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• Would this be viewed poorly amongst the programming community?

  - by Eric P

  So one of my responsibilities at work is to build an internal tool that helps the workers enter in all their information. It's an enterprise application that is similar to a Windows forms database tool. So it's not much different than like developing a Word + Excel combo application, but the average person in this workgroup is a 20-40 year old woman or a random chatty male type. Plus I know all of these people are heavily involved with Facebook on a daily basis. How bad would it be if I styled my new interface to be similar to what Facebook does. People could get award points and stuff when they fill out different types of forms and basically compete against each other like it was a game. When people had completed one, it would be posted on their wall and everyone could comment/like stuff just like in Facebook. And it would be like they are doing peer reviewing for fun. The rewards would be outstanding I would imagine. These people are so into Facebook and Facebook games that productivity would rise due to them trying to compete and earn points and achievements. Would this be taking advantage of the people by 'tricking them into working harder by giving them a game' or would it be viewed as something that would improve happiness at work?

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• Are very short or abbreviated method/function names that don't use full words bad practice or a matter of style.

  - by Alb

  Is there nowadays any case for brevity over clarity with method names? Tonight I came across the Python method repr() which seems like a bad name for a method to me. It's not an English word. It apparently is an abbreviation of 'representation' and even if you can deduce that, it still doesn't tell you what the method does. A good method name is subjective to a certain degree, but I had assumed that modern best practices agreed that names should be at least full words and descriptive enough to reveal enough about the method that you would easily find one when looking for it. Method names made from words help let your code read like English. repr() seems to have no advantages as a name other than being short and IDE auto-complete makes this a non-issue. An additional reason given in an answer is that python names are brief so that you can do many things on one line. Surely the better way is to just extract the many things to their own function, and repeat until lines are not too long. Are these just a hangover from the unix way of doing things? Commands with names like ls, rm, ps and du (if you could call those names) were hard to find and hard to remember. I know that the everyday usage of commands such as these is different than methods in code so the matter of whether those are bad names is a different matter.

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• How to publish paid Android apps if you're not from US/UK

  - by Sheikh Aman

  I was pretty excited while creating one of my apps but as it turns out you can't actually sign up for Google Checkout if you don't live either in the USA or in the UK. And since Google Checkout is the only way Android Market will pay you, all my efforts seem to be going in vain. So because I live in India, I can't sell my apps. I tried contacting Google by various means on this, but haven't got any response so far. I tried searching the web as well just to find out that one can't be paid via any other way. I am pretty sure that many people here might have gone through the same problem. How did you solve it? I have a PayPal account and an AdSense account as well. Can they help in any way? And if nothing works out, how am I supposed to be selling my app?

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• How can we plan projects realistically while accounting for support issues?

  - by Thomas Clayson

  We're having a problem at work: we're trying to schedule work so that we can assess time scales and get deadline dates. The problem is that it's difficult to plan for a project without knowing everything that's going to happen. For instance, right now we've planned all our projects through the start of December, however in that time we will have various in house and external meetings, teleconferences and extra work. It's all well and good to say that a project will take three weeks, but if there is a week's worth of interruption in that time then the date of completion will be pushed back a week. The problem is 3 fold: When we schedule projects the time scales are taken literally. If we estimate three weeks, the deadline is set for three week's time, the client is told, and there is no room for extension. Interim work and such means that we lose productive time working on the project. Sometimes clients don't have the time that we need to take to do the work, so they'll sometimes come to us and say they need a project done by the end of the month even when we think that the work will take two months - not to mention we already have work to be doing. We have a Gantt chart which we are trying to fill in with all the projects we have and we fill in timesheets, but they're not compared to the Gantt chart at all. This makes it difficult to say "Well, we scheduled 3 weeks for this project, but we've lost a week here so the deadline has to move back a week." It's also not professional to keep missing deadlines we've communicated to the client. How do other people deal with this type of situation? How do you manage the planning of projects? How much "extra" time do you schedule into a project to account for non-project work that occurs during a project? How do you deal with support issues and bugs and stuff? Things you can't account for during planning? UPDATE Lots of good answers thank you.

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• Author has inserted copyright into code with gnu public license notice - implications?

  - by Nicholas Pickering

  I've found a project on Github that I'm interested in contributing to which claims to be open source and has a GPL license included with it. But the original author has added a copyright notification to each source file. I'm not sure why but I don't feel right contributing to a project that's always going to have someone else's name on it. It really breaks the community-created feel, and makes me uneasy about what the author might choose to do with the project next. What are the implications of copyrighting open source GPL code as so? What power does this give the original author over a contributor? # Copyright (C) 2012, 2013 __AUTHORNAME__ # This file is part of __PROJECTNAME__. # # __PROJECTNAME__ is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by # the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or # (at your option) any later version. # # __PROJECTNAME__ is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the # GNU General Public License for more details. # # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License

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• Removing hard-coded values and defensive design vs YAGNI

  - by Ben Scott

  First a bit of background. I'm coding a lookup from Age - Rate. There are 7 age brackets so the lookup table is 3 columns (From|To|Rate) with 7 rows. The values rarely change - they are legislated rates (first and third columns) that have stayed the same for 3 years. I figured that the easiest way to store this table without hard-coding it is in the database in a global configuration table, as a single text value containing a CSV (so "65,69,0.05,70,74,0.06" is how the 65-69 and 70-74 tiers would be stored). Relatively easy to parse then use. Then I realised that to implement this I would have to create a new table, a repository to wrap around it, data layer tests for the repo, unit tests around the code that unflattens the CSV into the table, and tests around the lookup itself. The only benefit of all this work is avoiding hard-coding the lookup table. When talking to the users (who currently use the lookup table directly - by looking at a hard copy) the opinion is pretty much that "the rates never change." Obviously that isn't actually correct - the rates were only created three years ago and in the past things that "never change" have had a habit of changing - so for me to defensively program this I definitely shouldn't store the lookup table in the application. Except when I think YAGNI. The feature I am implementing doesn't specify that the rates will change. If the rates do change, they will still change so rarely that maintenance isn't even a consideration, and the feature isn't actually critical enough that anything would be affected if there was a delay between the rate change and the updated application. I've pretty much decided that nothing of value will be lost if I hard-code the lookup, and I'm not too concerned about my approach to this particular feature. My question is, as a professional have I properly justified that decision? Hard-coding values is bad design, but going to the trouble of removing the values from the application seems to violate the YAGNI principle. EDIT To clarify the question, I'm not concerned about the actual implementation. I'm concerned that I can either do a quick, bad thing, and justify it by saying YAGNI, or I can take a more defensive, high-effort approach, that even in the best case ultimately has low benefits. As a professional programmer does my decision to implement a design that I know is flawed simply come down to a cost/benefit analysis?

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• Books or help on OO Analysis

  - by Pat

  I have this course where we learn about the domain model, use cases, contracts and eventually leap into class diagrams and sequence diagrams to define good software classes. I just had an exam and I got trashed, but part of the reason is we barely have any practical material, I spent at least two good months without drawing a single class diagram by myself from a case study. I'm not here to blame the system or the class I'm in, I'm just wondering if people have some exercise-style books that either provide domain models with glossaries, system sequence diagrams and ask you to use GRASP to make software classes? I could really use some alone-time practicing going from analysis to conception of software entities. I'm almost done with Larman's book called "Applying UML and Patterns An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and Iterative Development, Third Edition". It's a good book, but I'm not doing anything by myself since it doesn't come with exercises. Thanks.

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• Render Ruby object to interactive html

  - by AvImd

  I am developing a tool that discovers network services enabled on host and writes short summary on them like this: init,1 +-- login,1560 -- +-- bash,1629 +-- nc,12137 -lup 50505 { :net = [ [0] "*:50505 IPv4 UDP " ], :fds = [ [0] "/root (cwd)", [1] "/", [2] "/bin/nc.traditional", [3] "/xochikit/ld_poison.so (stat: No such file or directory)", [4] "/dev/tty2", [5] "*:50505" ] } It proved to be very nice formatted and useful for quick discovery thanks to colors provided by the awesome_print gem. However, its output is just a text. One issue is that if I want to share it, I lose colors. I'd also like to fold and unfold parts of objects, quickly jump to specific processes and what not? Adding comments, for example. Thus I want something web-based. What is the best approach to implement features like these? I haven't worked with web interfaces before and I don't have much experience with Ruby.

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• Do I need a degree in Computer Science to get a junior Programming job?

  - by t84

  Do I need to go to Uni to get a job as a Junior C# coder? I'm 26 and have been working in Games (Production) for 6 years and I am thinking of a change, I've had exposure to VB6, VBA, HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript over the past few years and did a web design NCFE at College, but other than that, nothing else! I'm teaching myself C# at the moment with books and I was wondering 'how much' I need to learn and also how I can improve my chances of getting a programming job! Am I a late started to learn coding? (I know many people who started at a very young age!) Thanks for the help :)

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• What should be the minimal design/scope documentation before development begins?

  - by Oliver Hyde

  I am a junior developer working on my own in the programming aspect of projects. I am given a png file with 5-6 of the pages designed, most times in specific detail. From this I'm asked to develop the back end system needed to maintain the website, usually a cataloging system with products, tags and categories and match the front end to the design. I find myself in a pickle because when I make decisions based on assumptions about the flow of the website, due to a lack of outlining details, I get corrected and am required to rewrite the code to suit what was actually desired. This process happens multiple times throughout a project, often times on the same detail, until it's finally finished, with broken windows all through it. I understand that projects have scope creep, and can appreciate that I need to plan for this, but I feel that in this situation, I'm not receiving enough outlining details to effectively plan for the project, resulting in broken code and a stressed mind. What should be the minimal design/scope documentation I receive before I begin development?

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• Design for XML mapping scenarios between two different systems [on hold]

  - by deepak_prn

  Mapping XML fields between two systems is a mundane routine in integration scenarios. I am trying to make the design documents look better and provide clear understanding to the developers especially when we do not use XSLT or any other IDE such as jDeveloper or eclipse plugins. I want it to be a high level design but at the same time talk in developer's language. So that there is no requirements that slip under the crack. For example, one of the scenarios goes: the store cashier sells an item, the transaction data is sent to Data management system. Now, I am writing a functional design for the scenario which deals with mapping XML fields between our system and the data management system. Question : I was wondering if some one had to deal with mapping XML fields between two systems? (without XSLT being involved) and if you used a table to represent the fields mapping (example is below) or any other visualization tool which does not break the bank ? I am trying to find out if there is a better way to represent XML mapping in your design documents. The widely accepted and used method seems to be using a simple table such as in the picture to illustrate the mapping. I am wondering if there are alternate ways/ tools to represent such as in Altova:

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• Is there a way to add unique items to an array without doing a ton of comparisons?

  - by hydroparadise

  Please bare with me, I want this to be as language agnostic as possible becuase of the languages I am working with (One of which is a language called PowerOn). However, most languanges support for loops and arrays. Say I have the following list in an aray: 0x 0 Foo 1x 1 Bar 2x 0 Widget 3x 1 Whatsit 4x 0 Foo 5x 1 Bar Anything with a 1 should be uniqely added to another array with the following result: 0x 1 Bar 1x 1 Whatsit Keep in mind this is a very elementry example. In reality, I am dealing with 10's of thousands of elements on the old list. Here is what I have so far. Pseudo Code: For each element in oldlist For each element in newlist Compare If values oldlist.element equals newlist.element, break new list loop If reached end of newlist with with nothing equal from oldlist, add value from old list to new list End End Is there a better way of doing this? Algorithmicly, is there any room for improvement? And as a bonus qeustion, what is the O notation for this type of algorithm (if there is one)?

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• How can you get constructive criticism for your code?

  - by burnt1ce

  My team rarely does code review, mainly because we don't have enough time and people lack the energy and will to do so. But I would really like to know what people think about my code when they read it. This way, I have a better understanding how other people think and tailor my code accordingly so it's easier to read. So my question is, how can I get constructive criticism for my code? My intent is to understand how people think so I can write more readable code.

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• Using Qt to open external game appplication

  - by RandomGuy

  I have a windows qt application and I'm trying to open an external game, but I'm not having success. Application is in C:\games\Oni\Edition\ and is called Oni.exe, the code I'm using right now is the follow: void MainWindow::on_toolButton_clicked() { qint64 test=1; if(!QProcess::startDetached("Oni.exe",QStringList(),"C:\\games\\Oni\\Edition\\",&test)){ QMessageBox msgBox; msgBox.setText("Oni couln't be started!"); msgBox.exec(); } } I don't know if I'm forgetting something? The game runs fine if I double click it. Thanks.

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• How would I implement this application idea?

  - by Mike Wills

  I am a D&D gamer and a developer that has mostly worked with ASP.NET applications professionally. I have written some chat bots in Node.js and I have only played a little with PHP but wrote nothing serious. I have had inspiration to create a site that allows a person to keep track of characters (aka the character sheet). I am thinking of using this as a learning opportunity to learn noSQL and to write a full javascript front-end. I want this application to save the value as I change it. So if I edit the armor class, it is saved immediately instead of waiting until I hit the submit button. I think that will make it easier to use while gaming and not losing anything because I forgot to save the change. I have never done anything like this. How do you implement this style of application? Is there a tutorial or howto to get me on the right path? While I would really like to use ASP.NET but I don't have a Windows server to publish on (and I really can't afford to pay for a service). What language that runs on Linux would work well for this type of application? Note: I feel noSQL would work in this case because of the sheer number of tables required to create something like this in SQL.

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• How can we make agile enjoyable for developers that like to personally, independently own large chunks from start to finish

  - by Kris

  We’re roughly midway through our transition from waterfall to agile using scrum; we’ve changed from large teams in technology/discipline silos to smaller cross-functional teams. As expected, the change to agile doesn’t suit everyone. There are a handful of developers that are having a difficult time adjusting to agile. I really want to keep them engaged and challenged, and ultimately enjoying coming to work each day. These are smart, happy, motivated people that I respect on both a personal and a professional level. The basic issue is this: Some developers are primarily motivated by the joy of taking a piece of difficult work, thinking through a design, thinking through potential issues, then solving the problem piece by piece, with only minimal interaction with others, over an extended period of time. They generally complete work to a high level of quality and in a timely way; their work is maintainable and fits with the overall architecture. Transitioning to a cross-functional team that values interaction and shared responsibility for work, and delivery of working functionality within shorter intervals, the teams evolve such that the entire team knocks that difficult problem over. Many people find this to be a positive change; someone that loves to take a problem and own it independently from start to finish loses the opportunity for work like that. This is not an issue with people being open to change. Certainly we’ve seen a few people that don’t like change, but in the cases I’m concerned about, the individuals are good performers, genuinely open to change, they make an effort, they see how the rest of the team is changing and they want to fit in. It’s not a case of someone being difficult or obstructionist, or wanting to hoard the juiciest work. They just don’t find joy in work like they used to. I’m sure we can’t be the only place that hasn’t bumped up on this. How have others approached this? If you’re a developer that is motivated by personally owning a big chunk of work from end to end, and you’ve adjusted to a different way of working, what did it for you?

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• Why PHP Function Naming so Inconsistent?

  - by Shamim Hafiz

  I was going through some PHP functions and I could not help notice the following: <?php function foo(&$var) { } foo($a); // $a is "created" and assigned to null $b = array(); foo($b['b']); var_dump(array_key_exists('b', $b)); // bool(true) $c = new StdClass; foo($c->d); var_dump(property_exists($c, 'd')); // bool(true) ?> Notice the array_key_exists() and property_exists() function. In the first one, the property name(key for an array) is the first parameter while in the second one it is the second parameter. By intuition, one would expect them to have similar signature. This can lead to confusion and the development time may be wasted by making corrections of this type. Shouldn't PHP, or any language for that matter, consider making the signatures of related functions consistent?

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• C++ difference between "char *" and "char * = new char[]"

  - by nashmaniac

  So, if I want to declare an array of characters I can go this way char a[2]; char * a ; char * a = new char[2]; Ignoring the first declaration, the other two use pointers. As far as I know the third declaration is stored in heap and is freed using the delete operator . does the second declaration also hold the array in heap ? Does it mean that if something is stored in heap and not freed can be used anywhere in a file like a variable with file linkage ? I tried both third and second declaration in one function and then using the variable in another but it didn't work, why ? Are there any other differences between the second and third declarations ?

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• Best way to relate code smells to a non technical audience?

  - by Ed Guiness

  I have been asked to present examples of code issues that were found during a code review. My audience is mostly non-technical and I want to try to express the issues in such a way that I convey the importance of "good code" versus "bad code". But as I review my presentation it seems to me I've glossed over the reasons why it is important to write good code. I've mentioned a number of reasons including ease of maintenance, increased likelihood of bugs, but with my "non tech" hat on they seem unconvincing. What is your advice for helping a non-technical audience relate to the importance of good code?

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• Developing an internet-enabled application as a Kiosk on Windows 7

  - by maple_shaft

  I am finalizing development of a desktop Java application that communicates with an outside web server, and now I need to start seriously considering deployment. This application will run on a large touchscreen all-in-one workstation running Windows 7. It will be located in a public-area and thus must be LOCKED-DOWN Hanibal Lecter style. Early in the project nobody really concerned themselves with this fact just assuming that we can buy some magical software for Windows 7 that will automatically take care of all this, however I am finding now that this looks to be a LOT more complicated than my manager ever thought. I need to: - Lock down the standard hot-keys (ALT+TAB, ALT+CTRL+DEL, etc...) Prevent the user from opening ANY programs other than the kiosk application and its spawned executables Prevent the user from closing the application Start the kiosk application on startup (this can be done without kiosk software) Auto-login to Windows on reboot (Windows Updates, power failure, bratty kid pressing the power button, etc...) Administrator passcode escape sequence for routine maintenance by desktop support professionals. To my dismay I am having a really hard time finding software that contains the whole package and am finding numerous swaths of competing information on the best way to do this. I am not necessarily looking for free or open source software and am willing to pay for software that can help me achieve this. Have any of you ever wrote kiosk software before and if so what approaches have you taken to do this?

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• Young C++ student lacking direction

  - by ephaitch

  I was hoping for some direction or guidance regarding my C++ learning experience. I have now read two books, from cover to cover, twice. The first was Ivor Horton's Beginning Visual C++ 2010 and Starting out with C++ Early Objects (7th Edition). At this point and after several months I feel like all I know how to do in C++ is create a basic class, define some methods, use the STL, and read and write info to and from the console buffer (cin/cout). But simple things like saving data to a file, reading from a file, printing, connecting to an FTP site, doing some basic graphic manipulation on the screen (not even DirectX/OpenGL), and so-on I can't do or don't even know where to start. I feel I still haven't learned C++ thoroughly. I think you guys get where I'm going with this. I tried downloading SFML and compiling it in Visual C++ 2010 Professional. After quite a bit of time, I got it, but then I was lost. I followed the tutorials and one didn't work. I kept getting an error regarding a missing symbol and after an hour or so on Google, I couldn't figure it out. Can anyone point me in a direction of where one goes from here? I would imagine others have been at this point sometime during their early days.

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• Is browser fingerprinting a viable technique for identifying anonymous users?

  - by SMrF

  Is browser fingerprinting a sufficient method for uniquely identifying anonymous users? What if you incorporate biometric data like mouse gestures or typing patterns? The other day I ran into the Panopticlick experiment EFF is running on browser fingerprints. Of course I immediately thought of the privacy repercussions and how it could be used for evil. But on the other hand, this could be used for great good and, at the very least, it's a tempting problem to work on. While researching the topic I found a few companies using browser fingerprinting to attack fraud. And after sending out a few emails I can confirm at least one major dating site is using browser fingerprinting as but one mechanism to detect fake accounts. (Note: They have found it's not unique enough to act as an identity when scaling up to millions of users. But, my programmer brain doesn't want to believe them). Here is one company using browser fingerprints for fraud detection and prevention: http://www.bluecava.com/ Here is a pretty comprehensive list of stuff you can use as unique identifiers in a browser: http://browserspy.dk/

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• How does the GPL work in regards to languages like Dart which compile to other languages?

  - by Peter-W

  Google's Dart language is not supported by any Web Browsers other than a special build of Chromium known as Dartium. To use Dart for production code you need to run it through a Dart-JavaScript compiler/translator and then use the outputted JavaScript in your web application. Because JavaScript is an interpreted language everyone who receives the "binary"(Aka, the .js file) has also received the source code. Now, the GNU General Public License v3.0 states that: "The “source code” for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." Which would imply that the original Dart code in addition to the JavaScript code must also be provided to the end user. Does this mean that any web applications written in Dart must also provide the original Dart code to all visitors of their website even though a copy of the source code has already been provided in a human readable/writable/modifiable form?

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• How to explain pointers to a Java/VB programmer

  - by Skeith

  I am writing a game and my friend has offered to help me as it is a RPG and will take a long time to do the "scripting" bit of the game. The problem is IMO he's not that good a programmer :( (add flame war here). He has only programmed in Java and VB and keeps saying really stupid things to me like "Why don't you drag and drop an onClick event" to design my UI when I'm using DirectX. I tried explaining pointers to him but his response was, if it's just a variable that holds a memory address, why don't you just use an int? I create an instance of an attack class and give the creature a pointer to it so if several creatures use the same attack there is only one instance of it. He keeps saying why not put if statements in the creature class for every attack class and set true for the ones that are there. He has programmed mainly in VB and a little in Java just to learn OOP. How can I explain advanced C++ concepts like pointers and memory management to him? He just doesn't understand there are no super functions like form.show in C++.

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• How do freelancers know how much their work is worth?

  - by Qmal

  I want to start a bit of freelancing in web development using ASP.NET MVC3 and PHP and I already have some people who are interested in hiring me, but I still can't figure out how much to charge for projects since I have never done it. For example how much would this site cost? Would it cost more if the author built it from scratch instead of using WordPress as the CMS? Or what about a simpler site like this? How much time spent is considered good/normal for building sites like these? And maybe some freelancers with experience can tell me what the usual requests are that they get from clients. What sites are the most in demand? I'm asking because I'm a student and I really can't work every day in a full-time job but I need the money so I guess a little freelancing would help me out.

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