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• SQLAuthority Book Review – DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA

  - by pinaldave

  DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA – Thomas LaRock Link to Amazon Link to Flipkart First of all, I thank all my readers when I wrote that I could not get this book in any local book stores, because they offered me to send a copy of this good book. A very special mention goes to Sripada and Jayesh for they gave so much effort in finding my home address and sending me the hard copy. Before, I did not have the copy of the book, but now I have two of it already! It surprises me how my readers were able to find my home address, which I have not publicly shared. Quick Review: This is indeed a one easy-to-read and fun book. We all work day and night with technology yet we should not forget to show our love and care for our family at home. For our souls that starve for peace and guidance, this one book is the “it” book for all the technology enthusiasts. Though this book was specifically written for DBAs, the reach is not limited to DBAs only because the lessons incorporated in it actually applies to all. This is one of the most motivating technical books I have read. Detailed Review: Let us go over a few questions first: Who wants to be as famous as rockstars in the field of Database Administration? How can one learn what it takes to become a top notch software developer? If you are a beginner in your field, how will you go to next level? Your boss may be very kind or like Dilbert’s Boss, what will you do? How do you keep growing when Eco-system around you does not support you? You are almost at top but there is someone else at the TOP, what do you do and how do you avoid office politics? As a database developer what should be your basic responsibility? and many more… I was able to completely read book in one sitting and I loved it. Before I continue with my opinion, I want to echo the opinion of Kevin Kline who has written the Forward of the book. He has truly suggested that “You hold in your hands a collection of insights and wisdom on the topic of database administration gained through many years of hard-won experience, long nights of study, and direct mentorship under some of the industry’s most talented database professionals and information technology (IT) experts.” Today, IT field is getting bigger and better, while talking about terabytes of the database becomes “more” normal every single day. The gods and demigods of database professionals are taking care of these large scale databases and are carefully maintaining them. In this world, there are only a few beginnings on the first step. There are many experts in different technology fields who are asked to address the issues with databases. There is YOU and ME, who is just new to this work. So we ask ourselves WHERE to begin and HOW to begin. We adore and follow the religion of our rockstars, but oftentimes we really have no idea about their background and their struggles. Every rockstar has his success story which needs to be digested before learning his tricks and tips. This book starts with the same note and teaches the two most important lessons for anybody who wants to be a DBA Rockstar –  to focus on their single goal of learning and to excel the technology. The story starts with three simple guidelines – Get Prepared, Get Trained, Get Certified. Once a person learns the skills, and then, it would be about time that he needs to enrich or to improve those skills you have learned. I am sure that the right opportunity will come finding themselves and they will not have to go run behind it. However, the real challenge for any person is the first day or first week. A new employee, no matter how much experienced he is, sometimes has no clue about what should one do at new job. Chapter 2 and chapter 3 precisely talk about what one should do as soon as the new job begins. It is also written with keeping the fact in focus that each job can be very much different but there are few infrastructure setups and programming concepts are the same. Learning basics of database was really interesting. I like to focus on the roots of any technology. It is important to understand the structure of the database before suggesting what indexes needs to be created, the same way this book covers the most essential knowledge one must learn by most database developers. I think the title of the fourth chapter is my favorite sentence in this book. I can see that I will be saying this again and again in the future – “A Development Server Is a Production Server to a Developer“. I have worked in the software industry for almost 8 years now and I have seen so many developers sitting on their chairs and waiting for instructions from their lead about how to improve the code or what to do the next. When I talk to them, I suggest that the experiment with their server and try various techniques. I think they all should understand that for them, a development server is their production server and needs to pay proper attention to the code from the beginning. There should be NO any inappropriate code from the beginning. One has to fully focus and give their best, if they are not sure they should ask but should do something and stay active. Chapter 5 and 6 talks about two essential skills for any developer and database administration – what are the ethics of developers when they are working with production server and how to support software which is running on the production server. I have met many people who know the theory by heart but when put in front of keyboard they do not know where to start. The first thing they do opening the browser and searching online, instead of opening SQL Server Management Studio. This can very well happen to anybody who is experienced as well. Chapter 5 and 6 addresses that situation as well includes the handy scripts which can solve almost all the basic trouble shooting issues. “Where’s the Buffet?” By far, this is the best chapter in this book. If you have ever met me, you would know that I love food. I think after reading this chapter, I felt Thomas has written this just keeping me in mind. I think there will be many other people who feel the same way, too. Even my wife who read this chapter thought this was specifically written for me. I will not talk any more about this chapter as this is one must read chapter. And of course this is about real ‘FOOD‘. I am an SQL Server Trainer and Consultant and I totally agree with the point made in the chapter 8 of this book. Yes, it says here that what is necessary to train employees and people. Millions of dollars worth the labor is continuously done in the world which has faults and incorrect. Once something goes wrong, very expensive consultant comes in and fixes the problem. This whole cycle which can be stopped and improved if proper training is done. There is plenty of free trainings available as well, if one cannot afford paid training. “Connect. Learn. Share” – I think this is a great summary and bird’s eye view of this book. Networking is the key. Everything which is discussed in this book can be taken to next level if one properly uses this tips and continuously grow with it. Connecting with others, helping learn each other and building the good knowledge sharing environment should be the goal of everyone. Before I end the review I want to share a real experience. I have personally met one DBA who has worked in a single department in a company for so long that when he was put in a different department in his company due to closing that department, he could not adjust and quit the job despite the same people and company around him. Adjusting in the new environment gets much tougher as one person gets more and more experienced. This book precisely addresses the same issue along with their solutions. I just cannot stop comparing the book with my personal journey. I found so many things which are coincidently in the book is written as how we developer and DBA think. I must express special thanks to Thomas for taking time in his personal life and write this book for us. This book is indeed a book for everybody who wants to grow healthy in the tough and competitive environment. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship – book review

  - by DigiMortal

     Writing code that is easy read and test is not something that is easy to achieve. Unfortunately there are still way too much programming students who write awful spaghetti after graduating. But there is one really good book that helps you raise your code to new level – your code will be also communication tool for you and your fellow programmers. “Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship” by Robert C. Martin is excellent book that helps you start writing the easily readable code. Of course, you are the one who has to learn and practice but using this book you have very good guide that keeps you going to right direction. You can start writing better code while you read this book and you can do it right in your current projects – you don’t have to create new guestbook or some other simple application to start practicing. Take the project you are working on and start making it better! My special thanks to Robert C. Martin I want to say my special thanks to Robert C. Martin for this book. There are many books that teach you different stuff and usually you have markable learning curve to go before you start getting results. There are many books that show you the direction to go and then leave you alone figuring out how to achieve all that stuff you just read about. Clean Code gives you a lot more – the mental tools to use so you can go your way to clean code being sure you will be soon there. I am reading books as much as I have time for it. Clean Code is top-level book for developers who have to write working code. Before anything else take Clean Code and read it. You will never regret your decision. I promise. Fragment of editorial review “Even bad code can function. But if code isn’t clean, it can bring a development organization to its knees. Every year, countless hours and significant resources are lost because of poorly written code. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What kind of work will you be doing? You’ll be reading code—lots of code. And you will be challenged to think about what’s right about that code, and what’s wrong with it. More importantly, you will be challenged to reassess your professional values and your commitment to your craft. Readers will come away from this book understanding How to tell the difference between good and bad code How to write good code and how to transform bad code into good code How to create good names, good functions, good objects, and good classes How to format code for maximum readability How to implement complete error handling without obscuring code logic How to unit test and practice test-driven development This book is a must for any developer, software engineer, project manager, team lead, or systems analyst with an interest in producing better code.” Table of contents Clean code Meaningful names Functions Comments Formatting Objects and data structures Error handling Boundaries Unit tests Classes Systems Emergence Concurrency Successive refinement JUnit internals Refactoring SerialDate Smells and heuristics A Concurrency II org.jfree.date.SerialDate Cross references of heuristics Epilogue Index

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• SQLAuthority News – Book Review – Beginning T-SQL 2008 by Kathi Kellenberger

  - by pinaldave

  Beginning T-SQL 2008 by Kathi Kellenberger Amazon Link Detail Review: Beginning T-SQL 2008 is one of the best books on the market if you are just beginning to work with Microsoft SQL, or have a little bit of experience and need to learn more quickly. Each chapter of the book introduces a new subject, and builds upon topics covered in previous chapters.  The author of the book, Kathi Kellenberger understands that you need to form a solid foundation of knowledge before moving on to new topics, and sets up each subject nicely.  Because the chapters move in an orderly progression, you continue to use skills you learned earlier. One of the best features of Beginning T-SQL 2008 is that each chapter has multiple examples and exercises.  Many books introduce a topic and then never go back to it.  This book gives enough examples that you will be familiar with the subject when you come across it in real life.  The exercises at the end of the chapter mean that you will be using the skills you learned – and there is no better way to cement a subject in your brain. The book also includes discussions of the common errors that programmers will come across, how to avoid them, and how to fix them if they happen.  Ms. Kellenberger understands that not only do mistakes happen, but they are bound to happen if you aren’t trained properly.  Mistakes are part of the learning process! The book begins by discussions relational theory, so that programmers will understand the way T-SQL works from the ground up.  It also walks readers through writing accurate queries, combining set-based and procedural processing, embedding logic in stored functions, and so much more. Overall, the main goal of Beginning T-SQL 2008 is to introduce novices to SQL programming, and quickly familiarize them with the basics of running the program.  The book is written with the idea that readers will not know any of the technical terms or vocabulary.  However, if you are a little more familiar with SQL and looking to become better, you will still find this book very helpful. Ratting: 4.5+ Stars Summary: I must recommend Beginning T-SQL 2008 highly enough.  If you are going to buy any beginners guide to Transect-SQL, this is the one you should spend your money on.  You can save yourself a lot of time and effort later by using this very affordable manual to learn the basics, which will allow you to become an expert much faster. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority Book Review – Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting

  - by pinaldave

  Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting by Christian Bolton, Justin Langford, Brent Ozar, James Rowland-Jones, Steven Wort Link to Amazon (Worldwide) Link to Flipkart (India) Brief Review: Having a book on internal and associating that with real life is “almost” an impossible task. The reason for using the word “almost” is because this book has accomplished this [...]

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• Book Review (Book 10) - The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for March 2012 was: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick. I was traveling at the end of last month so I’m a bit late posting this review here. Why I chose this book: My personal belief about computing is this: All computing technology is simply re-arranging data. We take data in, we manipulate it, and we send it back out. That’s computing. I had heard from some folks about this book and it’s treatment of data. I heard that it dealt with the basics of data - and the semantics of data, information and so on. It also deals with the earliest forms of history of information, which fascinates me. It’s similar I was told, to GEB which a favorite book of mine as well, so that was a bonus. Some folks I talked to liked it, some didn’t - so I thought I would check it out. What I learned: I liked the book. It was longer than I thought - took quite a while to read, even though I tend to read quickly. This is the kind of book you take your time with. It does in fact deal with the earliest forms of human interaction and the basics of data. I learned, for instance, that the genesis of the binary communication system is based in the invention of telegraph (far-writing) codes, and that the earliest forms of communication were expensive. In fact, many ciphers were invented not to hide military secrets, but to compress information. A sort of early “lol-speak” to keep the cost of transmitting data low! I think the comparison with GEB is a bit over-reaching. GEB is far more specific, fanciful and so on. In fact, this book felt more like something fro Richard Dawkins, and tended to wander around the subject quite a bit. I imagine the author doing his research and writing each chapter as a book that followed on from the last one. This is what possibly bothered those who tended not to like it, I think. Towards the middle of the book, I think the author tended to be a bit too fragmented even for me. He began to delve into memes, biology and more - I think he might have been better off breaking that off into another work. The existentialism just seemed jarring. All in all, I liked the book. I recommend it to any technical professional, specifically ones involved with data technology in specific. And isn’t that all of us? :)

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• Book Review (Book 11) - Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for April 2012 was: Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform. I was traveling at the end of last month so I’m a bit late posting this review here. Why I chose this book: I actually know a few of the authors on this book, so when they told me about it I wanted to check it out. The premise of the book is exactly as it states in the title - to learn how to solve a problem using products from Microsoft. What I learned: I liked the book - a lot. They've arranged the content in a "Solution Decision Framework", that presents a few elements to help you identify a need and then propose alternate solutions to solve them, and then the rationale for the choice. But the payoff is that the authors then walk through the solution they implement and what they ran into doing it. I really liked this approach. It's not a huge book, but one I've referred to again since I've read it. It's fairly comprehensive, and includes server-oriented products, not things like Microsoft Office or other client-side tools. In fact, I would LOVE to have a work like this for Open Source and other vendors as well - would make for a great library for a Systems Architect. This one is unashamedly aimed at the Microsoft products, and even if I didn't work here, I'd be fine with that. As I said, it would be interesting to see some books on other platforms like this, but I haven't run across something that presents other systems in quite this way. And that brings up an interesting point - This book is aimed at folks who create solutions within an organization. It's not aimed at Administrators, DBA's, Developers or the like, although I think all of those audiences could benefit from reading it. The solutions are made up, and not to a huge level of depth - nor should they be. It's a great exercise in thinking these kinds of things through in a structured way. The information is a bit dated, especially for Windows and SQL Azure. While the general concepts hold, the cloud platform from Microsoft is evolving so quickly that any printed book finds it hard to keep up with the improvements. I do have one quibble with the text - the chapters are a bit uneven. This is always a danger with multiple authors, but it shows up in a couple of chapters. I winced at one of the chapters that tried to take a more conversational, humorous style. This kind of academic work doesn't lend itself to that style. I recommend you get the book - and use it. I hope they keep it updated - I'll be a frequent customer. :)  

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• Paid Website Code Review

  - by clifgray

  I have written a pretty extensive webapp and it is going to go live in the next fews weeks and before I really publicize it I want to get some professionals to review it for optimization and best practices. Is there any online service or way to find local software engineers who would be willing to do this? Just to give some specifics that may be helpful, my site is on Google App Engine and written in Python and it is tough to find someone with extensive experience in that area.

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• Review of my 2010 and what's I have in mind during 2011

  - by NeilHambly

  Firstly let me quickly give you a quick review of my community activities during 2010 Although it was a HUGE improvement on any previous years I still feel I could have achieved more, so as a result I have sat myself down and actually set some actual goals I would like to attempt to achieve. I will list those below but before here is a quick summary of my events during 2010 Presentations : Having started to present regular UG presentations in 2010 (March) I have done 10 Presentations, throughout...(read more)

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• Writing/discussions about the aesthetics of code?

  - by dilettante.coder

  I'm looking for considerations of the questions "Can code be beautiful?" and "What makes code beautiful?" Examples would include: This academic paper: Obfuscation, Weird Languages, and Code Aesthetics This blog post: Hamon or the Skin Deep Beauty of Code Please note that I'm not trying to start a discussion here, or asking for opinions about what makes code beautiful, or for code you think is beautiful; I'm trying to find stuff that has already been published. Thanks for your help.

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• Book Review (Book 12) - 20 Master Plots

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for a year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for May 2012 was:20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias. This is my final book review - at least for this year. I'll explain what I've learned in this book in particular, and in the last twelve months in general. Why I chose this book: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. I wanted to find out. What I learned: Probably my most favorite read of the year. Deceptively small, amazingly insightful. The premise is that there are only a few "base" themes, and that once you learn them you can put together an interesting set of stories on most any topic. Yes, the author admits that this number has been different throughout history - some have said 50, others 14, and still others claim only one or two basic plots. This doesn't change the fact that you can build very complex stories from a simple set of circumstances and characters. Be warned - if you read this book it takes away much of the wonder from almost every movie or book you'll read from here on! I loved it. My favorite part is that the author gives you exercises to build stories, right from the start. I've actually used these as the start of a meeting to foster creativity. Amazing stuff. One of my favorite sections of the book deals with plot and story. Plot: The king died, and the queen died. Story: The king died, and the queen died of heartbreak. Add one or two words, and you have the essence of storytelling. A highly recommended read, for all folks of all ages. You'll like it, your spouse will like it, and your kids will like it. I learned to be a better storyteller, and it helped me understand that plots and stories are not just things in books - they are a direct reflection of human nature. That makes me a better manager of myself and others.   And this is the last of the reviews - at least for this year. I probably won't post many more book reviews here, but I will keep up the practice. As a reminder, the goal was to select 12 books that will help you reach your career goals. They don't have to be technical, or even apply directly to your job - but they do need to be books that you mindfully select as getting you closer to what you want to be. Each month, jot down what you learned from the work. And see if it doesn't in fact get you closer to your goals. These readings helped me - I got a promotion this year, and I attribute at least some of that to the things I learned.

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• Book Review (Book 12) - 20 Master Plots

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for a year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for May 2012 was:20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias. This is my final book review - at least for this year. I'll explain what I've learned in this book in particular, and in the last twelve months in general. Why I chose this book: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. I wanted to find out. What I learned: Probably my most favorite read of the year. Deceptively small, amazingly insightful. The premise is that there are only a few "base" themes, and that once you learn them you can put together an interesting set of stories on most any topic. Yes, the author admits that this number has been different throughout history - some have said 50, others 14, and still others claim only one or two basic plots. This doesn't change the fact that you can build very complex stories from a simple set of circumstances and characters. Be warned - if you read this book it takes away much of the wonder from almost every movie or book you'll read from here on! I loved it. My favorite part is that the author gives you exercises to build stories, right from the start. I've actually used these as the start of a meeting to foster creativity. Amazing stuff. One of my favorite sections of the book deals with plot and story. Plot: The king died, and the queen died. Story: The king died, and the queen died of heartbreak. Add one or two words, and you have the essence of storytelling. A highly recommended read, for all folks of all ages. You'll like it, your spouse will like it, and your kids will like it. I learned to be a better storyteller, and it helped me understand that plots and stories are not just things in books - they are a direct reflection of human nature. That makes me a better manager of myself and others.   And this is the last of the reviews - at least for this year. I probably won't post many more book reviews here, but I will keep up the practice. As a reminder, the goal was to select 12 books that will help you reach your career goals. They don't have to be technical, or even apply directly to your job - but they do need to be books that you mindfully select as getting you closer to what you want to be. Each month, jot down what you learned from the work. And see if it doesn't in fact get you closer to your goals. These readings helped me - I got a promotion this year, and I attribute at least some of that to the things I learned.

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• How do you make people accept code review?

  - by user7197

  All programmers have their style of programming. But some of the styles are let’s say... let’s not say. So you have code review to try to impose certain rules for good design and good programming techniques. But most of the programmers don’t like code review. They don’t like other people criticizing their work. Who do they think they are to consider themselves better than me and tell me that this is bad design, this could be done in another way. It works right? What is the problem? This is something they might say (or think but not say which is just as bad if not worse). So how do you make people accept code review without starting a war? How can you convince them this is a good thing; that will only improve their programming skills and avoid a lot of work later to fix and patch a zillion times a thing that hey... "it works"? People will tell you how to make code review (peer-programming, formal inspections etc) what to look for in a code review, studies have been made to show the number of defects that can be discovered before the software hits production etc. But how do you convince programmers to accept a code review?

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• Book Review - Programming Windows Azure by Siriram Krishnan

  - by BuckWoody

  As part of my professional development, I’ve created a list of books to read throughout the year, starting in June of 2011. This a review of the first one, called Programming Windows Azure by Siriram Krishnan. You can find my entire list of books I’m reading for my career here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/06/07/head-in-the-clouds-eyes-on-the-books.aspx  Why I Chose This Book: As part of my learning style, I try to read multiple books about a single subject. I’ve found that at least 3 books are necessary to get the right amount of information to me. This is a “technical” work, meaning that it deals with technology and not business, writing or other facets of my career. I’ll have a mix of all of those as I read along. I chose this work in addition to others I’ve read since it covers everything from an introduction to more advanced topics in a single book. It also has some practical examples of actually working with the product, particularly on storage. Although it’s dated, many examples normally translate. I also saw that it had pretty good reviews. What I learned: I learned a great deal about storage, and many useful code snippets. I do think that there could have been more of a focus on the application fabric - but of course that wasn’t as mature a feature when this book was written. I learned some great architecture examples, and in one section I learned more about encryption. In that example, however, I would rather have seen the examples go the other way - the book focused on moving data from on-premise to Azure storage in an encrypted fashion. Using the Application Fabric I would rather see sensitive data left in a hybrid fashion on premise, and connect to for the Azure application. Even so, the examples were very useful. If you’re looking for a good “starter” Azure book, this is a good choice. I also recommend the last chapter as a quick read for a DBA, or Database Administrator. It’s not very long, but useful. Note that the limits described are incorrect - which is one of the dangers of reading a book about any cloud offering. The services offered are updated so quickly that the information is in constant danger of being “stale”. Even so, I found this a useful book, which I believe will help me work with Azure better. Raw Notes: I take notes as I read, calling that process “reading with a pencil”. I find that when I do that I pay attention better, and record some things that I need to know later. I’ll take these notes, categorize them into a OneNote notebook that I synchronize in my Live.com account, and that way I can search them from anywhere. I can even read them on the web, since the Live.com has a OneNote program built in. Note that these are the raw notes, so they might not make a lot of sense out of context - I include them here so you can watch my though process. Programming Windows Azure by Siriram Krishnan: Learning about how to select applications suitable for Distributed Technology. Application Fabric gets the least attention; probably because it was newer at the time. Very clear (Chapter One) Good foundation Background and history, but not too much I normally arrange my descriptions differently, starting with the use-cases and moving to physicality, but this difference helps me. Interesting that I am reading this using Safari Books Online, which uses many of these concepts. Taught me some new aspects of a Hypervisor – very low-level information about the Azure Fabric (not to be confused with the Application Fabric feature) (Chapter Two) Good detail of what is included in the SDK. Even more is available now. CS = Cloud Service (Chapter 3) Place Storage info in the configuration file, since it can be streamed in-line with a running app. Ditto for logging, and keep separated configs for staging and testing. Easy-switch in and switch out.  (Chapter 4) There are two Runtime API’s, one of external and one for internal. Realizing how powerful this paradigm really is. Some places seem light, and to drop off but perhaps that’s best. Managing API is not charged, which is nice. I don’t often think about the price, until it comes to an actual deployment (Chapter 5) Csmanage is something I want to dig into deeper. API requires package moves to Blob storage first, so it needs a URL. Csmanage equivalent can be written in Unix scripting using openssl. Upgrades are possible, and you use the upgradeDomainCount attribute in the Service-Definition.csdef file  Always use a low-privileged account to test on the dev fabric, since Windows Azure runs in partial trust. Full trust is available, but can be dangerous and must be well-thought out. (Chapter 6) Learned how to run full CMD commands in a web window – not that you would ever do that, but it was an interesting view into those links. This leads to a discussion on hosting other runtimes (such as Java or PHP) in Windows Azure. I got an expanded view on this process, although this is where the book shows its age a little. Books can be a problem for Cloud Computing for this reason – things just change too quickly. Windows Azure storage is not eventually consistent – it is instantly consistent with multi-phase commit. Plumbing for this is internal, not required to code that. (Chapter 7) REST API makes the service interoperable, hybrid, and consistent across code architectures. Nicely done. Use affinity groups to keep data and code together. Side note: e-book readers need a common “notes” feature. There’s a decent quick description of REST in this chapter. Learned about CloudDrive code – PowerShell sample that mounts Blob storage as a local provider. Works against Dev fabric by default, can be switched to Account. Good treatment in the storage chapters on the differences between using Dev storage and Azure storage. These can be mitigated. No, blobs are not of any size or number. Not a good statement (Chapter 8) Blob storage is probably Azure’s closest play to Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas). Blob change operations must be authenticated, even when public. Chapters on storage are pretty in-depth. Queue Messages are base-64 encoded (Chapter 9) The visibility timeout ensures processing of message in a disconnected system. Order is not guaranteed for a message, so if you need that set an increasing number in the queue mechanism. While Queues are accessible via REST, they are not public and are secured by default. Interesting – the header for a queue request includes an estimated count. This can be useful to create more worker roles in a dynamic system. Each Entity (row) in the Azure Table service is atomic – all or nothing. (Chapter 10) An entity can have up to 255 Properties  Use “ID” for the class to indicate the key value, or use the [DataServiceKey] Attribute.  LINQ makes working with the Azure Table Service much easier, although Interop is certainly possible. Good description on the process of selecting the Partition and Row Key.  When checking for continuation tokens for pagination, include logic that falls out of the check in case you are at the last page.  On deleting a storage object, it is instantly unavailable, however a background process is dispatched to perform the physical deletion. So if you want to re-create a storage object with the same name, add retry logic into the code. Interesting approach to deleting an index entity without having to read it first – create a local entity with the same keys and apply it to the Azure system regardless of change-state.  Although the “Indexes” description is a little vague, it’s interesting to see a Folding and Stemming discussion a-la the Porter Stemming Algorithm. (Chapter 11)  Presents a better discussion of indexes (at least inverted indexes) later in the chapter. Great treatment for DBA’s in Chapter 11. We need to work on getting secondary indexes in Table storage. There is a limited form of transactions called “Entity Group Transactions” that, although they have conditions, makes a transactional system more possible. Concurrency also becomes an issue, but is handled well if you’re using Data Services in .NET. It watches the Etag and allows you to take action appropriately. I do not recommend using Azure as a location for secure backups. In fact, I would rather have seen the examples in (Chapter 12) go the other way, showing how data could be brought back to a local store as a DR or HA strategy. Good information on cryptography and so on even so. Chapter seems out of place, and should be combined with the Blob chapter.  (Chapter 13) on SQL Azure is dated, although the base concepts are OK.  Nice example of simple ADO.NET access to a SQL Azure (or any SQL Server Really) database.  

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• Hot to get website/product reviews reflected in Google's search results using review-aggregate format

  - by BasP

  I am managing a website called Rent A Boat Amsterdam. We have a system that gathers reviews from people that have used our services and that publishes these customer reviews making them available for all website visitors. When these customer reviews are published we have placed them within the appropriate tags according to the guidelines set by Google, which you can find here. An example looks like this: <li class="" style="clear:both;"> <div class="hreview"> <div class="item" style="display:none;"><span class="fn">Boatname</span></div> <div style="border:1px solid #DEDEDE; background-color:#D9FFD4; margin:0 10px 10px 0; float:left; text-align:center; padding:10px; height:50px; width:70px;"><h1><span class="rating">10</span></h1>9-Jun-2010</div> <div> <div class="description"><p>Great canal Cruise!</p></div> <p class="reviewer vcard"><strong><span class="fn">First name Last name</span></strong></p> </div> </div> We have implemented these tags a couple of months ago, but there are no visible results in the Google SERP's. This whilst I had expected to find the reviews / ratings displayed similar to: Is anyone familiar with this topic and able to help me find the answer to the question why the review-aggregate format doesn't seem to have the desired effect?

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• Bulk Rename Tool is a Lightweight but Powerful File Renaming Tool

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  There’s no need to settle for overly simplistic file renaming tools as long as Bulk Rename Tool is around. It’s lightweight, insanely customizable, portable, and sure to make short work of any renaming task you throw at it. Bulk Rename Tool is a great portable application (available as an installed version if you crave context menu integration) that blasts through file renaming tasks. The main panel is intimidatingly packed with toggles and variables you can alter; this isn’t a one-click solution by any means. That said, once you get comfortable using the interface it’s lightening fast and extremely flexible. One tip that will save you an enormous amount of frustrating when you get started: make sure to highlight the files you want to change in the file preview window (located in the upper right corner) or else you won’t see the preview and won’t know if the changes you’re making in the control panel are yielding the file names you desire. Hit up the link below to read more and grab a copy; Bulk Rename Tool is free, Windows only. Bulk Rename Tool Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Make Disposable Sleeves for Your In-Ear Monitors Macs Don’t Make You Creative! So Why Do Artists Really Love Apple? MacX DVD Ripper Pro is Free for How-To Geek Readers (Time Limited!) HTG Explains: What’s a Solid State Drive and What Do I Need to Know? How to Get Amazing Color from Photos in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Learn To Adjust Contrast Like a Pro in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Bring the Grid to Your Desktop with the TRON Legacy Theme for Windows 7 The Dark Knight and Team Fortress 2 Mashup Movie Trailer [Video] Dirt Cheap DSLR Viewfinder Improves Outdoor DSLR LCD Visibility Lakeside Sunset in the Mountains [Wallpaper] Taskbar Meters Turn Your Taskbar into a System Resource Monitor Create Shortcuts for Your Favorite or Most Used Folders in Ubuntu

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• Book review (Book 6) - Wikinomics

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here. The book I chose for November 2011 was: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott   Why I chose this Book: I’ve heard a lot about this book - was one of the “must read” kind of business books (many of which are very “fluffy”) and supposedly deals with collaborating using technology - so I want to see what it says about collaborative efforts and how I can leverage them. What I learned: I really disliked this book. I’ve never been a fan of the latest “business book”, and sadly that’s what this felt like to me. A “business book” is what I call a work that has a fairly simple concept to get across, and then proceeds to use various made-up terms, analogies and other mechanisms to fill hundreds of pages doing it. This perception is at my own – the book is pretty old, and these things go stale quickly. The author’s general point (at least what I took away from it) was: Open Source is good, proprietary is bad. Collaboration is the hallmark of successful companies. In my mind, you can save yourself the trouble of reading this work if you get these two concepts down. Don’t get me wrong – open source is awesome, and collaboration is a good thing, especially in places where it fits. But it’s not a panacea as the author seems to indicate. For instance, he continuously uses the example of MySpace to show a “2.0” company, which I think means that you can enter text as well as read it on a web page. All well and good. But we all know what happened to MySpace, and of course he missed the point entirely about this new web environment: low barriers to entry often mean low barriers to exit. And the open, collaborative company being the best model – well, I think we all know a certain computer company famous for phones and music that is arguably quite successful, and is probably one of the most closed, non-collaborative (at least with its customers) on the planet. So that sort of takes away that argument. The reality of business is far more complicated. Collaboration is an amazing tool, and should be leveraged heavily. However, at the end of the day, after you do your research you need to pick a strategy and stick with it. Asking thousands of people to assist you in building your product probably will not work well. Open Source is great – but some proprietary products are quite functional as well, have a long track record, are well supported, and will probably be upgraded. Everything has its place, so use what works where it is needed. There is no single answer, sadly. So did I waste my time reading the book? Did I make a bad choice? Not at all! Reading the opinions and thoughts of others is almost always useful, and it’s important to consider opinions other than your own. If nothing else, thinking through the process either convinces you that you are wrong, or helps you understand better why you are right.

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• Do abstractions have to reduce code readability?

  - by Martin Blore

  A good developer I work with told me recently about some difficulty he had in implementing a feature in some code we had inherited; he said the problem was that the code was difficult to follow. From that, I looked deeper into the product and realised how difficult it was to see the code path. It used so many interfaces and abstract layers, that trying to understand where things began and ended was quite difficult. It got me thinking about the times I had looked at past projects (before I was so aware of clean code principles) and found it extremely difficult to get around in the project, mainly because my code navigation tools would always land me at an interface. It would take a lot of extra effort to find the concrete implementation or where something was wired up in some plugin type architecture. I know some developers strictly turn down dependency injection containers for this very reason. It confuses the path of the software so much that the difficulty of code navigation is exponentially increased. My question is: when a framework or pattern introduces so much overhead like this, is it worth it? Is it a symptom of a poorly implemented pattern? I guess a developer should look to the bigger picture of what that abstractions brings to the project to help them get through the frustration. Usually though, it's difficult to make them see that big picture. I know I've failed to sell the needs of IOC and DI with TDD. For those developers, use of those tools just cramps code readability far too much.

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• Company Review: Google Products

  Google, Inc offers an array of products and services to all of its end-users. However their search capabilities are the foundation for Google’s current success and their primary business focus. Currently, Google offers over twenty different search applications that allow users to search the internet for books, maps, videos, images, products and much more. Their product decisions have allowed users demands to be met while focusing on the free based model. This allows users to access Google data free of charge and indirectly gives Google a strong competitive advantage of other competitors along with the accuracy of the search results. According to Google, Inc, they offer the following types of searching capabilities: Alerts Get email updates on the topics of your choice Blog Search Find blogs on your favorite topics  Books Search the full text of books  Custom Search Create a customized search experience for your community  Desktop Search and personalize your computer  Dictionary Search for definitions of words and phrases Directory Search the web, organized by topic or category Earth Explore the world from your computer Finance Business info, news and interactive charts GOOG-411 Find and connect for free with businesses from your phone  Images Search for images on the web Maps View maps and directions News Search thousands of news stories Patent Search Search the full text of US Patents Product Search Search for stuff to buy Scholar Search scholarly papers Toolbar Add a search box to your browser Trends Explore past and present search trends Videos Search for videos on the web Web Search Search billions of web pages Web Search Features Find movies, music, stocks, books and more mapping Google’s free based business model is only one way it differentiates itself from its competition. There is also a strong focus on the accuracy of search results and the speed in which they are returned to the end-user. Quality function deployment (QFD) is a structured method used to help connect user needs to the design features of a project proposed to address those needs. This method is particularly useful in accounting for needs that are not easily articulated or precisely defined according to the U. S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. Due to the fact that QFD is so customer driven Google is always in a constant state of change in attempt to reengineer its search algorithms, and other dependant systems so that end-users requirements are constantly being met. Value engineering is a key example of this, Google is constantly trying to improve all aspects of its products, improve system maintainability, and system interoperability. Bridgefield Group defines value engineering as an organized methodology that identifies and selects the lowest lifecycle cost options in design, materials and processes that achieves the desired level of performance, reliability and customer satisfaction. In addition, it seeks to remove unnecessary costs in the above areas and is often a joint effort with cross-functional internal teams and relevant suppliers. Common issues that appear when developing large scale systems like Google’s search applications include modular design of a product and/or service and providing accurate value analysis. A design approach that adheres to four fundamental tenets of cohesiveness, encapsulation, self-containment, and high binding to design a system component as an independently operable unit subject to change is how the Open System Joint Task Force defines modular design. More specifically M. S. Schmaltz defines modular software design as having a large collection of statements strung together in one partition of in-line code; we segment or divide the statements into logical groups called modules. Each module performs one or two tasks, and then passes control to another module. By breaking up the code into "bite-sized chunks", so to speak, we are able to better control the flow of data and control. This is especially true in large software systems. Value analysis is a process to evaluate products and services based on effectiveness, safety, and cost. Value analysis involves assessing the quality as well as the cost of a product or service as defined by the Healthcare Financial Management Association.  “Operations Management deals with the design and management of products, processes, services and supply chains. It considers the acquisition, development, and utilization of resources that firms need to deliver the goods and services their clients want.” (MIT,2010) Google, Inc encourages an open environment between all employees, also known as Googlers. This is reinforced by a cross-section team or cross-functional teams comprised from multiple departments assigned to every project so that every department like marketing, finance, and quality assurance has input on every project. In addition, Google is known for their openness to new ideas regardless of the status or seniority of an employee. In fact, Google allows for 20% of an employee’s time can be devoted to developing new ideas and/or pet projects. HumTech.com defines a cross-functional team as a collection of people with varied levels of skills and experience brought together to accomplish a task. As the name implies, Cross-Functional Team members come from different organizational units. Cross-Functional Teams may be permanent or ad hoc. Google’s search application product strategy primarily focuses on mass customization. This is allows Google to create a base search application and allows results to be returned to the end-users quickly based on specific parameters and search settings. In addition, they also store the data that is returned in case other desire the same results based on other end-users supplying the same customized settings. This allows Google to appear to render search results in virtually real-time to the user while allowing for complete customization of the searching criteria. Greg Vogl, a professor at Uganda Martyrs University, defines mass customization as when a business gives its customers the opportunity to tailor its products or services to the customer's specifications. The IT staff at Google play a key role in ensuring that the search application’s product strategy is maintained simply because the IT staff designs, develops, and maintains all of their proprietary applications. In fact, they also maintain all network infrastructure to ensure that it is available to all end-users. References: http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/publications/ftat_user_guide/sec5.htm http://www.bridgefieldgroup.com/bridgefieldgroup/glos9.htm#V http://www.acq.osd.mil/osjtf/termsdef.html http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~mssz/Pascal-CGS2462/prog-dsn.html http://www.hfma.org/publications/business_caring_newsletter/exclusives/Supply+and+Inventory+Terms+Defined.htm http://mitsloan.mit.edu/omg/om-definition.php http://www.humtech.com/opm/grtl/ols/ols3.cfm http://www.gregvogl.net/courses/mis1/glossary.htm

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• Feedback on TOC Generation Code

  - by vikramjb

  Hi All I wrote a small code to generate ToC or Hierachical Bullets like one sees in a word document. Like the following set 1. 2 3 3.1 3.1.1 4 5 and so on so forth, the code is working but I am not happy with the code I have written, I would appreciate if you guys could shed some light on how I can improve my C# code. You can download the project from Rapidshare Please do let me know if you need more info. I am making this a community wiki. private void frmMain_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { this.EnableSubTaskButton(); } private void btnNewTask_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { this.AddNodes(true); } private void AddNodes(bool IsParent) { TreeNode parentNode = tvToC.SelectedNode; string curNumber = "0"; if (parentNode != null) { curNumber = parentNode.Text.ToString(); } curNumber = this.getTOCReference(curNumber, IsParent); TreeNode childNode = new TreeNode(); childNode.Text = curNumber; this.tvToC.ExpandAll(); this.EnableSubTaskButton(); this.tvToC.SelectedNode = childNode; if (IsParent) { if (parentNode == null) { tvToC.Nodes.Add(childNode); } else { if (parentNode.Parent != null) { parentNode.Parent.Nodes.Add(childNode); } else { tvToC.Nodes.Add(childNode); } } } else { parentNode.Nodes.Add(childNode); } } private string getTOCReference(string curNumber, bool IsParent) { int lastnum = 0; int startnum = 0; string firsthalf = null; int dotpos = curNumber.IndexOf('.'); if (dotpos > 0) { if (IsParent) { lastnum = Convert.ToInt32(curNumber.Substring(curNumber.LastIndexOf('.') + 1)); lastnum++; firsthalf = curNumber.Substring(0, curNumber.LastIndexOf('.')); curNumber = firsthalf + "." + Convert.ToInt32(lastnum.ToString()); } else { lastnum++; curNumber = curNumber + "." + Convert.ToInt32(lastnum.ToString()); } } else { if (IsParent) { startnum = Convert.ToInt32(curNumber); startnum++; curNumber = Convert.ToString(startnum); } else { curNumber = curNumber + ".1"; } } return curNumber; } private void btnSubTask_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { this.AddNodes(false); } private void EnableSubTaskButton() { if (tvToC.Nodes.Count == 0) { btnSubTask.Enabled = false; } else { btnSubTask.Enabled = true; } } private void btnTest1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) { this.AddNodes(true); } for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) { this.AddNodes(false); } for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) { this.AddNodes(true); } }

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• How to measure code quality? [closed]

  - by Lo Wai Lun

  Is there a methodology or any objective standard to determine whether the code of the project is well-written? How to measure in a structural and scientific manner to access the quality of the code? Many people say code review is important and always do encapsulation and data abstraction to ensure the quality. How can we determine the quality? Can a structural, organised software design diagrams drawn implies good quality of code ? If we type the code with good cautions of encapsulation and data abstraction, why review anyway?

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• What are benefit/drawbacks of classifying defects during a peer code review

  - by DXM

  About 3 months ago, our engineering group rolled out Review Board to be used for all peer code reviews. Today, I had a discussion with one of the people involved in that process and found out that we are already looking for a replacement (possibly something commercial) because of several missing features. One of the features that is apparently asked by many people is the ability to classify/categorize each code review comment (i.e. is it a style issue, coding convention, resource leak, logic error, crash... whatever). For those teams that regularly practice code review, is this categorization a common practice? Do you do it? have you done it in the past? Is it good/bad? On one hand, it gives the team some more metrics and possibly will indicate more specific areas where developers may potentially need to be trained in (at least that seems to be the argument). Are there other benefits? And on the other hand, and this is my concern, is that it will slow down code review process that much more. As a team lead, I've done a fairly large share of reviews, and I've always liked the ability, to highlight a chunk of code, hammer off a comment and move on as fast as possible. Although I haven't tried it personally, I have a feeling that expanding that combo box every time and scrolling/searching for the right category would feel like something is tripping you. Also if we start keeping metrics on this stuff, my other concern is that valuable code review meeting time will be spent on arguing whether something is a logic error or if it should be classified as a crash.

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• How should Code Review be Carried Out?

  - by Graviton

  My previous question has to do with how to advance code review among the developers. Here I am interested in how the code review session should be carried out, so that both the reviewer and reviewed are feeling comfortable about it. I have done some code review before, but the experience sucks big time. My previous manager would come to us-- on an ad hoc basis-- and tell us to explain our code to him. Since he wasn't very familiar with the code base, I spent a huge amount of times explaining just the most basic structure of my code to him. This took a long time and by the time we were done, we were both exhausted. Then he would raise issues with my code. Most issues he raised were cosmetic in nature ( e.g, don't use region for this code block, change the variable name from xxx to yyy even though the later makes even less sense, and so on). We did this a few rounds, and the review session didn't derive much benefits for us, and we stopped. What do you have to do, in order to make code review a natural, enjoyable, thought stimulating, bug-fixing and mutual-learning experience?

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• Please recommend citations for source code documentation standards

  - by Aerik

  I'm trying to convince another group in my company that they need to provide more documentation in their source code (they want to hand off the code to my group) but they're treating it as a "nice to have". In my view, it's a necessity. I've run a source code analysis tool and it's showing about 10% comment lines - but looking at the source code, most of that is coming from entire functions that the author has commented out. Can anyone provide some authoritative citations / references for documentation / comment standards for source code? (In case it matters, we're a C# house, with a little Matlab thrown in).

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• Does code-generation increase the code quality?

  - by platzhirsch

  Arguing for code-generation I am looking for some reasons, if howsoever, code generation increases the code quality, respectively is in favor for quality insurance. To clarify what I mean with code-generation I can talk only about a project of mine: We use XML files to describe different relationships, in fact our database schema. These XML files are used to generate our ORM framework and HTML forms which can be used to add, delete and modify entities. To my mind, it increases the quality, as the human error is reduced. If someone was implemented wrong, it is broken in the model. This is good, because the error might appear a lot faster, as more generated code is broken, too.

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• Code Walkthrough vs. Code Review

  - by Marcusg

  How many of you use walkthroughs instead of reviews? Or in conjunction with Reviews? Or only use walkthroughs? Are Walkthroughs beneficial and how have you all implemented code walkthroughs?

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