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• Working with Legacy code #5: The blackhole.

  - by andrewstopford

  Someone creates a class or series of classes for something, the classes are big in size with large complicated methods. The effort is a sea of technical debt for the entire team but in the thick of the daily chaos it is lost. With out the coder talking to the team, with no team code policy and no code reviews (and action points) it remains. Pretty soon the team forget about that code. A few weeks\months\years goes by, some of the team may have left, some may remain but business asks for the team to add to that code. The team is now looking at a black hole, no one knows how it works, what it does, what it is for, it is a smelly hell hole and the deadline is fast approaching. The team now tries to change the code, with no approach at unit tests or refactoring in fear of breaking the black hole the team do just that and the business have just lost money. If you are faced with a black hole you need to look back over my series, even a black hole in what might seem like a clean unit tested application. Don't be fooled into thinking that legacy code does not apply to your code base.  The next stage is don't let blackholes in your codebase. Effective code reviews, team communication and good overal team coding policies will really help. Even if you are faced with a deadline do not let them appear, stop, take stock, what can be done and who can help. If you allow them through they will grow and grow and grow and the technical debt will hit you like a tidal wave soon enough,.  

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• Google Fonts API JSON Data in WordPress Options-Framework-Theme

  - by Rob

  I'm developing a child-theme off of the new Twenty Twelve theme using Wordpress 3.4.2 and the development version of the Options Theme Framework by Devin Price. In Devin's tutorial, it shows of a way to implement 15 Google Web Fonts into the Theme Options page, but not all of them (roughly 560). I know I can create a "manual list", like in the tutorial that states each one with fallbacks, but this is time consuming and unproductive as Google may or may not add to, update, change or remove some of these fonts from their list. The list I've created above will ultimately store unavailable fonts the user thinks is there because of what they can see in the drop-down menu and it won't have any new ones - making the list and some selections obsolete. On the Google Developer API Web Fonts page, it talks briefly on retrieving a "dynamic list" using JSON/JavaScript. I was wondering how would I be able to pull the Google Web Fonts API into my Wordpress Theme Options page so I'm not creating my own list or have to constantly release an update to solve this issue. Could someone please walk me through what I would need to paste into my options.php, functions.php, /inc/options-framework.php file etc. or even in a new one to implement this? I've also had a look into some screencasts, plugins and tutorials on how it works, but none of them are specific enough for people just starting out. Please keep in mind I'm not the best coder... Thank you.

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• Programming Practice/Test Contest?

  - by Emmanuel

  My situation: I'm on a programming team, and this year, we want to weed out the weak link by making a competition to get the best coder from our group of candidates. Focus is on IEEExtreme-like contests. What I've done: I've been trying already for 2 weeks to get a practice or test site, like UVa or codechef. The plan after I find one: Send them (the candidates) a list of direct links to the problems (making them the "contest's problem list) get them to email me their correct answers' code at the time the judge says they have solved it and accept the fastest one into the team. Issues: We had practiced on UVa already (on programming challenges too), so our former teammate (which will be in the candidate group) already has an advantage if we used it. Codechef has all it's answers public, and since it shows the latest ones it will be extremely hard to verify if the answer was copied. And I've found other sites, like SPOJ, but they share at least some problems with codechef, making them inherit the issue of Codechef So, what alternatives do you think there are? Any site that may work? Any place to get all stuff to set up a Mooshak or similar contest (as in the stuff to get the problems, instructions to set up the server itself are easy to google)? Any other idea?

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• Execute code every hour

  - by Linger

  I need to create a web service that executes every hour. It will be used to review data in a database and add alerts to a table in the same database if certain conditions are met/not met. What we currently have is: We have end devices that use Python to report to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) virtual server. The AWS server takes that information and stores it in a MySQL database. The AWS server is Linux running Django and Apache. I need to be able to have some python code run every hour that verifies the data that has been stored by the end devices. If certain conditions are not met then a record will be added to the alerts table in the database. We originally contracted to have the above setup created. I am new to Python, Django, and Apache. However, I have already made several changes to the Python code that sends and also receives the data from the end devices. I am a coder that is breaking into web programming. Does anyone have any recommendations on how I can do this?

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• How do managers know if a person is a good or a bad programmer?

  - by Pavel Shved

  In most companies that do programming teams and divisions consist of programmers who design and write code and managers who... well, do the management stuff. Aside from just not writing code, managers usually do not even look at the code the team develops, and may even have no proper IDE installed on their work machines. Still, the managers are to judge if a person works well, if he or she should be put in charge of something, or if particular developer should be assigned to a task of the most importance and responsibility. And last, but not least: the managers usually assign the quarterly bonuses! To do the above effectively, a manager should know if a person is a good programmer—among other traits, of course. The question is, how do they do it? They don't even look at the code people write, they can't directly assess the quality of the components programmers develop... but their estimates of who is a good coder, and who is "not as good" are nevertheless correct in most cases! What is the secret?

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, September 24, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, September 24, 2012Popular ReleasesMetodología General Ajustada - MGA: 03.01.09: Cambios Parmenio: Envio actualizaciones al formato 3 de programación, actualizar botones en edición. Cambios John: Integración de código con cambios enviados por Parmenio Bonilla. Generación de instaladores. Soporte técnico por correo electrónico, telefónico y en sitio.JSLint for Visual Studio 2010: 1.4.0: VS2012 support is alphaBlackJumboDog: Ver5.7.2: 2012.09.23 Ver5.7.2 (1)InetTest?? (2)HTTP?????????????????100???????????Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows 8 (Preview 6): IMPORTANT: List of breaking changes from preview 5 Added separate samples download with .vsix dependencies instead of source dependencies Support for FreeWheel SmartXML ad responses Support for Smooth Streaming SDK DownloaderPlugins Support for VMAP and TTML polling for live scenarios Support for custom smooth streaming byte stream and scheme handlers Support for new play time and position tracking plugin Added IsLiveChanged event Added AdaptivePlugin.MaxBitrate property Add...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.5.0.8: Version: 2.5.0.8 (Milestone 8): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Changelog Legend: [B] Breaking change; [O] Marked member as obsolete WAF: Mark the class DataModel as serializable. InfoMan: Minor improvements. InfoMan: Add unit tests for all modules. Othe...LogicCircuit: LogicCircuit 2.12.9.20: Logic Circuit - is educational software for designing and simulating logic circuits. Intuitive graphical user interface, allows you to create unrestricted circuit hierarchy with multi bit buses, debug circuits behavior with oscilloscope, and navigate running circuits hierarchy. Changes of this versionToolbars on text note dialog are more flexible now. You can select font face, size, color, and background of text you are typing. RAM now can be initialized to one of the following: random va...Symphony Framework: Symphony Framework v2.0.0.2: Symphony Framework version 2.0.0.2. General note: If you install Symphony Framework 2.0.0.2 you must also install CodeGen 4.1.10 because a number of templates now utilise new features added to the tool. Added the user token PROJECTNAMESPACE to the “Symphony_Content.tpl” template to ensure that we can correctly reference the collection classes of the selection lists. Also added the ability to create object references to fields defined as having selection windows assigned. This enhancement ...Community xPress MDS: Initial MDS and DQS Models: Initial MDS & DQS ModelsSiteMap Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: SiteMap Editor (1.1.2020.421): New features: Disable a specific part of SiteMap to keep the data without displaying them in the CRM application. It simply comments XML part of the sitemap (thanks to rboyers for this feature request) Right click an item and click on "Disable" to disable it Items disabled are greyed and a suffix "- disabled" is added Right click an item and click on "Enable" to enable it Refresh list of web resources in the web resources pickerAJAX Control Toolkit: September 2012 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - September 2012 Release Version 60919September 2012 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4.5 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 3.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 3.5 and sample site (Recommended). Notes: - The current version of the AJAX Control Toolkit is not compatible with ...Sense/Net CMS - Enterprise Content Management: SenseNet 6.1.2 Community Edition: Sense/Net 6.1.2 Community EditionMain new featuresOur current release brings a lot of bugfixes, including the resolution of js/css editing cache issues, xlsx file handling from Office, expense claim demo workspace fixes and much more. Besides fixes 6.1.2 introduces workflow start options and other minor features like a reusable Reject client button for approval scenarios and resource editor enhancements. We have also fixed an issue with our install package to bring you a flawless installation...WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.2.3: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features AsyncUI extensions Controls and control extensions Converters Debugging helpers Imaging IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE: Namespace changes DebugConsol...Python Tools for Visual Studio: 1.5 RC: PTVS 1.5RC Available! We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 1.5 RC. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python language. PTVS supports a broad range of features including CPython/IronPython, Edit/Intellisense/Debug/Profile, Cloud, HPC, IPython, etc. support. The primary new feature for the 1.5 release is Django including Azure support! The http://www.djangoproject.com is a pop...Launchbar: Lanchbar 4.0.0: This application requires .NET 4.5 which you can find here: www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/downloadsAssaultCube Reloaded: 2.5.4 -: Linux has Ubuntu 11.10 32-bit precompiled binaries and Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit precompiled binaries, but you can compile your own as it also contains the source. If you are using Mac or other operating systems, please wait while we try to package for those OSes. Try to compile it. If it fails, download a virtual machine. The server pack is ready for both Windows and Linux, but you might need to compile your own for Linux (source included) Changelog: New logo Improved airstrike! Reset nukes...Extended WPF Toolkit: Extended WPF Toolkit - 1.7.0: Want an easier way to install the Extended WPF Toolkit?The Extended WPF Toolkit is available on Nuget. What's new in the 1.7.0 Release?New controls Zoombox Pie New features / bug fixes PropertyGrid.ShowTitle property added to allow showing/hiding the PropertyGrid title. Modifications to the PropertyGrid.EditorDefinitions collection will now automatically be applied to the PropertyGrid. Modifications to the PropertyGrid.PropertyDefinitions collection will now be reflected automaticaly...JayData - The cross-platform HTML5 data-management library for JavaScript: JayData 1.2: JayData is a unified data access library for JavaScript to CRUD + Query data from different sources like OData, MongoDB, WebSQL, SqLite, Facebook or YQL. The library can be integrated with Knockout.js or Sencha Touch 2 and can be used on Node.js as well. See it in action in this 6 minutes video Sencha Touch 2 example app using JayData: Netflix browser. What's new in JayData 1.2 For detailed release notes check the release notes. JayData core: all async operations now support promises JayDa...????????API for .Net SDK: SDK for .Net ??? Release 4: 2012?9?17??? ?????，???????????????。 ?????Release 3??????，???????，???，??? ??????????????????SDK，????????。 ??，??????? That's all.VidCoder: 1.4.0 Beta: First Beta release! Catches up to HandBrake nightlies with SVN 4937. Added PGS (Blu-ray) subtitle support. Additional framerates available: 30, 50, 59.94, 60 Additional sample rates available: 8, 11.025, 12 and 16 kHz Additional higher bitrates available for audio. Same as Source Constant Framerate available. Added Apple TV 3 preset. Added new Bob deinterlacing option. Introduced process isolation for encodes. Now if HandBrake crashes, VidCoder will keep running and continue pro...DNN Metro7 style Skin package: Metro7 style Skin for DotNetNuke 06.02.01: Stabilization release fixed this issues: Links not worked on FF, Chrome and Safari Modified packaging with own manifest file for install and source package. Moved the user Image on the Login to the left side. Moved h2 font-size to 24px. Note : This release Comes w/o source package about we still work an a solution. Who Needs the Visual Studio source files please go to source and download it from there. Known 16 CSS issues that related to the skin.css. All others are DNN default o...New ProjectsAndroid Hello World - Modified: SummaryAOXING: ??????CSharp WPF base64 coder-decoder: CSharp WPF base64 coder-decoder.D3 Loot Tracker: A Diablo 3 item drop tracking utility.EPiCloner: Working with EPiServer, you might need to clone site tree in a different language. EPiCloner will help you with this task taking care of updating pagereferencesGDAL SSIS: GDAL SSIS is a collection of geospatial components for SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) that leverages GDAL to support a large number of GIS data formats.Mw3Launcher: Play Activision MW3 Multiplayer without using steam!Orchard Contrib.Navigation: This Orchard module adds additional features to the Orchard.Navigation module. Currently the module provides the following features: ActionLink menu item: map Oxygen: OxygenPSEOnline: Nothing SpecialPython Digital Circuit Simulator: This is the Digital Logical Circuit Simulator built using Python.QuickerClicker (Adapted for Gamers): A automated Clicker for Gamers.SerialPortStream: An independent implementation of System.IO.Ports.SerialPort and SerialStream for better reliability and maintainability.SERS: SERSSharePoint WarmUp: A SharePoint solution leveraging the Application Initialization module for IIS 7.5.Simple PM - Project Management Simplified !: Simple PM is a simple and easy to use Project Management Tool. It focuses on better project management for individuals working alone on a project or small team.TestCzrejzyn: dsadsadTestMercurial: sadsadasdasTrip Calculator: This is a class trip calculator.UDP_Hole_Punching: ??UDP??User Group Labs: Group Meta Data: This module allows you to create and manage generic meta data for the social groups in DotNetNuke.

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• How to create Large resumable download from a secured location .NET

  - by Kelvin H

  I need to preface I'm not a .NET coder at all, but to get partial functionality, I modified a technet chunkedfilefetch.aspx script that uses chunked Data Reading and writing Streamed method of doing file transfer, to get me half-way. iStream = New System.IO.FileStream(path, System.IO.FileMode.Open, _ IO.FileAccess.Read, IO.FileShare.Read) dataToRead = iStream.Length Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream" Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", file.Length.ToString()) Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" & filedownload) ' Read and send the file 16,000 bytes at a time. ' While dataToRead 0 If Response.IsClientConnected Then length = iStream.Read(buffer, 0, 16000) Response.OutputStream.Write(buffer, 0, length) Response.Flush() ReDim buffer(16000) ' Clear the buffer ' dataToRead = dataToRead - length Else ' Prevent infinite loop if user disconnects ' dataToRead = -1 End If End While This works great on files up to 2GB and is fully functioning now.. But only one problem it doesn't allow for resume. I took the original code called it fetch.aspx and pass an orderNUM through the URL. fetch.aspx&ordernum=xxxxxxx It then reads the filename/location from the database occording to the ordernumber, and chunks it out from a secured location NOT under the webroot. I need a way to make this resumable, by the nature of the internet and large files people always get disconnected and would like to resume where they left off. But any resumable articles i've read, assume the file is within the webroot.. ie. http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/22533/1954 Great article and works well, but I need to stream from a secured location. I'm not a .NET coder at all, at best i can do a bit of coldfusion, if anyone could help me modify a handler to do this, i would really appreciate it. Requirements: I Have a working fetch.aspx script that functions well and uses the above code snippet as a base for the streamed downloading. Download files are large 600MB and are stored in a secured location outside of the webroot. Users click on the fetch.aspx to start the download, and would therefore be clicking it again if it was to fail. If the ext is a .ASPX and the file being sent is a AVI, clicking on it would completely bypass an IHTTP handler mapped to .AVI ext, so this confuses me From what I understand the browser will read and match etag value and file modified date to determine they are talking about the same file, then a subsequent accept-range is exchanged between the browser and IIS. Since this dialog happens with IIS, we need to use a handler to intercept and respond accordingly, but clicking on the link would send it to an ASPX file which the handeler needs to be on an AVI fiel.. Also confusing me. If there is a way to request the initial HTTP request header containing etag, accept-range into the normal .ASPX file, i could read those values and if the accept-range and etag exist, start chunking at that byte value somehow? but I couldn't find a way to transfer the http request headers since they seem to get lost at the IIS level. OrderNum which is passed in the URL string is unique and could be used as the ETag Response.AddHeader("ETag", request("ordernum")) Files need to be resumable and chunked out due to size. File extensions are .AVI so a handler could be written around it. IIS 6.0 Web Server Any help would really be appreciated, i've been reading and reading and downloading code, but none of the examples given meet my situation with the original file being streamed from outside of the webroot. Please help me get a handle on these httphandlers :)

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• Who is code wanderer?

  - by DigiMortal

  In every area of life there are people with some bad habits or misbehaviors that affect the work process. Software development is also not free of this kind of people. Today I will introduce you code wanderer. Who is code wanderer? Code wandering is more like bad habit than serious diagnose. Code wanderers tend to review and “fix” source code in files written by others. When code wanderer has some free moments he starts to open the code files he or she has never seen before and starts making little fixes to these files. Why is code wanderer dangerous? These fixes seem correct and are usually first choice to do when considering nice code. But as changes are made by coder who has no idea about the code he or she “fixes” then “fixing” usually ends up with messing up working code written by others. Often these “fixes” are not found immediately because they doesn’t introduce errors detected by compilers. So these “fixes” find easily way to production environments because there is also very good chance that “fixed” code goes through all tests without any problems. How to stop code wanderer? The first thing is to talk with person and explain him or her why those changes are dangerous. It is also good to establish rules that state clearly why, when and how can somebody change the code written by other people. If this does not work it is possible to isolate this person so he or she can post his or her changes to code repository as patches and somebody reviews those changes before applying them.

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• Programming by dictation?

  - by Andrew M

  ie. you speak out the code, and someone else across the room types it in Anyone tried this? Obviously the person taking the dictation would need to be a coder too, so you didn't have to explain everything and go into tedious detail (not 'open bracket, new line...' but more like 'create a new class called myParser that takes three arguments, first one is...'). I thought of it because sometimes I'm too easily distracted at my computer. Surrounded by buttons, instant gratification a click away, the world at my fingertips. To get stuff done, I want to get away, write my code on paper. But that would mean losing access to necessary resources, and necessitate tedious typing-up later on. The solution? Dictate. Pros: no chance to check reddit, stackexchange, gmail, etc. code while you pace the room, lie down, play billiards, whatever train your brain to think more abstractedly (have to visualize things if you can't just see the screen) skip the tedious details (closing brackets etc.) the typist gets to shadow a more experienced programmer and learn how they work the typist can provide assistance/suggestions external pressure of typist expecting instructions, urging you to stay focussed Cons might be too hard might not work any better rather inefficient use of assisting programmer need to find/pay someone to do this

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• Reading source code to learn

  - by perl.j

  As you develop as a programmer, IMO, you begin to see different practices, different Algorithms, and "more than one way to do it". Seeing this code can be a great learning experience for you, even though you did not write the code. But is doing this only going to confuse you? For example, let's say you have a library in any language that was created by a colleague, and you have been using it for a while. You decide to look at the actual source code, regardless of how extensive it is, and get a better look at how this library is written. For the sake of example, the function you use most often from this library is the max function, which finds the largest of two numbers. But this function is a lot more complicated than it needs to be. The way it is written is confusing the heck out of you, and you don't know how this works. Will this make you a better programmer, because you realize how complicated it is for such a simple function, or will it make you a worse coder because you feel less confidant? So my question, in general, is does reading source code make you a better programmer and if so how? If not why do people still do it?.

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• Should I go with OpenGL to see my future in Game Development industry? [closed]

  - by Priyank

  Possible Duplicate: Should I continue studying OpenGL or just switch to DirectX to give me a better chance of landing a job in the game industry? I tried Google but found quite old articles, so I am in search of an answer in context to year 2012. Hi all, I don't know if you will consider this question appropriate for this community but I am constantly searching for a perfect answer. What I have seen is that most of the games that are released these days are DirectX 1x based. Except for few games like Starcraft or Diablo which don't have high end graphics are using OpenGL. So I have few questions to ask. The platforms i would like to target are PC (windows), Xbox 360 and PS3 (must). Should I go with learning OpenGL to see my future in game development industry? Or should I shift to Directx? If I learn OpenGL first, will it be difficult to learn direcx then? Which API is most suitable for indie development? Which one of the two API's are better from coder's (programmer's) point of view? Like OOP and style of coding. Is openGL being cross platform should be the only reason to choose it over Directx? Even when vendors are not providing enough stable drivers for it. Thanks in advance. I have read this post, but I have few questions. Should I continue studying OpenGL or just switch to DirectX to give me a better chance of landing a job in the game industry?

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• Intellectual-Property Question

  - by Roger J. J.

  Like almost everyone here, I have a handfull of scripts and software that I have developed and am enthused about. I will be looking for my first job as a software designer / coder. It seems natural that I will be eager to please my employer and use scripts or similar methods that I have developed and worked for me in the past to please my employer. It seems certain that many things that I code will look very similar to things I have coded in the past. I don't understand how to document and articulate to an employer that this code base was mine before I got here and this will continue to be mine when I leave. Surely, this is a common issue, but none of the various searches I've done on the net have produced an answer to this question. How is this situation commonly dealt with in the industry? I feel like there should be a digital version of sending myself a 'certified letter' with my code/software/scripts contained. I'm not trying to protect my code from others using it; I am trying to protect my right to continue using my code base that I have developed prior to to gaining employment with an employer.

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• Who is code wanderer?

  - by DigiMortal

  In every area of life there are people with some bad habits or misbehaviors that affect the work process. Software development is also not free of this kind of people. Today I will introduce you code wanderer. Who is code wanderer? Code wandering is more like bad habit than serious diagnose. Code wanderers tend to review and “fix” source code in files written by others. When code wanderer has some free moments he starts to open the code files he or she has never seen before and starts making little fixes to these files. Why is code wanderer dangerous? These fixes seem correct and are usually first choice to do when considering nice code. But as changes are made by coder who has no idea about the code he or she “fixes” then “fixing” usually ends up with messing up working code written by others. Often these “fixes” are not found immediately because they doesn’t introduce errors detected by compilers. So these “fixes” find easily way to production environments because there is also very good chance that “fixed” code goes through all tests without any problems. How to stop code wanderer? The first thing is to talk with person and explain him or her why those changes are dangerous. It is also good to establish rules that state clearly why, when and how can somebody change the code written by other people. If this does not work it is possible to isolate this person so he or she can post his or her changes to code repository as patches and somebody reviews those changes before applying them.

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• Is micro-optimisation important when coding?

  - by BozKay

  I recently asked a question on stackoverflow.com to find out why isset() was faster than strlen() in php. This raised questions around the importance of readable code and whether performance improvements of micro-seconds in code were worth even considering. My father is a retired programmer, I showed him the responses and he was absolutely certain that if a coder does not consider performance in their code even at the micro level, they are not good programmers. I'm not so sure - perhaps the increase in computing power means we no longer have to consider these kind of micro-performance improvements? Perhaps this kind of considering is up to the people who write the actual language code? (of php in the above case). The environmental factors could be important - the internet consumes 10% of the worlds energy, I wonder how wasteful a few micro-seconds of code is when replicated trillions of times on millions of websites? I'd like to know answers preferably based on facts about programming. Is micro-optimisation important when coding? EDIT : My personal summary of 25 answers, thanks to all. Sometimes we need to really worry about micro-optimisations, but only in very rare circumstances. Reliability and readability are far more important in the majority of cases. However, considering micro-optimisation from time to time doesn't hurt. A basic understanding can help us not to make obvious bad choices when coding such as if (expensiveFunction() && counter < X) Should be if (counter < X && expensiveFunction()) (example from @zidarsk8) This could be an inexpensive function and therefore changing the code would be micro-optimisation. But, with a basic understanding, you would not have to because you would write it correctly in the first place.

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• Can anyone recommend an AI sandbox?

  - by user19433

  I'm passionate person, who has been around AI from a long time [1] but never going in deep enough. Now it's time! I've been really looking for some way to concentrate on AI coding but couldn't succeeded to find an AI environment I can focus on. I just want to use an AI sandbox environment which would let me have tools like: visibility information character controller able to easily define a level, with obstacles of course physics collider management triggers management don't need to be a shiny, eye candy graphical render : this is about pathfinding, tactical reasoning, etc.. I have tried : Unreal Dev Kit : while the new release announce is about C++ coding, this is about external tools and will be released in 2013 Cry Engine : really interesting as AI is presents here but coding with it appears to be an hell: did I got it wrong ? Half Life source, C4, Torque, Dx Studio : either quite old, not very useful or costly these imply to dig in documentation (when provided) to code everything, graphics included. Unity 3D : the most promising platform. While you also need to create your own environment, there are lot of examples. The disadvantage is, in addition to spend time to have this env. working, is the languages choice : C#, Javascript or Boo. C# is not that hard, but this implies you'll allways have to convert papers (I love those from Lars Linden) books codes, or anything you can have in Aigamedev are most often in C++. This is extra work. I've look at "Simple Path", the very good Arong Greenberg work but no source provided and AngryAnt work. AI Sandbox : this seems to be exactly what as AI coder I want to use. I saw some preview but from 2009 we still don't know what it will be about precisely, will it be opensource or free (I strongly doubt), will I be able to buy it? will it really provide me tools I need to focus on AI ? That being said, what is the best environment to be able to focus on AI coding only, is it even possible?

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• Efficient coding in Visual Studio (or another IDE), with touch typing

  - by cheeesus

  Moving the cursor to another position in code is one of the most frequent actions when coding. I don't write my programs from the beginning to the end, like a letter. However, moving the cursor requires me to move my right hand to the key arrows or to the mouse, which feels like an interruption to my writing rhythm, since I'm using touch typing. I want my hands to rest on the keyboard. It's difficult to explain what I mean, but I think every coder using touch typing knows what I mean. I tried many things, like defining some shortcuts as surrogate arrow keys (Shift+Alt+J, K, L, I), or buying a keyboard with a Trackpoint, Trackpad, or Trackball on it, but I have not yet found a satisfying solution to the problem. What is the best solution you know of, regardless of which IDE you use? Edit: Thank you for your answers. I am using a lot of shortkeys, but I think using a Vim plugin in Visual Studio would interfere too much with the shortkeys I am used to. Also, I have a keyboard with a built-in mouse, but I'm still looking for a better solution.

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• How to provide value?

  - by Francisco Garcia

  Before I became a consultant all I cared about was becoming a highly skilled programmer. Now I believe that what my clients need is not a great hacker, coder, architect... or whatever. I am more and more convinced every day that there is something of greater value. Everywhere I go I discover practices where I used to roll my eyes in despair. I saw the software industry with pink glasses and laughed or cried at them depending on my mood. I was so convinced everything could be done better. Now I believe that what my clients desperately need is finding a balance between good engineering practices and desperate project execution. Although a great design can make a project cheap to maintain thought many years, usually it is more important to produce quick fast and cheap, just to see if the project can succeed. Before that, it does not really matters that much if the design is cheap to maintain, after that, it might be too late to improve things. They need people who get involved, who do some clandestine improvements into the project without their manager approval/consent/knowledge... because they are never given time for some tasks we all know are important. Not all good things can be done, some of them must come out of freewill, and some of them must be discussed in order to educate colleagues, managers, clients and ourselves. Now my big question is. What exactly are the skills and practices aside from great coding that can provide real value to the economical success of software projects? (and not the software architecture alone)

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• Suggestions to start a cross-platform project

  - by Gabriele

  I have a big project in my head, it should be cross-platform (Win, Max and Linux), online (Client - Server) and with 3D graphics. I would like some suggestions to start with the right things. Currently I'm a PHP/MySQL coder, I used to code in C and Pascal on DOS ages (Borland Times ;)), my C knowlegde need a refresh but it's ok. I guess C++ it's the right language. What platform and what i should use to code? I can choose from all three platforms. My idea was to use Visual Studio 2010 C++, but i'm not sure if it support Native code. What kind of libraries should i use? I guessed OpenSSL for the login, OpenGL for graphics part. For the Audio or the GUI? Any other suggestions are well accepted. I know it's a "BIG DEAL" but I have no rush and it'll be a free-time project, only for my pleasure. Thank you in advance.

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• When is it better to offload work to the RDBMS rather than to do it in code?

  - by GeminiDomino

  Okay, I'll cop to it: I'm a better coder than I am at databases, and I'm wondering where thoughts on "best practices" lie on the subject of doing "simple" calculations in the SQL query vs. in the code, such as this MySQL example (I didn't write it, I just have to maintain it!) -- This returns the username, and the users age as of the last event. SELECT u.username as user, IF ((DAY(max(e.date)) - DAY(u.DOB)) &lt; 0 , TRUNCATE(((((YEAR(max(e.date))*12)+MONTH(max(e.date))) -((YEAR(u.DOB)*12)+MONTH(u.DOB)))-1)/12, 0), TRUNCATE((((YEAR(max(e.date))*12)+MONTH(max(e.date))) - ((YEAR(u.DOB)*12)+MONTH(u.DOB)))/12, 0)) AS age FROM users as u JOIN events as e ON u.id = e.uid ... Compared to doing the "heavy" lifting in code: Query: SELECT u.username, u.DOB as dob, e.event_date as edate FROM users as u JOIN events as e ON u.id = e.uid code: function ageAsOfDate($birth, $aod) { //expects dates in mysql Y-m-d format... list($by,$bm,$bd) = explode('-',$birth); list($ay,$am,$ad) = explode('-',$aod); //Insert Calculations here ... return $Dy; //Difference in years } echo "Hey! ". $row['user'] ." was ". ageAsOfDate($row['dob'], $row['edate']) . " when we last saw him."; I'm pretty sure in a simple case like this it wouldn't make much difference (other than the creeping feeling of horror when I have to make changes to queries like the first one), but I think it makes it clearer what I'm looking for. Thanks!

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• PHP/MySQL Database application development tool

  - by RCH

  I am an amateur PHP coder, and have built a couple of dozen projects from scratch (including fairly simple e-commerce systems with user authentication, PayPal integration etc - all coded by hand from a clean page. Have also done a price comparison engine that takes data from multiple sites etc.). But I am no expert with OO and other such advanced techniques - I just have a fairly decent grasp of the basics of data processing, logic, functions and trying to optimize code as much as possible. I just want to make this clear so you have some idea of where I'm coming from. I have a couple of fairly large new projects on my plate for corporate clients - both require bespoke database-driven applications with complex relationships, many tables and lots of different front-end functions to manipulate that data for the internal staff in these companies. I figured building these systems from scratch would probably be a huge waste of time. Instead, there must be tools out there that will allow me to construct MySQL databases and build the pages with things like pagination, action buttons, table construction etc. Some kind of database abstraction layer, or system generator, if you will. What tool do you recommend for such a purpose for someone at my level? Open source would be great, but I don't mind paying for something decent as well. Thanks for any advice.

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• What to expect when creating a style guide?

  - by ted.strauss

  My organization would like to create a full fledged style guide that will be applicable to internal & external web sites, print advertising, trade show design, and overall branding. This article lays out the scope we're aiming for, and has links to many great examples style guide PDFs. The goal is to create a style guide comparable to one of these. I'd like to set realistic expectations within my organization for creating this document. So I have a few of questions pertaining to this: We don't have design staff. Should we be looking for a design firm or freelancer to come in for a 2-6 month contract, or do we need a longer commitment? If we do go with a firm or freelancer, would the pay-scale be comparable to typical design work, or is a style guide a higher order of work? How long should it take a pro to create a style guide? To make estimates more concrete, let's say web only, including all custom graphics. Any red flags to watch out for? (Compare: a new coder who fails to use css properly would be a red flag.)

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• How to get started in coding for JBoss

  - by Mister IT Guru

  I have an idea on how to revamp our internal application, after having accessed the needs of the users, addressing thier current issues, and the like. But I am not a coder. My last application I wrote was in college, in C, (java wasn't invented-ish!) and it was a booking system, with the option to add on other modules, blah blah. I got an A, but I became a system administrator instead, more intrested in designing and maintainend networks and infrastructure, but with the advent of virtualisation, and linux management tools such as puppet I can now manage infrastructure in my sleep! Now I want to write code - to put on my infastructure, and I want to build .... a booking system! This is just to get experience, but I am at a loss as to where to start. Setting up the environment, will take me about a day. Writing the spec, even how I want it to work, I already know, but as for actually coding in a decent manner, I can only guess. If anyone can recommend a book, website, blog, twitter person to follow, or just advice on how to build a kick butt basic jboss app, then please, "I AM READY TO LEARN" :)

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• How to deal with a valuable person going in all directions?

  - by JVerstry

  I am working with someone producing user content to be included in a software application. He is not a coder, but rather an expert in his field, sharing the knowledge. His contribution, taken piece by piece is great, but he goes in all directions and has issues producing work sequentially. He works on 25 pieces of content at the same time, and as soon as he reads something 'interesting', he wants to rewrite some of his stuff to improve the quality of it. He does not converge naturally. He collects tons of informations, produces some valuable stuff, but in a completely unstructured way. We addressed this issue with him some time ago and in order to try to solve it, we created a document with the 100 items he had to fill. Problem is, it does not seem to work very well. How to deal with those people and collect information? I was thinking about a new technique: ask him to send his bits, out of order, little by little, as soon as they are ready, and keep a list of what remains to be done, and show him that list to give him direction. This situation is stressing the hell out of me. If his production was not good, I would not be trying so hard to make this work. If you have experience to share, it is welcome.

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• Storing data offline with javascript

  - by Walker

  My question is about storing data offline and potentially whether I will need to bring in an outside programmer or could this be learned within a few weeks? The website I am working on will have an interface where users will login and go through a series of quizzes in the form of checkbox, drop down menus, and others. Each page/quiz area could have 20-100 total checkboxes in a series of 3-5 rows because of the comprehensive nature of course. This I can do - I know how to code the quiz and return a correct or incorrect answer based on each individual checkbox and present a cumulative score (ie: you got 57% correct). The issue lies in the fact that I would like to save the users results and keep them informed of their progress. When they complete all of the quizzes, I would like to have a visual output of their performance in each area. Storing the output from their results offline is where I think I may run into a problem with my lack of coding experience. I would also like to have a sidebar with their progress of each section (10-15) with a green percentage completion bar or a % correct which would draw from this. I have never had to code something that stores information like this offline - so back to my question - would it be better to learn the language needed or bring in a coder/developer for the back end stuff.

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• Debugger for file I/O development?

  - by datenwolf

  Okay, the question title may be a bit cryptic. But it aptly describes what I'm looking for: I think every experienced coder went through this numerous times: You get a binary file format specification, you implement the reader for it, and… nothing works like expected. So you run your code in the debugger, go execute through the code line by line, every header field is read in seemingly correct, but when it comes to the bulk data, offset and indices no longer match up. What would really help in this situation was a binary file viewer, that shows you the progress of your file pointer, as you step through the code, and ideally would also highlight all memory maps. Then you could see the context of the current I/O operations, most notably those darn "off-by-one" mistakes, which are even more annoying when reading a file. Implementing such a debugger should not be too hard. traces on the process' file descriptors/handles and triggers on the I/O functions, to update the display. Only: I don't know of such a kind of debugger to exist. Do I just lack knowledge about the existance of such a tool, or is there really no such thing?

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