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• Increasing efficiency of N-Body gravity simulation

  - by Postman

  I'm making a space exploration type game, it will have many planets and other objects that will all have realistic gravity. I currently have a system in place that works, but if the number of planets goes above 70, the FPS decreases an practically exponential rates. I'm making it in C# and XNA. My guess is that I should be able to do gravity calculations between 100 objects without this kind of strain, so clearly my method is not as efficient as it should be. I have two files, Gravity.cs and EntityEngine.cs. Gravity manages JUST the gravity calculations, EntityEngine creates an instance of Gravity and runs it, along with other entity related methods. EntityEngine.cs public void Update() { foreach (KeyValuePair<string, Entity> e in Entities) { e.Value.Update(); } gravity.Update(); } (Only relevant piece of code from EntityEngine, self explanatory. When an instance of Gravity is made in entityEngine, it passes itself (this) into it, so that gravity can have access to entityEngine.Entities (a dictionary of all planet objects)) Gravity.cs namespace ExplorationEngine { public class Gravity { private EntityEngine entityEngine; private Vector2 Force; private Vector2 VecForce; private float distance; private float mult; public Gravity(EntityEngine e) { entityEngine = e; } public void Update() { //First loop foreach (KeyValuePair<string, Entity> e in entityEngine.Entities) { //Reset the force vector Force = new Vector2(); //Second loop foreach (KeyValuePair<string, Entity> e2 in entityEngine.Entities) { //Make sure the second value is not the current value from the first loop if (e2.Value != e.Value ) { //Find the distance between the two objects. Because Fg = G * ((M1 * M2) / r^2), using Vector2.Distance() and then squaring it //is pointless and inefficient because distance uses a sqrt, squaring the result simple cancels that sqrt. distance = Vector2.DistanceSquared(e2.Value.Position, e.Value.Position); //This makes sure that two planets do not attract eachother if they are touching, completely unnecessary when I add collision, //For now it just makes it so that the planets are not glitchy, performance is not significantly improved by removing this IF if (Math.Sqrt(distance) > (e.Value.Texture.Width / 2 + e2.Value.Texture.Width / 2)) { //Calculate the magnitude of Fg (I'm using my own gravitational constant (G) for the sake of time (I know it's 1 at the moment, but I've been changing it) mult = 1.0f * ((e.Value.Mass * e2.Value.Mass) / distance); //Calculate the direction of the force, simply subtracting the positions and normalizing works, this fixes diagonal vectors //from having a larger value, and basically makes VecForce a direction. VecForce = e2.Value.Position - e.Value.Position; VecForce.Normalize(); //Add the vector for each planet in the second loop to a force var. Force = Vector2.Add(Force, VecForce * mult); //I have tried Force += VecForce * mult, and have not noticed much of an increase in speed. } } } //Add that force to the first loop's planet's position (later on I'll instead add to acceleration, to account for inertia) e.Value.Position += Force; } } } } I have used various tips (about gravity optimizing, not threading) from THIS question (that I made yesterday). I've made this gravity method (Gravity.Update) as efficient as I know how to make it. This O(N^2) algorithm still seems to be eating up all of my CPU power though. Here is a LINK (google drive, go to File download, keep .Exe with the content folder, you will need XNA Framework 4.0 Redist. if you don't already have it) to the current version of my game. Left click makes a planet, right click removes the last planet. Mouse moves the camera, scroll wheel zooms in and out. Watch the FPS and Planet Count to see what I mean about performance issues past 70 planets. (ALL 70 planets must be moving, I've had 100 stationary planets and only 5 or so moving ones while still having 300 fps, the issue arises when 70+ are moving around) After 70 planets are made, performance tanks exponentially. With < 70 planets, I get 330 fps (I have it capped at 300). At 90 planets, the FPS is about 2, more than that and it sticks around at 0 FPS. Strangely enough, when all planets are stationary, the FPS climbs back up to around 300, but as soon as something moves, it goes right back down to what it was, I have no systems in place to make this happen, it just does. I considered multithreading, but that previous question I asked taught me a thing or two, and I see now that that's not a viable option. I've also thought maybe I could do the calculations on my GPU instead, though I don't think it should be necessary. I also do not know how to do this, it is not a simple concept and I want to avoid it unless someone knows a really noob friendly simple way to do it that will work for an n-body gravity calculation. (I have an NVidia gtx 660) Lastly I've considered using a quadtree type system. (Barnes Hut simulation) I've been told (in the previous question) that this is a good method that is commonly used, and it seems logical and straightforward, however the implementation is way over my head and I haven't found a good tutorial for C# yet that explains it in a way I can understand, or uses code I can eventually figure out. So my question is this: How can I make my gravity method more efficient, allowing me to use more than 100 objects (I can render 1000 planets with constant 300+ FPS without gravity calculations), and if I can't do much to improve performance (including some kind of quadtree system), could I use my GPU to do the calculations?

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• Databinding, using formulas for unusual binding possible?

  - by Rattenmann

  Edit: added Info for WPF being used I am trying to bind a list of custom objects to a DataGrid. Straight binding seems easy enough, but i need to specify some complex formulas for some extra fields that do not directly show up in my class. Also i want to be able to EDIT the data in the Grid and get updates on related fields. Let me show you an example, because it is really hard to explain. I will simplify it to rooms with items. Each item can be red and blue. My Class looks like this: public class room { public string strRoomName { set; get; } public string strItemname { set; get; } public int intRedItem { set; get; } public int intBlueItem { set; get; } } Now if i use dataTable.ItemSource = myList; i get something like this: nr. | room | name | red | blue 1. living room, ball, 2, 1 2. sleeping room, bunny, 4, 1 3. living room, chair, 3, 2 4. kitchen, ball, 4, 7 5. garage, chair, 1, 4 Now for the complex part i need help with. I want every item to be the same number, red and blue. And because this does not hold true i want to see the "inbalance" per room AND globally like this: nr. | room | name | red | blue | missing | global red | global blue | global missing 1. living room, ball, 2, 1, 1 blue, 6, 7, 1 red 2. sleeping room, bunny, 4, 1, 3 blue, 4, 1, 3 blue 3. living room, chair, 3, 2, 1 blue, 4, 6, 2 red 4. kitchen, ball, 4, 7, 3 red, 6, 7, 1 red 5. garage, chair, 1, 4, 3 red, 4, 6, 2 red As you can see this smeels like excel formulas, i am unsure how to handle this in c# code however. You can also see i need to use data in the same row, but also get data from other rows that match one propertiy (the items name). Also if i change the blue value=1 in line 1 to value=2, i want line 1 to read like this: 1. living room, ball, 2, 2, even, 6, 8, 2 red and of corse line 4 needs to change to: 4. kitchen, ball, 4, 7, 3 red, 6, 8, 2 red As i said, this smells like excel, that's why i am really upset about myself not finding an easy solution. Surely enough c# offers some way to handle this stuff, right? Disclaimer: It is totally possible that i need a complete differend approach, pointing that out ot me is perfectly fine. Be it other ways to handle this, or a better way to structure my class. I am ok with every way to handle this as it is for learning purposes. I am simply doing programms for fun next to my college and just so happen to hit these kinda things that bug me out because i don't find a clean solution. And then i neglect my studies because i want to solve my (unreleated to studys,...) issue. Just can't stand having unsolved coding stuff around, don't judge me! ;-) And big thanks in advance if you have gotten this far in my post. It sure must be confusing with all those reds and blues. Edit: After reading trough your answers and testing my skills to implement your hints, i now have the following code as my class: public class RoomList : ObservableCollection<room> { public RoomList() : base() { Add(new room() { strRoomName = "living room", strItemname = "ball", intRedItem = 2, intBlueItem = 1 }); Add(new room() { strRoomName = "sleeping room", strItemname = "bunny", intRedItem = 4, intBlueItem = 1 }); Add(new room() { strRoomName = "living room", strItemname = "chair", intRedItem = 3, intBlueItem = 2 }); Add(new room() { strRoomName = "kitchen", strItemname = "ball", intRedItem = 4, intBlueItem = 7 }); Add(new room() { strRoomName = "garage", strItemname = "chair", intRedItem = 1, intBlueItem = 4 }); } } //rooms public class room : INotifyPropertyChanged { public string strRoomName { set; get; } public string strItemname { set; get; } public int intRedItem { get { return intRedItem; } set { intRedItem = value; NotifyPropertyChanged("intRedItem", "strMissing"); } } public int intBlueItem { get { return intBlueItem; } set { intBlueItem = value; NotifyPropertyChanged("intBlueItem", "strMissing"); } } public string strMissing { get { int missingCount = intRedItem - intBlueItem; return missingCount == 0 ? "Even" : missingCount.ToString(); } } public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; public void NotifyPropertyChanged(params string[] propertyNames) { if (PropertyChanged != null) { foreach (string propertyName in propertyNames) { PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName)); } } } } I got the "missing" field working right away, thanks alot for that tip. It really was as easy as i imagined and will be of great use for future projects. Still two (three maybe....) things i am missing tho. The above code terminates with a "System.StackOverflowException" in the setter of intRedItem and intBlueItem. I fail to see the error, that could be due to being 4:30am here, or my lack of understanding. Second issue: I followed the link to ObservableCollections as you can see from my code above. Yet i am unsure how to actually use that collection. Putting it as DataContent like suggested on that page shows a missing ressource. Adding it as a ressource like listed there crashes my VSExpress designer and leads to the programm not starting. So for now i am still using my old approach of a list like this: listRooms.Add(new room() { strRoomName = "living room", strItemname = "ball", intRedItem = 2, intBlueItem = 1 }); listRooms.Add(new room() { strRoomName = "sleeping room", strItemname = "bunny", intRedItem = 4, intBlueItem = 1 }); listRooms.Add(new room() { strRoomName = "living room", strItemname = "chair", intRedItem = 3, intBlueItem = 2 }); listRooms.Add(new room() { strRoomName = "kitchen", strItemname = "ball", intRedItem = 4, intBlueItem = 7 }); listRooms.Add(new room() { strRoomName = "garage", strItemname = "chair", intRedItem = 1, intBlueItem = 4 }); datagridRooms.ItemsSource = listRooms; And lastly: When testing before adding the notifyevents i tried to implement a proterty that looped trough the other objects, without any luck. The "missingItem" property worked so easy, yet it only tries to access "it's own" properties kind of. I need to access other objects, like "all objects that have the same room value". The idea behind this is that i am trying to calculate a value from other objects without even having those objects yet, at least in my logic. Where is the flaw in my thinking? Those 5 objects are added and created (?) one after another. So if the first tries to set it's "all red balls in my room AND all other rooms" value,.. how could it know about the balls in the kitchen, that get added as 4th object? So far so good tho, got on the right track i think. Just need some sleep first.

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• validation functions in google apps script is not working properly

  - by chocka

  I create a i/p form in google site using Apps Script and i did the validation using the Apps Script coding. Validation functions available in Apps script is not satisfying all the possibility of checking the error. function validate(e) { var app = UiApp.getActiveApplication(); var flag=0; var text = app.getElementById('name'); var textrequired = app.getElementById('namerequired'); var number = app.getElementById('number'); var numberrequired = app.getElementById('numberrequired'); var email = app.getElementById('email'); var emailrequired = app.getElementById('emailrequired'); var submit = app.getElementById('submit_button'); var valid = app.createClientHandler() .validateNumber(number) .validateNotInteger(text) .validateEmail(email) .forTargets(submit).setEnabled(true) .forTargets(number,text,email).setStyleAttribute("color","black") .forTargets(numberrequired,textrequired,emailrequired).setText('*').setStyleAttribute("color", "red").setVisible(true); var invalidno = app.createClientHandler().validateNotNumber(number).validateMatches(number, '').forTargets(number).setStyleAttribute("color", "red").forTargets(submit).setEnabled(false).forTargets(numberrequired).setText('Please Enter a Valid No.').setStyleAttribute("color", "red").setVisible(true); var validno = app.createClientHandler().validateNumber(number).forTargets(number).setStyleAttribute("color","black").forTargets(numberrequired).setText('*').setStyleAttribute("color", "red").setVisible(true); var invalidText=app.createClientHandler().validateNumber(text).validateMatches(text, '').forTargets(text).setStyleAttribute("color", "red").forTargets(submit).setEnabled(false).forTargets(textrequired).setText('Please Enter a Valid Name.').setStyleAttribute("color", "red").setVisible(true); var validText=app.createClientHandler().validateNotNumber(text).forTargets(text).setStyleAttribute("color","black").forTargets(textrequired).setText('*').setStyleAttribute("color", "red").setVisible(true); var invalidemail=app.createClientHandler().validateNotEmail(email).validateMatches(email, '').forTargets(email).setStyleAttribute("color", "red").forTargets(submit).setEnabled(false).forTargets(emailrequired).setText('Please Enter a Valid Mail-Id.').setStyleAttribute("color", "red").setVisible(true); var validemail=app.createClientHandler().validateEmail(email).forTargets(email).setStyleAttribute("color","black").forTargets(emailrequired).setText('*').setStyleAttribute("color", "red").setVisible(true); number.addKeyPressHandler(invalidno).addKeyPressHandler(validno).addKeyPressHandler(valid).addKeyPressHandler(invalidText).addKeyPressHandler(invalidemail); text.addKeyPressHandler(invalidText).addKeyPressHandler(validText).addKeyPressHandler(valid).addKeyPressHandler(invalidno).addKeyPressHandler(invalidemail); email.addKeyPressHandler(invalidemail).addKeyPressHandler(validemail).addKeyPressHandler(valid).addKeyPressHandler(invalidno).addKeyPressHandler(invalidText); if (text == ''){flag = 1;} if (email == ''){flag = 1;} if (number == ''){flag = 1;} if(flag == 1){submit.setEnabled(false);} return app; } I just placed my Validation function using Apps Script. I don't know why its not satisfying all the possibilities of the validation. And also i have to do is to enable the submit button after all the fields satisfy the validation. After once it enabled, if i make any error in any field it will not get disable correctly. I wrote the coding correctly i think so. Please take a look at my validation function and give me some suggestion to make it possible. Please guide me, Thanks & Regards, chocka.

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• CSS selector for first element with class

  - by Rajat

  I have a bunch of elements with a classname <p class="red"></p> <div class="red"></div> I cant seem to select the first element with the class="red" using the following CSS rule: .red:first-child{ border:5px solid red; } What is wrong in this selector and how to correct it ??

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• Creating array from two arrays

  - by binoculars

  I'm having troubles trying to create a certain array. Basicly, I have an array like this: [0] => Array ( [id] => 12341241 [type] => "Blue" ) [1] => Array ( [id] => 52454235 [type] => "Blue" ) [2] => Array ( [id] => 848437437 [type] => "Blue" ) [3] => Array ( [id] => 387372723 [type] => "Blue" ) [4] => Array ( [id] => 73732623 [type] => "Blue" ) ... Next, I have an array like this: [0] => Array ( [id] => 34141 [type] => "Red" ) [1] => Array ( [id] => 253532 [type] => "Red" ) [2] => Array ( [id] => 94274 [type] => "Red" ) I want to construct an array, which is a combination of the two above, using this rule: after 3 Blues, there must be a Red: Blue1 Blue2 Blue3 Red1 Blue4 Blue5 Blue6 Red2 Blue7 Blue8 Blue9 Red3 Note that the their can be more Red's than Blue's, but also more Blue's than Red's. If the Red's run out, it should begin with the first one again. Example: let's say there are only two Red's: Blue1 Blue2 Blue3 Red1 Blue4 Blue5 Blue6 Red2 Blue7 Blue8 Blue9 Red1 ... ... If the Blue's run out, the Red's should append until they run out too. Example: let's say there are 5 Blue's, and 5 Red's: Blue1 Blue2 Blue3 Red1 Blue4 Blue5 Red2 Red3 Red4 Red5 Note: the arrays come from mysql-fetches. Maybe it's better to fetch them while building the new array? Anyway, the while-loops got to me, I can't figure it out... Any help is much appreciated!

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• ANTS CLR and Memory Profiler In Depth Review (Part 1 of 2 &ndash; CLR Profiler)

  - by ToStringTheory

  One of the things that people might not know about me, is my obsession to make my code as efficient as possible.  Many people might not realize how much of a task or undertaking that this might be, but it is surely a task as monumental as climbing Mount Everest, except this time it is a challenge for the mind…  In trying to make code efficient, there are many different factors that play a part – size of project or solution, tiers, language used, experience and training of the programmer, technologies used, maintainability of the code – the list can go on for quite some time. I spend quite a bit of time when developing trying to determine what is the best way to implement a feature to accomplish the efficiency that I look to achieve.  One program that I have recently come to learn about – Red Gate ANTS Performance (CLR) and Memory profiler gives me tools to accomplish that job more efficiently as well.  In this review, I am going to cover some of the features of the ANTS profiler set by compiling some hideous example code to test against. Notice As a member of the Geeks With Blogs Influencers program, one of the perks is the ability to review products, in exchange for a free license to the program.  I have not let this affect my opinions of the product in any way, and Red Gate nor Geeks With Blogs has tried to influence my opinion regarding this product in any way. Introduction The ANTS Profiler pack provided by Red Gate was something that I had not heard of before receiving an email regarding an offer to review it for a license.  Since I look to make my code efficient, it was a no brainer for me to try it out!  One thing that I have to say took me by surprise is that upon downloading the program and installing it you fill out a form for your usual contact information.  Sure enough within 2 hours, I received an email from a sales representative at Red Gate asking if she could help me to achieve the most out of my trial time so it wouldn’t go to waste.  After replying to her and explaining that I was looking to review its feature set, she put me in contact with someone that setup a demo session to give me a quick rundown of its features via an online meeting.  After having dealt with a massive ordeal with one of my utility companies and their complete lack of customer service, Red Gates friendly and helpful representatives were a breath of fresh air, and something I was thankful for. ANTS CLR Profiler The ANTS CLR profiler is the thing I want to focus on the most in this post, so I am going to dive right in now. Install was simple and took no time at all.  It installed both the profiler for the CLR and Memory, but also visual studio extensions to facilitate the usage of the profilers (click any images for full size images): The Visual Studio menu options (under ANTS menu) Starting the CLR Performance Profiler from the start menu yields this window If you follow the instructions after launching the program from the start menu (Click File > New Profiling Session to start a new project), you are given a dialog with plenty of options for profiling: The New Session dialog.  Lots of options.  One thing I noticed is that the buttons in the lower right were half-covered by the panel of the application.  If I had to guess, I would imagine that this is caused by my DPI settings being set to 125%.  This is a problem I have seen in other applications as well that don’t scale well to different dpi scales. The profiler options give you the ability to profile: .NET Executable ASP.NET web application (hosted in IIS) ASP.NET web application (hosted in IIS express) ASP.NET web application (hosted in Cassini Web Development Server) SharePoint web application (hosted in IIS) Silverlight 4+ application Windows Service COM+ server XBAP (local XAML browser application) Attach to an already running .NET 4 process Choosing each option provides a varying set of other variables/options that one can set including options such as application arguments, operating path, record I/O performance performance counters to record (43 counters in all!), etc…  All in all, they give you the ability to profile many different .Net project types, and make it simple to do so.  In most cases of my using this application, I would be using the built in Visual Studio extensions, as they automatically start a new profiling project in ANTS with the options setup, and start your program, however RedGate has made it easy enough to profile outside of Visual Studio as well. On the flip side of this, as someone who lives most of their work life in Visual Studio, one thing I do wish is that instead of opening an entirely separate application/gui to perform profiling after launching, that instead they would provide a Visual Studio panel with the information, and integrate more of the profiling project information into Visual Studio.  So, now that we have an idea of what options that the profiler gives us, its time to test its abilities and features. Horrendous Example Code – Prime Number Generator One of my interests besides development, is Physics and Math – what I went to college for.  I have especially always been interested in prime numbers, as they are something of a mystery…  So, I decided that I would go ahead and to test the abilities of the profiler, I would write a small program, website, and library to generate prime numbers in the quantity that you ask for.  I am going to start off with some terrible code, and show how I would see the profiler being used as a development tool. First off, the IPrimes interface (all code is downloadable at the end of the post): interface IPrimes { IEnumerable<int> GetPrimes(int retrieve); } Simple enough, right?  Anything that implements the interface will (hopefully) provide an IEnumerable of int, with the quantity specified in the parameter argument.  Next, I am going to implement this interface in the most basic way: public class DumbPrimes : IPrimes { public IEnumerable<int> GetPrimes(int retrieve) { //store a list of primes already found var _foundPrimes = new List<int>() { 2, 3 }; //if i ask for 1 or two primes, return what asked for if (retrieve <= _foundPrimes.Count()) return _foundPrimes.Take(retrieve); //the next number to look at int _analyzing = 4; //since I already determined I don't have enough //execute at least once, and until quantity is sufficed do { //assume prime until otherwise determined bool isPrime = true; //start dividing at 2 //divide until number is reached, or determined not prime for (int i = 2; i < _analyzing && isPrime; i++) { //if (i) goes into _analyzing without a remainder, //_analyzing is NOT prime if (_analyzing % i == 0) isPrime = false; } //if it is prime, add to found list if (isPrime) _foundPrimes.Add(_analyzing); //increment number to analyze next _analyzing++; } while (_foundPrimes.Count() < retrieve); return _foundPrimes; } } This is the simplest way to get primes in my opinion.  Checking each number by the straight definition of a prime – is it divisible by anything besides 1 and itself. I have included this code in a base class library for my solution, as I am going to use it to demonstrate a couple of features of ANTS.  This class library is consumed by a simple non-MVVM WPF application, and a simple MVC4 website.  I will not post the WPF code here inline, as it is simply an ObservableCollection<int>, a label, two textbox’s, and a button. Starting a new Profiling Session So, in Visual Studio, I have just completed my first stint developing the GUI and DumbPrimes IPrimes class, so now I want to check my codes efficiency by profiling it.  All I have to do is build the solution (surprised initiating a profiling session doesn’t do this, but I suppose I can understand it), and then click the ANTS menu, followed by Profile Performance.  I am then greeted by the profiler starting up and already monitoring my program live: You are provided with a realtime graph at the top, and a pane at the bottom giving you information on how to proceed.  I am going to start by asking my program to show me the first 15000 primes: After the program finally began responding again (I did all the work on the main UI thread – how bad!), I stopped the profiler, which did kill the process of my program too.  One important thing to note, is that the profiler by default wants to give you a lot of detail about the operation – line hit counts, time per line, percent time per line, etc…  The important thing to remember is that this itself takes a lot of time.  When running my program without the profiler attached, it can generate the 15000 primes in 5.18 seconds, compared to 74.5 seconds – almost a 1500 percent increase.  While this may seem like a lot, remember that there is a trade off.  It may be WAY more inefficient, however, I am able to drill down and make improvements to specific problem areas, and then decrease execution time all around. Analyzing the Profiling Session After clicking ‘Stop Profiling’, the process running my application stopped, and the entire execution time was automatically selected by ANTS, and the results shown below: Now there are a number of interesting things going on here, I am going to cover each in a section of its own: Real Time Performance Counter Bar (top of screen) At the top of the screen, is the real time performance bar.  As your application is running, this will constantly update with the currently selected performance counters status.  A couple of cool things to note are the fact that you can drag a selection around specific time periods to drill down the detail views in the lower 2 panels to information pertaining to only that period. After selecting a time period, you can bookmark a section and name it, so that it is easy to find later, or after reloaded at a later time.  You can also zoom in, out, or fit the graph to the space provided – useful for drilling down. It may be hard to see, but at the top of the processor time graph below the time ticks, but above the red usage graph, there is a green bar. This bar shows at what times a method that is selected in the ‘Call tree’ panel is called. Very cool to be able to click on a method and see at what times it made an impact. As I said before, ANTS provides 43 different performance counters you can hook into.  Click the arrow next to the Performance tab at the top will allow you to change between different counters if you have them selected: Method Call Tree, ADO.Net Database Calls, File IO – Detail Panel Red Gate really hit the mark here I think. When you select a section of the run with the graph, the call tree populates to fill a hierarchical tree of method calls, with information regarding each of the methods.   By default, methods are hidden where the source is not provided (framework type code), however, Red Gate has integrated Reflector into ANTS, so even if you don’t have source for something, you can select a method and get the source if you want.  Methods are also hidden where the impact is seen as insignificant – methods that are only executed for 1% of the time of the overall calling methods time; in other words, working on making them better is not where your efforts should be focused. – Smart! Source Panel – Detail Panel The source panel is where you can see line level information on your code, showing the code for the currently selected method from the Method Call Tree.  If the code is not available, Reflector takes care of it and shows the code anyways! As you can notice, there does seem to be a problem with how ANTS determines what line is the actual line that a call is completed on.  I have suspicions that this may be due to some of the inline code optimizations that the CLR applies upon compilation of the assembly.  In a method with comments, the problem is much more severe: As you can see here, apparently the most offending code in my base library was a comment – *gasp*!  Removing the comments does help quite a bit, however I hope that Red Gate works on their counter algorithm soon to improve the logic on positioning for statistics: I did a small test just to demonstrate the lines are correct without comments. For me, it isn’t a deal breaker, as I can usually determine the correct placements by looking at the application code in the region and determining what makes sense, but it is something that would probably build up some irritation with time. Feature – Suggest Method for Optimization A neat feature to really help those in need of a pointer, is the menu option under tools to automatically suggest methods to optimize/improve: Nice feature – clicking it filters the call tree and stars methods that it thinks are good candidates for optimization.  I do wish that they would have made it more visible for those of use who aren’t great on sight: Process Integration I do think that this could have a place in my process.  After experimenting with the profiler, I do think it would be a great benefit to do some development, testing, and then after all the bugs are worked out, use the profiler to check on things to make sure nothing seems like it is hogging more than its fair share.  For example, with this program, I would have developed it, ran it, tested it – it works, but slowly. After looking at the profiler, and seeing the massive amount of time spent in 1 method, I might go ahead and try to re-implement IPrimes (I actually would probably rewrite the offending code, but so that I can distribute both sets of code easily, I’m just going to make another implementation of IPrimes).  Using two pieces of knowledge about prime numbers can make this method MUCH more efficient – prime numbers fall into two buckets 6k+/-1 , and a number is prime if it is not divisible by any other primes before it: public class SmartPrimes : IPrimes { public IEnumerable<int> GetPrimes(int retrieve) { //store a list of primes already found var _foundPrimes = new List<int>() { 2, 3 }; //if i ask for 1 or two primes, return what asked for if (retrieve <= _foundPrimes.Count()) return _foundPrimes.Take(retrieve); //the next number to look at int _k = 1; //since I already determined I don't have enough //execute at least once, and until quantity is sufficed do { //assume prime until otherwise determined bool isPrime = true; int potentialPrime; //analyze 6k-1 //assign the value to potential potentialPrime = 6 * _k - 1; //if there are any primes that divise this, it is NOT a prime number //using PLINQ for quick boost isPrime = !_foundPrimes.AsParallel() .Any(prime => potentialPrime % prime == 0); //if it is prime, add to found list if (isPrime) _foundPrimes.Add(potentialPrime); if (_foundPrimes.Count() == retrieve) break; //analyze 6k+1 //assign the value to potential potentialPrime = 6 * _k + 1; //if there are any primes that divise this, it is NOT a prime number //using PLINQ for quick boost isPrime = !_foundPrimes.AsParallel() .Any(prime => potentialPrime % prime == 0); //if it is prime, add to found list if (isPrime) _foundPrimes.Add(potentialPrime); //increment k to analyze next _k++; } while (_foundPrimes.Count() < retrieve); return _foundPrimes; } } Now there are definitely more things I can do to help make this more efficient, but for the scope of this example, I think this is fine (but still hideous)! Profiling this now yields a happy surprise 27 seconds to generate the 15000 primes with the profiler attached, and only 1.43 seconds without.  One important thing I wanted to call out though was the performance graph now: Notice anything odd?  The %Processor time is above 100%.  This is because there is now more than 1 core in the operation.  A better label for the chart in my mind would have been %Core time, but to each their own. Another odd thing I noticed was that the profiler seemed to be spot on this time in my DumbPrimes class with line details in source, even with comments..  Odd. Profiling Web Applications The last thing that I wanted to cover, that means a lot to me as a web developer, is the great amount of work that Red Gate put into the profiler when profiling web applications.  In my solution, I have a simple MVC4 application setup with 1 page, a single input form, that will output prime values as my WPF app did.  Launching the profiler from Visual Studio as before, nothing is really different in the profiler window, however I did receive a UAC prompt for a Red Gate helper app to integrate with the web server without notification. After requesting 500, 1000, 2000, and 5000 primes, and looking at the profiler session, things are slightly different from before: As you can see, there are 4 spikes of activity in the processor time graph, but there is also something new in the call tree: That’s right – ANTS will actually group method calls by get/post operations, so it is easier to find out what action/page is giving the largest problems…  Pretty cool in my mind! Overview Overall, I think that Red Gate ANTS CLR Profiler has a lot to offer, however I think it also has a long ways to go.  3 Biggest Pros: Ability to easily drill down from time graph, to method calls, to source code Wide variety of counters to choose from when profiling your application Excellent integration/grouping of methods being called from web applications by request – BRILLIANT! 3 Biggest Cons: Issue regarding line details in source view Nit pick – Processor time vs. Core time Nit pick – Lack of full integration with Visual Studio Ratings Ease of Use (7/10) – I marked down here because of the problems with the line level details and the extra work that that entails, and the lack of better integration with Visual Studio. Effectiveness (10/10) – I believe that the profiler does EXACTLY what it purports to do.  Especially with its large variety of performance counters, a definite plus! Features (9/10) – Besides the real time performance monitoring, and the drill downs that I’ve shown here, ANTS also has great integration with ADO.Net, with the ability to show database queries run by your application in the profiler.  This, with the line level details, the web request grouping, reflector integration, and various options to customize your profiling session I think create a great set of features! Customer Service (10/10) – My entire experience with Red Gate personnel has been nothing but good.  their people are friendly, helpful, and happy! UI / UX (8/10) – The interface is very easy to get around, and all of the options are easy to find.  With a little bit of poking around, you’ll be optimizing Hello World in no time flat! Overall (8/10) – Overall, I am happy with the Performance Profiler and its features, as well as with the service I received when working with the Red Gate personnel.  I WOULD recommend you trying the application and seeing if it would fit into your process, BUT, remember there are still some kinks in it to hopefully be worked out. My next post will definitely be shorter (hopefully), but thank you for reading up to here, or skipping ahead!  Please, if you do try the product, drop me a message and let me know what you think!  I would love to hear any opinions you may have on the product. Code Feel free to download the code I used above – download via DropBox

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• Before the Summit of 2012

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  Today, Monday, was the first day of the PASS Summit Preconference training events, but instead I spent the day at the free SQL in the City event put on by Red Gate. For me this was not a financial decision (pre-con sessions cost extra above the general Summit registration) but rather a matter of interest.  I had already included money for pre-cons in this year’s training budget, but none of them really stood out to me, so even if the Red-Gate event were not going on at the same time, I probably would not have gone to any pre-cons this year.  However, the topics being presented at the SQL in the City event were of great interest to me.  There promised to be good information on Continuous Integration and automated deployment of database changes, which lately has been a real hot topic at my work.  And indeed, Red-Gate announced the release of a new tool (still in Early Access Program…a.k.a. Beta) which is called the Deployment Manager.  Since we are in the middle of a TFS implementation project, it will be interesting to see how this plays out and compares to what we put together with the automated builds in TFS.  But, as I understand it, the primary focus of Deployment Manager is not to be the Build process (Red Gate uses JetBrains’ Team City for that in their shop) but rather to aid in the deployment of those build packages, as well as providing easy rollback and a good visualization of which versions of software are in which environments.  It looks promising and I’ve already downloaded the installer package to play with it later. Overall, I was quite impressed with the SQL in the City event.  Having heard many current and past members of the PASS Board of Directors describe the challenges of putting on a large conference, and the growing pains that the PASS Summit has gone through, I am even more impressed that the Red Gate event ran as smoothly as it did.  And it is quite impressive the amount of money that Red Gate must have spent given that this was a no-charge event to attend, they had a very nice hot lunch, and the after-event drinks celebration.  Well done, folks! Of course it was great to hear from a variety of speakers.  Today I listened to some folks from Red Gate like Grant Fritchey (blog | @GFritchey) and David Atkinson (Product Manager for SQL Source Control and now the Deployment Manager tool set); and also Brent Ozar (blog | @BrentO) and Buck Woody (blog | @BuckWoody).  By the way, if you have never seen either Brent or Buck speak, you really should.  Different styles, but both are very entertaining and educational at the same time.  I love Buck’s sense of humor (here’s a tip…don’t be late to Buck’s session or you’ll become part of the presentation) and I praise Brent’s slides.  Brent’s style very much reminds me of that espoused by Garr Reynolds on his Presentation Zen blog (and book) and I am impressed that he can make a technical presentation so engaging. It was a great day, a great way to kick off the week, and I am excited to get into the full Summit!

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• nth child selector in jquery

  - by Praveen Prasad

  <table width="600px" id='testTable'> <tr class="red"><td>this</td></tr> <tr><td>1</td></tr> <tr><td>1</td></tr> <tr><td>1</td></tr> <tr class="red"><td>1</td></tr> <tr><td>1</td></tr> <tr><td>1</td></tr> <tr class="red"><td>this</td></tr> <tr><td>1</td></tr> <tr><td>1</td></tr> <tr class="red"><td>1</td></tr> <tr><td>1</td></tr> <tr><td>1</td></tr> </table> .gray { background-color:#dddddd; } .red { color:Red; } $(function () { $('#testTable tr.red:nth-child(odd)').addClass('gray'); //this should select tr's with text=this, but its not happening }); i want to select all odds inside table which have class=red , but its not happening. please help

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• Array, change color, as3

  - by pixelGreaser

  Hi Thanks for the help Yesterday, but I have on more question. How can I change color of text on certain words? My animation plays the text animation of THIS SALE IS RED HOT!!! I want RED HOT it to be red. It seems the array can be indexed in such a way to switch the color from Blue to Red. MY BANNER ADD var myArray:Array = ["THIS","SALE","IS","RED HOT!!!",]; var tm:Timer = new Timer(500); tm.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, countdown); function countdown(event:TimerEvent) { tx.text = myArray[(tm.currentCount-1)%myArray.length]; } tm.start(); tx.textColor = 0x0000FF; Cont...PSEUDO CODE //var myArray:Array = ["This","Sale","is","RED HOT!!!",]; var spliceRedhot = myArray.splice(-1); //trace(myArray[2]); trace(spliceRedhot); function mySplice(e:Event):void{ if (spliceRedhot = 4){ //Make RED HOT!!! red tx.textColor = 0xFF0000; } else{ //Text is Blue again tx.textColor = 0x0000FF; } }

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• LibGdx drawing weird behaviour

  - by Ryckes

  I am finding strange behaviour while rendering TextureRegions in my game, only when pausing it. I am making a game for Android, in Java with LibGdx. When I comment out the line "drawLevelPaused()" everything seems to work fine, both running and paused. When it's not commented, everything works fine until I pause the screen, then it draws those two rectangles, but maybe ships are not shown, and if I comment out drawShips() and drawTarget() (just trying) maybe one of the planets disappears, or if I change the order, other things disappear and those that disappeared before now are rendered again. I can't find the way to fix this behaviour I beg your help, and I hope it's my mistake and not a LibGdx issue. I use OpenGL ES 2.0, stated in AndroidManifest.xml, if it is of any help. Thank you in advance. My Screen render method(game loop) is as follows: @Override public void render(float delta) { Gdx.gl.glClearColor(0.1f, 0.1f, 0.1f, 1); Gdx.gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); controller.update(delta); renderer.render(); } When world state is PAUSED controller.update does nothing at all, there is a switch in it. And renderer.render() is as follows: public void render() { int worldState=this.world.getWorldState(); updateCamera(); spriteBatch.begin(); drawPlanets(); drawTarget(); drawShips(); if(worldState==World.PAUSED) { drawLevelPaused(); } else if(worldState==World.LEVEL_WON) { drawLevelWin(); } spriteBatch.end(); } And those methods are: private void updateCamera() { this.offset=world.getCameraOffset(); } private void drawPlanets() { for(Planet planet : this.world.getPlanets()) { this.spriteBatch.draw(this.textures.getTexture(planet.getTexture()), (planet.getPosition().x - this.offset[0]) * ppuX, (planet.getPosition().y - this.offset[1]) * ppuY); } } private void drawTarget() { Target target=this.world.getTarget(); this.spriteBatch.draw(this.textures.getTexture(target.getTexture()), (target.getPosition().x - this.offset[0]) * ppuX, (target.getPosition().y - this.offset[1]) * ppuY); } private void drawShips() { for(Ship ship : this.world.getShips()) { this.spriteBatch.draw(this.textures.getTexture(ship.getTexture()), (ship.getPosition().x - this.offset[0]) * ppuX, (ship.getPosition().y - this.offset[1]) * ppuY, ship.getBounds().width*ppuX/2, ship.getBounds().height*ppuY/2, ship.getBounds().width*ppuX, ship.getBounds().height*ppuY, 1.0f, 1.0f, ship.getAngle()-90.0f); } if(this.world.getStillShipVisibility()) { Ship ship=this.world.getStillShip(); Arrow arrow=this.world.getArrow(); this.spriteBatch.draw(this.textures.getTexture(ship.getTexture()), (ship.getPosition().x - this.offset[0]) * ppuX, (ship.getPosition().y - this.offset[1]) * ppuY, ship.getBounds().width*ppuX/2, ship.getBounds().height*ppuY/2, ship.getBounds().width*ppuX, ship.getBounds().height*ppuY, 1f, 1f, ship.getAngle() - 90f); this.spriteBatch.draw(this.textures.getTexture(arrow.getTexture()), (ship.getCenter().x - this.offset[0] - arrow.getBounds().width/2) * ppuX, (ship.getCenter().y - this.offset[1]) * ppuY, arrow.getBounds().width*ppuX/2, 0, arrow.getBounds().width*ppuX, arrow.getBounds().height*ppuY, 1f, arrow.getRate(), ship.getAngle() - 90f); } } private void drawLevelPaused() { this.shapeRenderer.begin(ShapeType.FilledRectangle); this.shapeRenderer.setColor(0f, 0f, 0f, 0.8f); this.shapeRenderer.filledRect(0, 0, this.width/this.ppuX, PAUSE_MARGIN_HEIGHT/this.ppuY); this.shapeRenderer.filledRect(0, (this.height-PAUSE_MARGIN_HEIGHT)/this.ppuY, this.width/this.ppuX, PAUSE_MARGIN_HEIGHT/this.ppuY); this.shapeRenderer.end(); for(Button button : this.world.getPauseButtons()) { this.spriteBatch.draw(this.textures.getTexture(button.getTexture()), (button.getPosition().x - this.offset[0]) * this.ppuX, (button.getPosition().y - this.offset[1]) * this.ppuY); } }

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• Subdomains not working with virtual hosts on apache2 ubuntu

  - by cy834sh4rk

  I'm trying to set up a subdomain on my ec2 account but can't figure out what's going on. I've looked for a few hours and haven't been able to find an answer :-/ I'm trying to set up a subdomain using virtual hosts but no matter what I try the browser can't find the subdomain :-( I have the following vhosts files set up: apache2/sites-available/mysite (this site currently works) <VirtualHost *:80 ServerName mysite.com ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost DocumentRoot /home/sites/mysite <Directory /home/sites/mysite Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride All Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/mysite-error.log LogLevel warn CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/mysite-access.log combined </VirtualHost apache2/sites-available/red (this is the subdomain I'm trying to set up) <VirtualHost *:80 ServerName red.mysite.com ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost DocumentRoot /var/www/red <Directory /var/www/red Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride All Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/red-error.log LogLevel warn CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/red-access.log combined </VirtualHost Apache mod_rewrite is enabled. I've enabled both sites using a2ensite and I make sure I restart apache every time I make a change. /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 localhost 127.0.0.1 mysite.com 127.0.0.1 red.mysite.com Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

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• Ordering by formula fields in NHibernate

  - by Darin Dimitrov

  Suppose that I have the following mapping with a formula property: <class name="Planet" table="planets"> <id name="Id" column="id"> <generator class="native" /> </id> <!-- somefunc() is a native SQL function --> <property name="Distance" formula="somefunc()" /> </class> I would like to get all planets and order them by the Distance calculated property: var planets = session .CreateCriteria<Planet>() .AddOrder(Order.Asc("Distance")) .List<Planet>(); This is translated to the following query: SELECT Id as id0, somefunc() as formula0 FROM planets ORDER BY somefunc() Desired query: SELECT Id as id0, somefunc() as formula0 FROM planets ORDER BY formula0 If I set a projection with an alias it works fine: var planets = session .CreateCriteria<Planet>() .SetProjection(Projections.Alias(Projections.Property("Distance"), "dist")) .AddOrder(Order.Asc("dist")) .List<Planet>(); SQL: SELECT somefunc() as formula0 FROM planets ORDER BY formula0 but it populates only the Distance property in the result and I really like to avoid projecting manually over all the other properties of my object (there could be many other properties). Is this achievable with NHibernate? As a bonus I would like to pass parameters to the native somefunc() SQL function. Anything producing the desired SQL is acceptable (replacing the formula field with subselects, etc...), the important thing is to have the calculated Distance property in the resulting object and order by this distance inside SQL.

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• How to write Java-like enums in C++ ?

  - by Rahul G

  Coming from Java background, I find C++'s enums very lame. I wanted to know how to write Java-like enums (the ones in which the enum values are objects, and can have attributes and methods) in C++. As an example, translate the following Java code (a part of it, sufficient to demonstrate the technique) to C++ : public enum Planet { MERCURY (3.303e+23, 2.4397e6), VENUS (4.869e+24, 6.0518e6), EARTH (5.976e+24, 6.37814e6), MARS (6.421e+23, 3.3972e6), JUPITER (1.9e+27, 7.1492e7), SATURN (5.688e+26, 6.0268e7), URANUS (8.686e+25, 2.5559e7), NEPTUNE (1.024e+26, 2.4746e7); private final double mass; // in kilograms private final double radius; // in meters Planet(double mass, double radius) { this.mass = mass; this.radius = radius; } private double mass() { return mass; } private double radius() { return radius; } // universal gravitational constant (m3 kg-1 s-2) public static final double G = 6.67300E-11; double surfaceGravity() { return G * mass / (radius * radius); } double surfaceWeight(double otherMass) { return otherMass * surfaceGravity(); } public static void main(String[] args) { if (args.length != 1) { System.err.println("Usage: java Planet <earth_weight>"); System.exit(-1); } double earthWeight = Double.parseDouble(args[0]); double mass = earthWeight/EARTH.surfaceGravity(); for (Planet p : Planet.values()) System.out.printf("Your weight on %s is %f%n", p, p.surfaceWeight(mass)); } } Any hep would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

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• Sorting data by relevance, from multiple tables

  - by Oden

  Hey, How is it possible to sort data from multiple tables by relevance? My table structure is following: I have 3 tables in my database, one table contains the name of solar systems, the second for e.g. of planets. There is one more table, witch is a connection between solar systems and planets. If I want to get data of a planet, witch is in the Milky Way, i post this data to the server, and it gives me a multi-dimensional array witch contains: The Milky Way, with every planet in it Every planet, witch name contains the string Milky Way (maybe thats a bat example because i don't think that theres but one planet with this name, but the main concept is on file) But, i want to set the most relevant restaurants to the top of the array. (for the relevance i would check the description of the restaurants or something like that) So, how would you do that kind of data sorting?

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• How to get OCI lib to work on red hat machine to work with R Oracle?

  - by Matt Bannert

  I need to get OCI lib working on my rhel 6.3 machine and I am experiencing some trouble with OCI headers files that can't be found. I have installed (using yum install) oracle-instantclient11.2-basic-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64.rpm because this official page it's all I need to run OCI. To test the whole thing in general I've installed sqplus64, which worked after I set export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64/lib. Unfortunately the headers files couldn't be found after setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Actually I am not surprised because there is no include directory in any of these oracle paths. So the question is: Where do I get these missing header files from? Are they actually already there and I just can find them? Btw: I am doing this whole exercise because I want to use ROracle on my R Studio server and this R package depends on the OCI library. Once I am back in R territory the road gets much less bumpier for me. EDIT: this documentation helped me a little further. However, I guess I found some header files now in: "/usr/include/oracle/11.2/client64". But which variable do I have to set to this location?

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• Is it wise to ask about design decisions made on a product during an interview?

  - by Desolate Planet

  I've been thinking about interview questions lately and I've been reflecting on bad interview experiences I've had in the past. One of particular note is where I had asked the interviewer why the team chose to use Spring over EJB3 in their product. The interviewer pretty much tore my face off, yelling "Because Spring is not the be all and end all of Java software development, do you want this job or not?". In response to this, I told him that this probably wasn't the job for me and I walked out the interview. He told me at the start of the interview that they had high stuff turnover, the product had gone from Modula 3 to Perl to Java then after asking him a technical question, he went in flames. It seemed obvious to me that he was toxic to the company with that kind of attitude. Question: Is it a good idea to probe on architectural choices taken in an interview? If not, why? From my own point of view, an interview is a two-way process. If the interviewers are testing me on my technical skills, I've got every right to ask them the same questions to 1) Figure out what their mindset and attitudes towards developing software solutions are and 2) To figure out if there are in line with how I would approach problems of that kind. It's very possible that the interviewer who got angry was a bad interviewer and forgot that an interview is a two-way process. If I was asked this, I would have simply said something along the lines of wanting to leverage the container more, but I certainly wouldn't have tried to put him in a state of meek capitulation. The interviewer in question was the lead developer in the team.

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• How to convince management to deal with technical debt?

  - by Desolate Planet

  This is a question that I often ask myself when working with developers. I've worked at four companies so far, and I've noticed a lack of attention to keeping code clean and dealing with technical debt that hinders future progress in a software app. For example, the first company I worked for had written a database from scratch rather than take something like MySQL and that created hell for the team when refacoring or extending the app. I've always tried to be honest and clear with my manager when he discusses projections, but management doesn't seem interested in fixing what's already there and it's horrible to see the impact it has on team morale and in their attitude towards others. What are your thoughts on the best way to tackle this problem? What I've seen is people packing up and leaving and the company becomes a revolving door with developers coming and and out and making the code worse. How do you communicate this to management to get them interested in sorting out technical debt?

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• Is there value in having technical authors in a software team?

  - by Desolate Planet

  During my 5 years in IT as a software developer, I've noticed that developers have a strong distaste towards doing any documentation. The act of taking screenshots and creating documentation seems to be a painful and time consuming experience. In one company I worked for, we had a technical documentation team with two technical authors and they developed all the user guides for our customers. In other companies where I've suggested hiring a technical author, I've been told they are not worth the money, but I'm a little unsure if that rings true. Is it better to have developers stop coding and take half a day to do screenshots and create the various guides or is it worth hiring someone who handles such tasks?

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• Is it common to lie in job ads regarding the technologies in use?

  - by Desolate Planet

  Wanted: Experienced Delphi programmer to maintain ginormous legacy application and assist in migration to C# Later on, as the new hire settles into his role... "Oh, that C# migration? Yeah, we'd love to do that. But management is dead-set against it. Good thing you love Pascal, eh?" I've noticed quite a lot of this where I live (Scotland) and I'm not sure how common this is across IT: a company is using a legacy technology and they know that most developers will avoid them to keep mainstream technology on their resumes. So, they will put out a advertisement saying they are looking to move their product to some hip new tech (C#, Ruby, FORTRAN 99) and require someone who has exposure to both - but the migration is just a carrot on a stick, perpetually hung in front of the hungry developer as he spends each day maintaining the legacy app. I've experienced this myself, and heard far too many similar stories to the point where it seems like common practice. I've learned over time that every company has legacy problems of some sort, but I fail to see why they can't be honest about it. It should be common sense to any developer that the technology in place is there to support the business and not the other way round. Unless the technology is hurting the business in someway, I hardly see any just cause for reworking the software stack to be made up whatever is currently vogue in the industry. Would you say that this is commonplace? If so, how can I detect these kinds of leading advertisements beforehand?

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• Do you think code is self documenting?

  - by Desolate Planet

  This is a question that was put to me many years ago as a gradute in a job interview and it's kind of picked at my brain now and again and I've never really found a good answer that satisfies me. The interviewer in question was looking for a black and white answer, there was no middle ground. I never got the chance to ask about the rationale behind the question, but I'm curious why that question would be put to a developer and what you would learn from a yes or no answer? From my own point of view, I can read Java, Python, Delphi etc, but if my manager comes up to me and asks me how far along in a project I am and I say "The code is 80% complete" (and before you start shooting me down, I've heard this uttered in a couple of offices by developers), how exactly is that self documenting? Apologies if this question seems strange, but I'd rather ask and get some opinions on it to gain a better understanding of why it would be put to someone in an interview.

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• Using template questions in a technical interview

  - by Desolate Planet

  I've recently been in an argument with a colleage about technical questions in interviews. As a graduate, I went round lots of companies and noticed they used the same questions. An example is "Can you write a function that determines if a number is prime or not?", 4 years later, I find that particular question is quite common even for a junior developer. I might not be looking at this the correct way, but shouldn't software houses be intelligent enought to think up their own interview questions. This may well be the case, but I've been to about 16 interviews as a graduate and the same questions came up in about 75% of them. This leads me to believe that many companies are lazy and simply Google: 'Template questions for interviewing software developers' and I kind of look down on that. Question: Is it better to use a sest of questions off some template or should software houses strive to be more original and come up with their own interview material? From my point of view, if I failed an inteview and went off and looked for good answers to the questions I messed up on, I could fly through the next interview if they questions are the same.

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• How can I convince management to deal with technical debt?

  - by Desolate Planet

  This is a question that I often ask myself when working with developers. I've worked at four companies so far and I've become aware of a lack of attention to keeping code clean and dealing with technical debt that hinders future progress in a software app. For example, the first company I worked for had written a database from scratch rather than use something like MySQL and that created hell for the team when refactoring or extending the application. I've always tried to be honest and clear with my manager when he discusses projections, but management doesn't seem interested in fixing what's already there and it's horrible to see the impact it has on team morale. What are your thoughts on the best way to tackle this problem? What I've seen is people packing up and leaving. The company then becomes a revolving door with developers coming in and out and making the code worse. How do you communicate this to management to get them interested in sorting out technical debt?

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• Is it wise for a programmer to move into management?

  - by Desolate Planet

  Many times, a developer has suggested that I become a team leader because I'm motivated, but during my career in the IT industry, I've seen so many people who are great at programming, move into management and they are miserable. I've also seen many managers return to programming stating "I'm a technical person, I like technical problems". If this is such a common thing, why do developers feel compelled to leave the technical domain and move into management? Sure you'll have more money and more control, but if you don't enjoy your work and take your problems out on your tream. Secondly, I've been asked in developer interviews, "Would you consider leading a team?" and I'm always tempted to cite the Peter Principle based on what I've seen. I am interested in furthering myself, but not in the way the company may want i.e "Vice President of department blah". To be honest, I've seen this more often in the corporate world than in small development houses and it's always put me off ever going back to a corporate environment. I just feel that this is becoming more and more the norm and it's impacting team morale and degrading the quality of the work. Question: Based on what I've said, Is it a smart move for a technical person to move into management?

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• Is the difference between BDD and TDD nothing more than a vocabulary shift?

  - by Desolate Planet

  Hello, I recently made a start on learning BDD (Behaviour Driven Development) after watching a Google tech talk presented by David Astels. He made a very interesting case for using BDD and some of the literature I've read seem to highlight that it's easier to sell BDD to management. Admittedly, I'm a little skeptical about BDD after watching the above video. So, I'm interested to understand if BDD is indeed nothing more than a change in vocabulary or if it offers other benefits.

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• Do you think code is self documenting?

  - by Desolate Planet

  This is a question that was put to me many years ago as a gradute in a job interview and it's nagged at my brain now and again and I've never really found a good answer that satisfied me. The interviewer in question was looking for a black and white answer, there was no middle ground. I never got the chance to ask about the rationale behind the question, but I'm curious why that question would be put to a developer and what you would learn from a yes or no answer? From my own point of view, I can read Java, Python, Delphi etc, but if my manager comes up to me and asks me how far along in a project I am and I say "The code is 80% complete" (and before you start shooting me down, I've heard this uttered in a couple of offices by developers), how exactly is that self documenting? Apologies if this question seems strange, but I'd rather ask and get some opinions on it to gain a better understanding of why it would be put to someone in an interview.

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