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  • How atomic *should* I make an Ajax form?

    - by b. e. hollenbeck
    I have some web forms that I'm bringing over with AJAX, and as I was dealing with the database on the back end, I thought that it might be easier to just handle each input on the form atomically with AJAX, saving the form in 'real time' as the user edits it. The forms are ~20 fields of administrative settings. Would this create massive overhead with the app, cause it to be error-prone, or is this a feasible idea? Of course, contingent operations (like a checkbox that then requires a text entry) would be held until the textbox gained and lost focus. Comments?

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  • Usage of Assert.Inconclusive

    - by Johannes Rudolph
    Hi, Im wondering how someone should use Assert.Inconclusive(). I'm using it if my Unit test would be about to fail for a reason other than what it is for. E.g. i have a method on a class that calculates the sum of an array of ints. On the same class there is also a method to calculate the average of the element. It is implemented by calling sum and dividing it by the length of the array. Writing a Unit test for Sum() is simple. However, when i write a test for Average() and Sum() fails, Average() is likely to fail also. The failure of Average is not explicit about the reason it failed, it failed for a reason other than what it should test for. That's why i would check if Sum() returns the correct result, otherwise i Assert.Inconclusive(). Is this to be considered good practice? What is Assert.Inconclusive intended for? Or should i rather solve the previous example by means of an Isolation Framework?

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  • Pattern for UI configuration

    - by TERACytE
    I have a Win32 C++ program that validates user input and updates the UI with status information and options. Currently it is written like this: void ShowError() { SetIcon(kError); SetMessageString("There was an error"); HideButton(kButton1); HideButton(kButton2); ShowButton(kButton3); } void ShowSuccess() { SetIcon(kError); std::String statusText (GetStatusText()); SetMessageString(statusText); HideButton(kButton1); HideButton(kButton2); ShowButton(kButton3); } // plus several more methods to update the UI using similar mechanisms I do not likes this because it duplicates code and causes me to update several methods if something changes in the UI. I am wondering if there is a design pattern or best practice to remove the duplication and make the functionality easier to understand and update. I could consolidate the code inside a config function and pass in flags to enable/disable UI items, but I am not convinced this is the best approach. Any suggestions and ideas?

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  • What is the difference between a private and public funtion?

    - by Kyle
    I am a new programmer, and I started in C and am now starting to enjoy JavaScript and a tiny bit of PHP more. Lately I've heard the terms 'private' and 'public' functions a lot. Could anybody give an explanation of the both and how they are of use to a programmer? And I'm probably totally wrong here... but is a (function(){}) in javascript a private function?

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  • What are great _specific_ usability guidelines?

    - by Jilles
    Usability is extremely important, and yet there are so many products that violate a lot of rules. There are several questions on StackOverflow that are about usability (see: link1, link2, link3), however what I feel is missing still is a comprehensive list of usability "tactics": concrete examples of what (not) to do for a web application. Please don't add references to books. Please list one example per answer so that we can use the voting to actually prioritize the list.

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  • Where to store selected language on multilingual site: session/cookies or url?

    - by tig
    I have a site that has all its content translated to multiple languages and has no accounts (to set prefered language there). I can detect preferred language using Accept-Language, ip or anything else. I have 3 ways to store user language selection: Detect language and store it in cookie/session and allow switching language (and also store it in cookie/session) Use detected language if there is no language specified in url, and show links to url with different language Use default site language and show links to other languages Storing langage in url can be of any type: different domain, subdomain, or somewhere in url I think about first case as it allows me to send one url to anyone and it will be presented to them in their preferred language. But another opinion is that different language means different data, so it must have different link.

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  • What are the weaknesses of this user authentication method?

    - by byronh
    I'm developing my own PHP framework. It seems all the security articles I have read use vastly different methods for user authentication than I do so I could use some help in finding security holes. Some information that might be useful before I start. I use mod_rewrite for my MVC url's. Passwords are sha1 and md5 encrypted with 24 character salt unique to each user. mysql_real_escape_string and/or variable typecasting on everything going in, and htmlspecialchars on everything coming out. Step-by step process: Top of every page: session_start(); session_regenerate_id(); If user logs in via login form, generate new random token to put in user's MySQL row. Hash is generated based on user's salt (from when they first registered) and the new token. Store the hash and plaintext username in session variables, and duplicate in cookies if 'Remember me' is checked. On every page, check for cookies. If cookies set, copy their values into session variables. Then compare $_SESSION['name'] and $_SESSION['hash'] against MySQL database. Destroy all cookies and session variables if they don't match so they have to log in again. If login is valid, some of the user's information from the MySQL database is stored in an array for easy access. So far, I've assumed that this array is clean so when limiting user access I refer to user.rank and deny access if it's below what's required for that page. I've tried to test all the common attacks like XSS and CSRF, but maybe I'm just not good enough at hacking my own site! My system seems way too simple for it to actually be secure (the security code is only 100 lines long). What am I missing? I've also spent alot of time searching for the vulnerabilities with mysql_real_escape string but I haven't found any information that is up-to-date (everything is from several years ago at least and has apparently been fixed). All I know is that the problem was something to do with encoding. If that problem still exists today, how can I avoid it? Any help will be much appreciated.

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  • Turning Floats into Their Closest (UTF-8 Character) Fraction.

    - by Mark Tomlin
    I want to take any real number, and return the closest number, with the closest fraction as available in the UTF-8 character set, appropriate. 0/4 = 0.00 = # < .125 1/4 = 0.25 = ¼ # > .125 & < .375 2/4 = 0.50 = ½ # > .375 & < .625 3/4 = 0.75 = ¾ # > .625 & < .875 4/4 = 1.00 = # > .875 I made this function to do that task: function displayFraction($realNumber) { if (!is_float($realNumber)) { return $realNumber; } list($number, $decimal) = explode('.', $realNumber); $decimal = '.' . $decimal; switch($decimal) { case $decimal < 0.125: return $number; case $decimal > 0.125 && $decimal < 0.375: return $number . '¼'; # 188 ¼ &#188; case $decimal > 0.375 && $decimal < 0.625: return $number . '½'; # 189 ½ &#189; case $decimal > 0.625 && $decimal < 0.875: return $number . '¾'; # 190 ¾ &#190; case $decimal < 0.875: return ++$number; } } What are the better / diffrent way to do this? echo displayFraction(3.1) . PHP_EOL; # Outputs: 3 echo displayFraction(3.141593) . PHP_EOL; # Outputs: 3¼ echo displayFraction(3.267432) . PHP_EOL; # Outputs: 3¼ echo displayFraction(3.38) . PHP_EOL; # Outputs: 3½ Expand my mind!

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  • Server Emulator Design Pattern

    - by adisembiring
    I wanna build server socket emulator, but I want implement some design pattern there. I will described my case study that I have simplified like these: My Server Socket will always listen client socket. While some request message come from the client socket, the server emulator will response the client through the socket. the response is response code. '00' will describe request message processed successfully, and another response code expect '00' will describe there are some error while processing the message request. IN the server there are some UI, this UI contain check response parameter such as. response code timeout interval While the server want to response the client message, the response code taken from input parameter response form UI check the timeout interval, it will create sleep thread and the interval taken from timeout interval input from UI. I have implement the function, but I create it in one class. I feel it so sucks. Can you suggest me what class / interface that I must create to refactor my code.

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  • A better way to delete a list of elements from multiple tables

    - by manyxcxi
    I know this looks like a 'please write the code' request, but some basic pointer/principles for doing this the right way should be enough to get me going. I have the following stored procedure: CREATE PROCEDURE `TAA`.`runClean` (IN idlist varchar(1000)) BEGIN DECLARE EXIT HANDLER FOR NOT FOUND ROLLBACK; DECLARE EXIT HANDLER FOR SQLEXCEPTION ROLLBACK; DECLARE EXIT HANDLER FOR SQLWARNING ROLLBACK; START TRANSACTION; DELETE FROM RunningReports WHERE run_id IN (idlist); DELETE FROM TMD_INDATA_INVOICE WHERE run_id IN (idlist); DELETE FROM TMD_INDATA_LINE WHERE run_id IN (idlist); DELETE FROM TMD_OUTDATA_INVOICE WHERE run_id IN (idlist); DELETE FROM TMD_OUTDATA_LINE WHERE run_id IN (idlist); DELETE FROM TMD_TEST WHERE run_id IN (idlist); DELETE FROM RunHistory WHERE id IN (idlist); COMMIT; END $$ It is called by a PHP script to clean out old run history. It is not particularly efficient as you can see and I would like to speed it up. The PHP script gathers the ids to remove from the tables with the following query: $query = "SELECT id, stop_time FROM RunHistory WHERE config_id = $configId AND save = 0 AND NOT(stop_time IS NULL) ORDER BY stop_time"; It keeps the last five run entries and deletes all the rest. So using this query to bring back all the IDs, it determines which ones to delete and keeps the 'newest' five. After gathering the IDs it sends them to the stored procedure to remove them from the associated tables. I'm not very good with SQL, but I ASSUME that using an IN statement and not joining these tables together is probably the least efficient way I can do this, but I don't know enough to ask anything but "how do I do this better?" If possible, I would like to do this all in my stored procedure using a query to gather all the IDs except for the five 'newest', then delete them. Another twist, run entries can be marked save (save = 1) and should not be deleted. The RunHistory table looks like this: CREATE TABLE `TAA`.`RunHistory` ( `id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment, `start_time` datetime default NULL, `stop_time` datetime default NULL, `config_id` int(11) NOT NULL, [...] `save` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '0', PRIMARY KEY (`id`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=0 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

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  • Custom User Management for Google App Engine Java

    - by Gopi
    I am using GAE Java for a multi-user application. There are multiple users with different roles. Each user can login, do some operations and logout. The business restricts me from using Google User Service and I need to implement my own for authentication and session management. Can anyone please share with me how should I go about implementing my own user management? I have read its very tricky to implement own user management. Any pointers in terms of best approaches/ design / existing frameworks if any ? I could see some similar posts but they are for python.

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  • Why should I use a container div in HTML?

    - by lara.robertson
    I am currently learning html/css, and have noticed a common technique is to place a generic container div in the root of the body tag: <html> <head> ... </head> <body> <div id="container"> ... </div> </body> </html> Is there a valid reason for doing this? Why can't the css just reference the body tag?

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  • What are some good ways to write PHP application with modules support?

    - by Gabriel
    Hi, I'm starting to write a application in php with one of my friends and was wondering, if you have any advice on how to implement module support into our application. Or is there a way how to automatically load modules written in php by a php application? Or should i just rely on __autoload function? And we are not using any kind of framework, for now at least.

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  • Good tools for keeping the content in test/staging/live environments synchronized

    - by David Stratton
    I'm looking for recommendations on automated folder synchronization tools to keep the content in our three environments synchronized automatically. Specifically, we have several applications where a user can upload content (via a File Upload page or a similar mechanism), such as images, pdf files, word documents, etc. In the past, we had the user doing this to our live server, and as a result, our test and staging servers had to be manually synchronized. Going forward, we will have them upload content to the staging server, and we would like some software to automatically copy the files off to the test and live servers EITHER on a scheduled basis OR as the files get uploaded. I was planning on writing my own component, and either set it up as a scheduled task, or use a FileSystemWatcher, but it occurred to me that this has probably already been done, and I might be better off with some sort of synchronization tool that already exists. On our web site, there are a limited number of folders that we want to keep synchronized. In these folders, it is an all or nothing - we want to make sure the folders are EXACT duplicates. This should make it fairly straightforward, and I would think that any software that can synchronize folders would be OK, except that we also would like the software to log changes. (This rules out simple BATCH files.) So I'm curious, if you have a similar environment, how did you solve the challenge of keeping everything synchronized. Are you aware of a tool that is reliable, and will meet our needs? If not, do you have a recommendation for something that will come close, or better yet, an open source solution where we can get the code and modify it as needed? (preferably .NET). Added Also, I DID google this first, but there are so many options, I am interested mostly in knowing what actually works well vs what they SAY works, which is why I'm asking here.

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  • amazon design doubt

    - by praveen
    I was looking at the amazon website and was wondering how one of the feature would have been implemented. The feature : what customers buy after viewing a particular item. If i were to develop such a feature i would probably generate a session id for each user session and store the session id-page id combination in a log file. and if a book is bought set a separate flag for the session id-page id. A separate program can then be run on the log file periodically, to identify the groups that were bought together/viewed together and that information can be stored in a persistent file. This is ofcourse a simple solution without taking into consideration the distributed nature of the servers - but would this suffice or can you help me identify a better design.

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  • Overcoming C limitations for large projects

    - by Francisco Garcia
    One aspect where C shows its age is the encapsulation of code. Many modern languages has classes, namespaces, packages... a much more convenient to organize code than just a simple "include". Since C is still the main language for many huge projects. How do you to overcome its limitations? I suppose that one main factor should be lots of discipline. I would like to know what you do to handle large quantity of C code, which authors or books you can recommend.

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  • What can be improved in this PHP code?

    - by Noctis Skytower
    This is a custom encryption library. I do not know much about PHP's standard library of functions and was wondering if the following code can be improved in any way. The implementation should yield the same results, the API should remain as it is, but ways to make is more PHP-ish would be greatly appreciated. Code <?php /*************************************** Create random major and minor SPICE key. ***************************************/ function crypt_major() { $all = range("\x00", "\xFF"); shuffle($all); $major_key = implode("", $all); return $major_key; } function crypt_minor() { $sample = array(); do { array_push($sample, 0, 1, 2, 3); } while (count($sample) != 256); shuffle($sample); $list = array(); for ($index = 0; $index < 64; $index++) { $b12 = $sample[$index * 4] << 6; $b34 = $sample[$index * 4 + 1] << 4; $b56 = $sample[$index * 4 + 2] << 2; $b78 = $sample[$index * 4 + 3]; array_push($list, $b12 + $b34 + $b56 + $b78); } $minor_key = implode("", array_map("chr", $list)); return $minor_key; } /*************************************** Create the SPICE key via the given name. ***************************************/ function named_major($name) { srand(crc32($name)); return crypt_major(); } function named_minor($name) { srand(crc32($name)); return crypt_minor(); } /*************************************** Check validity for major and minor keys. ***************************************/ function _check_major($key) { if (is_string($key) && strlen($key) == 256) { foreach (range("\x00", "\xFF") as $char) { if (substr_count($key, $char) == 0) { return FALSE; } } return TRUE; } return FALSE; } function _check_minor($key) { if (is_string($key) && strlen($key) == 64) { $indexs = array(); foreach (array_map("ord", str_split($key)) as $byte) { foreach (range(6, 0, 2) as $shift) { array_push($indexs, ($byte >> $shift) & 3); } } $dict = array_count_values($indexs); foreach (range(0, 3) as $index) { if ($dict[$index] != 64) { return FALSE; } } return TRUE; } return FALSE; } /*************************************** Create encode maps for encode functions. ***************************************/ function _encode_map_1($major) { return array_map("ord", str_split($major)); } function _encode_map_2($minor) { $map_2 = array(array(), array(), array(), array()); $list = array(); foreach (array_map("ord", str_split($minor)) as $byte) { foreach (range(6, 0, 2) as $shift) { array_push($list, ($byte >> $shift) & 3); } } for ($byte = 0; $byte < 256; $byte++) { array_push($map_2[$list[$byte]], chr($byte)); } return $map_2; } /*************************************** Create decode maps for decode functions. ***************************************/ function _decode_map_1($minor) { $map_1 = array(); foreach (array_map("ord", str_split($minor)) as $byte) { foreach (range(6, 0, 2) as $shift) { array_push($map_1, ($byte >> $shift) & 3); } } return $map_1; }function _decode_map_2($major) { $map_2 = array(); $temp = array_map("ord", str_split($major)); for ($byte = 0; $byte < 256; $byte++) { $map_2[$temp[$byte]] = chr($byte); } return $map_2; } /*************************************** Encrypt or decrypt the string with maps. ***************************************/ function _encode($string, $map_1, $map_2) { $cache = ""; foreach (str_split($string) as $char) { $byte = $map_1[ord($char)]; foreach (range(6, 0, 2) as $shift) { $cache .= $map_2[($byte >> $shift) & 3][mt_rand(0, 63)]; } } return $cache; } function _decode($string, $map_1, $map_2) { $cache = ""; $temp = str_split($string); for ($iter = 0; $iter < strlen($string) / 4; $iter++) { $b12 = $map_1[ord($temp[$iter * 4])] << 6; $b34 = $map_1[ord($temp[$iter * 4 + 1])] << 4; $b56 = $map_1[ord($temp[$iter * 4 + 2])] << 2; $b78 = $map_1[ord($temp[$iter * 4 + 3])]; $cache .= $map_2[$b12 + $b34 + $b56 + $b78]; } return $cache; } /*************************************** This is the public interface for coding. ***************************************/ function encode_string($string, $major, $minor) { if (is_string($string)) { if (_check_major($major) && _check_minor($minor)) { $map_1 = _encode_map_1($major); $map_2 = _encode_map_2($minor); return _encode($string, $map_1, $map_2); } } return FALSE; } function decode_string($string, $major, $minor) { if (is_string($string) && strlen($string) % 4 == 0) { if (_check_major($major) && _check_minor($minor)) { $map_1 = _decode_map_1($minor); $map_2 = _decode_map_2($major); return _decode($string, $map_1, $map_2); } } return FALSE; } ?> This is a sample showing how the code is being used. Hex editors may be of help with the input / output. Example <?php # get and process all of the form data @ $input = htmlspecialchars($_POST["input"]); @ $majorname = htmlspecialchars($_POST["majorname"]); @ $minorname = htmlspecialchars($_POST["minorname"]); @ $majorkey = htmlspecialchars($_POST["majorkey"]); @ $minorkey = htmlspecialchars($_POST["minorkey"]); @ $output = htmlspecialchars($_POST["output"]); # process the submissions by operation # CREATE @ $operation = $_POST["operation"]; if ($operation == "Create") { if (strlen($_POST["majorname"]) == 0) { $majorkey = bin2hex(crypt_major()); } if (strlen($_POST["minorname"]) == 0) { $minorkey = bin2hex(crypt_minor()); } if (strlen($_POST["majorname"]) != 0) { $majorkey = bin2hex(named_major($_POST["majorname"])); } if (strlen($_POST["minorname"]) != 0) { $minorkey = bin2hex(named_minor($_POST["minorname"])); } } # ENCRYPT or DECRYPT function is_hex($char) { if ($char == "0"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "1"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "2"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "3"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "4"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "5"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "6"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "7"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "8"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "9"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "a"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "b"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "c"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "d"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "e"): return TRUE; elseif ($char == "f"): return TRUE; else: return FALSE; endif; } function hex2bin($str) { if (strlen($str) % 2 == 0): $string = strtolower($str); else: $string = strtolower("0" . $str); endif; $cache = ""; $temp = str_split($str); for ($index = 0; $index < count($temp) / 2; $index++) { $h1 = $temp[$index * 2]; if (is_hex($h1)) { $h2 = $temp[$index * 2 + 1]; if (is_hex($h2)) { $cache .= chr(hexdec($h1 . $h2)); } else { return FALSE; } } else { return FALSE; } } return $cache; } if ($operation == "Encrypt" || $operation == "Decrypt") { # CHECK FOR ANY ERROR $errors = array(); if (strlen($_POST["input"]) == 0) { $output = ""; } $binmajor = hex2bin($_POST["majorkey"]); if (strlen($_POST["majorkey"]) == 0) { array_push($errors, "There must be a major key."); } elseif ($binmajor == FALSE) { array_push($errors, "The major key must be in hex."); } elseif (_check_major($binmajor) == FALSE) { array_push($errors, "The major key is corrupt."); } $binminor = hex2bin($_POST["minorkey"]); if (strlen($_POST["minorkey"]) == 0) { array_push($errors, "There must be a minor key."); } elseif ($binminor == FALSE) { array_push($errors, "The minor key must be in hex."); } elseif (_check_minor($binminor) == FALSE) { array_push($errors, "The minor key is corrupt."); } if ($_POST["operation"] == "Decrypt") { $bininput = hex2bin(str_replace("\r", "", str_replace("\n", "", $_POST["input"]))); if ($bininput == FALSE) { if (strlen($_POST["input"]) != 0) { array_push($errors, "The input data must be in hex."); } } elseif (strlen($bininput) % 4 != 0) { array_push($errors, "The input data is corrupt."); } } if (count($errors) != 0) { # ERRORS ARE FOUND $output = "ERROR:"; foreach ($errors as $error) { $output .= "\n" . $error; } } elseif (strlen($_POST["input"]) != 0) { # CONTINUE WORKING if ($_POST["operation"] == "Encrypt") { # ENCRYPT $output = substr(chunk_split(bin2hex(encode_string($_POST["input"], $binmajor, $binminor)), 58), 0, -2); } else { # DECRYPT $output = htmlspecialchars(decode_string($bininput, $binmajor, $binminor)); } } } # echo the form with the values filled echo "<P><TEXTAREA class=maintextarea name=input rows=25 cols=25>" . $input . "</TEXTAREA></P>\n"; echo "<P>Major Name:</P>\n"; echo "<P><INPUT id=textbox1 name=majorname value=\"" . $majorname . "\"></P>\n"; echo "<P>Minor Name:</P>\n"; echo "<P><INPUT id=textbox1 name=minorname value=\"" . $minorname . "\"></P>\n"; echo "<DIV style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: center\"><INPUT class=submit type=submit value=Create name=operation>\n"; echo "</DIV>\n"; echo "<P>Major Key:</P>\n"; echo "<P><INPUT id=textbox1 name=majorkey value=\"" . $majorkey . "\"></P>\n"; echo "<P>Minor Key:</P>\n"; echo "<P><INPUT id=textbox1 name=minorkey value=\"" . $minorkey . "\"></P>\n"; echo "<DIV style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: center\"><INPUT class=submit type=submit value=Encrypt name=operation> \n"; echo "<INPUT class=submit type=submit value=Decrypt name=operation> </DIV>\n"; echo "<P>Result:</P>\n"; echo "<P><TEXTAREA class=maintextarea name=output rows=25 readOnly cols=25>" . $output . "</TEXTAREA></P></DIV></FORM>\n"; ?> What should be editted for better memory efficiency or faster execution?

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  • How should Application.Run() be called for the main presenter a MVP WinForms app?

    - by Mr Roys
    I'm learning to apply MVP to a simple WinForms app (only one form) in C# and encountered an issue while creating the main presenter in static void Main(). Is it a good idea to expose a View from the Presenter in order to supply it as a parameter to Application.Run()? Currently, I've implemented an approach which allows me to not expose the View as a property of Presenter: static void Main() { IView view = new View(); Model model = new Model(); Presenter presenter = new Presenter(view, model); presenter.Start(); Application.Run(); } The Start and Stop methods in Presenter: public void Start() { view.Start(); } public void Stop() { view.Stop(); } The Start and Stop methods in View (a Windows Form): public void Start() { this.Show(); } public void Stop() { // only way to close a message loop called // via Application.Run(); without a Form parameter Application.Exit(); } The Application.Exit() call seems like an inelegant way to close the Form (and the application). The other alternative would be to expose the View as a public property of the Presenter in order to call Application.Run() with a Form parameter. static void Main() { IView view = new View(); Model model = new Model(); Presenter presenter = new Presenter(view, model); Application.Run(presenter.View); } The Start and Stop methods in Presenter remain the same. An additional property is added to return the View as a Form: public void Start() { view.Start(); } public void Stop() { view.Stop(); } // New property to return view as a Form for Application.Run(Form form); public System.Windows.Form View { get { return view as Form(); } } The Start and Stop methods in View (a Windows Form) would then be written as below: public void Start() { this.Show(); } public void Stop() { this.Close(); } Could anyone suggest which is the better approach and why? Or there even better ways to resolve this issue?

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  • Checking for nil in view in Ruby on Rails

    - by seaneshbaugh
    I've been working with Rails for a while now and one thing I find myself constantly doing is checking to see if some attribute or object is nil in my view code before I display it. I'm starting to wonder if this is always the best idea. My rationale so far has been that since my application(s) rely on user input unexpected things can occur. If I've learned one thing from programming in general it's that users inputting things the programmer didn't think of is one of the biggest sources of run-time errors. By checking for nil values I'm hoping to sidestep that and have my views gracefully handle the problem. The thing is though I typically for various reasons have similar nil or invalid value checks in either my model or controller code. I wouldn't call it code duplication in the strictest sense, but it just doesn't seem very DRY. If I've already checked for nil objects in my controller is it okay if my view just assumes the object truly isn't nil? For attributes that can be nil that are displayed it makes sense to me to check every time, but for the objects themselves I'm not sure what is the best practice. Here's a simplified, but typical example of what I'm talking about: controller code def show @item = Item.find_by_id(params[:id]) @folders = Folder.find(:all, :order => 'display_order') if @item == nil or @item.folder == nil redirect_to(root_url) and return end end view code <% if @item != nil %> display the item's attributes here <% if @item.folder != nil %> <%= link_to @item.folder.name, folder_path(@item.folder) %> <% end %> <% else %> Oops! Looks like something went horribly wrong! <% end %> Is this a good idea or is it just silly?

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  • Appropriate programming design questions.

    - by Edward
    I have a few questions on good programming design. I'm going to first describe the project I'm building so you are better equipped to help me out. I am coding a Remote Assistance Tool similar to TeamViewer, Microsoft Remote Desktop, CrossLoop. It will incorporate concepts like UDP networking (using Lidgren networking library), NAT traversal (since many computers are invisible behind routers nowadays), Mirror Drivers (using DFMirage's Mirror Driver (http://www.demoforge.com/dfmirage.htm) for realtime screen grabbing on the remote computer). That being said, this program has a concept of being a client-server architecture, but I made only one program with both the functionality of client and server. That way, when the user runs my program, they can switch between giving assistance and receiving assistance without having to download a separate client or server module. I have a Windows Form that allows the user to choose between giving assistance and receiving assistance. I have another Windows Form for a file explorer module. I have another Windows Form for a chat module. I have another Windows Form form for a registry editor module. I have another Windows Form for the live control module. So I've got a Form for each module, which raises the first question: 1. Should I process module-specific commands inside the code of the respective Windows Form? Meaning, let's say I get a command with some data that enumerates the remote user's files for a specific directory. Obviously, I would have to update this on the File Explorer Windows Form and add the entries to the ListView. Should I be processing this code inside the Windows Form though? Or should I be handling this in another class (although I have to eventually pass the data to the Form to draw, of course). Or is it like a hybrid in which I process most of the data in another class and pass the final result to the Form to draw? So I've got like 5-6 forms, one for each module. The user starts up my program, enters the remote machine's ID (not IP, ID, because we are registering with an intermediary server to enable NAT traversal), their password, and connects. Now let's suppose the connection is successful. Then the user is presented with a form with all the different modules. So he can open up a File Explorer, or he can mess with the Registry Editor, or he can choose to Chat with his buddy. So now the program is sort of idle, just waiting for the user to do something. If the user opens up Live Control, then the program will be spending most of it's time receiving packets from the remote machine and drawing them to the form to provide a 'live' view. 2. Second design question. A spin off question #1. How would I pass module-specific commands to their respective Windows Forms? What I mean is, I have a class like "NetworkHandler.cs" that checks for messages from the remote machine. NetworkHandler.cs is a static class globally accessible. So let's say I get a command that enumerates the remote user's files for a specific directory. How would I "give" that command to the File Explorer Form. I was thinking of making an OnCommandReceivedEvent inside NetworkHandler, and having each form register to that event. When the NetworkHandler received a command, it would raise the event, all forms would check it to see if it was relevant, and the appropriate form would take action. Is this an appropriate/the best solution available? 3. The networking library I'm using, Lidgren, provides two options for checking networking messages. One can either poll ReadMessage() to return null or a message, or one can use an AutoResetEvent OnMessageReceived (I'm guessing this is like an event). Which one is more appropriate?

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  • C++ interpreter conceptual problem

    - by Jan Wilkins
    I've built an interpreter in C++ for a language created by me. One main problem in the design was that I had two different types in the language: number and string. So I have to pass around a struct like: class myInterpreterValue { myInterpreterType type; int intValue; string strValue; } Objects of this class are passed around million times a second during e.g.: a countdown loop in my language. Profiling pointed out: 85% of the performance is eaten by the allocation function of the string template. This is pretty clear to me: My interpreter has bad design and doesn't use pointers enough. Yet, I don't have an option: I can't use pointers in most cases as I just have to make copies. How to do something against this? Is a class like this a better idea? vector<string> strTable; vector<int> intTable; class myInterpreterValue { myInterpreterType type; int locationInTable; } So the class only knows what type it represents and the position in the table This however again has disadvantages: I'd have to add temporary values to the string/int vector table and then remove them again, this would eat a lot of performance again. Help, how do interpreters of languages like Python or Ruby do that? They somehow need a struct that represents a value in the language like something that can either be int or string.

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