o.Items)) That query basically returns all the customers with their orders and order items. Ok, now that we have the automatic change tracking support and the expression support for explicitly loading entity associations, we are ready to create the repository. The interface for this repository looks like this,public interface IRepository { T Create<T>() where T : new(); void Update<T>(T entity); void Delete<T>(T entity); IQueryable<T> RetrieveAll<T>(params Expression<Func<T, object>>[] eagerProperties); IQueryable<T> Retrieve<T>(Expression<Func<T, bool>> predicate, params Expression<Func<T, object>>[] eagerProperties); void Attach<T>(T entity); void SaveChanges(); } The Retrieve and RetrieveAll methods are used to execute queries against the data service context. While both methods receive an array of expressions to load associations explicitly, only the Retrieve method receives a predicate representing the “where” clause. The following code represents the final implementation of this repository.public class DataServiceRepository: IRepository { ResourceRepositoryContext context; public DataServiceRepository() : this (new DataServiceContext()) { } public DataServiceRepository(DataServiceContext context) { this.context = context; } private static string ResolveEntitySet(Type type) { var entitySetAttribute = (EntitySetAttribute)type.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(EntitySetAttribute), true).FirstOrDefault(); if (entitySetAttribute != null) return entitySetAttribute.EntitySet; return null; } public T Create<T>() where T : new() { var collection = new DataServiceCollection<T>(this.context); var entity = new T(); collection.Add(entity); return entity; } public void Update<T>(T entity) { this.context.UpdateObject(entity); } public void Delete<T>(T entity) { this.context.DeleteObject(entity); } public void Attach<T>(T entity) { var collection = new DataServiceCollection<T>(this.context); collection.Load(entity); } public IQueryable<T> Retrieve<T>(Expression<Func<T, bool>> predicate, params Expression<Func<T, object>>[] eagerProperties) { var entitySet = ResolveEntitySet(typeof(T)); var query = context.CreateQuery<T>(entitySet); foreach (var e in eagerProperties) { query = query.Expand(e); } return query.Where(predicate); } public IQueryable<T> RetrieveAll<T>(params Expression<Func<T, object>>[] eagerProperties) { var entitySet = ResolveEntitySet(typeof(T)); var query = context.CreateQuery<T>(entitySet); foreach (var e in eagerProperties) { query = query.Expand(e); } return query; } public void SaveChanges() { this.context.SaveChanges(SaveChangesOptions.Batch); } } For instance, you can use the following code to retrieve customers with First name equal to “John”, and all their orders in a single call. repository.Retrieve<Customer>(    c => c.FirstName == “John”, //Where    c => c.Orders.SubExpand(o => o.Items)); In case, you want to have some pre-defined queries that you are going to use across several places, you can put them in an specific class. public static class CustomerQueries {   public static Expression<Func<Customer, bool>> LastNameEqualsTo(string lastName)   {     return c => c.LastName == lastName;   } } And then, use it with the repository. repository.Retrieve<Customer>(    CustomerQueries.LastNameEqualsTo("foo"),    c => c.Orders.SubExpand(o => o.Items));

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  • Oracle Fusion Applications: Changing the Game

    - by kellsey.ruppel(at)oracle.com
    Originally posted in the Oracle Profit Magazine, November 2010 Edition. When the order processing system red-flags a customer's credit status, the IT department doesn't get the customer's call. When a supplier misses a delivery date for a key automotive assembly, it's not the CIO who has to answer for the error. Knowledge workers (known in IT circles as "users") are on the front lines when an exception occurs in an established business process. They're also the ones who study sales trends to decide when to open a new store in an up-and-coming neighborhood, which products are most profitable, how employee skill sets are evolving, and which suppliers are most efficient. In short, knowledge workers are masters of business as unusual. Traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and other familiar enterprise applications excel at automating, managing, and executing standard business processes. These programs shine when everything goes as planned. Life gets even trickier when a traditional application needs to be extended with a new service or an extra step is added to a business process when new products are brought to market, divisions are merged, or companies are acquired. Monolithic applications often need the IT department to step in and make the necessary adjustments--incurring additional costs and delays. Until now. When Oracle unveiled the much-anticipated family of Oracle Fusion Applications at Oracle OpenWorld in September 2010, knowledge workers in particular had a lot to cheer about. Business users will soon have ready access to analytical information and collaboration tools in the context of what they are working on, so they can make better decisions when problems or opportunities arise. Additionally, the Oracle Fusion Applications platform will make it easy for business users to tweak processes, create new capabilities, and find information, often without the need for IT department assistance and while still following company guidelines. And IT leaders will be happy to hear about new deployment options, guided implementation and setup tools, and cost-saving management capabilities. Just as important, the underlying technologies in Oracle Fusion Applications will allow organizations to choose among their existing investments and next-generation enterprise applications so they can introduce innovations at a pace that makes the most business and financial sense. "Oracle Fusion Applications are architected so you don't have to do rip and replace," says Jim Hayes, managing director of the consulting firm Accenture. "That's very important for creating a business case that will get through the steering committee and be approved by the board. It shows you can drive value and make a difference in the near term." For these and other reasons, analysts and early adopters are calling Oracle Fusion Applications a game changer for enterprise customers. The differences become apparent in three key areas: the way we innovate, work, and adopt technology. Game Changer #1: New Standard for InnovationChange is a constant challenge for most businesses, whether the catalysts are market dynamics, new competition, or the ever-expanding regulatory environment. And, in an ongoing effort to differentiate, business leaders are constantly looking for new ways to do business, serve constituents, and bring new products and services to market. In addition, companies face significant costs to keep their applications up-to-date. For example, when a company adds new suppliers to a procurement system, the IT shop typically has to invest time, effort, and even consulting fees for custom integrations that allow various ERP systems to communicate with each other. Oracle Fusion Applications were built on Web services and a modular SOA foundation to ease customizations and integration activities among all applications--whether from Oracle or another vendor. Interfaces and updates written in ubiquitous Java, rather than a proprietary coding language, allow organizations to tap into existing in-house technical skills rather than seek expensive outside specialists. And with SOA, organizations can extend a feature set or integrate with other SOA environments by combining Web services such as "look up customer" into a new business process managed by the BPEL orchestration engine. Flexibility like this has long-term implications. "Because users capture these changes at a higher metadata layer, not in the application's code, changes and additions are protected even as new versions of Oracle Fusion Applications are released," says Steve Miranda, senior vice president of applications development at Oracle. "This is a much more sustainable approach because you don't incur costly customizations that prevent upgrades and other innovations." And changes are easier to make: if one change is made in the metadata, that change is automatically reflected throughout the application interface, business intelligence, business process, and business logic. Game Changer #2: New Standard for WorkBoosting productivity comes down to doing the basics right: running business processes more efficiently and managing exceptions more effectively, so users can accomplish more in the course of a day or spend more quality time with the most profitable customers. The fastest way to improve process efficiency is to reduce the number of steps it takes to execute common tasks, such as ordering office equipment from an internal procurement system. Oracle Fusion Applications will deliver a complete role-based user experience with business intelligence and collaboration capabilities provided in the context of the work at hand. "We created every Oracle Fusion Applications screen by asking 'What does the user need to know?' 'What does he or she need to do?' and 'Who do they need to work with to get the job done?'" Miranda explains. So when the sales department heads need new laptops, the self-service procurement screen will not only display a list of approved vendors and configurations, but also a running list of reviews by coworkers who recently purchased the various models. Embedded intelligence may also display prevailing delivery lead times based on actual order histories, not the generic shipping dates vendors may quote. The pervasive business intelligence serves many other business activities across all areas of the enterprise. For example, a manager considering whether to promote a direct report can see the person's employee profile, with a salary history, appraisal summaries, and a rundown of skills and training. This approach to business intelligence also has implications for supply chain management. "One of the challenges at Ingersoll Rand is lack of visibility in our supply chain," says Mike Macrie, global director of enterprise applications for global industrial firm Ingersoll Rand. "Oracle Fusion Applications are going to provide the embedded intelligence to give us that visibility and give us the ability to analyze those orders at any point in our supply chain." Oracle Fusion Applications will also create a "role-based user experience" that displays a work list of events that need attention, based on user job function. Role awareness guides users with daily lists of action items and exceptions. So a credit manager may see seven invoices with discounts that are about to expire or 12 suppliers that have been put on hold because credit memos are awaiting approval. Individualization extends to the search capabilities of Oracle Fusion Applications. The platform uses Web-style search screens powered by an Oracle enterprise search engine, with a security framework that filters search results so individuals will only see the internal information they're authorized to access. A further aid to productivity is Oracle Fusion Applications' integration with Web 2.0 collaboration and social networking resources for business environments. Hover-over text will reveal relevant contact information whenever the name of a person appears in an Oracle Fusion Application. Users can connect via an online chat, phone call, or instant message without leaving the main application, reducing the time required for an accounts payable staffer to resolve a mismatch between an invoiced charge and the service record, for example. Addresses of suppliers, customers, or partners will also initiate hover-over text to show contact details and Web-based maps. Finally, Oracle Fusion Applications will promote a new way of working with purpose-driven communities that can bring new efficiencies to everything from cultivating sales leads to managing new projects. As soon as a lead or project materializes, the applications will automatically gather relevant participants into an online community that shares member contact information, schedules, discussion forums, and Wiki pages. "Oracle Fusion Applications will allow us to take it to the next level with embedded Web 2.0 tools and the embedded analytics," says Steve Printz, CIO and vice president, supply chain management, at window-and-door manufacturer Pella. "[This] allows those employees today who are processing transactions to really contribute to the success of the company and become decision-makers." Game Changer #3: New Standard for Technology AdoptionAs IT becomes a dominant component of how businesses run and compete, organizations need to lower the cost of implementing applications and introducing new application features. In the past, rolling out new code often required creating a test bed system, moving beta code to a separate system for user feedback, and--once all the revisions were made--moving version one of the software onto production systems, where business users could finally get the needed new features. Oracle Fusion Applications will use a dedicated setup manager application to streamline this process. First, the setup manager will help scope out the project, querying users about their requirements. "From those questions and answers we determine the steps and the order of those steps that will enable that task," Miranda says. Next, system utilities will assign tasks to owners, track completion status, and monitor the overall status of a programming effort. Oracle Fusion Applications can then recommend Web services that allow users to migrate setup choices and steps across all the various deployments of the application. Those setup capabilities automate the migration from test systems to production systems, as well as between different business units that may be using the same application. "The self-service ability of the setup manager helps business users change setups with very little intervention from the IT team," says Ravi Kumar, vice president at IT services company Infosys. "That to me is a big difference from how we've viewed enterprise applications before." For additional flexibility, organizations will be able to adopt Oracle Fusion Applications modules in either of two modes: a single-instance alternative uses one database for all Oracle Fusion Applications, while a "pillar mode" creates separate databases to underpin each application. This means IT departments running any one of Oracle's applications or even third-party applications can plug Oracle Fusion Applications modules into their environment and see additional business value created on top of their existing systems. And Oracle Fusion Applications offer a hybrid approach to deployment. The applications are all software-as-a-service-ready, so customers can choose on-premises, public or private cloud, or a combination of these to suit their business needs. It's that combination of flexibility and a roadmap for the future that may be the biggest game changer of all. "The Oracle Fusion Applications architecture allows us to migrate our company at a pace that's consistent with our business strategy, whereas before we might have had to do it with a massive upgrade," says Macrie of Ingersoll Rand. "We're looking forward to that architecture to really give us more flexibility in how we migrate over time." For More InformationUser Input Key to the Success of Oracle Fusion ApplicationsTransforming Coexistence into Strategic ValueUnder the HoodOracle Fusion ApplicationsOracle Service-Oriented Architecture  

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  • Oracle OpenWorld Preview: Oracle WebCenter Sessions You Won’t Want to Miss

    - by Christie Flanagan
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} The beginning of Oracle OpenWorld is only a few short days away. This week on the WebCenter blog, we’ll focus in on the sessions you definitely don’t want to miss while you’re in San Francisco next week.  Monday, October 1 will be a day focused on strategy.  Here are the sessions you want to add to your calendar: CON8268 - Oracle WebCenter Strategy: Engaging Your Customers. Empowering Your Business Monday, Oct 1, 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM - Moscone West – 3001 Start things off with Oracle WebCenter’s Christian Finn, Senior Director of Evangelism and Roel Stalman, VP of Product Management to learn more about the Oracle WebCenter strategy, and to understand where Oracle is taking the platform to help companies engage, customers, empower employees, and enable partners. This session will also feature Richard Backx, Business IT Architect/Consultant, for the Dutch telecom, KPN. Richard has played a key role in the roll-out of WebCenter products for KPN’s multibrand portals with a specific focus on creating the best customer journey platform for all the company’s digital channels. Business success starts with ensuring that everyone is engaged with the right people and the right information and can access what they need through the channel of their choice—web, mobile, or social. Are you giving customers, employees, and partners the best-possible experience? Come learn how you can! Dig deeper into WebCenter’s strategy for its ECM, portal, web experience management and social collaboration in the following sessions: CON8270 - Oracle WebCenter Content Strategy and Vision Monday, Oct 1, 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM - Moscone West – 3001 Oracle WebCenter Content provides a strategic content infrastructure for managing documents, images, e-mails, and rich media files. With a single repository, organizations can address any content use case, such as accounts payable, HR onboarding, document management, compliance, records management, digital asset management, or Website management. In this session, learn about future plans for how Oracle WebCenter will address new use cases as well as new integrations with Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Applications, leveraging your investments by making your users more productive and error-free. CON8269 - Oracle WebCenter Sites Strategy and Vision Monday, Oct 1, 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM - Moscone West - 3009 Oracle’s Web experience management solution, Oracle WebCenter Sites, enables organizations to use the online channel to drive customer acquisition and brand loyalty. It helps marketers and business users easily create and manage contextually relevant, social, interactive online experiences across multiple channels on a global scale. In this session, learn about future plans for how Oracle WebCenter Sites will provide you with the tools, capabilities, and integrations you need in order to continue to address your customers’ evolving requirements for engaging online experiences and keep moving your business forward. CON8271 - Oracle WebCenter Portal Strategy and Vision Monday, Oct 1, 3:15 PM - 4:15 PM - Moscone West - 3001 To innovate and keep a competitive edge, organizations need to leverage the power of agile and responsive Web applications. Oracle WebCenter Portal enables you to do just that, by delivering intuitive user experiences for enterprise applications to drive innovation with composite applications and mashups. Attend this session to learn firsthand from Oracle WebCenter Portal customers like the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, extend the value of existing enterprise applications, business processes, and content; delivers a superior business user experience; and maximizes limited IT resources. CON8272 - Oracle Social Network Strategy and Vision Monday, Oct 1, 4:45 PM - 5:45 PM - Moscone West - 3001 One key way of increasing employee productivity is by bringing people, processes, and information together—providing new social capabilities to enable business users to quickly correspond and collaborate on business activities. Oracle WebCenter provides a user engagement platform with social and collaborative technologies to empower business users to focus on their key business processes, applications, and content in the context of their role and process. Attend this session to hear how the latest social capabilities in Oracle Social Network are enabling organizations to transform themselves into social businesses.Attention WebCenter Customers: Last Day to RSVP for WebCenter Customer Appreciation Reception Oracle WebCenter partners Fishbowl Solutions, Fujitsu, Keste, Mythics, Redstone Content Solutions, TEAM Informatics, and TekStream invite Oracle WebCenter customers to a private cocktail reception at one of San Francisco's finest hotels. Please join us and fellow Oracle WebCenter customers for hors d'oeuvres and cocktails at this exclusive reception. Don't miss this opportunity to meet and talk with executives from Oracle WebCenter product management and product marketing, and premier Oracle WebCenter partners. We look forward to seeing you! RSVP today.

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  • Oracle WebCenter Partner Program

    - by kellsey.ruppel
    In competitive marketplaces, your company needs to quickly respond to changes and new trends, in order to open opportunities and build long-term growth. Oracle has a variety of next-generation services, solutions and resources that will leverage the differentiators in your offerings. Name your partnering needs: Oracle has the answer. This week we’d like to focus on Partners and the value your organization can gain from working with the Oracle PartnerNetwork. The Oracle PartnerNetwork will empower your company with exceptional resources to distinguish your offerings from the competition, seize opportunities, and increase your sales. We’re happy to welcome Christine Kungl, and Brian Buzzell, from Oracle’s World Wide Alliances & Channels (WWA&C) WebCenter Partner Enablement team, as today’s guests on the Oracle WebCenter blog. Q: What is the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN)?A: Christine: Oracle’s PartnerNetwork (OPN) is a collaborative partnership which allows registered companies specific added value resources to help differentiate themselves from their competition. Through OPN programs it provides companies the ability to seize and target opportunities, educate and train their teams, and leverage unparalleled opportunity given Oracle’s large market footprint. OPN’s multi-level programs are targeted at different levels allowing companies to grow and evolve with Oracle based on their business needs.  As part of their OPN memberships partners are encouraged to become OPN Specialized allowing those partners additional differentiation in Oracle’s Partner Network Community.  Q: What is an OPN Specialization and what resources are available for Specialized Partners?A: Brian: Oracle wanted a better way for our partners to differentiate their special skills and expertise, as well a more effective way to communicate that difference to customers.  Oracle’s expanding product portfolio demanded that we be able to identify partners with significant product knowledge—those who had made an investment in Oracle and a continuing commitment to deliver Oracle solutions. And with more than 30,000 Oracle partners around the world, Oracle needed a way for our customers to choose the right partner for their business. So how did Oracle meet this need? With the new partner program:  Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized. In this new program, Oracle partners are: Specialized :  Differentiating themselves from the competition with expertise that set them apart Recognized:  Being acknowledged for investing in becoming Oracle experts in specialized areas. Preferred :  Connecting with potential customers who are seeking  value-added solutions for their business OPN Specialized provides all partners with educational opportunities, training, and tools specially designed to build competency and grow business.  Partners can serve their customers better through key resources:OPN Specialized Knowledge Zones – Located on the updated and enhanced OPN portal— provide a single point of entry for all education and training information for Oracle partners. Enablement 2.0 Resources —Enablement 2.0 helps Oracle partners build their competencies and skills through a variety of educational opportunities and expanded training choices. These resources include: Enablement 2.0 “Boot camps” provide three-tiered learning levels that help jump-start partner training The role-based training covers Oracle’s application and technology products and offers a combination of classroom lectures, hands-on lab exercises, and case studies. Enablement 2.0 Interactive guided learning paths (GLPs) with recommendations on how to achieve specialization Upgraded partner solution kits Enhanced, specialized business centers available 24/7 around the globe on the OPN portal OPN Competency Center—Tracking ProgressThe OPN Competency Center keeps track as a partner applies for and achieves specialization in selected areas. You start with an assessment that compares your organization’s current skills and experience with the requirements for specialization in the area you have chosen. The OPN Competency Center then provides a roadmap that itemizes the skills and the knowledge you need to earn specialized status. In summary, OPN Specialization not only includes key training resources but a way to track and show progression for your partner organization. Q: What is are the OPN Membership Levels and what are the benefits?A:  Christine: The base OPN membership levels are: Remarketer: At the Remarketer level, retailers can choose to resell select Oracle products with the backing of authorized, regionally located, value-added distributors (VADs). The Remarketer level has no fees and no partner agreement with Oracle, but does offer online training and sales tools through the OPN portal.Program Details: RemarketerSilver Level: The Silver level is for Oracle partners who are focused on reselling and developing business with products ordered through the Oracle 1-Click Ordering Program. The Silver level provides a cost-effective, yet scalable way for partners to start an OPN Specialized membership and offers a substantial set of benefits that lets partners increase their competitive positioning. Program Details: SilverGold Level: Gold-level partners have the ability to specialize, helping them grow their business and create differentiation in the marketplace. Oracle partners at the Gold level can develop, sell, or implement the full stack of Oracle solutions and can apply to resell Oracle Applications.Program Details: GoldPlatinum Level: The Platinum level is for Oracle partners who want the highest level of benefits and are committed to reaching a minimum of five specializations. Platinum partners are recognized for their expertise in a broad range of products and technology, and receive dedicated support from Oracle.Program Details: PlatinumIn addition we recently introduced a new level:Diamond Level: This level is the most prestigious level of OPN Specialized. It allows companies to differentiate further because of their focused depth and breadth of their expertise. Program Details: DiamondSo as you can see there are various levels cost effective ways that Partners can get assistance, differentiation through OPN membership. Q: What role does the Oracle's World Wide Alliances & Channels (WWA&C), Partner Enablement teams and the WebCenter Community play?  A: Brian: Oracle’s WWA&C teams are responsible for manage relationships, educating their teams, creating go-to-market solutions and fostering communities for Oracle partners worldwide.  The WebCenter Partner Enablement Middleware Team is tasked to create, manage and distribute Specialization resources for the WebCenter Partner community. Q: What WebCenter Specializations are currently available?A: Christine:  As of now here are the following WebCenter Specializations and their availability: Oracle WebCenter Portal Specialization (Oracle WebCenter Portal): Available NowThe Oracle WebCenter Specialization provides insight into the following products: WebCenter Services, WebCenter Spaces, and WebLogic Portal.Oracle WebCenter Specialized Partners can efficiently use Oracle WebCenter products to create social applications, enterprise portals, communities, composite applications, and Internet or intranet Web sites on a standards-based, service-oriented architecture (SOA). The suite combines the development of rich internet applications; a multi-channel portal framework; and a suite of horizontal WebCenter applications, which provide content, presence, and social networking capabilities to create a highly interactive user experience. Oracle WebCenter Content Specialization: Available NowThe Oracle WebCenter Content Specialization provides insight into the following products; Universal Content Management, WebCenter Records Management, WebCenter Imaging, WebCenter Distributed Capture, and WebCenter Capture.Oracle WebCenter Content Specialized Partners can efficiently build content-rich business applications, reuse content, and integrate hundreds of content services with other business applications. This allows our customers to decrease costs, automate processes, reduce resource bottlenecks, share content effectively, minimize the number of lost documents, and better manage risk. Oracle WebCenter Sites Specialization: Available Q1 2012Oracle WebCenter Sites is part of the broader Oracle WebCenter platform that provides organizations with a complete customer experience management solution.  Partners that align with the new Oracle WebCenter Sites platform allow their customers organizations to: Leverage customer information from all channels and systems Manage interactions across all channels Unify commerce, merchandising, marketing, and service across all channels Provide personalized, choreographed consumer journeys across all channels Integrate order orchestration, supply chain management and order fulfillment Q: What criteria does the Partner organization need to achieve Specialization? What about individual Sales, PreSales & Implementation Specialist/Technical consultants?A: Brian: Each Oracle WebCenter Specialization has unique Business Criteria that must be met in order to achieve that Specialization.  This includes a unique number of transactions (co-sell, re-sell, and referral), customer references and then unique number of specialists as part of a partner team (Sales, Pre-Sales, Implementation, and Support).   Each WebCenter Specialization provides training resources (GLPs, BootCamps, Assessments and Exams for individuals on a partner’s staff to fulfill those requirements.  That criterion can be found for each Specialization on the Specialize tab for each WebCenter Knowledge Zone.  Here are the sample criteria, recommended courses, exams for the WebCenter Portal Specialization: WebCenter Portal Specialization Criteria Q: Do you have any suggestions on the best way for partners to get started if they would like to know more?A: Christine:   The best way to start is for partners is look at their business and core Oracle team focus and then look to become specialized in one or more areas.  Once you have selected the Specializations that are right for your business, you need to follow the first 3 key steps described below. The fourth step outlines the additional process to follow if you meet the criteria to be Advanced Specialized. Note that Step 4 may not be done without first following Steps 1-3.1. Join the Knowledge Zone(s) where you want to achieve Specialized status Go to the Knowledge Zone lick on the "Why Partner" tab Click on the "Join Knowledge Zone" link 2. Meet the Specialization criteria - Define and implement plans in your organization to achieve the competency and business criteria targets of the Specialization. (Note: Worldwide OPN members at the Gold, Platinum, or Diamond level and their Associates at the Gold, Platinum, or Diamond level may count their collective resources to meet the business and competency criteria required for specialization in this area.) 3. Apply for Specialization – when you have met the business and competency criteria required, inform Oracle by completing the following steps: Click on the "Specialize" tab in the Knowledge Zone Click on the "Apply Now" button Complete the online application form Oracle will validate the information provided, and once approved, you will receive notification from Oracle of your awarded Specialized status. Need more information? Access our Step by Step Guide (PDF) 4. Apply for Advanced Specialization (Optional) – If your company has on staff 50 unique Certified Implementation Specialists in your company's approved Specialization's product set, let Oracle know by following these steps: Ensure that you have 50 or more unique individuals that are Certified Implementation Specialists in the specific Specialization awarded to your company If you are pooling resources from another Associate or Worldwide entity, ensure you know that company’s name and country Have your Oracle PRM Administrator complete the online Advanced Specialization Application Oracle will validate the information provided, and once approved, you will receive notification from Oracle of your awarded Advanced Specialized status. There are additional resources on OPN as well as the broader WebCenter Community: v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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  • When Your Boss Doesn't Want you to Succeed

    - by Phil Factor
    You're working hard to get an application finished. You are programming long into the evenings sometimes, and eating sandwiches at your desk instead of taking a lunch break. Then one day you glance up at the IT manager, serene in his mysterious round of meetings, and think 'Does he actually care whether this project succeeds or not?'. The question may seem absurd. Of course the project must succeed. The truth, as always, is often far more complex. Your manager may even be doing his best to make sure you don't succeed. Why? There have always been rich pickings for the unscrupulous in IT.  In extreme cases, where administrators struggle with scarcely-comprehended technical issues, huge sums of money can be lost and gained without any perceptible results. In a very few cases can fraud be proven: most of the time, the intricacies of the 'game' are such that one can do little more than harbor suspicion.  Where does over-enthusiastic salesmanship end and fraud begin? The Business of Information Technology provides rich opportunities for White-collar crime. The poor developer has his, or her, hands full with the task of wrestling with the sheer complexity of building an application. He, or she, has no time for following the complexities of the chicanery of the management that is directing affairs.  Most likely, the developers wouldn't even suspect that their company management had ulterior motives. I'll illustrate what I mean with an entirely fictional, hypothetical, example. The Opportunist and the Aged Charities often do good, unexciting work that is funded by the income from a bequest that dates back maybe hundreds of years.  In our example, it isn't exciting work, for it involves the welfare of elderly people who have fallen on hard times.  Volunteers visit, giving a smile and a chat, and check that they are all right, but are able to spend a little money on their discretion to ameliorate any pressing needs for these old folk.  The money is made to work very hard and the charity averts a great deal of suffering and eases the burden on the state. Daisy hears the garden gate creak as Mrs Rainer comes up the path. She looks forward to her twice-weekly visit from the nice lady from the trust. She always asked ‘is everything all right, Love’. Cheeky but nice. She likes her cheery manner. She seems interested in hearing her memories, and talking about her far-away family. She helps her with those chores in the house that she couldn’t manage and once even paid to fill the back-shed with coke, the other year. Nice, Mrs. Rainer is, she thought as she goes to open the door. The trustees are getting on in years themselves, and worry about the long-term future of the charity: is it relevant to modern society? Is it likely to attract a new generation of workers to take it on. They are instantly attracted by the arrival to the board of a smartly dressed University lecturer with the ear of the present Government. Alain 'Stalin' Jones is earnest, persuasive and energetic. The trustees welcome him to the board and quickly forgive his humorless political-correctness. He talks of 'diversity', 'relevance', 'social change', 'equality' and 'communities', but his eye is on that huge bequest. Alain first came to notice as a Trotskyite union official, who insinuated himself into one of the duller Trades Unions and turned it, through his passionate leadership, into a radical, headline-grabbing organization.  Middle age, and the rise of European federal socialism, had brought him quiet prosperity and charcoal suits, an ear in the current government, and a wide influence as a member of various Quangos (government bodies staffed by well-paid unelected courtiers).  He was employed as a 'consultant' by several organizations that relied on government contracts. After gaining the confidence of the trustees, and showing a surprising knowledge of mundane processes and the regulatory framework of charities, Alain launches his plan.  The trust will expand their work by means of a bold IT initiative that will coordinate the interventions of several 'caring agencies', and provide  emergency cover, a special Website so anxious relatives can see how their elderly charges are doing, and a vastly more efficient way of coordinating the work of the volunteer carers. It will also provide a special-purpose site that gives 'social networking' facilities, rather like Facebook, to the few elderly folk on the lists with access to the internet. The trustees perk up. Their own experience of the internet is restricted to the occasional scanning of railway timetables, but they can see that it is 'relevant'. In his next report to the other trustees, Alain proudly announces that all this glamorous and exciting technology can be paid for by a grant from the government. He admits darkly that he has influence. True to his word, the government promises a grant of a size that is an order of magnitude greater than any budget that the trustees had ever handled. There was the understandable proviso that the company that would actually do the IT work would have to be one of the government's preferred suppliers and the work would need to be tendered under EU competition rules. The only company that tenders, a multinational IT company with a long track record of government work, quotes ten million pounds for the work. A trustee questions the figure as it seems enormous for the reasonably trivial internet facilities being built, but the IT Salesmen dazzle them with presentations and three-letter acronyms until they subside into quiescent acceptance. After all, they can’t stay locked in the Twentieth century practices can they? The work is put in hand with a large project team, in a splendid glass building near west London. The trustees see rooms of programmers working diligently at screens, and who talk with enthusiasm of the project. Paul, the project manager, looked through his resource schedule with growing unease. His initial excitement at being given his first major project hadn’t lasted. He’d been allocated a lackluster team of developers whose skills didn’t seem right, and he was allowed only a couple of contractors to make good the deficit. Strangely, the presentation he’d given to his management, where he’d saved time and resources with a OTS solution to a great deal of the development work, and a sound conservative architecture, hadn’t gone down nearly as big as he’d hoped. He almost got the feeling they wanted a more radical and ambitious solution. The project starts slipping its dates. The costs build rapidly. There are certain uncomfortable extra charges that appear, such as the £600-a-day charge by the 'Business Manager' appointed to act as a point of liaison between the charity and the IT Company.  When he appeared, his face permanently split by a 'Mr Sincerity' smile, they'd thought he was provided at the cost of the IT Company. Derek, the DBA, didn’t have to go to the server room quite some much as he did: but It got him away from the poisonous despair of the development group. Wave after wave of events had conspired to delay the project.  Why the management had imposed hideous extra bureaucracy to cover ISO 9000 and 9001:2008 accreditation just as the project was struggling to get back on-schedule was  beyond belief.  Then  the Business manager was coming back with endless changes in scope, sorrowing saying that the Trustees were very insistent, though hopelessly out in touch with the reality of technical challenges. Suddenly, the costs mount to the point of consuming the government grant in its entirety. The project remains tantalizingly just out of reach. Alain Jones gives an emotional rallying speech at the trustees review meeting, urging them not to lose their nerve. Sadly, the trustees dip into the accumulated capital of the trust, the seed-corn of all their revenues, in order to save the IT project. A few months later it is all over. The IT project is never delivered, even though it had seemed so incredibly close.  With the trust's capital all gone, the activities it funded have to be terminated and the trust becomes just a shell. There aren't even the funds to mount a legal challenge against the IT company, even had the trust's solicitor advised such a foolish thing. Alain leaves as suddenly as he had arrived, only to pop up a few months later, bronzed and rested, at another charity. The IT workers who were permanent employees are dispersed to other projects, and the contractors leave to other contracts. Within months the entire project is but a vague memory. One or two developers remain  puzzled that their managers had been so obstructive when they should have welcomed progress toward completion of the project, but they put it down to incompetence and testosterone. Few suspected that they were actively preventing the project from getting finished. The relationships between the IT consultancy, and the government of the day are intricate, and made more complex by the Private Finance initiatives and political patronage.  The losers in this case were the taxpayers, and the beneficiaries of the trust, and, perhaps the soul of the original benefactor of the trust, whose bid to give his name some immortality had been scuppered by smooth-talking white-collar political apparatniks.  Even now, nobody is certain whether a crime was ever committed. The perfect heist, I guess. Where’s the victim? "I hear that Daisy’s cottage is up for sale. She’s had to go into a care home.  She didn’t want to at all, but then there is nobody to keep an eye on her since she had that minor stroke a while back.  A charity used to help out. The ‘social’ don’t have the funding, evidently for community care. Yes, her old cat was put down. There was a good clearout, and now the house is all scrubbed and cleared ready for sale. The skip was full of old photos and letters, memories. No room in her new ‘home’."

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  • Craftsmanship is ALL that Matters

    - by Wayne Molina
    Today, I'm going to talk about a touchy subject: the notion of working in a company that doesn't use the prescribed "best practices" in its software development endeavours.  Over the years I have, using a variety of pseudonyms, asked this question on popular programming forums.  Although I always add in some minor variation of the story to avoid suspicion that it's the same person posting, the crux of the tale remains the same: A Programmer’s Tale A junior software developer has just started a new job at an average company, creating average line-of-business applications for internal use (the most typical scenario programmers find themselves in).  This hypothetical newbie has spent a lot of time reading up on the "theory" of software development, devouring books, blogs and screencasts from well-known and respected software developers in the community in order to broaden his knowledge and "do what the pros do".  He begins his new job, eager to apply what he's learned on a real-world project only to discover that his new teammates doesn't use any of those concepts and techniques.  They hack their way through development, or in a best-case scenario use some homebrew, thrown-together semblance of a framework for their applications that follows not one of the best practices suggested by the “elite” in the software community - things like TDD (TDD as a "best practice" is the only subjective part of this post, but it's included here due to a very large following of respected developers who consider it one), the SOLID principles, well-known and venerable tools, even version control in a worst case and truly nightmarish scenario.  Our protagonist is frustrated that he isn't doing things the "proper" way - a way he's spent personal time digesting and learning about and, more importantly, a way that some of the top developers in the industry advocate - and turns to a forum to ask the advice of his peers. Invariably the answer I, in the guise of the concerned newbie, will receive is that A) I don't know anything and should just shut my mouth and sling code the bad way like everybody else on the team, and B) These "best practices" are fade or a joke, and the only thing that matters is shipping software to your customers. I am here today to say that anyone who says this, or anything like it, is not only full of crap but indicative of exactly the type of “developer” that has helped to give our industry a bad name.  Here is why: One Who Knows Nothing, Understands Nothing On one hand, you have the cognoscenti of the .NET development world.  Guys like James Avery, Jeremy Miller, Ayende Rahien and Rob Conery; all well-respected and noted programmers that are pretty much our version of celebrities.  These guys write blogs, books, and post videos outlining the "correct" way of writing software to make sure it not only works but is maintainable and extensible and a joy to work with.  They tout the virtues of the SOLID principles, or of using TDD/BDD, or using a mature ORM like NHibernate, Subsonic or even Entity Framework. On the other hand, you have Joe Everyman, Lead Software Developer at Initrode Corporation - in our hypothetical story Joe is the junior developer's new boss.  Joe's been with Initrode for 10 years, starting as the company’s very first programmer and over the years building up a little fiefdom of his own until at the present he’s in charge of all Initrode’s software development.  Joe writes code the same way he always has, without bothering to learn much, if anything.  He looked at NHibernate once and found it was "too hard", so he uses a primitive implementation of the TableDataGateway pattern as a wrapper around SqlClient.SqlConnection and SqlClient.SqlCommand instead of an actual ORM (or, in a better case scenario, has created his own ORM); the thought of using LINQ or Entity Framework or really anything other than his own hastily homebrew solution has never occurred to him.  He doesn't understand TDD and considers “testing” to be using the .NET debugger to step through code, or simply loading up an app and entering some values to see if it works.  He doesn't really understand SOLID, and he doesn't care to.  He's worked as a programmer for years, and that's all that counts.  Right?  WRONG. Who would you rather trust?  Someone with years of experience and who writes books, creates well-known software and is akin to a celebrity, or someone with no credibility outside their own minute environment who throws around their clout and company seniority as the "proof" of their ability?  Joe Everyman may have years of experience at Initrode as a programmer, and says to do things "his way" but someone like Jeremy Miller or Ayende Rahien have years of experience at companies just like Initrode, THEY know ten times more than Joe Everyman knows or could ever hope to know, and THEY say to do things "this way". Here's another way of thinking about it: If you wanted to get into politics and needed advice on the best way to do it, would you rather listen to the mayor of Hicktown, USA or Barack Obama?  One is a small-time nobody while the other is very well-known and, as such, would probably have much more accurate and beneficial advice. NOTE: The selection of Barack Obama as an example in no way, shape, or form suggests a political affiliation or political bent to this post or blog, and no political innuendo should be mistakenly read from it; the intent was merely to compare a small-time persona with a well-known persona in a non-software field.  Feel free to replace the name "Barack Obama" with any well-known Congressman, Senator or US President of your choice. DIY Considered Harmful I will say right now that the homebrew development environment is the WORST one for an aspiring programmer, because it relies on nothing outside it's own little box - no useful skill outside of the small pond.  If you are forced to use some half-baked, homebrew ORM created by your Director of Software, you are not learning anything valuable you can take with you in the future; now, if you plan to stay at Initrode for 10 years like Joe Everyman, this is fine and dandy.  However if, like most of us, you want to advance your career outside a very narrow space you will do more harm than good by sticking it out in an environment where you, to be frank, know better than everybody else because you are aware of alternative and, in almost most cases, better tools for the job.  A junior developer who understands why the SOLID principles are good to follow, or why TDD is beneficial, or who knows that it's better to use NHibernate/Subsonic/EF/LINQ/well-known ORM versus some in-house one knows better than a senior developer with 20 years experience who doesn't understand any of that, plain and simple.  Anyone who disagrees is either a liar, or someone who, just like Joe Everyman, Lead Developer, relies on seniority and tenure rather than adapting their knowledge as things evolve. In many cases, the Joe Everymans of the world act this way out of fear - they cannot possibly fathom that a “junior” could know more than them; after all, they’ve spent 10 or more years in the same company, doing the same job, cranking out the same shoddy software.  And here comes a newbie who hasn’t spent 10+ years doing the same things, with a fresh and often radical take on the craft, and Joe Everyman is afraid he might have to put some real effort into his career again instead of just pointing to his 10 years of service at Initrode as “proof” that he’s good, or that he might have to learn something new to improve; in most cases the problem is Joe Everyman, and by extension Initrode itself, has a mentality of just being “good enough”, and mediocrity is the rule of the day. A Thorn Bush is No Place for a Phoenix My advice is that if you work on a team where they don't use the best practices that some of the most famous developers in our field say is the "right" way to do things (and have legions of people who agree), and YOU are aware of these practices and can see why they work, then LEAVE the company.  Find a company where they DO care about quality, and craftsmanship, otherwise you will never be happy.  There is no point in "dumbing" yourself down to the level of your co-workers and slinging code without care to craftsmanship.  In 95% of these situations there will be no point in bringing it to the attention of Joe Everyman because he won't listen; he might even get upset that someone is trying to "upstage" him and fire the newbie, and replace someone with loads of untapped potential with a drone that will just nod affirmatively and grind out the tasks assigned without question. Find a company that has people smart enough to listen to the "best and brightest", and be happy.  Do not, I repeat, DO NOT waste away in a job working for ignorant people.  At the end of the day software development IS a craft, and a level of craftsmanship is REQUIRED for any serious professional.  When you have knowledgeable people with the credibility to back it up saying one thing, and small-time people who are, to put it bluntly, nobodies in the field saying and doing something totally different because they can't comprehend it, leave the nobodies to their own devices to fade into obscurity.  Work for a company that uses REAL software engineering techniques and really cares about craftsmanship.  The biggest issue affecting our career, and the reason software development has never been the respected, white-collar career it was meant to be, is because hacks and charlatans can pass themselves off as professional programmers without following a lick of good advice from programmers much better at the craft than they are.  These modern day snake-oil salesmen entrench themselves in companies by hoodwinking non-technical businesspeople and customers with their shoddy wares, end up in senior/lead/executive positions, and push their lack of knowledge on everybody unfortunate enough to work with/for/under them, crushing any dissent or voices of reason and change under their tyrannical heel and leaving behind a trail of dismayed and, often, unemployed junior developers who were made examples of to keep up the facade and avoid the shadow of doubt being cast upon them. To sum this up another way: If you surround yourself with learned people, you will learn.  Surround yourself with ignorant people who can't, as the saying goes, see the forest through the trees, and you'll learn nothing of any real value.  There is more to software development than just writing code, and the end goal should not be just "shipping software", it should be shipping software that is extensible, maintainable, and above all else software whose creation has broadened your knowledge in some capacity, even if a minor one.  An eager newbie who knows theory and thirsts for knowledge can easily be moulded and taught the advanced topics, but the same can't be said of someone who only cares about the finish line.  This industry needs more people espousing the benefits of software craftsmanship and proper software engineering techniques, and less Joe Everymans who are unwilling to adapt or foster new ways of thinking. Conclusion - I Cast “Protection from Fire” I am fairly certain this post will spark some controversy and might even invite the flames.  Please keep in mind these are opinions and nothing more.  A little healthy rant and subsequent flamewar can be good for the soul once in a while.  To paraphrase The Godfather: It helps to get rid of the bad blood.

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  • Taking web sites offline for demonstration

    While working in software development in general, and in web development for a couple of customers it is quite common that it is necessary to provide a test bed where the client is able to get an image, or better said, a feeling for the visions and ideas you are talking about. Usually here at IOS Indian Ocean Software Ltd. we set up a demo web site on one of our staging servers, and provide credentials to the customer to access and review our progress and work ad hoc. This gives us the highest flexibility on both sides, as the test bed is simply online and available 24/7. We can update the structure, the UI and data at any time, and the client is able to view it as it suits best for her/him. Limited or lack of online connectivity But what is going to happen when your client is not capable to be online - no matter for what reasons; here are some more obvious ones: No internet connection (permanently or temporarily) Expensive connection, ie. mobile data package, stay at a hotel, etc. Presentation devices at an exhibition, ie. using tablets or iPads Being abroad for a certain time, and only occasionally online No network coverage, especially on mobile Bad infrastructure, like ie. in Third World countries Providing a catalogue on CD or USB pen drive Anyway, it doesn't matter really. We should be able to provide a solution for the circumstances of our customers. Presentation during an exhibition Recently, we had the following request from a customer: Is it possible to let us have a desktop version of ResortWork.co.uk that we can use for demo purposes at the forthcoming Ski Shows? It would allow us to let stand visitors browse the sites on an iPad to view jobs and training directory course listings. Yes, sure we can do that. Eventually, you might think why don't they simply use 3G enabled iPads for that purpose? As stated above, there might be several reasons for that - low coverage, expensive data packages, etc. Anyway, it is not a question on how to circumvent the request but to deliver a solution to that. Possible solutions... or not? We already did offline websites earlier, and even established complete mirrors of one or two web sites on our systems. There are actually several possibilities to handle this kind of request, and it mainly depends on the system or device where the offline site should be available on. Here, it is clearly expressed that we have to address this on an Apple iPad, well actually, I think that they'd like to use multiple devices during their exhibitions. Following is an overview of possible solutions depending on the technology or device in use, and how it can be done: Replication of source files and database The above mentioned web site is running on ASP.NET, IIS and SQL Server. In case that a laptop or slate runs a Windows OS, the easiest way would be to take a snapshot of the source files and database, and transfer them as local installation to those Windows machines. This approach would be fully operational on the local machine. Saving pages for offline usage This is actually a quite tedious job but still practicable for small web sites Tool based approach to 'harvest' the web site There quite some tools in the wild that could handle this job, namely wget, httrack, web copier, etc. Screenshots bundled as PDF document Not really... ;-) Creating screencast or video Simply navigate through your website and record your desktop session. Actually, we are using this kind of approach to track down difficult problems in order to see and understand exactly what the user was doing to cause an error. Of course, this list isn't complete and I'd love to get more of your ideas in the comments section below the article. Preparations for offline browsing The original website is dynamically and data-driven by ASP.NET, and looks like this: As we have to put the result onto iPads we are going to choose the tool-based approach to 'download' the whole web site for offline usage. Again, depending on the complexity of your web site you might have to check which of the applications produces the best results for you. My usual choice is to use wget but in this case, we run into problems related to the rewriting of hyperlinks. As a consequence of that we opted for using HTTrack. HTTrack comes in different flavours, like console application but also as either GUI (WinHTTrack on Windows) or Web client (WebHTTrack on Linux/Unix/BSD). Here's a brief description taken from the original website about HTTrack: HTTrack is a free (GPL, libre/free software) and easy-to-use offline browser utility. It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. And there is an extensive documentation for all options and switches online. General recommendation is to go through the HTTrack Users Guide By Fred Cohen. It covers all the initial steps you need to get up and running. Be aware that it will take quite some time to get all the necessary resources down to your machine. Actually, for our customer we run the tool directly on their web server to avoid unnecessary traffic and bandwidth. After a couple of runs and some additional fine-tuning - explicit inclusion or exclusion of various external linked web sites - we finally had a more or less complete offline version available. A very handsome feature of HTTrack is the error/warning log after completing the download. It contains some detailed information about errors that appeared on the pages and the links within the pages that have been processed. Error: "Bad Request" (400) at link www.resortwork.co.uk/job-details_Ski_hire:tech_or_mgr_or_driver_37854.aspx (from www.resortwork.co.uk/Jobs_A_to_Z.aspx)Error: "Not Found" (404) at link www.247recruit.net/images/applynow.png (from www.247recruit.net/css/global.css)Error: "Not Found" (404) at link www.247recruit.net/activate.html (from www.247recruit.net/247recruit_tefl_jobs_network.html) In our situation, we took the records of HTTP 400/404 errors and passed them to the web development department. Improvements are to be expected soon. ;-) Quality assurance on the full-featured desktop Unfortunately, the generated output of HTTrack was still incomplete but luckily there were only images missing. Being directly on the web server we simply copied the missing images from the original source folder into our offline version. After that, we created an archive and transferred the file securely to our local workspace for further review and checks. From that point on, it wasn't necessary to get any more files from the original web server, and we could focus ourselves completely on the process of browsing and navigating through the offline version to isolate visual differences and functional problems. As said, the original web site runs on ASP.NET Web Forms and uses Postback calls for interaction like search, pagination and partly for navigation. This is the main field of improving the offline experience. Of course, same as for standard web development it is advised to test with various browsers, and strangely we discovered that the offline version looked pretty good on Firefox, Chrome and Safari, but not in Internet Explorer. A quick look at the HTML source shed some light on this, and there are conditional CSS inclusions based on the user agent. HTTrack is not acting as Internet Explorer and so we didn't have the necessary overrides for this browser. Not problematic after all in our case, but you might have to pay attention to this and get the IE-specific files explicitly. And while having a view at the source code, we also found out that HTTrack actually modifies the generated HTML output. In several occasions we discovered that <div> elements were converted into <table> constructs for no obvious reason; even nested structures. Search 'e'nd destroy - sed (or Notepad++) to the rescue During our intensive root cause analysis for a couple of HTML/CSS problems that needed some extra attention it is very helpful to be familiar with any editor that allows search and replace over multiple files like, ie. sed - stream editor for filtering and transforming text on Linux or my personal favourite Notepad++ on Windows. This allowed us to quickly fix a lot of anchors with onclick attributes and Javascript code that was addressed to ASP.NET files instead of their generated HTML counterparts, like so: grep -lr -e '.aspx' * | xargs sed -e 's/.aspx/.html?/g' The additional question mark after the HTML extension helps to separate the query string from the actual target and solved all our missing hyperlinks very fast. The same can be done in Notepad++ on Windows, too. Just use the 'Replace in files' feature and you are settled. Especially, in combination with Regular Expressions (regex). Landscape of browsers Okay, after several runs of HTML/CSS code analysis, searching and replacing some strings in a pool of more than 4.000 files, we finally had a very good match of an offline browsing experience in Firefox and Chrome on Linux. Next, we transferred that modified set of files to a Windows 8 machine for review on Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer 7 to 10, and a Mac mini running Mac OS X 10.7 to check the output on Safari and again on Chrome. Besides IE, for reasons already mentioned above, the results were identical. And last but not least it was about to check web site on tablets. Please continue to read on the following articles: Taking web sites offline for demonstration on Galaxy Tablet Taking web sites offline for demonstration on iPad

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  • Key ATG architecture principles

    - by Glen Borkowski
    Overview The purpose of this article is to describe some of the important foundational concepts of ATG.  This is not intended to cover all areas of the ATG platform, just the most important subset - the ones that allow ATG to be extremely flexible, configurable, high performance, etc.  For more information on these topics, please see the online product manuals. Modules The first concept is called the 'ATG Module'.  Simply put, you can think of modules as the building blocks for ATG applications.  The ATG development team builds the out of the box product using modules (these are the 'out of the box' modules).  Then, when a customer is implementing their site, they build their own modules that sit 'on top' of the out of the box ATG modules.  Modules can be very simple - containing minimal definition, and perhaps a small amount of configuration.  Alternatively, a module can be rather complex - containing custom logic, database schema definitions, configuration, one or more web applications, etc.  Modules generally will have dependencies on other modules (the modules beneath it).  For example, the Commerce Reference Store module (CRS) requires the DCS (out of the box commerce) module. Modules have a ton of value because they provide a way to decouple a customers implementation from the out of the box ATG modules.  This allows for a much easier job when it comes time to upgrade the ATG platform.  Modules are also a very useful way to group functionality into a single package which can be leveraged across multiple ATG applications. One very important thing to understand about modules, or more accurately, ATG as a whole, is that when you start ATG, you tell it what module(s) you want to start.  One of the first things ATG does is to look through all the modules you specified, and for each one, determine a list of modules that are also required to start (based on each modules dependencies).  Once this final, ordered list is determined, ATG continues to boot up.  One of the outputs from the ordered list of modules is that each module can contain it's own classes and configuration.  During boot, the ordered list of modules drives the unified classpath and configpath.  This is what determines which classes override others, and which configuration overrides other configuration.  Think of it as a layered approach. The structure of a module is well defined.  It simply looks like a folder in a filesystem that has certain other folders and files within it.  Here is a list of items that can appear in a module: MyModule: META-INF - this is required, along with a file called MANIFEST.MF which describes certain properties of the module.  One important property is what other modules this module depends on. config - this is typically present in most modules.  It defines a tree structure (folders containing properties files, XML, etc) that maps to ATG components (these are described below). lib - this contains the classes (typically in jarred format) for any code defined in this module j2ee - this is where any web-apps would be stored. src - in case you want to include the source code for this module, it's standard practice to put it here sql - if your module requires any additions to the database schema, you should place that schema here Here's a screenshots of a module: Modules can also contain sub-modules.  A dot-notation is used when referring to these sub-modules (i.e. MyModule.Versioned, where Versioned is a sub-module of MyModule). Finally, it is important to completely understand how modules work if you are going to be able to leverage them effectively.  There are many different ways to design modules you want to create, some approaches are better than others, especially if you plan to share functionality between multiple different ATG applications. Components A component in ATG can be thought of as a single item that performs a certain set of related tasks.  An example could be a ProductViews component - used to store information about what products the current customer has viewed.  Components have properties (also called attributes).  The ProductViews component could have properties like lastProductViewed (stores the ID of the last product viewed) or productViewList (stores the ID's of products viewed in order of their being viewed).  The previous examples of component properties would typically also offer get and set methods used to retrieve and store the property values.  Components typically will also offer other types of useful methods aside from get and set.  In the ProductViewed component, we might want to offer a hasViewed method which will tell you if the customer has viewed a certain product or not. Components are organized in a tree like hierarchy called 'nucleus'.  Nucleus is used to locate and instantiate ATG Components.  So, when you create a new ATG component, it will be able to be found 'within' nucleus.  Nucleus allows ATG components to reference one another - this is how components are strung together to perform meaningful work.  It's also a mechanism to prevent redundant configuration - define it once and refer to it from everywhere. Here is a screenshot of a component in nucleus:  Components can be extremely simple (i.e. a single property with a get method), or can be rather complex offering many properties and methods.  To be an ATG component, a few things are required: a class - you can reference an existing out of the box class or you could write your own a properties file - this is used to define your component the above items must be located 'within' nucleus by placing them in the correct spot in your module's config folder Within the properties file, you will need to point to the class you want to use: $class=com.mycompany.myclass You may also want to define the scope of the class (request, session, or global): $scope=session In summary, ATG Components live in nucleus, generally have links to other components, and provide some meaningful type of work.  You can configure components as well as extend their functionality by writing code. Repositories Repositories (a.k.a. Data Anywhere Architecture) is the mechanism that ATG uses to access data primarily stored in relational databases, but also LDAP or other backend systems.  ATG applications are required to be very high performance, and data access is critical in that if not handled properly, it could create a bottleneck.  ATG's repository functionality has been around for a long time - it's proven to be extremely scalable.  Developers new to ATG need to understand how repositories work as this is a critical aspect of the ATG architecture.   Repositories essentially map relational tables to objects in ATG, as well as handle caching.  ATG defines many repositories out of the box (i.e. user profile, catalog, orders, etc), and this is comprised of both the underlying database schema along with the associated repository definition files (XML).  It is fully expected that implementations will extend / change the out of the box repository definitions, so there is a prescribed approach to doing this.  The first thing to be sure of is to encapsulate your repository definition additions / changes within your own module (as described above).  The other important best practice is to never modify the out of the box schema - in other words, don't add columns to existing ATG tables, just create your own new tables.  These will help ensure you can easily upgrade your application at a later date. xml-combination As mentioned earlier, when you start ATG, the order of the modules will determine the final configpath.  Files within this configpath are 'layered' such that modules on top can override configuration of modules below it.  This is the same concept for repository definition files.  If you want to add a few properties to the out of the box user profile, you simply need to create an XML file containing only your additions, and place it in the correct location in your module.  At boot time, your definition will be combined (hence the term xml-combination) with the lower, out of the box modules, with the result being a user profile that contains everything (out of the box, plus your additions).  Aside from just adding properties, there are also ways to remove and change properties. types of properties Aside from the normal 'database backed' properties, there are a few other interesting types: transient properties - these are properties that are in memory, but not backed by any database column.  These are useful for temporary storage. java-backed properties - by nature, these are transient, but in addition, when you access this property (by called the get method) instead of looking up a piece of data, it performs some logic and returns the results.  'Age' is a good example - if you're storing a birth date on the profile, but your business rules are defined in terms of someones age, you could create a simple java-backed property to look at the birth date and compare it to the current date, and return the persons age. derived properties - this is what allows for inheritance within the repository structure.  You could define a property at the category level, and have the product inherit it's value as well as override it.  This is useful for setting defaults, with the ability to override. caching There are a number of different caching modes which are useful at different times depending on the nature of the data being cached.  For example, the simple cache mode is useful for things like user profiles.  This is because the user profile will typically only be used on a single instance of ATG at one time.  Simple cache mode is also useful for read-only types of data such as the product catalog.  Locked cache mode is useful when you need to ensure that only one ATG instance writes to a particular item at a time - an example would be a customers order.  There are many options in terms of configuring caching which are outside the scope of this article - please refer to the product manuals for more details. Other important concepts - out of scope for this article There are a whole host of concepts that are very important pieces to the ATG platform, but are out of scope for this article.  Here's a brief description of some of them: formhandlers - these are ATG components that handle form submissions by users. pipelines - these are configurable chains of logic that are used for things like handling a request (request pipeline) or checking out an order. special kinds of repositories (versioned, files, secure, ...) - there are a couple different types of repositories that are used in various situations.  See the manuals for more information. web development - JSP/ DSP tag library - ATG provides a traditional approach to developing web applications by providing a tag library called the DSP library.  This library is used throughout your JSP pages to interact with all the ATG components. messaging - a message sub-system used as another way for components to interact. personalization - ability for business users to define a personalized user experience for customers.  See the other blog posts related to personalization.

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  • Are your personal insecurities screwing up your internal communications?

    - by Lucy Boyes
    I do some internal comms as part of my job. Quite a lot of it involves talking to people about stuff. I’m spending the next couple of weeks talking to lots of people about internal comms itself, because we haven’t done a lot of audience/user feedback gathering, and it turns out that if you talk to people about how they feel and what they think, you get some pretty interesting insights (and an idea of what to do next that isn’t just based on guesswork and generalising from self). Three things keep coming up from talking to people about what we suck at  in terms of internal comms. And, as far as I can tell, they’re all examples where personal insecurity on the part of the person doing the communicating makes the experience much worse for the people on the receiving end. 1. Spending time telling people how you’re going to do something, not what you’re doing and why Imagine you’ve got to give an update to a lot of people who don’t work in your area or department but do have an interest in what you’re doing (either because they want to know because they’re curious or because they need to know because it’s going to affect their work too). You don’t want to look bad at your job. You want to make them think you’ve got it covered – ideally because you do*. And you want to reassure them that there’s lots of exciting work going on in your area to make [insert thing of choice] happen to [insert thing of choice] so that [insert group of people] will be happy. That’s great! You’re doing a good job and you want to tell people about it. This is good comms stuff right here. However, you’re slightly afraid you might secretly be stupid or lazy or incompetent. And you’re exponentially more afraid that the people you’re talking to might think you’re stupid or lazy or incompetent. Or pointless. Or not-adding-value. Or whatever the thing that’s the worst possible thing to be in your company is. So you open by mentioning all the stuff you’re going to do, spending five minutes or so making sure that everyone knows that you’re DOING lots of STUFF. And the you talk for the rest of the time about HOW you’re going to do the stuff, because that way everyone will know that you’ve thought about this really hard and done tons of planning and had lots of great ideas about process and that you’ve got this one down. That’s the stuff you’ve got to say, right? To prove you’re not fundamentally worthless as a human being? Well, maybe. But probably not. See, the people who need to know how you’re going to do the stuff are the people doing the stuff. And those are the people in your area who you’ve (hopefully-please-for-the-love-of-everything-holy) already talked to in depth about how you’re going to do the thing (because else how could they help do it?). They are the only people who need to know the how**. It’s the difference between strategy and tactics. The people outside of your bubble of stuff-doing need to know the strategy – what it is that you’re doing, why, where you’re going with it, etc. The people on the ground with you need the strategy and the tactics, because else they won’t know how to do the stuff. But the outside people don’t really need the tactics at all. Don’t bother with the how unless your audience needs it. They probably don’t. It might make you feel better about yourself, but it’s much more likely that Bob and Jane are thinking about how long this meeting has gone on for already than how personally impressive and definitely-not-an-idiot you are for knowing how you’re going to do some work. Feeling marginally better about yourself (but, let’s face it, still insecure as heck) is not worth the cost, which in this case is the alienation of your audience. 2. Talking for too long about stuff This is kinda the same problem as the previous problem, only much less specific, and I’ve more or less covered why it’s bad already. Basic motivation: to make people think you’re not an idiot. What you do: talk for a very long time about what you’re doing so as to make it sound like you know what you’re doing and lots about it. What your audience wants: the shortest meaningful update. Some of this is a kill your darlings problem – the stuff you’re doing that seems really nifty to you seems really nifty to you, and thus you want to share it with everyone to show that you’re a smart person who thinks up nifty things to do. The downside to this is that it’s mostly only interesting to you – if other people don’t need to know, they likely also don’t care. Think about how you feel when someone is talking a lot to you about a lot of stuff that they’re doing which is at best tangentially interesting and/or relevant. You’re probably not thinking that they’re really smart and clearly know what they’re doing (unless they’re talking a lot and being really engaging about it, which is not the same as talking a lot). You’re probably thinking about something totally unrelated to the thing they’re talking about. Or the fact that you’re bored. You might even – and this is the opposite of what they’re hoping to achieve by talking a lot about stuff – be thinking they’re kind of an idiot. There’s another huge advantage to paring down what you’re trying to say to the barest possible points – it clarifies your thinking. The lightning talk format, as well as other formats which limit the time and/or number of slides you have to say a thing, are really good for doing this. It’s incredibly likely that your audience in this case (the people who need to know some things about your thing but not all the things about your thing) will get everything they need to know from five minutes of you talking about it, especially if trying to condense ALL THE THINGS into a five-minute talk has helped you get clear in your own mind what you’re doing, what you’re trying to say about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. The bonus of this is that by being clear in your thoughts and in what you say, and in not taking up lots of people’s time to tell them stuff they don’t really need to know, you actually come across as much, much smarter than the person who talks for half an hour or more about things that are semi-relevant at best. 3. Waiting until you’ve got every detail sorted before announcing a big change to the people affected by it This is the worst crime on the list. It’s also human nature. Announcing uncertainty – that something important is going to happen (big reorganisation, product getting canned, etc.) but you’re not quite sure what or when or how yet – is scary. There are risks to it. Uncertainty makes people anxious. It might even paralyse them. You can’t run a business while you’re figuring out what to do if you’ve paralysed everyone with fear over what the future might bring. And you’re scared that they might think you’re not the right person to be in charge of [thing] if you don’t even know what you’re doing with it. Best not to say anything until you know exactly what’s going to happen and you can reassure them all, right? Nope. The people who are going to be affected by whatever it is that you don’t quite know all the details of yet aren’t stupid***. You wouldn’t have hired them if they were. They know something’s up because you’ve got your guilty face on and you keep pulling people into meeting rooms and looking vaguely worried. Here’s the deal: it’s a lot less stressful for everyone (including you) if you’re up front from the beginning. We took this approach during a recent company-wide reorganisation and got really positive feedback. People would much, much rather be told that something is going to happen but you’re not entirely sure what it is yet than have you wait until it’s all fixed up and then fait accompli the heck out of them. They will tell you this themselves if you ask them. And here’s why: by waiting until you know exactly what’s going on to communicate, you remove any agency that the people that the thing is going to happen to might otherwise have had. I know you’re scared that they might get scared – and that’s natural and kind of admirable – but it’s also patronising and infantilising. Ask someone whether they’d rather work on a project which has an openly uncertain future from the beginning, or one where everything’s great until it gets shut down with no forewarning, and very few people are going to tell you they’d prefer the latter. Uncertainty is humanising. It’s you admitting that you don’t have all the answers, which is great, because no one does. It allows you to be consultative – you can actually ask other people what they think and how they feel and what they’d like to do and what they think you should do, and they’ll thank you for it and feel listened to and respected as people and colleagues. Which is a really good reason to start talking to them about what’s going on as soon as you know something’s going on yourself. All of the above assumes you actually care about talking to the people who work with you and for you, and that you’d like to do the right thing by them. If that’s not the case, you can cheerfully disregard the advice here, but if it is, you might want to think about the ways above – and the inevitable countless other ways – that making internal communication about you and not about your audience could actually be doing the people you’re trying to communicate with a huge disservice. So take a deep breath and talk. For five minutes or so. About the important things. Not the other things. As soon as you possibly can. And you’ll be fine.   *Of course you do. You’re good at your job. Don’t worry. **This might not always be true, but it is most of the time. Other people who need to know the how will either be people who you’ve already identified as needing-to-know and thus part of the same set as the people in you’re area you’ve already discussed this with, or else they’ll ask you. But don’t bring this stuff up unless someone asks for it, because most of the people in the audience really don’t care and you’re wasting their time. ***I mean, they might be. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re not.

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  • ??????Oracle Service Cloud??

    - by hamsun
    Adriana Garjoaba,Oracle,2014?5?16? 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RightNow??????????????,????????????????????? ????????RightNow??,?????????????????????,????????????,???????

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  • Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Batman

    - by Pinal Dave
    Batman is one of the darkest superheroes in the fantasy canon.  He does not come to his powers through any sort of magical coincidence or radioactive insect, but through a lot of psychological scarring caused by witnessing the death of his parents.  Despite his dark back story, he possesses a lot of admirable abilities that I feel bear comparison to developers. Batman has the distinct advantage that his alter ego, Bruce Wayne is a millionaire (or billionaire in today’s reboots).  This means that he can spend his time working on his athletic abilities, building a secret lair, and investing his money in cool tools.  This might not be true for developers (well, most developers), but I still think there are many parallels. So how are developers like Batman? Well, read on my list of reasons. Develop Skills Batman works on his skills.  He didn’t get the strength to scale Gotham’s skyscrapers by inheriting his powers or suffering an industrial accident.  Developers also hone their skills daily.  They might not be doing pull-ups and scaling buldings, but I think their skills are just as impressive. Clear Goals Batman is driven to build a better Gotham.  He knows that the criminal who killed his parents was a small-time thief, not a super villain – so he has larger goals in mind than simply chasing one villain.  He wants his city as a whole to be better.  Developers are also driven to make things better.  It can be easy to get hung up on one problem, but in the end it is best to focus on the well-being of the system as a whole. Ultimate Teamplayers Batman is the hero Gotham needs – even when that means appearing to be the bad guys.  Developers probably know that feeling well.  Batman takes the fall for a crime he didn’t commit, and developers often have to deliver bad news about the limitations of their networks and servers.  It’s not always a job filled with glory and thanks, but someone has to do it. Always Ready Batman and the Boy Scouts have this in common – they are always prepared.  Let’s add developers to this list.  Batman has an amazing tool belt with gadgets and gizmos, and let’s not even get into all the functions of the Batmobile!  Developers’ skills might be the knowledge and skills they have developed, not tools they can carry in a utility belt, but that doesn’t make them any less impressive. 100% Dedication Bruce Wayne cultivates the personality of a playboy, never keeping the same girlfriend for long and spending his time partying.  Even though he hides it, his driving force is his deep concern and love for his friends and the city as a whole.  Developers also care a lot about their company and employees – even when it is driving them crazy.  You do your best work when you care about your job on a personal level. Quality Output Batman believes the city deserves to be saved.  The citizens might have a love-hate relationship with both Batman and Bruce Wayne, and employees might not always appreciate developers.  Batman and developers, though, keep working for the best of everyone. I hope you are all enjoying reading about developers-as-superheroes as much as I am enjoying writing about them.  Please tell me how else developers are like Superheroes in the comments – especially if you know any developers who are faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Developer, Superhero

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