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• Happy 3rd Birthday SilverlightCream!

  - by Dave Campbell

  Happy 3rd Birthday!     Yesterday (May 16) was the 'Birthday' of SilverlightCream, which started just after MIX in 2007 with a post "Interesting Silverlight posts today: Silverlight Control & Silverlight Pad". Too many good posts flying around led me to want to archive them, particularly since I was being aggregated at a new site Silverlight.net, and I could give some of that 'reach' to the community. Saturday's post was number 862, and as of that post, there were 5697 blog posts archived in the database all tagged up and searchable at SilverlightCream.com using the search page. The search needs to be better, and that's another discussion, but it does work. The blog didn't begin life as the SilverlightCream blog, as is obvious from the name, but once I realized people were following it closely, I've tried to keep the signal-to-noise ratio very high. I even secured another blog for when I just want to rant about something to keep that stuff out of this one :) If you've been around since MIX07 days you've heard all this, but after talking to some people at MIX10 I realized not everyone knows all the ways the information is presented, so I figured doing a post like this once a year probably isn't a bad idea :) I scrounge through an ever-growing list of blogs (right now sitting at 505) looking for good stuff. I try to spin through the list every day, but with the list growing that large, it's getting tough. I usually use it as a background task while working or watching TV. If I just sit and go through the blogs it takes about an hour. The list is long enough now that from time to time, I'll only get partway through it and have 10 to 13 entries, so I'll just stop there and go on the next day... I don't like to have more than 15 in any single post. It's all pattern recognition as in "seen that", "seen that", "that's new", etc... so if you're a blogger, look at a heading below for some comments about blogging from my perspective. When I see something new, I make sure you're not pulling a 'Mike Taulty' on me and dumping 6 or 8 new posts in one day :), and I tag the ones I want to review. If there's not a lot going on, I may just push the posts as I come across them. Some days there may be 60 posts in that 'to review' list! Some are non-Silverlight, some are essentially duplicates of others, some are demos, ads, new releases of something, session materials, etc. I push lots of material into a database at WynApse.com, and the "Tagged Posts" menu on the left sidebar there takes you to a tag cloud of (at this very moment) "9224 articles tagged 13915 different ways using 459 unique tags". There are links in there on Gibson guitars, Jazz Guitar instructional stuff, Ford F-250 links, and tons of technical and non-technical stuff I've been aggregating for about 5 years now. So when I decide to blog (or shoutout) something, I first push it into the database at WynApse.com. Then I tag it all up and push it into the database at SilverlightCream.com. Then it gets pushed to @SilverlightNews. For a little over a year now, we're tracking unique IP hits on posts launched from either the blog post or from one of the SilverlightCream.com pages, and the posts with top hits from unique IP addresses in the last 7 days are displayed in a 'Skim' page at SilverlightCream... and that page needs work as well. The Skim page and tracking was the brainchild of my buddy Michael Washington. What I blog/shoutout After some time doing posts, I decided there were things that probably have no need to be searchable, but are good information, so I post those as 'Shoutouts'. Eventually I also decided the Shoutouts should get posted to @SilverlightNews, and that's now taking place. Notes to bloggers Remember I said spinning throught the Big List-o-BlogsTM is pattern recognition... that means I don't spend a lot of time on any individual blog deciding if it has new content. If you're familiar with the term 'Above the Fold', then you're probably ok. If I have to scroll the page to see if there's something new, or wade through some maze of menus, I'm probably going to miss new stuff. Likewise if you only show the latest on the front page and make it a puzzle to find the rest of them, or if you make the titles and initial graphics almost identical to the previous article, I'll miss it. Another thing is name/brand-recognition. Far be it for me (WynApse) to comment on someone blogging with a pseudonym, but if you want to get get some recognition, you are going to want your name to be available somewhere. I can think right off the top of my head of a couple good blogs that I have no idea of the individuals' real names. I can pull that off a bit because I've been around so long almost everyone knows who I am, but if you're new to the blog-o-sphere, being able to be name-recognized is as important as getting your brand out there. Kick my tires Finally, stuff happens... I may hit the wrong key and delete your blog, or a post might slip past me and I not realize it's new because of the naming, and never blog it. If you think I missed something, send me an email or use the submit page at SilverlightCream.com. Some bloggers have figured out that if they submit (one way or another) to me, their posts will go out next. I try to honor anyone that takes the time to submit with a quicker 'Cream posting. Thanks! Finally, thanks to everyone that contributes to the community as a whole... the blogs, the videos, and the presentations. A special thanks to everyone that reads SilverlightCream, or follows @WynApse or @SilverlightNews. Keep it all coming, and... Stay in the 'Light

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• In the Mobile and Tablet World, How Much is Too Much?

  - by andrewbrust

  The week of April 26th was a huge one in the world of mobile and tablet devices,  There were so many individual developments, announcements and solidifications of strategy, it’s almost impossible to believe they occurred in the same month, let alone the same week. Things started with Apple and Gizmodo having a Law and Order moment over the latter’s procurement of what appears to be the former’s 4th gen iPhone prototype.  We found out on the 26th that Gizmodo blogger Jason Chen’s apartment was raided by police and, honestly, that was a bit much. But Apple didn’t stop there.  They also published Steve Job’s critique of Adobe Flash and his explanation of Cupertino’s embargo of Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads.  If you ask me, this too, was a bit much. Apple finished up the week by releasing the 3G version of its iPad product to the US market. I like (iLike?) my WiFi iPad.  The idea of getting a version of it that required a second 3G service monthly subscription, is, well, a bit  much. Microsoft was in the news too.  It killed a project it hadn’t even acknowledged the existence of: the Courier tablet.  That’s a bit much too.  If a tree falls in the woods, and Microsoft says they can’t hear it anyway, could they really have chopped it down? Maybe Microsoft Research should have licensed some of Courier’s technology from other parts of Microsoft.  Then maybe they could have kept the product alive.  Ask HTC: they’re going to be licensing technology from Microsoft because Redmond insists that Google’s Android operating system infringes on certain of their patents.  And since HTC now builds a number of handsets on Android, instead of being beholden, as they once were, to Windows Mobile, that means they can keep making their products.  Why does HTC have to pay the royalties, and not Google?  Maybe Microsoft decided that going after GOOG would have been a bit much, even for them. The agreement came not a moment to soon: HTC released their “Droid Incredible” (that name’s a bit much), an Android 2.1 handset with amazing hardware and HTC’s own Sense UI, on April 30th (this past Friday). This phone is very well-reviewed.  Maybe that’s why Google basically decided to beg off introducing a version of its Nexus One phone (also manufactured by HTC) on the Verizon Wireless network.  Google backing down?  That’s incredible, if not also a bit much. And that brings us to HP.  Which this week announced its acquisition of Palm and its webOS mobile phone touch-oriented operating system.  HP also killed its own Slate initiative.  Apparently HP realized that Windows 7, even with a proprietary HP touch UI added on top, is no match for the iPad.  I’m guessing they think webOS might work a bit better,  And I’m wondering if HP even wants to use webOS for phone handsets, beyond the Pre and Pixi.  Using it just for slate devices would be a bit extreme, but maybe not too much. Honestly, this was not Microsoft’s best week.  It killed a project and a close partner did likewise.  Then that same partner bought a competing OS product, while another partner released their new product that uses yet another competing OS platform. What did Microsoft actually produce this past week? An update to its Windows Phone 7 developer tools that actually works with the version of Visual Studio 2010 released on April 12th, and the version of Silverlight released three days later. That took three weeks to get synced up, and that’s a bit much too. But at least it happened. Windows Phone 7 is Microsoft’s best hope for a comeback in the SmartPhone market and to offer a credible touch-based tablet device.  This week, two of Microsoft’s slate initiatives died, and its only mobile phone victory was around its competitor’s operating system.  I hope the new platform gets Redmond out of the PC ghetto and into the classes of device that get people really excited today.  If it can’t, that would be a bit much; probably too much.  And, as the signs at the Lonestar Cafe in NYC used to say, too much ain’t enough.

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• Announcing the New Windows Azure Web Sites Shared Scaling Tier

  - by Clint Edmonson

  Windows Azure Web Sites has added a new pricing tier that will solve the #1 blocker for the web development community. The shared tier now supports custom domain names mapped to shared-instance web sites. This post will outline the plan changes and elaborate on how the new pricing model makes Windows Azure Web Sites an even richer option for web development shops of all sizes. Free Shared Reserved # of Sites 10 100 100 Egress 165MB/Day 5GB/Month Included 5GB/Month Included Storage 1GB 1GB 10GB Throttling CPU/Memory/Egress CPU/Memory Unlimited Price Free $.02/hr per site, per instance $.08/hr per core Setting the Stage In June, we released the first public preview of Windows Azure Web Sites, which gave web developers a great platform on which to get web sites running using their web development framework of choice. PHP, Node.js, classic ASP, and ASP.NET developers can all utilize the Windows Azure platform to create and launch their web sites. Likewise, these developers have a series of data storage options using Windows Azure SQL Databases, MySQL, or Windows Azure Storage. The Windows Azure Web Sites free offer enabled startups to get their site up and running on Windows Azure with a minimal investment, and with multiple deployment and continuous integration features such as Git, Team Foundation Services, FTP, and Web Deploy.  The response to the Windows Azure Web Sites offer has been overwhelmingly positive. Since the addition of the service on June 12th, tens of thousands of web sites have been deployed to Windows Azure and the volume of adoption is increasing every week. Preview Feedback In spite of the growth and success of the product, the community has had questions about features lacking in the free preview offer. The main question web developers asked regarding Windows Azure Web Sites relates to the lack of the free offer’s support for domain name mapping. During the preview launch period, customer feedback made it obvious that the lack of domain name mapping support was an area of concern. We’re happy to announce that this #1 request has been delivered as a feature of the new shared plan. New Shared Tier Portal Features In the screen shot below, the “Scale” tab in the portal shows the new tiers – Free, Shared, and Reserved – and gives the user the ability to quickly move any of their free web sites into the shared tier. With a single mouse-click, the user can move their site into the shared tier. Once a site has been moved into the shared tier, a new Manage Domains button appears in the bottom action bar of the Windows Azure Portal giving site owners the ability to manage their domain names for a shared site. This button brings up the domain-management dialog, which can be used to enter in a specific domain name that will be mapped to the Windows Azure Web Site. Shared Tier Benefits Startups and large web agencies will both benefit from this plan change. Here are a few examples of scenarios which fit the new pricing model: Startups no longer have to select the reserved plan to map domain names to their sites. Instead, they can use the free option to develop their sites and choose on a site-by-site basis which sites they elect to move into the shared plan, paying only for the sites that are finished and ready to be domain-mapped Agencies who manage dozens of sites will realize a lower cost of ownership over the long term by moving their sites into reserved mode. Once multi-site companies reach a certain price point in the shared tier, it is much more cost-effective to move sites to a reserved tier.  Long-term, it’s easy to see how the new Windows Azure Web Sites shared pricing tier makes Windows Azure Web Sites it a great choice for both startups and agency customers, as it enables rapid growth and upgrades while keeping the cost to a minimum. Large agencies will be able to have all of their sites in their own instances, and startups will have the capability to scale up to multiple-shared instances for minimal cost and eventually move to reserved instances without worrying about the need to incur continually additional costs. Customers can feel confident they have the power of the Microsoft Windows Azure brand and our world-class support, at prices competitive in the market. Plus, in addition to realizing the cost savings, they’ll have the whole family of Windows Azure features available. Continuous Deployment from GitHub and CodePlex Along with this new announcement are two other exciting new features. I’m proud to announce that web developers can now publish their web sites directly from CodePlex or GitHub.com repositories. Once connections are established between these services and your web sites, Windows Azure will automatically be notified every time a check-in occurs. This will then trigger Windows Azure to pull the source and compile/deploy the new version of your app to your web site automatically. Walk-through videos on how to perform these functions are below: Publishing to an Azure Web Site from CodePlex Publishing to an Azure Web Site from GitHub.com These changes, as well as the enhancements to the reserved plan model, make Windows Azure Web Sites a truly competitive hosting option. It’s never been easier or cheaper for a web developer to get up and running. Check out the free Windows Azure web site offering and see for yourself. Stay tuned to my twitter feed for Windows Azure announcements, updates, and links: @clinted

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• Goto for the Java Programming Language

  - by darcy

  Work on JDK 8 is well-underway, but we thought this late-breaking JEP for another language change for the platform couldn't wait another day before being published. Title: Goto for the Java Programming Language Author: Joseph D. Darcy Organization: Oracle. Created: 2012/04/01 Type: Feature State: Funded Exposure: Open Component: core/lang Scope: SE JSR: 901 MR Discussion: compiler dash dev at openjdk dot java dot net Start: 2012/Q2 Effort: XS Duration: S Template: 1.0 Reviewed-by: Duke Endorsed-by: Edsger Dijkstra Funded-by: Blue Sun Corporation Summary Provide the benefits of the time-testing goto control structure to Java programs. The Java language has a history of adding new control structures over time, the assert statement in 1.4, the enhanced for-loop in 1.5,and try-with-resources in 7. Having support for goto is long-overdue and simple to implement since the JVM already has goto instructions. Success Metrics The goto statement will allow inefficient and verbose recursive algorithms and explicit loops to be replaced with more compact code. The effort will be a success if at least twenty five percent of the JDK's explicit loops are replaced with goto's. Coordination with IDE vendors is expected to help facilitate this goal. Motivation The goto construct offers numerous benefits to the Java platform, from increased expressiveness, to more compact code, to providing new programming paradigms to appeal to a broader demographic. In JDK 8, there is a renewed focus on using the Java platform on embedded devices with more modest resources than desktop or server environments. In such contexts, static and dynamic memory footprint is a concern. One significant component of footprint is the code attribute of class files and certain classes of important algorithms can be expressed more compactly using goto than using other constructs, saving footprint. For example, to implement state machines recursively, some parties have asked for the JVM to support tail calls, that is, to perform a complex transformation with security implications to turn a method call into a goto. Such complicated machinery should not be assumed for an embedded context. A better solution is just to expose to the programmer the desired functionality, goto. The web has familiarized users with a model of traversing links among different HTML pages in a free-form fashion with some state being maintained on the side, such as login credentials, to effect behavior. This is exactly the programming model of goto and code. While in the past this has been derided as leading to "spaghetti code," spaghetti is a tasty and nutritious meal for programmers, unlike quiche. The invokedynamic instruction added by JSR 292 exposes the JVM's linkage operation to programmers. This is a low-level operation that can be leveraged by sophisticated programmers. Likewise, goto is a also a low-level operation that should not be hidden from programmers who can use more efficient idioms. Some may object that goto was consciously excluded from the original design of Java as one of the removed feature from C and C++. However, the designers of the Java programming languages have revisited these removals before. The enum construct was also left out only to be added in JDK 5 and multiple inheritance was left out, only to be added back by the virtual extension method methods of Project Lambda. As a living language, the needs of the growing Java community today should be used to judge what features are needed in the platform tomorrow; the language should not be forever bound by the decisions of the past. Description From its initial version, the JVM has had two instructions for unconditional transfer of control within a method, goto (0xa7) and goto_w (0xc8). The goto_w instruction is used for larger jumps. All versions of the Java language have supported labeled statements; however, only the break and continue statements were able to specify a particular label as a target with the onerous restriction that the label must be lexically enclosing. The grammar addition for the goto statement is: GotoStatement: goto Identifier ; The new goto statement similar to break except that the target label can be anywhere inside the method and the identifier is mandatory. The compiler simply translates the goto statement into one of the JVM goto instructions targeting the right offset in the method. Therefore, adding the goto statement to the platform is only a small effort since existing compiler and JVM functionality is reused. Other language changes to support goto include obvious updates to definite assignment analysis, reachability analysis, and exception analysis. Possible future extensions include a computed goto as found in gcc, which would replace the identifier in the goto statement with an expression having the type of a label. Testing Since goto will be implemented using largely existing facilities, only light levels of testing are needed. Impact Compatibility: Since goto is already a keyword, there are no source compatibility implications. Performance/scalability: Performance will improve with more compact code. JVMs already need to handle irreducible flow graphs since goto is a VM instruction.

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• JDK bug migration: components and subcomponents

  - by darcy

  One subtask of the JDK migration from the legacy bug tracking system to JIRA was reclassifying bugs from a three-level taxonomy in the legacy system, (product, category, subcategory), to a fundamentally two-level scheme in our customized JIRA instance, (component, subcomponent). In the JDK JIRA system, there is technically a third project-level classification, but by design a large majority of JDK-related bugs were migrated into a single "JDK" project. In the end, over 450 legacy subcategories were simplified into about 120 subcomponents in JIRA. The 120 subcomponents are distributed among 17 components. A rule of thumb used was that a subcategory had to have at least 50 bugs in it for it to be retained. Below is a listing the component / subcomponent classification of the JDK JIRA project along with some notes and guidance on which OpenJDK email addresses cover different areas. Eventually, a separate incidents project to host new issues filed at bugs.sun.com will use a slightly simplified version of this scheme. The preponderance of bugs and subcomponents for the JDK are in library-related areas, with components named foo-libs and subcomponents primarily named after packages. While there was an overall condensation of subcomponents in the migration, in some cases long-standing informal divisions in core libraries based on naming conventions in the description were promoted to formal subcomponents. For example, hundreds of bugs in the java.util subcomponent whose descriptions started with "(coll)" were moved into java.util:collections. Likewise, java.lang bugs starting with "(reflect)" and "(proxy)" were moved into java.lang:reflect. client-libs (Predominantly discussed on 2d-dev and awt-dev and swing-dev.) 2d demo java.awt java.awt:i18n java.beans (See beans-dev.) javax.accessibility javax.imageio javax.sound (See sound-dev.) javax.swing core-libs (See core-libs-dev.) java.io java.io:serialization java.lang java.lang.invoke java.lang:class_loading java.lang:reflect java.math java.net java.nio (Discussed on nio-dev.) java.nio.charsets java.rmi java.sql java.sql:bridge java.text java.util java.util.concurrent java.util.jar java.util.logging java.util.regex java.util:collections java.util:i18n javax.annotation.processing javax.lang.model javax.naming (JNDI) javax.script javax.script:javascript javax.sql org.openjdk.jigsaw (See jigsaw-dev.) security-libs (See security-dev.) java.security javax.crypto (JCE: includes SunJCE/MSCAPI/UCRYPTO/ECC) javax.crypto:pkcs11 (JCE: PKCS11 only) javax.net.ssl (JSSE, includes javax.security.cert) javax.security javax.smartcardio javax.xml.crypto org.ietf.jgss org.ietf.jgss:krb5 other-libs corba corba:idl corba:orb corba:rmi-iiop javadb other (When no other subcomponent is more appropriate; use judiciously.) Most of the subcomponents in the xml component are related to jaxp. xml jax-ws jaxb javax.xml.parsers (JAXP) javax.xml.stream (JAXP) javax.xml.transform (JAXP) javax.xml.validation (JAXP) javax.xml.xpath (JAXP) jaxp (JAXP) org.w3c.dom (JAXP) org.xml.sax (JAXP) For OpenJDK, most JVM-related bugs are connected to the HotSpot Java virtual machine. hotspot (See hotspot-dev.) build compiler (See hotspot-compiler-dev.) gc (garbage collection, see hotspot-gc-dev.) jfr (Java Flight Recorder) jni (Java Native Interface) jvmti (JVM Tool Interface) mvm (Multi-Tasking Virtual Machine) runtime (See hotspot-runtime-dev.) svc (Servicability) test core-svc (See serviceability-dev.) debugger java.lang.instrument java.lang.management javax.management tools The full JDK bug database contains entries related to legacy virtual machines that predate HotSpot as well as retired APIs. vm-legacy jit (Sun Exact VM) jit_symantec (Symantec VM, before Exact VM) jvmdi (JVM Debug Interface ) jvmpi (JVM Profiler Interface ) runtime (Exact VM Runtime) Notable command line tools in the $JDK/bin directory have corresponding subcomponents. tools appletviewer apt (See compiler-dev.) hprof jar javac (See compiler-dev.) javadoc(tool) (See compiler-dev.) javah (See compiler-dev.) javap (See compiler-dev.) jconsole launcher updaters (Timezone updaters, etc.) visualvm Some aspects of JDK infrastructure directly affect JDK Hg repositories, but other do not. infrastructure build (See build-dev and build-infra-dev.) licensing (Covers updates to the third party readme, licenses, and similar files.) release_eng (Release engineering) staging (Staging of web pages related to JDK releases.) The specification subcomponent encompasses the formal language and virtual machine specifications. specification language (The Java Language Specification) vm (The Java Virtual Machine Specification) The code for the deploy and install areas is not currently included in OpenJDK. deploy deployment_toolkit plugin webstart install auto_update install servicetags In the JDK, there are a number of cross-cutting concerns whose organization is essentially orthogonal to other areas. Since these areas generally have dedicated teams working on them, it is easier to find bugs of interest if these bugs are grouped first by their cross-cutting component rather than by the affected technology. docs doclet guides hotspot release_notes tools tutorial embedded build hotspot libraries globalization locale-data translation performance hotspot libraries The list of subcomponents will no doubt grow over time, but my inclination is to resist that growth since the addition of each subcomponent makes the system as a whole more complicated and harder to use. When the system gets closer to being externalized, I plan to post more blog entries describing recommended use of various custom fields in the JDK project.

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• OBIEE 11.1.1.5.0 BP2 patch released

  - by THE

  Normal 0 21 false false false DE X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; 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;} We are happy to announce that: OBIEE 11.1.1.5.0 BP2 patch is released for four platforms : Win64, Linux64, AIX64, and Solaris SPARC 64 Remaining four platforms Win32, Linux32, Hp-Itanium, and Solaris x86-64 are expected in a few weeks.This is released as patch 13611078 on MOS /  http://support.oracle.comCustomers can download this patch directly, there is no password needed. Please note these points: README contains a list of all bug fixes included in this patch.(Only "new" fixes are listed in the readme of the BP2 patch. The fixes in the BP1 patch (aka PS1 - Patch 13562882 ) are included in the BP2 patch, even though they are not explicitly listed in the BP2 Readme. The readme is currently under review to reflect this.) This is a (mostly) cumulative bundle patch, and includes all fixes from PS1 (patch 13562882) which was released for Linux64 platform.Customers who have PS1 applied will get the expected OPatch conflict message.  Since BP2 is cumulative, you can safely rollback PS1.  You can do this prior to applying BP2, or you can choose to rollback at the time of applying the patch. Likewise, customers who have other one-off patches applied will get the expected OPatch conflict message.  If you have questions about this, please review the applied patches and compare them with list of bug fixes in Normal 0 21 false false false DE X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; 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;} README's of BP2 and BP1 Patch 13562882. If all thebug fixes are included, you can continue with patch installation and rollback applied patches. Please note, this is not a fully cumulative patch on 11.1.1.5.0.  This means it does not contain all one-off patches given out so far on top of 11.1.1.5.0.  There is a small number of such bug fixes remaining, which will all be included in BP3 patch. In case you encounter this, please have Support log an OOB (one-off backport) requests for missing bug fixes so they can be included in BP3 cumulative bundle patch, which is expected to be fully cumulative going forward. This BP2 includes the CPU patch fix from BUG 12830486 - OCT 2011 CPU - UPDATE FOR OBIEE 11.1.1.5.0 BP3 patch is in planning stage, no ETA is announced yet.

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• I, Android

  - by andrewbrust

  I’m just back from the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).  I go to CES to get a sense of what Microsoft is doing in the consumer space, and how people are reacting to it.  When I first went to CES 2 years ago, Steve Ballmer announced the beta of Windows 7 at his keynote address, and the crowd went wild.  When I went again last year, everyone was hoping for a Windows tablet announcement at the Ballmer keynote.  Although they didn’t get one (unless you count the unreleased HP Slate running Windows 7), people continued to show anticipation around Project Natal (which became Xbox 360 Kinect) and around Windows Phone 7.  On the show floor last year, there were machines everywhere running Windows 7, including lots of netbooks.  Microsoft had a serious influence at the show both years. But this year, one brand, one product, one operating system evidenced itself over and over again: Android.  Whether in the multitude of tablet devices that were shown across the show, or the burgeoning number of smartphones shown (including all four forthcoming 4G-LTE handsets at Verizon Wireless’ booth) or the Google TV set top box from Logitech and the embedded implementation in new Sony TV models, Android was was there. There was excitement in the ubiquity of Android 2.2 (Froyo) and the emergence of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).  There was anticipation around the tablet-optimized Android 3.0 (Honeycomb).  There were highly customized skins.  There was even an official CES Android app for navigating the exhibit halls and planning events.  Android was so ubiquitous, in fact, that it became surprising to find a device that was running anything else.  It was as if Android had become the de facto Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) operating system. Motorola’s booth was nothing less than an Android showcase.  And it was large, and it was packed.  Clearly Moto’s fortunes have improved dramatically in the last year and change.  The fact that the company morphed from being a core Windows Mobile OEM to an Android poster child seems non-coincidental to their improved fortunes. Even erstwhile WinMo OEMs who now do produce Windows Phone 7 devices were not pushing them.  Perhaps I missed them, but I couldn’t find WP7 handsets at Samsung’s booth, nor at LG’s.  And since the only carrier exhibiting at the show was Verizon Wireless, which doesn’t yet have WP7 devices, this left Microsoft’s booth as the only place to see the phones. Why is Android so popular with consumer electronics manufacturers in Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan?  Yes, it’s free, but there’s more to it than that.  Android seems to have succeeded as an OEM OS because it’s directed at OEMs who are permitted to personalize it and extend it, and it provides enough base usability and touch-friendliness that OEMs want it.  In the process, it has become a de facto standard (which makes OEMs want it even more), and has done so in a remarkably short time: the OS was launched on a single phone in the US just 2 1/4 years ago. Despite its success and popularity, Apple’s iOS would never be used by OEMs, because it’s not meant to be embedded and customized, but rather to provide a fully finished experience.  Ironically, Windows Phone 7 is likewise disqualified from such embedded use.  Windows Mobile (6.x and earlier) may have been a candidate had it not atrophied so much in its final 5 years of life. What can Microsoft do?  It could start by developing a true touch-centric OS for tablets, whether that be within Windows 8, or derived from Windows Phone 7.  It would then need to deconstruct that finished product into components, via a new or altered version of Windows Embedded or Windows Embedded Compact.  And if Microsoft went that far, it would only make sense to work with its OEMs and mobile carriers to make certain they showcase their products using the OS at CES, and other consumer electronics venues, prominently. Mostly though, Microsoft would need to decide if it were really committed to putting sustained time, effort and money into a commodity product, especially given the far greater financial return that it now derives from its core Windows and Office franchises. Microsoft would need to see an OEM OS for what it is: a loss leader that helps build brand and platform momentum for up-level products.  Is that enough to make the investment worthwhile?  One thing is certain: if that question is not acknowledged and answered honestly, then any investment will be squandered.

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• A Visual Studio Release Grows in Brooklyn

  - by andrewbrust

  Yesterday, Microsoft held its flagship launch event for Office 2010 in Manhattan.  Today, the Redmond software company is holding a local launch event for Visual Studio (VS) 2010, in Brooklyn.  How come information workers get the 212 treatment and developers are relegated to 718? Well, here’s the thing: the Brooklyn Marriott is actually a great place for an event, but you need some intimate knowledge of New York City to know that.  NBC’s Studio 8H, where the Office launch was held yesterday (and from where SNL is broadcast) is a pretty small venue, but you’d need some inside knowledge to recognize that.  Likewise, while Office 2010 is a product whose value is apparent.  Appreciating VS 2010’s value takes a bit more savvy.  Setting aside its year-based designation, this release of VS, counting the old Visual Basic releases, is the 10th version of the product.  How can a developer audience get excited about an integrated development environment when it reaches double-digit version numbers?  Well, it can be tough.  Luckily, Microsoft sent Jay Schmelzer, a Group Program Manager from the Visual Studio team in Redmond, to come tell the Brooklyn audience why they should be excited. Turns out there’s a lot of reasons.  Support fro SharePoint development is a big one.  In previous versions of VS, that support has been anemic, at best.  Shortage of SharePoint developers is a huge issue in the industry, and this should help.  There’s also built in support for Windows Azure (Microsoft’s cloud platform) and, through a download, support for the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 platform.  ASP.NET MVC, a “close-to-the-metal” Web development option that does away with the Web Forms abstraction layer, has a first-class presence in VS.  So too does jQuery, the Open Source environment that makes JavaScript development a breeze.  The jQuery support is so good that Microsoft now contributes to that Open Source project and offers IntelliSense support for it in the code editor. Speaking of the VS code editor, it now supports multi-monitor setups, zoom-in, and block selection.  If you’re not a developer, this may sound confusing and minute.  I’ll just say that for people who are developers these are little things that really contribute to productivity, and that translates into lower development costs. The really cool demo, though, was around Visual Studio 2010’s new debugging features.  This stuff is hard to showcase, but I believe it’s truly breakthrough technology: imagine being able to step backwards in time to see what might have caused a bug.  Cool?  Now imagine being able to do that, even if you weren’t the tester and weren’t present while the testing was being done.  Then imagine being able to see a video screen capture of what the tester was doing with your app when the bug occurred.  VS 2010 allows all that.  This could be the demise of the IWOMM (“it works on my machine”) syndrome. After the keynote, I asked Schmelzer if any of Microsoft’s competitors have debugging tools that come close to VS 2010’s.  His answer was an earnest “we don’t think so.”  If that’s true, that’s a big deal, and a huge advantage for developer teams who adopt it.  It will make software development much cheaper and more efficient.  Kind of like holding a launch event at the Brooklyn Marriott instead of 30 Rock in Manhattan! VS 2010 (version 10) and Office 2010 (version 14) aren’t the only new product versions Microsoft is releasing right now.  There’s also SQL Server 2008 R2 (version 10.5), Exchange 2010 (version 8, I believe), SharePoint 2010 (version 4) and, of course, Windows 7.  With so many new versions at such levels of maturity, I think it’s fair to say Microsoft has reached middle-age.  How does a company stave off a potential mid-life crisis, especially when with young Turks like Google coming along and competing so fiercely?  Hard to say.  But if focusing on core value, including value that’s hard to play into a sexy demo, is part oft the answer, then Microsoft’s doing OK.  And if some new tricks, like Windows Phone 7, can gain some traction, that might round things out nicely. Are the legacy products old tricks, or are they revised classics?  I honestly don’t know, because it’s the market’s prerogative to pass that judgement.  I can say this though: based on today’s show, I think Microsoft’s been doing its homework.

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• Books are Dead! Long Live the Books!

  - by smisner

  We live in interesting times with regard to the availability of technical material. We have lots of free written material online in the form of vendor documentation online, forums, blogs, and Twitter. And we have written material that we can buy in the form of books, magazines, and training materials. Online videos and training – some free and some not free – are also an option. All of these formats are useful for one need or another. As an author, I pay particular attention to the demand for books, and for now I see no reason to stop authoring books. I assure you that I don’t get rich from the effort, and fortunately that is not my motivation. As someone who likes to refer to books frequently, I am still a big believer in books and have evidence from book sales that there are others like me. If I can do my part to help others learn about the technologies I work with, I will continue to produce content in a variety of formats, including books. (You can view a list of all of my books on the Publications page of my site and my online training videos at Pluralsight.) As a consumer of technical information, I prefer books because a book typically can get into a topic much more deeply than a blog post, and can provide more context than vendor documentation. It comes with a table of contents and a (hopefully accurate) index that helps me zero in on a topic of interest, and of course I can use the Search feature in digital form. Some people suggest that technology books are outdated as soon as they get published. I guess it depends on where you are with technology. Not everyone is able to upgrade to the latest and greatest version at release. I do assume, however, that the SQL Server 7.0 titles in my library have little value for me now, but I’m certain that the minute I discard the book, I’m going to want it for some reason! Meanwhile, as electronic books overtake physical books in sales, my husband is grateful that I can continue to build my collection digitally rather than physically as the books have a way of taking over significant square footage in our house! Blog posts, on the other hand, are useful for describing the scenarios that come up in real-life implementations that wouldn’t fit neatly into a book. As many years that I have working with the Microsoft BI stack, I still run into new problems that require creative thinking. Likewise, people who work with BI and other technologies that I use share what they learn through their blogs. Internet search engines help us find information in blogs that simply isn’t available anywhere else. Another great thing about blogs, also, is the connection to community and the dialog that can ensue between people with common interests. With the trend towards electronic formats for books, I imagine that we’ll see books continue to adapt to incorporate different forms of media and better ways to keep the information current. At the moment, I wish I had a better way to help readers with my last two Reporting Services books. In the case of the Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Reporting Services Step by Step book, I have heard many cases of readers having problems with the sample database that shipped on CD – either the database was missing or it was corrupt. So I’ve provided a copy of the database on my site for download from http://datainspirations.com/uploads/rs2005sbsDW.zip. Then for the Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008 Reporting Services Step by Step book, we decided to avoid the database problem by using the AdventureWorks2008 samples that Microsoft published on Codeplex (although code samples are still available on CD). We had this silly idea that the URL for the download would remain constant, but it seems that expectation was ill-founded. Currently, the sample database is found at http://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/37109 but I have no idea how long that will remain valid. My latest books (#9 and #10 which are milestones I never anticipated), Building Integrated Business Intelligence Solutions with SQL Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010 (McGraw Hill, 2011) and Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (Microsoft Press, 2011), will not ship with a CD, but will provide all code samples for download at a site maintained by the respective publishers. I expect that the URLs for the downloads for the book will remain valid, but there are lots of references to other sites that can change or disappear over time. Does that mean authors shouldn’t make reference to such sites? Personally, I think the benefits to be gained from including links are greater than the risks of the links becoming invalid at some point. Do you think the time for technology books has come to an end? Is the delivery of books in electronic format enough to keep them alive? If technological barriers were no object, what would make a book more valuable to you than other formats through which you can obtain information?

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• Rebuilding CoasterBuzz, Part II: Hot data objects

  - by Jeff

  This is the second post, originally from my personal blog, in a series about rebuilding one of my Web sites, which has been around for 12 years. More: Part I: Evolution, and death to WCF After the rush to get moving on stuff, I temporarily lost interest. I went almost two weeks without touching the project, in part because the next thing on my backlog was doing up a bunch of administrative pages. So boring. Unfortunately, because most of the site's content is user-generated, you need some facilities for editing data. CoasterBuzz has a database full of amusement parks and roller coasters. The entities enjoy the relationships that you would expect, though they're further defined by "instances" of a coaster, to define one that has moved between parks as one, with different names and operational dates. And of course, there are pictures and news items, too. It's not horribly complex, except when you have to account for a name change and display just the newest name. In all previous versions, data access was straight SQL. As so much of the old code was rooted in 2003, with some changes in 2008, there wasn't much in the way of ORM frameworks going on then. Let me rephrase that, I mostly wasn't interested in ORM's. Since that time, I used a little LINQ to SQL in some projects, and a whole bunch of nHibernate while at Microsoft. Through all of that experience, I have to admit that these frameworks are often a bigger pain in the ass than not. They're great for basic crud operations, but when you start having all kinds of exotic relationships, they get difficult, and generate all kinds of weird SQL under the covers. The black box can quickly turn into a black hole. Sometimes you end up having to build all kinds of new expertise to do things "right" with a framework. Still, despite my reservations, I used the newer version of Entity Framework, with the "code first" modeling, in a science project and I really liked it. Since it's just a right-click away with NuGet, I figured I'd give it a shot here. My initial effort was spent defining the context class, which requires a bit of work because I deviate quite a bit from the conventions that EF uses, starting with table names. Then throw some partial querying of certain tables (where you'll find image data), and you're splitting tables across several objects (navigation properties). I won't go into the details, because these are all things that are well documented around the Internet, but there was a minor learning curve there. The basics of reading data using EF are fantastic. For example, a roller coaster object has a park associated with it, as well as a number of instances (if it was ever relocated), and there also might be a big banner image for it. This is stupid easy to use because it takes one line of code in your repository class, and by the time you pass it to the view, you have a rich object graph that has everything you need to display stuff. Likewise, editing simple data is also, well, simple. For this goodness, thank the ASP.NET MVC framework. The UpdateModel() method on the controllers is very elegant. Remember the old days of assigning all kinds of properties to objects in your Webforms code-behind? What a time consuming mess that used to be. Even if you're not using an ORM tool, having hydrated objects come off the wire is such a time saver. Not everything is easy, though. When you have to persist a complex graph of objects, particularly if they were composed in the user interface with all kinds of AJAX elements and list boxes, it's not just a simple matter of submitting the form. There were a few instances where I ended up going back to "old-fashioned" SQL just in the interest of time. It's not that I couldn't do what I needed with EF, it's just that the efficiency, both my own and that of the generated SQL, wasn't good. Since EF context objects expose a database connection object, you can use that to do the old school ADO.NET stuff you've done for a decade. Using various extension methods from POP Forums' data project, it was a breeze. You just have to stick to your decision, in this case. When you start messing with SQL directly, you can't go back in the same code to messing with entities because EF doesn't know what you're changing. Not really a big deal. There are a number of take-aways from using EF. The first is that you write a lot less code, which has always been a desired outcome of ORM's. The other lesson, and I particularly learned this the hard way working on the MSDN forums back in the day, is that trying to retrofit an ORM framework into an existing schema isn't fun at all. The CoasterBuzz database isn't bad, but there are design decisions I'd make differently if I were starting from scratch. Now that I have some of this stuff done, I feel like I can start to move on to the more interesting things on the backlog. There's a lot to do, but at least it's fun stuff, and not more forms that will be used infrequently.

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• [R] Merge multiple data frames - Error in match.names(clabs, names(xi)) : names do not match previou

  - by Jasmine

  Hi all- I'm getting some really bizarre stuff while trying to merge multiple data frames. Help! I need to merge a bunch of data frames by the columns 'RID' and 'VISCODE'. Here is an example of what it looks like: d1 = data.frame(ID = sample(9, 1:100), RID = c(2, 5, 7, 9, 12), VISCODE = rep('bl', 5), value1 = rep(16, 5)) d2 = data.frame(ID = sample(9, 1:100), RID = c(2, 2, 2, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7), VISCODE = rep(c('bl', 'm06', 'm12'), 3), value2 = rep(100, 9)) d3 = data.frame(ID = sample(9, 1:100), RID = c(2, 2, 2, 5, 5, 5, 9,9,9), VISCODE = rep(c('bl', 'm06', 'm12'), 3), value3 = rep("a", 9), values3.5 = rep("c", 9)) d4 = data.frame(ID =sample(8, 1:100), RID = c(2, 2, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 9), VISCODE = c(c('bl', 'm12'), rep(c('bl', 'm06', 'm12'), 2), 'bl'), value4 = rep("b", 9)) dataList = list(d1, d2, d3, d4) I looked at the answers to the question titled "Merge several data.frames into one data.frame with a loop." I used the reduce method suggested there as well as a loop I wrote: try1 = mymerge(dataList) try2 <- Reduce(function(x, y) merge(x, y, all= TRUE, by=c("RID", "VISCODE")), dataList, accumulate=F) where dataList is a list of data frames and mymerge is: mymerge = function(dataList){ L = length(dataList) mdat = dataList[[1]] for(i in 2:L){ mdat = merge(mdat, dataList[[i]], by.x = c("RID", "VISCODE"), by.y = c("RID", "VISCODE"), all = TRUE) } mdat } For my test data and subsets of my real data, both of these work fine and produce exactly the same results. However, when I use larger subsets of my data, they both break down and give me the following error: Error in match.names(clabs, names(xi)) : names do not match previous names. The really weird thing is that using this works: dataList = list(demog[1:50,], neurobat[1:50,], apoe[1:50,], mmse[1:50,], faq[1:47, ]) And using this fails: dataList = list(demog[1:50,], neurobat[1:50,], apoe[1:50,], mmse[1:50,], faq[1:48, ]) As far as I can tell, there is nothing special about row 48 of faq. Likewise, using this works: dataList = list(demog[1:50,], neurobat[1:50,], apoe[1:50,], mmse[1:50,], pdx[1:47, ]) And using this fails: dataList = list(demog[1:50,], neurobat[1:50,], apoe[1:50,], mmse[1:50,], pdx[1:48, ]) Row 48 in faq and row 48 in pdx have the same values for RID and VISCODE, the same value for EXAMDATE (something I'm not matching on) and different values for ID (another thing I'm not matching on). Besides the matching RID and VISCODE, I see anything special about them. They don't share any other variable names. This same scenario occurs elsewhere in the data without problems. To add icing on the complication cake, this doesn't even work: dataList = list(demog[1:50,], neurobat[1:50,], apoe[1:50,], mmse[1:50,], faq[1:48, 2:3]) where columns 2 and 3 are "RID" and "VISCODE". 48 isn't even the magic number because this works: dataList = list(demog[1:500,], neurobat[1:500,], apoe[1:500,], mmse[1:457,]) while using mmse[1:458, ] fails. I can't seem to come up with test data that causes the problem. Has anyone had this problem before? Any better ideas on how to merge? Thanks for your help! Jasmine

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• Java Copy/Paste org.w3c.dom.Node between two running copies of the same program

  - by Jay

  I have a program that shows a tree representation of an XML file. Using a number of sources online I have Copy/Paste within a single instance of the program working. I am using the system Clipboard. What I need though is to be able to copy a node from one instance of the program and paste to a different instance of the same program. I have tried a number of different options, all resulting in the same behavior. When pasting from within the same application the clipboardContent contains a "transferable" object with the correct data along with an isLocal set to "true". When I perform the copy and then attempt the paste from another instance of the same program running the clipboardContent contains a "flavorsToData" HashMap and "flavors" values, the check for isDataFlavorSupported fails (never hits my custom class that represents the new flavor). I have tried using different values for the requestor object in the getContents() call. Likewise I have tried a few different ClipboardOwners for the setContent() call. Neither seem to change the behavior in any way. I am sorely tempted to convert the node that is being copied back into a textual XML format, and then on the paste convert back to the DOM model, but would rather not if possible. This class is used to define the DataFlavor and transferable object: import java.awt.datatransfer.*; import org.w3c.dom.Node; public class NodeCopyPaste implements Transferable { static public DataFlavor NodeFlavor; private DataFlavor [] supportedFlavors = {NodeFlavor}; public Node aNode; public NodeCopyPaste (Node paraNode) { aNode = paraNode; try { NodeFlavor = new DataFlavor (Class.forName ("org.w3c.dom.Node"), "Node"); } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) { e.printStackTrace (); } } public synchronized DataFlavor [] getTransferDataFlavors () { return (supportedFlavors); } public boolean isDataFlavorSupported (DataFlavor nodeFlavor) { return (nodeFlavor.equals (NodeFlavor)); } public synchronized Object getTransferData (DataFlavor nFlavor) throws UnsupportedFlavorException { if (nFlavor.equals (NodeFlavor)) return (this); else throw new UnsupportedFlavorException (nFlavor); } public void lostOwnership (Clipboard parClipboard, Transferable parTransferable) { } } I define a Clipboard object from the main application screen and then tie in copy and paste handlers for the mouse clicks: During initialization I assign the system clipboard: clippy = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getSystemClipboard(); Copy Handler Node copyNode = ((CLIInfo) node.getUserObject()).DOMNode.cloneNode(true); NodeCopyPaste contents = new NodeCopyPaste(copyNode); clippy.setContents (contents, null); Paste Handler Transferable clipboardContent = clippy.getContents (null); Node clonedNode = null; if ((clipboardContent != null) && (clipboardContent.isDataFlavorSupported (NodeCopyPaste.NodeFlavor))) { try { NodeCopyPaste tempNCP = (NodeCopyPaste) clipboardContent.getTransferData (NodeCopyPaste.NodeFlavor); clonedNode = tempNCP.aNode.cloneNode(true); } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace (); } Thanks!

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• Is the design notion of layers contrived?

  - by Bruce

  Hi all I'm reading through Eric Evans' awesome work, Domain-Driven Design. However, I can't help feeling that the 'layers' model is contrived. To expand on that statement, it seems as if it tries to shoe-horn various concepts into a specific, neat model, that of layers talking to each other. It seems to me that the layers model is too simplified to actually capture the way that (good) software works. To expand further: Evans says: "Partition a complex program into layers. Develop a design within each layer that is cohesive and that depends only on the layers below. Follow standard architectural patterns to provide loose coupling to the layers above." Maybe I'm misunderstanding what 'depends' means, but as far as I can see, it can either mean a) Class X (in the UI for example) has a reference to a concrete class Y (in the main application) or b) Class X has a reference to a class Y-ish object providing class Y-ish services (ie a reference held as an interface). If it means (a), then this is clearly a bad thing, since it defeats re-using the UI as a front-end to some other application that provides Y-ish functionality. But if it means (b), then how is the UI any more dependent on the application, than the application is dependent on the UI? Both are decoupled from each other as much as they can be while still talking to each other. Evans' layer model of dependencies going one way seems too neat. First, isn't it more accurate to say that each area of the design provides a module that is pretty much an island to itself, and that ideally all communication is through interfaces, in a contract-driven/responsibility-driven paradigm? (ie, the 'dependency only on lower layers' is contrived). Likewise with the domain layer talking to the database - the domain layer is as decoupled (through DAO etc) from the database as the database is from the domain layer. Neither is dependent on the other, both can be swapped out. Second, the idea of a conceptual straight line (as in from one layer to the next) is artificial - isn't there more a network of intercommunicating but separate modules, including external services, utility services and so on, branching off at different angles? Thanks all - hoping that your responses can clarify my understanding on this..

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• Cases of companies taking IP rights of your own personal projects developed outside company time

  - by GSS

  Hi, I have heard of cases where a developer working for a company is also making his own personal projects in his own time, using his own equipment yet the company he works for tries to claim ownership for the project. I really find this annoying, and bang out of order. It should also be illegal. I am in this position (work for a company and working on my own systems - from small class libraries used to practise what I learn in my exam revision to a large commercial-scale system). While I don't know if the company will try to take ownership, all I know is they say they do not want a conflict of interest. Fair enough, my system is developed in my own time using my own equipment. They also say that work time should be for work only, which it is. Funny thing that as work is so boring, easy and slow that I have plenty of free time, which I wish I could spend on something productive - said system. The problem is, my company does not take hiring technical talent seriously. This is my first job, I am a junior coder (but my status/position doesn't really reflect what I can do), but I am the only developer. Likewise with the guy who controls Windows Server. As the contract does not say anything about taking ownership, I would assume they would. They would try to milk my success (I've made a good impression so I am sure they would). How can this be allowed? Are there any examples of this happening to any fellow Stacker here? It really makes my blood boil. What I find funny is that my company hardly has the expertise and resources to even be able to successfully run a project of my size. What I do at work is an ASP.NET application consisting of five pages, and even then there are flaws in the project. If I told them that they would also have to take responsibility for flaws in the project, then they would think twice! It's exactly because of this I save the best code for myself and at work I write rubbish code full of code smells. The company don't really care about error handling, as long as the business functionality works (ie a scheduled email sends, but there is no error handling). They'd think twice when they see the embarassment and business cost of a YSOD...

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• Which mobile operating system should I code for?

  - by samgoody

  It seems as though mobile computing has fully arrived. I would like to rewrite two of our programs for mobile devices, but am a bit lost as to which platform to target. Complicating this decision: I would need to learn the relevant languages and IDEs - my coding to date has been almost all web based (PHP, JS, Actionscript, etc. Some ASPX). Most users seem to be religious about their mobile decision, so oral conversations leave me more confused then enlightened. I do not yet own a smartphone - will have to buy one once I know which platform to be aiming for. Both of my programs are more for business users, (one is only useful for C.P.A.s). I am a single developer, and cannot develop for more than one platform at a time. Getting it right is important. Based on what I've found on the web, I would've expected RIM to be a shoo-in, and the general order to be as follows: RIM Blackberry - More of them than any other brand. Despite naysayers, they've had double the sales (or perhaps 5X the sales) of any other smartphone, and have continued to grow. And, they have business users. Android - According to Schmidt, they have outsold everyone else except RIM (though I can't find where I read that now), and they are just getting started. According to Comscore, they are already at 8% of the market and expected to hit Shcmidt's claims within six months. Nokia - The largest worldwide. If they would just make up between Maemo or Symbian, I would be far less confused. iPhone - Much more competition by other apps, fewer sales to be had, and a overlord that can delay or cancel my app at any time. Is Cocoa hard to learn? Windows Mobile - Word is that version 7 will not be backwards compatible and losing market share. Palm WebOS - Perhaps this should go first, as it is the only one that offers tools to make my life easy as a web application developer. No competition in marketplace. But not very many users either. However, a search on StackOverflow shows a hugely disproportionate number of iPhone questions versus Blackberry. Likewise, there are clearly more apps on iPhone, so it must be getting developer love. What is the one platform I should develop for? Please back up your answer with the logic.

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• What is the best python module skeleton code?

  - by user213060

  == Subjective Question Warning == Looking for well supported opinions or supporting evidence. Let us assume that skeleton code can be good. If you disagree with the very concept of module skeleton code then fine, but please refrain from repeating that opinion here. Many python IDE's will start you with a template like: print 'hello world' That's not enough... So here's my skeleton code to get this question started: My Module Skeleton, Short Version: #!/usr/bin/env python """ Module Docstring """ # ## Code goes here. # def test(): """Testing Docstring""" pass if __name__=='__main__': test() and, My Module Skeleton, Long Version: #!/usr/bin/env python # -*- coding: ascii -*- """ Module Docstring Docstrings: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0257/ """ __author__ = 'Joe Author ([email protected])' __copyright__ = 'Copyright (c) 2009-2010 Joe Author' __license__ = 'New-style BSD' __vcs_id__ = '$Id$' __version__ = '1.2.3' #Versioning: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0386/ # ## Code goes here. # def test(): """ Testing Docstring""" pass if __name__=='__main__': test() Notes: """ ===MODULE TYPE=== Since the vast majority of my modules are "library" types, I have constructed this example skeleton as such. For modules that act as the main entry for running the full application, you would make changes such as running a main() function instead of the test() function in __main__. ===VERSIONING=== The following practice, specified in PEP8, no longer makes sense: __version__ = '$Revision: 1.2.3 $' for two reasons: (1) Distributed version control systems make it neccessary to include more than just a revision number. E.g. author name and revision number. (2) It's a revision number not a version number. Instead, the __vcs_id__ variable is being adopted. This expands to, for example: __vcs_id__ = '$Id: example.py,v 1.1.1.1 2001/07/21 22:14:04 goodger Exp $' ===VCS DATE=== Likewise, the date variable has been removed: __date__ = '$Date: 2009/01/02 20:19:18 $' ===CHARACTER ENCODING=== If the coding is explicitly specified, then it should be set to the default setting of ascii. This can be modified if necessary (rarely in practice). Defaulting to utf-8 can cause anomalies with editors that have poor unicode support. """ There are a lot of PEPs that put forward coding style recommendations. Am I missing any important best practices? What is the best python module skeleton code? Update Show me any kind of "best" that you prefer. Tell us what metrics you used to qualify "best".

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• Issues with mx:method, mx.rpc.remoting.mxml.RemoteObject, and sub-classing mx.rpc.remoting.mxml.Remo

  - by Ryan Wilson

  I am looking to subclass RemoteObject. Instead of: <mx:RemoteObject ... > <mx:method ... /> <mx:method ... /> </mx:RemoteObject> I want to do something like: <remoting:CustomRemoteObject ...> <mx:method ... /> <mx:method ... /> </remoting:CustomRemoteObject> where CustomRemoteObject extends mx.rpc.remoting.mxml.RemoteObject like so: package remoting { import mx.rpc.remoting.mxml.RemoteObject; public class CustomRemoteObject extends RemoteObject { public function CustomRemoteObject(destination:String=null) { super(destination); } } } However, when doing so and declaring a CustomRemoteObject in MXML as above, the flex compiler shows the error: Could not resolve <mx:method> to a component implementation At first I thought it had something to do with CustomRemoteObject failing to do something, despite that (or since) it had no change except as to the name. So, I copied the source from mx.rpc.remoting.mxml.RemoteObject into CustomRemoteObject and modified it so the only difference was a refactoring of the class and package name. But still, the same error. Unlike many MXML components, I cannot cmd+click <mx:method> in FlashBuilder to open the source. Likewise, I have not found a reference in mx.rpc.remoting.mxml.RemoteObject, mx.rpc.remoting.RemoteObject, or mx.rpc.remoting.AbstractService, and have been unsuccessful in find its source online. Which leads me to the questions in the title: What exactly is <mx:method>? (yes, I know it's a declaration of a RemoteObject method, and I know how to use it, but it's peculiar in regard to other components) Why did my attempt at subclassing RemoteObject fail, despite it effectually being a rename? Perhaps the root, why can mx.rpc.remoting.mxml.RemoteObject as an MXML declaration accept <mx:method> child tags, yet the source of said class cannot when refactored in name only?

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• Transposing and Untransposing a String in java

  - by Will

  I have been working on two methods that will Transpose and Untranspose a String respectively. The solutions that I have come up with both work to the best of my knowledge. I just want to know if I could have solved these problems in a simpler way. My code seems like it is too long for the task that is being performed. The first method, transpose(), will take a String as a parameter and transpose it. If "bridge" is entered, the output will be "bergid". Likewise, with the unTranspose() method, if the user enters "bergid", the output will be "bridge". public void transpose( String s ) { String t = ""; int end = s.length() - 1; for ( int i = 0; i < s.length() / 2; i++ ) { t += Character.toString( s.charAt( i ) ) + Character.toString( s.charAt( end ) ); end--; } // Lenth of String is odd if ( s.length() % 2 == 1 ) { // add character in middle of String to the end of the new String t+= Character.toString( s.charAt( s.length() / 2 ) ); } System.out.println( t ); } public void unTranspose( String s ) { String t = ""; // Length of String is odd if ( s.length() % 2 == 1 ) { for ( int i = 0; i < s.length(); i+=2 ) { t+= Character.toString( s.charAt( i ) ); } for ( int i = s.length() - 2; i > 0; i -= 2 ) { t += Character.toString( s.charAt( i ) ); } System.out.println( t ); } // Length of String is even else if ( s.length() % 2 == 0 ) { for ( int i = 0; i < s.length() - 1; i+=2 ) { t+= Character.toString( s.charAt( i ) ); } for ( int i = s.length() - 1; i > 0; i -= 2 ) { t+= Character.toString( s.charAt( i ) ); } System.out.println( t ); } } My code looks horrible. I'm still not used to formatting my code correctly. Please bear with me. Thanks for your time

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• MySQL table organization and optimization (Rails)

  - by aguynamedloren

  I've been learning Ruby on Rails over the past few months with no prior programming experience. Lately, I've been thinking about database optimization and table organization. I know there are great books on the subject, but I typically learn by example / as I go. Here's a hypothetical situation: Let's say I am building a social network for a niche community with 250,000 members (users). The users have the ability to attend events. Let's say there are 50,000 past/present/future events. Much like Facebook events, a user can attend any number of events and an event can have any number of attendees. In the database, there would be a table for users and a table for events. Somehow I would have to create an association between the users and events. I could create an "events" column in the users table such that each user row would contain a hash of event IDs, or I could create an "attendees" column in the events table such that each event row would contain a hash of user IDs. Neither of these solutions seem ideal, however. On a users profile page, I want to display the list of events they are associated with, which would require scanning the 50,000 event rows for the user ID of said user if I include an "attendees" column in the events table. Likewise, on an event page, I want to display a list of attendees for the event, which would require scanning the 250,000 user rows for the event ID of said event if I include an "events" column in the users table. Option 3 would be to create a third table that contains the attendee information for each and every event - but I don't see how this would solve any problems. Are these non-issues? Rails makes accessing all of this information easy, but I guess I'm worried about scale. It is entirely possible that I am under-estimating the speed and processing power of modern databases / servers / etc. How long would it take to scan 250,000 user rows for specific event IDs - 10ms? 100ms? 1,000ms? I guess that's not that bad. Am I just over-thinking this?

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• Boggling Direct3D9 dynamic vertex buffer Lock crash/post-lock failure on Intel GMA X3100.

  - by nj

  Hi, For starters I'm a fairly seasoned graphics programmer but as wel all know, everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately the codebase is a bit too large to start throwing sensible snippets here and re-creating the whole situation in an isolated CPP/codebase is too tall an order -- for which I am sorry, do not have the time. I'll do my best to explain. B.t.w, I will of course supply specific pieces of code if someone wonders how I'm handling this-or-that! As with all resources in the D3DPOOL_DEFAULT pool, when the device context is taken away from you you'll sooner or later will have to reset your resources. I've built a mechanism to handle this for all relevant resources that's been working for years; but that fact nothingwithstanding I've of course checked, asserted and doubted any assumption since this bug came to light. What happens is as follows: I have a rather large dynamic vertex buffer, exact size 18874368 bytes. This buffer is locked (and discarded fully using the D3DLOCK_DISCARD flag) each frame prior to generating dynamic geometry (isosurface-related, f.y.i) to it. This works fine, until, of course, I start to reset. It might take 1 time, it might take 2 or it might take 5 resets to set off a bug that causes an access violation either on the pointer returned by the Lock() operation on the renewed resource or a plain crash -- regarding a somewhat similar address, but without the offset that it has tacked on to it in the first case because in that case we're somewhere halfway writing -- iside the D3D9 dll Lock() call. I've tested this on other hardware, upgraded my GMA X3100 drivers (using a MacBook with BootCamp) to the latest ones, but I can't reproduce it on any other machine and I'm at a loss about what's wrong here. I have tried to reproduce a similar situation with a similar buffer (I've got a large scratch pad of the same type I filled with quads) and beyond a certain amount of bytes it started to behave likewise. I'm not asking for a solution here but I'm very interested if there are other developers here who have battled with the same foe or maybe some who can point me in some insightful direction, maybe ask some questions that might shed a light on what I may or may not be overlooking. Another interesting artifact is that the vertex buffer starts to bug if I supply both D3DLOCK_DISCARD and D3DLOCK_NOOVERWRITE together which, even though not very logical (you're not going to overwrite if you've just discarded all), gives graphics glitches. Thanks and any corrections are more than welcome. Niels p.s - A friend of mine raised the valid point that it is a huge buffer for onboard video RAM and it's being at least double or triple buffered internally due to it's dynamic nature. On the other hand, the debug output (D3D9 debug DLL + max. warning output) remains silent. p.s 2 - Had it tested on more machines and still works -- it's probably a matter of circumstance: the huge dynamic, internally double/trippled buffered buffer, not a lot of memory and drivers that don't complain when they should.. Unless someone has a better suggestion; I'd still love to hear it :)

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• How to I serialize a large graph of .NET object into a SQL Server BLOB without creating a large bu

  - by Ian Ringrose

  We have code like: ms = New IO.MemoryStream bin = New System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter bin.Serialize(ms, largeGraphOfObjects) dataToSaveToDatabase = ms.ToArray() // put dataToSaveToDatabase in a Sql server BLOB But the memory steam allocates a large buffer from the large memory heap that is giving us problems. So how can we stream the data without needing enough free memory to hold the serialized objects. I am looking for a way to get a Stream from SQL server that can then be passed to bin.Serialize() so avoiding keeping all the data in my processes memory. Likewise for reading the data back... Some more background. This is part of a complex numerical processing system that processes data in near real time looking for equipment problems etc, the serialization is done to allow a restart when there is a problem with data quality from a data feed etc. (We store the data feeds and can rerun them after the operator has edited out bad values.) Therefore we serialize the object a lot more often then we de-serialize them. The objects we are serializing include very large arrays mostly of doubles as well as a lot of small “more normal” objects. We are pushing the memory limit on a 32 bit system and make the garage collector work very hard. (Effects are being made elsewhere in the system to improve this, e.g. reusing large arrays rather then create new arrays.) Often the serialization of the state is the last straw that courses an out of memory exception; our peak memory usage is while this serialization is being done. I think we get large memory pool fragmentation when we de-serialize the object, I expect there are also other problem with large memory pool fragmentation given the size of the arrays. (This has not yet been investigated, as the person that first looked at this is a numerical processing expert, not a memory management expert.) Are customers use a mix of Sql Server 2000, 2005 and 2008 and we would rather not have different code paths for each version of Sql Server if possible. We can have many active models at a time (in different process, across many machines), each model can have many saved states. Hence the saved state is stored in a database blob rather then a file. As the spread of saving the state is important, I would rather not serialize the object to a file, and then put the file in a BLOB one block at a time. Other related questions I have asked How to Stream data from/to SQL Server BLOB fields? Is there a SqlFileStream like class that works with Sql Server 2005?

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• Parsing line and selecting values corresponding to a key

  - by gagneet

  there is a set of data which is arranged in a specific manner (as a tree), as is given below. basically a key=value pair, with some additional values at the end, which informs how many children does the branch have and some junk value. 11=1 123 2 11=1>1=45 234 1 11=1>1=45>9=16 345 1 11=1>1=45>9=16>2=34 222 1 11=1>1=45>9=16>2=34>7=0 2234 1 11=1>1=45>9=16>2=34>7=0>8=0 22345 1 11=1>1=45>9=16>2=34>7=0>8=0>0=138 22234 1 11=1>1=45>9=16>2=34>7=0>8=0>0=138>5=0 5566 1 11=1>1=45>9=16>2=34>7=0>8=0>0=138>5=0>4=0 664 1 11=1>1=45>9=16>2=34>7=0>8=0>0=138>5=0>4=0>6=10 443 1 11=1>1=45>9=16>2=34>7=0>8=0>0=138>5=0>4=0>6=10>3=11 445 0 11=1>1=47 4453 1 11=1>1=47>9=16 887 1 11=1>1=47>9=16>2=34 67 1 11=1>1=47>9=16>2=340>7=0 98 1 11=1>1=47>9=16>2=34>7=0>8=0 654 1 11=1>1=47>9=16>2=34>7=0>8=0>0=138 5789 1 11=1>1=47>9=16>2=34>7=0>8=0>0=138>5=0 9870 1 11=1>1=47>9=16>2=34>7=0>8=0>0=138>5=0>4=0 3216 1 11=1>1=47>9=16>2=34>7=0>8=0>0=138>5=0>4=0>6=10>3=11 66678 0 my problem is to get the appropriate branch from the above data, which satisfies exactly the values, which i give as the input. suppose, my input value to search in the above data stack are: 5=0 4=0 6=10 3=11 11=1 1=45 0=138 9=16 2=34 7=0 8=0 for the above given list of key-values, the function should return 11=11=459=162=347=08=00=1385=04=06=103=11 as the match. likewise, for another input file, in which another set of keys is given: 5=0 4=0 6=10 3=11 11=1 1=45 9=16 2=34 7=0 8=0 the function should return 11=11=459=162=347=08=0 1 as the match. not the last line; as that would also match all the values given in my input key, but, i want only the exact match. Also, I want to find out how many nodes were selected in the given array. (separated by ). What will be the best way to implement this kind of scenario?

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• Good object/DB set-up for CMS-esque app for managing content and user permissions?

  - by sah302

  Hi all, so I am writing a big CMS-esque app to allow users to manage web content through web applications, I've got a pretty good db-driven user permission system going, but am having trouble coming up with a good way to handle content groups and pages, I've got a couple options and not sure which one to take. Furthermore, I am not sure how to handle static page updates that have no 'widgets' in them. My current set-up for permissions is this: Objects: User, UserGroup, UserUserGroup, UserGroupType Standard many to many relationship User -> UserUserGroup <- UserGroup each Usergroup has a UserGroupType, which could be anything from Title, Department, to PermissionGroup. PermissionGroup manages the permissions. Right now on a per page basis I check permissions based on their PermissionsGroups. So for a page which has CMS features for a news widget, I check for permission groups of "Site Admin" and "News Admin". Now the issue I am coming to is, the site has many different departments involved. No problem I think, I can just have a EntityContentGroup so any widget app can be used for any departments. So my HR department, each of their news items would be in the EntityContentGroup with the news item ID, and content group of "HR" or "HR News". But maybe this isn't the most efficient way to go about it? I don't want to put the content group simply as a NewsItemType because some news items could apply to multiple areas, so I want to be able to assign them to as many areas as I want. Likewise, all of my widget apps have this, so that's why I decided to choose EntityContentGroup and not just NewsItemContentGroup. I was also thinking well instead of doing a contentGroup do a Page object that says which page some entity should be on. It seems almost like the same thing, but would I want to use Page for something else? I was thinking Page would be used for static pages with no widgets, a simple Rich Text Editor can edit the content of that page and I save that item to a page?? And then instead of doing a page level check for UserGroup permissions, would it be better to associate a usergroup to a contentgroup, and then just depending on what contentGroup content on the page is displayed, determine the permissions through that relationship? Is that better? I am not sure at this point. I guess I am just getting a tad overwhelmed at this is the largest app in scope and size that I have ever written. What is the best approach for this based on my current user permission set-up?

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• QValidator for hex input

  - by Evan Teran

  I have a Qt widget which should only accept a hex string as input. It is very simple to restrict the input characters to [0-9A-Fa-f], but I would like to have it display with a delimiter between "bytes" so for example if the delimiter is a space, and the user types 0011223344 I would like the line edit to display 00 11 22 33 44 Now if the user presses the backspace key 3 times, then I want it to display 00 11 22 3. I almost have what i want, so far there is only one subtle bug involving using the delete key to remove a delimiter. Does anyone have a better way to implement this validator? Here's my code so far: class HexStringValidator : public QValidator { public: HexStringValidator(QObject * parent) : QValidator(parent) {} public: virtual void fixup(QString &input) const { QString temp; int index = 0; // every 2 digits insert a space if they didn't explicitly type one Q_FOREACH(QChar ch, input) { if(std::isxdigit(ch.toAscii())) { if(index != 0 && (index & 1) == 0) { temp += ' '; } temp += ch.toUpper(); ++index; } } input = temp; } virtual State validate(QString &input, int &pos) const { if(!input.isEmpty()) { // TODO: can we detect if the char which was JUST deleted // (if any was deleted) was a space? and special case this? // as to not have the bug in this case? const int char_pos = pos - input.left(pos).count(' '); int chars = 0; fixup(input); pos = 0; while(chars != char_pos) { if(input[pos] != ' ') { ++chars; } ++pos; } // favor the right side of a space if(input[pos] == ' ') { ++pos; } } return QValidator::Acceptable; } }; For now this code is functional enough, but I'd love to have it work 100% as expected. Obviously the ideal would be the just separate the display of the hex string from the actual characters stored in the QLineEdit's internal buffer but I have no idea where to start with that and I imagine is a non-trivial undertaking. In essence, I would like to have a Validator which conforms to this regex: "[0-9A-Fa-f]( [0-9A-Fa-f])*" but I don't want the user to ever have to type a space as delimiter. Likewise, when editing what they types, the spaces should be managed implicitly.

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• Anyone have experience calling Rake from MSBuild for code gen and other benefits? How did it go? Wha

  - by Charlie Flowers

  While programming in C# using Visual Studio 2008, I often wish for "automatic" code generation. If possible, I'd like to achieve it by making my MSBuild solution file call out to Rake, which would call Ruby code for the code generation, having the resulting generated files automatically appear in my solution. Here's one business example (of many possible examples I could name) where this kind of automatic code generation would be helpful. In a recent project I had an interface with some properties that contained dollar amounts. I wanted a second interface and a third interface that had the same properties as the first interface, except they were "qualified" with a business unit name. Something like this: public interface IQuarterlyResults { double TotalRevenue { get; set; } double NetProfit { get; set; } } public interface IConsumerQuarterlyResults { double ConsumerTotalRevenue { get; set; } double ConsumerNetProfit { get; set; } } public interface ICorporateQuarterResults { double CorporateTotalRevenue { get; set; } double CorporateNetProfit { get; set; } } In this example, there is a "Consumer Business Unit" and a "Corporate Business Unit". Every property on IQuarterlyResults becomes a property called "Corporate" + [property name] on ICorporateQuarterlyResults, and likewise for IConsumerQuarterlyResults. Why make interfaces for these, rather than merely having an instance of IQuarterlyResults for Consumer and another instance for Corporate? Because, when working with the calculator object I was building, the user had to deal with 100's of properties, and it is much less confusing if he can deal with "fully qualified" property names such as "ConsumerNetProfit". But let's not get bogged down in this example. It is only an example and not the main question. The main question is this: I love using Ruby and ERB for code generation, and I love using Rake to manage dependencies between tasks. To solve the problem above, what I'd like to do is have MSBuild call out to Rake, and have Rake / Ruby read the list of properties on the "core" interface and then generate the code to make all the dependent interfaces and their properties. This would get triggered every time I do a build, because I'd put it into the MSBuild file for the VS.NET solution. Has anyone tried anything like this? How did it work out for you? What insights can you share about pros, cons, tips for success, etc.? Thanks!

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