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  • Using NginX and Apache alongside for both static and dynamic files

    - by faridv
    Background: I've searched a lot and found these useful threads about using of Apache or NginX for static or dynamic files. But they are old (mostly about 1 or 2 years ago) and I think both webservers, specifically Nginx has had important changes in performance and usage. So I think take another look on these issue cannot be that bad. Nginx (for static files) and Apache (for dynamic content)? nginx better than apache for dynamic content? [closed] Apache or NGINX for PHP? Nginx as reverse proxy to Apache with only dynamic content? My question: I have a PHP web application with lots of dynamic files and lots of static contents (videos, images etc.) and it's currently running on a CentOS 6 server and Apache 2.2 since 2 months ago. In past few days, number of our site visitors have gained so fast and I just thought if this number continues to increase with current ratio, we need to change many things (web server, application, etc.) to prevent failures. Because of hardware limitations that we are facing, I thought that it's best for us to start with web server. Should I start with something else? Should I try to increase performance of my PHP application and forget about web server for now? (even if gonna take a long time!) Because of huge usage of .htaccess files (for redirection, rewrites, etc.), I think it's gonna be painful to migrate to NginX as default web server or maybe only for dynamic files. Does this mean that I can't even use Nginx as reverse proxy? I'm not sure latest stable version of NginX and PHP-FPM have a better performance over my current Apache and my limitations (too many things) won't let me to give it a try. Which one is doing better currently? What will I lose by migrating to Nginx? To make it short, what should I do?

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  • Safari's location bar (auto-suggest and web search)

    - by Lri
    Auto-suggest don't seem to work for queries with spaces. Am I missing something? If you select an item from the suggestion list that was matched by its title, the title is filled in before the address. Can you change it to work like in other browsers? SMRT disables searching by title completely. Can you combine Top Hit, History and Bookmarks into a single section? The preferences starting with DebugSafari4 don't work anymore. (Like DebugSafari4IncludeFancyURLCompletionList.) Can you direct unresolved addresses to something like google.com/search?q=?&btnI instead of ?.com? Like by changing keyword.URL in Firefox. Can you remove or hide the web search field? In Camino, Cruz and Fluid it can be resized to zero width. You can't circumvent the normal maximum ratio with InputFieldWidthRatio. AddressBarIncludesGoogle doesn't appear do anything in the current version. Are there fixes or workarounds to any of these? I'm lumping these issues together, because they are closely related — a lot of them were introduced when the location bar was redesigned in Safari 5. I'm also hoping to find something like an extension or a plugin that would replace the standard location bar.

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  • Is basing storage requirements based on IOPS sufficient?

    - by Boden
    The current system in question is running SBS 2003, and is going to be migrated on new hardware to SBS 2008. Currently I'm seeing on average 200-300 disk transfers per second total across all the arrays in the system. The array seeing the bulk of activity is a 6 disk 7200RPM RAID 6 and it struggles to keep up during high traffic times (idle time often only 10-20%; response times peaking 20-50+ ms). Based on some rough calculations this makes sense (avg ~245 IOPS on this array at 70/30 read to write ratio). I'm considering using a much simpler disk configuration using a single RAID 10 array of 10K disks. Using the same parameters for my calculations above, I'm getting 583 average random IOPS / sec. Granted SBS 2008 is not the same beast as 2003, but I'd like to make the assumption that it'll be similar in terms of disk performance, if not better (Exchange 2007 is easier on the disk and there's no ISA server). Am I correct in believing that the proposed system will be sufficient in terms of performance, or am I missing something? I've read so much about recommended disk configurations for various products like Exchange, and they often mention things like dedicating spindles to logs, etc. I understand the reasoning behind this, but if I've got more than enough random I/O overhead, does it really matter? I've always at the very least had separate spindles for the OS, but I could really reduce cost and complexity if I just had a single, good performing array. So as not to make you guys do my job for me, the generic version of this question is: if I have a projected IOPS figure for a new system, is it sufficient to use this value alone to spec the storage, ignoring "best practice" configurations? (given similar technology, not going from DAS to SAN or anything)

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  • Why are FMS logs filled with 'play' event status code 408 for a failed webcast?

    - by Stu Thompson
    Recently we had a live webcast event go horribly wrong. I'm doing the technical post-mortem, with limited information. We know that the hardware encoder (a Digital Rapid Touch Stream Web HDI) was unable to send upstream at a sustained reliable high rate. What we don't know is if the encoder's connection was problematic (Zürich), or that of the streaming server (in Frankfurt). Unfortunately, I've got three different vendors all blaming each other (the CDN who runs the server, the on-site ISP and the on-site encoding team.) In the FMS log files I see a couple of interesting things: Zillions of Status Code 408 on play event entries for clients. Adobe's documentation stats that this "Stream stopped because client disconnected". ("Zillions" would be a ratio of 10 events for every individual IP address.) Several unpublish / (re)publish events per hour for the encoder I'd like to know if all those 408s could tell me with authority that the FMS server was starved for bandwidth, or that the encoding signal was starved (and hence the server was disconnecting clients.) Any clues?

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  • RabbitMQ message consumers stop consuming messages

    - by Bruno Thomas
    Hi server fault, Our team is in a spike sprint to choose between ActiveMQ or RabbitMQ. We made 2 little producer/consumer spikes sending an object message with an array of 16 strings, a timestamp, and 2 integers. The spikes are ok on our devs machines (messages are well consumed). Then came the benchs. We first noticed that somtimes, on our machines, when we were sending a lot of messages the consumer was sometimes hanging. It was there, but the messsages were accumulating in the queue. When we went on the bench plateform : cluster of 2 rabbitmq machines 4 cores/3.2Ghz, 4Gb RAM, load balanced by a VIP one to 6 consumers running on the rabbitmq machines, saving the messages in a mysql DB (same type of machine for the DB) 12 producers running on 12 AS machines (tomcat), attacked with jmeter running on another machine. The load is about 600 to 700 http request per second, on the servlets that produces the same load of RabbitMQ messages. We noticed that sometimes, consumers hang (well, they are not blocked, but they dont consume messages anymore). We can see that because each consumer save around 100 msg/sec in database, so when one is stopping consumming, the overall messages saved per seconds in DB fall down with the same ratio (if let say 3 consumers stop, we fall around 600 msg/sec to 300 msg/sec). During that time, the producers are ok, and still produce at the jmeter rate (around 600 msg/sec). The messages are in the queues and taken by the consumers still "alive". We load all the servlets with the producers first, then launch all the consumers one by one, checking if the connexions are ok, then run jmeter. We are sending messages to one direct exchange. All consumers are listening to one persistent queue bounded to the exchange. That point is major for our choice. Have you seen this with rabbitmq, do you have an idea of what is going on ? Thank you for your answers.

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  • How to extract a Vorbis stream from a WAVE file?

    - by H.B.
    I would like to move the Vorbis stream into an ogg container but ffmpeg does not seem to recognize the stream. Even though MPlayer gives this output upon playback: Opening audio decoder: [acm] Win32/ACM decoders Loading codec DLL: 'vorbis.acm' Loaded DLL driver vorbis.acm at 10000000 Warning! ACM codec reports srcsize=0 AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/9.07% (ratio: 16000-176400) Selected audio codec: [vorbisacm] afm: acm (OggVorbis ACM) ffmpeg: ffmpeg -i Source.wav -acodec copy Target.ogg Input #0, wav, from 'Source.wav': Duration: 00:02:15.17, bitrate: 128 kb/s Stream #0.0: Audio: qg[0][0] / 0x6771, 44100 Hz, 2 channels, 128 kb/s [ogg @ 00000000003096C0] Unsupported codec id in stream 0 Output #0, ogg, to 'Target.ogg': Metadata: encoder : Lavf53.6.0 Stream #0.0: Audio: qg[0][0] / 0x6771, 44100 Hz, 2 channels, 128 kb/s Stream mapping: Stream #0.0 -> #0.0 Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?) Of course this does not necessarily need to be done via ffmpeg, any method that is workable would be fine... I have cut down one of the files to 512KB: sample.wav (Changed two chunk size fields in the wave header to account for this, the embedded stream is cut "without notice")

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  • Database types for customer analytics

    - by Drewdavid
    I am exploring a paid solution to start providing better embedded, dashboard-style analytics information to our website customers/account holders, but would like to also offer an in-house development option to our team. The more equipped I am with specifics (such as the subject of this question), the better the adoption rate from the team (or so I have found), regardless of the path we choose Would anyone care to summarize a couple of options for a fast and scalable database type through which we would provide the following: • Daily pageviews to a users account pages (users have between 1 and 1000 pages) • Some calculated/compounded metrics (such as conversion rate, i.e. certain page type viewed to contact form thank you page ratio) • We have about 1,500 members (will need room to grow); the number of concurrently logged in users will for the question's sake be 50 I ask because our developer has balked at providing this level of "over time" granularity (i.e. daily) due to the number of space it would take up in a MYSQL database To avoid a downvote I have asked specifically for more than one option, realizing that different people will have different solutions. I will make amendments to my question if so guided by answering parties Thank you for sharing your valued answers :)

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  • ffmpeg: converting an avi to a reduced, shareable flv/mp4...

    - by meder
    I recently followed a guide and recompiled my ffmpeg so x264 is enabled. I used some generic settings to convert my 700 MB avi file to a mp4 file, the result was a 407MB mp4 file. The original avi file's settings: Codec: DX50 Resolution: 704x304 Frame rate: 23.976023 Stream 1 Codec: mpga Type: Audio Channels: 2 Sample rate: 48000 Hz Bitrate 179 kb/s Command I used: ffmpeg -i input.avi -acodec libfaac -ab 128k -ac 2 -vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -crf 22 -threads 0 output.mp4 The settings of the output file (output.mp4): Codec: avc1 Resolution: 704x304 Display resolution: 704x304 Frame rate: 11.988011 Stream 1 Codec: mp4a Type: Audio Channels: 2 Sample Rate: 48000 Hz Bits per sample: 16 Bitrate: 1536 kb/s The quality of the output mp4 is pretty nice, it seems as if it's pretty much the same as the original source. However, I'm trying to reduce the filesize and I'm not really sure whether I should go with an flv format or keep it mp4. The advantage the flv would have obviously is that it would be playable with a flash player ( I have come across some swf players which take a flash parameter to play an flv file ).. but maybe I could use the video element, as I'm only going to be displaying this video privately so I don't have to worry about supporting legacy browsers such as IE. Can someone recommend some settings to specify in order for the filesize to be around ~100-150MB or so? I don't mind a reduction in quality, nor do I mind resizing it - I was going to do it initially but I wasn't sure what the guidelines were ( if any ) for dealing with resolution.. since this video's is 704x304 would it still be ok if I forced it into one that isn't perfectly fit for the aspect ratio? I have no clue about that part. I realize that I could have probably specified 28 instead of 22 for the CRF, I'm not sure if I should do that as opposed to maybe specifying smaller resolution, which might make it smaller as well?

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  • Real benefits of tcp TIME-WAIT and implications in production environment

    - by user64204
    SOME THEORY I've been doing some reading on tcp TIME-WAIT (here and there) and what I read is that it's a value set to 2 x MSL (maximum segment life) which keeps a connection in the "connection table" for a while to guarantee that, "before your allowed to create a connection with the same tuple, all the packets belonging to previous incarnations of that tuple will be dead". Since segments received (apart from SYN under specific circumstances) while a connection is either in TIME-WAIT or no longer existing would be discarded, why not close the connection right away? Q1: Is it because there is less processing involved in dealing with segments from old connections and less processing to create a new connection on the same tuple when in TIME-WAIT (i.e. are there performance benefits)? If the above explanation doesn't stand, the only reason I see the TIME-WAIT being useful would be if a client sends a SYN for a connection before it sends remaining segments for an old connection on the same tuple in which case the receiver would re-open the connection but then get bad segments and and would have to terminate it. Q2: Is this analysis correct? Q3: Are there other benefits to using TIME-WAIT? SOME PRACTICE I've been looking at the munin graphs on a production server that I administrate. Here is one: As you can see there are more connections in TIME-WAIT than ESTABLISHED, around twice as many most of the time, on some occasions four times as many. Q4: Does this have an impact on performance? Q5: If so, is it wise/recommended to reduce the TIME-WAIT value (and what to)? Q6: Is this ratio of TIME-WAIT / ESTABLISHED connections normal? Could this be related to malicious connection attempts?

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  • Scriptable BitTorrent clients?

    - by James McMahon
    In an effort further automate all the little computer house keeping tasks that can waste my time I am looking into BitTorrent clients that have the ability to script common tasks. I've done some Googling and it looks like Transmission might have some of said such capabilities, but there site wasn't very clear on the details. Things I am looking to do; Prioritize and label torrents based on trackers Set seed length based on trackers and filesize Set additional seed time when a torrent's seed time expires based on a number of factors, like time spent seeding, remaining disk space and ratio. Move torrents to appropriate places post seeding based on labels and tracker Basically, while I could Python or Bash script things like moving torrents around and other simple actions, I need away to talk to the client to figure out things like the torrent seed time, tracker, labels, filesize, etc. Is there any client out there that would allow me to all or a subset these actions? I have access to Linux, Mac and Windows and am not tied to any particular torrent client. I am a programmer so I have no problems writing scripts, but examples of torrent scripting would also be helpful.

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  • How can I make XAnalogTV fill my screen?

    - by Breakthrough
    I recently installed xscreensaver, as well as the additional/extra screensavers. Many of the OpenGL ones function correctly, going fullscreen as expected. However, for some reason, the XAnalogTV screensaver leaves two "blank" spots on the edges of my screen. If I manually launch XAnalogTV, it displays a window, which it fills correctly. When I maximize the window, the same effect occurs: the window maximizes, but the two edges of the screen are literally "transparent". This effect also occurs when the screensaver is set to fullscreen. For these reasons, I believe the problem may be related to the aspect ratio of the screen. The edges of the screen are literally "ignored", with nothing being drawn there. Specifically, note the transition between the maximized and full-screen screenshots (with the un-drawn whitespace shrinking as the vertical height has been increased). For reference, I am running Xubuntu 12.04 on a Dell Vostro 1520 (Intel P8600, Nvidia 9300M) with a 1440 x 900 display (16:10). I have also set the GetViewPortIsFullOfLies preference to true. Is there any way to force XAnalogTV to fill my entire screen? Relevant screenshots (windowed, maximized, and full-screen, respectively):

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  • How do I make wallpaper fit both monitors in dual monitor setup?

    - by Ben
    I am deploying some custom corporate wallpaper as part of a Windows 7 rollout. Some people will be using dual monitors, and the additional monitors may be either 4:3 or widescreen. I want to use the same wallpaper on both screens (i.e. 2 copies of the same wallpaper, not stretched across both.) If I set the background to "stretch", it uses the aspect ratio of the primary monitor to stretch the wallpaper on both monitors. So, for example, if I have a dual monitor setup using a 4:3 TFT as primary and my (widescreen) laptop LCD as secondary - the image shows on the laptop LCD in 4:3, with a black stripe down either side. I've only noticed this as an issue with my "custom" wallpaper. Both the default MS wallpaper and the built in Lenovo wallpaper don't seem to have this issue. Is this by using "trickery" such as using an image larger than the largest resolution you will have and centering it? (i.e. so you crop out part of the image.) Or can this be done "properly"? I don't want to use 3rd party software to do this, but would happily do a bit of Powershell scripting if this would solve the issue. Thanks in advance, Ben

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  • mplayer (mplayerhq.hu) repeats ending audio frames

    - by kamikatze
    mplayer (from mplayerhq.hu) on windows repeats the last few audio frames upon exit. When the video ends, before you can see Exiting... (End of file) in the command prompt, you will hear the last 1/2 second or so of the audio track again. This behavior is the same for multiple containers/codecs/soundcards Vista or Windows 7. Is there a workaround for this? My playback specs: MPlayer Sherpya-MT-SVN-r31027-4.2.5 (C) 2000-2010 MPlayer Team 150 audio & 343 video codecs Playing splash_final.wmv. ASF file format detected. [asfheader] Audio stream found, -aid 1 [asfheader] Video stream found, -vid 2 VIDEO: [WMV3] 1280x720 24bpp 1000.000 fps 6291.5 kbps (768.0 kbyte/s) ========================================================================== Opening video decoder: [dmo] DMO video codecs DMO dll supports VO Optimizations 0 1 DMO dll might use previous sample when requested Decoder supports the following formats: YV12 YUY2 UYVY YVYU RGB8 [..] Decoder is capable of YUV output (flags 0x1b) Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied. VO: [directx] 1280x720 = 1280x720 Planar YV12 Selected video codec: [wmv9dmo] vfm: dmo (Windows Media Video 9 DMO) ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 329.8 kbit/23.37% (ratio: 41221-176400) Selected audio codec: [ffwmav2] afm: ffmpeg (DivX audio v2 (FFmpeg)) ========================================================================== AO: [dsound] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample) Starting playback...

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  • This .mpg video clip doesn't play well

    - by Roey
    I've installed K-lite mega codec pack v6.9.0 with playback essentials without player. My default and only media player is windows media player. here are the clip's media info: General Complete name : D:\Users\Roey\Downloads\B384MV.mpg Format : MPEG-PS File size : 273 MiB Duration : 4mn 59s Overall bit rate : 7 643 Kbps Video ID : 224 (0xE0) Format : MPEG Video Format version : Version 2 Format profile : Main@High Format settings, BVOP : No Format settings, Matrix : Default Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=15 Duration : 4mn 57s Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 7 363 Kbps Nominal bit rate : 9 000 Kbps Width : 1 920 pixels Height : 1 080 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate : 25.000 fps Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Compression mode : Lossy Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.142 Stream size : 261 MiB (96%) Audio ID : 192 (0xC0) Format : MPEG Audio Format version : Version 1 Format profile : Layer 3 Mode : Joint stereo Duration : 4mn 59s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 128 Kbps Channel(s) : 2 channels Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 4.56 MiB (2%) Menu When I play it there is no sound (just a little "kahhhh" noise every 10-20 seconds) and the frames are moving very slow - it "jumps" frames. A blue tray icon [FFa] "ffdshow audio decoder" pops with the following details: Input:MP3, stereo, 44100 Hz (libavocodec) Output:PCM, stereo, 44100 Hz, 16-bit integer Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks

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  • Netflix streaming stops loading at 98% on Revo 3700

    - by Martin Harris
    I'm trying to stream Netflix on an Acer Revo 3700 running Windows 7 Home Premium, but it hangs on the loading screen at 98% (after it has formatted the player to the right aspect ratio and added the controls, but before the video starts) with no error messages or failures. I have two other machines on the same network, one running Windows 7 Home Premium and another running XP, which both stream faultlessly. Things I have tried: Both a wired and wireless connection to the router Upgrading the video and audio drivers IE, Chrome and Firefox Boxee software Connecting with a VGA cable instead of HDMI (in case it is a HDCP thing) Uninstalling and reinstalling Silverlight. Getting someway into loading a HD movie and turning "Allow HD" off Does anyone know what Netflix is doing at the 98% load mark? Are there any log files? Anything else worth trying? Full disclosure: I'm using Netflix from the UK through a US based VPN. I've tried multiple VPNs and the problem is exactly the same, also the other machines on the same network through the same VPN work fine so I don't think this is the issue, but it might be a factor. The region check happens at around 7% and I get past that.

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  • Slowdown upon router/modem setup change

    - by Ollie Saunders
    I’ve been using a Belkin FSD7632-4 modem router to connect to my TalkTalk provided ADSL internet connection for some time and been pretty happy with it. Recently, however, the connection has been failing and I decided to get a ASUS RT-N16 instead, which is also a much more capable router generally. The ASUS RT-N16 doesn’t come with a modem built-in so I purchased as Zoom modem as well. I’ve set them both up and am using them to post this message. But I’m a bit miffed to find that I get a significantly and consistently slower downstream rate from the new configuration than with the old Belkin. Belkin modem router: downstream: 3.45 mbps upstream: 0.73 mbps ASUS router + Zoom modem: downstream: 2.71 mbps upstream: 0.66 mbps Any ideas why this is? The really weird thing about this is that the Zoom supports ADSL2 and ADSL2+ but I don’t think the old Belkin does. At first I thought it might be due to the Zoom modem being limited to PPPoE instead of PPPoA, which my ISP supports, but then I tried using PPPoE with the Belkin and that still gave a high speed. I’m using VC-Mux encapsulation with both. VPI of 0 and VCI of 38. I pulled this data off the Zoom: Mode: ADSL2 Line Coding: Trellis On Status: No Defect Link Power State: L0 Downstream Upstream SNR Margin (dB): 12.3 11.8 Attenuation (dB): 43.0 24.9 Output Power (dBm): 12.9 0.0 Attainable Rate (Kbps): 3936 844 Rate (Kbps): 3194 840 MSGc (number of bytes in overhead channel message): 59 10 B (number of bytes in Mux Data Frame): 99 14 M (number of Mux Data Frames in FEC Data Frame): 2 16 T (Mux Data Frames over sync bytes): 1 8 R (number of check bytes in FEC Data Frame): 8 8 S (ratio of FEC over PMD Data Frame length): 1.9833 9.0594 L (number of bits in PMD Data Frame): 839 219 D (interleaver depth): 32 2 Delay (msec): 15 4 Super Frames: 15808 14078 Super Frame Errors: 0 4294967232 RS Words: 513778 111753 RS Correctable Errors: 126 4294967238 RS Uncorrectable Errors: 0 N/A HEC Errors: 0 4294967279 OCD Errors: 0 0 LCD Errors: 0 0 Total Cells: 1920175 237597 Data Cells: 205993 392 Bit Errors: 0 0 Total ES: 0 0 Total SES: 0 0 Total UAS: 34 0

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  • Why is MySQL table_cache full but never used

    - by Jeremy Clarke
    I have been using the tuning-primer.sh script to tune my my.cnf settings. I have most things working well but the part about TABLE CACHE makes no sense: TABLE CACHE Current table_cache value = 900 tables. You have a total of 0 tables You have 900 open tables. Current table_cache hit rate is 1% , while 100% of your table cache is in use. You should probably increase your table_cache When I do SHOW STATUS; I get the following table-related numbers: Open_tables = 900 Opened_tables = 0 It seems like something is going wrong. I have some extra memory I could use on increasing the table_cache size, but my sense is that the 900 tables already available aren't doing anything, and increasing it will just waste more energy. Why might this be happening? Are there other settings that could cause all my table_cache slots to be used even though there are no hits to them? I have 150 max connections and probably no more than 4 tables per join, FWIW. Here is the tuner script output for temp tables, which I've also been tuning: TEMP TABLES Current max_heap_table_size = 90 M Current tmp_table_size = 90 M Of 11032358 temp tables, 40% were created on disk Perhaps you should increase your tmp_table_size and/or max_heap_table_size to reduce the number of disk-based temporary tables. Note! BLOB and TEXT columns are not allow in memory tables. If you are using these columns raising these values might not impact your ratio of on disk temp tables.

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  • ffmpeg: video file played OK on Ubuntu, but no sound on XP

    - by Andy Le
    I created a video clip using ffmpeg (vcodec: mpeg2video, acodec: AC3 5.1). The file can be played normally on Ubuntu, but when I play it on an XP machine, there is no sound. I can play AC3 files and other movies with AC3 sound. I already tried many codec packs and many players. When I compare the MediaInfo tab of the Properties window of the file with another playable movie, I see that the Audio Identifier of the audio stream in my file is 0x80 while it is 0x02 in the other movie. So I guess that's why players on XP can't recognize the audio codec. When I use an MKV container instead of MPEG (still mpeg2video codec), then the result is OK on both Ubuntu and XP (with the correct Audio ID). I really need MPEG though. Any idea? This is the command I used: ~/ffmpeg/ffmpeg/ffmpeg -loop_input \ -t 97 -r 30000/1001 -i v%4d.tga -i final.ac3 \ -vcodec mpeg2video -qscale 1 -s 400x400 -r 30000/1001 \ -acodec copy -y out6.mpeg 2 This is the output of mediainfo (on Ubuntu): General Complete name : out6.mpeg Format : MPEG-PS File size : 6.86 MiB Duration : 1mn 37s Overall bit rate : 593 Kbps Video ID : 224 (0xE0) Format : MPEG Video Format version : Version 2 Format profile : Main@Main Format settings, BVOP : No Format settings, Matrix : Default Format_Settings_GOP : M=1, N=12 Duration : 1mn 37s Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 122 Kbps Width : 400 pixels Height : 400 pixels Display aspect ratio : 1.000 Frame rate : 29.970 fps Resolution : 8 bits Colorimetry : 4:2:0 Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.025 Stream size : 1.41 MiB (21%) Audio ID : 128 (0x80) Format : AC-3 Format/Info : Audio Coding 3 Duration : 1mn 36s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 448 Kbps Channel(s) : 6 channels Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz Stream size : 5.18 MiB (75%)

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  • Important hardware components to avoid bottlenecks/improve speed on a laptop?

    - by joelhaus
    Looking for a powerful general use (including web development) laptop running Windows. Price points seem to be all over the place. Many less powerful machines are priced much higher than machines with better specs. How does one navigate this market? Are there any unpublished/under-publicized specs/bottlenecks you look for? Understanding that hardware improves over time, is there an efficient ratio that can be used (or something similar, like Windows Experience Index?) which will indicate how powerful a system is? Thanks in advance! P.S. Here is an example from a laptop released on September 17, 2010. Can anyone pick apart these specs? Is there missing information you would be looking for? OS: Win 7 Display: 16.4" LED backlit Processor: Intel Core i7-740QM, 6MB L3 Cache RAM: 6GB DDR3 1333MHz (8GB max.) Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M (1 GB of dedicated DDR3) HDD: 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive Removable Disc: Blue-ray with DVD±R/RW Misc: webcam/mic/speakers/bluetooth (via Sony Vaio VPC-F137FX/B)

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  • Why is Outlook 2007 resizing images in outgoing and incoming HTML email? How can I fix this?

    - by Mikuso
    In my Outlook 2007 client, embedded images in incoming emails appear resized when the message is viewed. The incoming images are resized to 198px wide, despite the original size. If it was larger, it will be shrunk; if it was smaller, it will be enlarged; the aspect ratio remains the same (the image is not stretched). This is local to my client only (i.e. another Outlook 2007 client reading the same IMAP inbox will see the image in the correct size. Similarly, viewing the email message in a browser will display the correct size). This happens regardless of whether width/height attributes are set on the image tag in the HTML. Zoom is set to 100% in my message window; text and other elements are not distorted from the original. In addition to this, outgoing HTML messages with images embedded in the same way are resized as they are sent. The outgoing images are all scaled to have a width of 247px. The source HTML of the outgoing message is changed after pressing Send so that the tag's width attribute is 247 pixels and the image file itself is also resized. These problems only occur with HTML messages; Rich Text messages do not have the same problem. I have already tried reinstalling Outlook and have it fully patched up to date. Why is this happening and how can I stop this?

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  • VCL - configuration for Magento and Varnish 3.0.2

    - by Tomas
    I would like to kindly ask if there's someone who can help me configure Varnish for Magento to reach far more hits. My current ratio from varnishstat is: cache_hit=271 cache_miss=926 I'm kindly asking this because I've googled almost every site related to this theme, but 99.9% of configurations don't work because of outdated code. Details of my set-up: I use Varnish on port 80, Apache on port 81, PageCache as Magento varnish module, APC for PHP speed and Memcached for dynamic caching. Load speed is about 1.5s on home-page (Pingdom.com average results) USA ping & 2.5s Europe. Servers are located in Toronto, Canada. EDIT: This is my full VCL configuration http://pastebin.com/885BzHCs (I just use xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx for my IPs) This is the info from the command (varnishtop -i TxHeader -I Cookie): TxHeader Cookie: frontend=965b5...(*lots of numbers); adminhtml=3ae65...(*lots of numbers); EXTERNAL_NO_CACHE=1 "(*lots of numbers)" is just my adding to the info Any idea how to avoid Varnish hitting this cookies? (If I got correctly the idea about avoiding Vanrish hitting the cookie and not caching the home page). Thank you for any help!

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  • Slow DB Performance. Seems to be memory related.

    - by David
    I am seeing a pooorly performing web app with a SQL 2005 backend. The db is on a w2k3 machine with 4GB RAM. When I run perfmon on it I see the following. Page life expectancy is low. Consistently under 300 while the Buffer cache hit ratio is always 99% +. The target server memory is always 1618304 and the total server memory is always a number just below that. So it seems that it isn't grabbing enough of the available memory. I have AWE enabled, with the lock pages right for the SQL service account and have set a maximum of 2.25Gb... but it doesn't go near that. When I restart the SQL service the page life expectancy goes much higher, 1000+, and the total target memory starts at 0 and slowly works its way back up to the previous limit. Then it hits the limit and the page life expectancy goes back down massively to <300. So I'm guessing there is something limiting the amount of memory. Any ideas on what that would be and how I can fix it?

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  • VLC Crash when playing MKV files in Windows 7

    - by Phelios
    I'm not sure if the mkv file is corrupted, but when it is opened with VLC player, VLC loads up and displays nothing. Can't even close VLC after that. And also, VLC is running with 50% of the CPU. I have to use End Process to kill it. How do I know if the file is corrupted? How do I solve this? info from mediainfo Format : Matroska File size : 69.4 MiB Duration : 21mn 48s Overall bit rate : 445 Kbps Encoded date : UTC 2009-11-20 18:33:49 Writing application : mkvmerge v2.9.7 ('Tenderness') built on Jul 1 2009 18:43:35 Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1 Video ID : 1 Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : [email protected] Format settings, CABAC : Yes Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames Format settings, GOP : N=1 Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC Duration : 21mn 48s Width : 640 pixels Height : 352 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate : 23.976 fps Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Audio ID : 2 Format : AAC Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Format profile : HE-AAC / LC Codec ID : A_AAC Duration : 21mn 48s Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel positions : Front: L R Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz / 24.0 KHz Compression mode : Lossy

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  • Is it possible to create a simple frontend indexer for openbittorent torrents?

    - by SimonK
    I run a website which distributes a few files every now and again, live music performances by a rock band. I create a torrent file, set the trackers as openbittorrent, publicbt and other similar open trackers. I upload the torrent file to my forum, my users download it and the files are shared. No problems there. What I would like to do is index those torrents properly on my website though so I can follow seeders/leechers and other stats online. I know the open torrent trackers don't have an index but I am aware of many, many indexing sites that do that exact thing. I don't know how though. So what I'm asking is what do I need to do to do that myself? I simply want to create a page that lists the torrents I and other users on my site create, the seeders/leechers ratio and a link to the torrent file etc. What data do I need to be able to do that? I'm proficient in general web design but I don't know what I would need data wise to pull the required info on the torrents? Thanks

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  • A way of doing real-world test-driven development (and some thoughts about it)

    - by Thomas Weller
    Lately, I exchanged some arguments with Derick Bailey about some details of the red-green-refactor cycle of the Test-driven development process. In short, the issue revolved around the fact that it’s not enough to have a test red or green, but it’s also important to have it red or green for the right reasons. While for me, it’s sufficient to initially have a NotImplementedException in place, Derick argues that this is not totally correct (see these two posts: Red/Green/Refactor, For The Right Reasons and Red For The Right Reason: Fail By Assertion, Not By Anything Else). And he’s right. But on the other hand, I had no idea how his insights could have any practical consequence for my own individual interpretation of the red-green-refactor cycle (which is not really red-green-refactor, at least not in its pure sense, see the rest of this article). This made me think deeply for some days now. In the end I found out that the ‘right reason’ changes in my understanding depending on what development phase I’m in. To make this clear (at least I hope it becomes clear…) I started to describe my way of working in some detail, and then something strange happened: The scope of the article slightly shifted from focusing ‘only’ on the ‘right reason’ issue to something more general, which you might describe as something like  'Doing real-world TDD in .NET , with massive use of third-party add-ins’. This is because I feel that there is a more general statement about Test-driven development to make:  It’s high time to speak about the ‘How’ of TDD, not always only the ‘Why’. Much has been said about this, and me myself also contributed to that (see here: TDD is not about testing, it's about how we develop software). But always justifying what you do is very unsatisfying in the long run, it is inherently defensive, and it costs time and effort that could be used for better and more important things. And frankly: I’m somewhat sick and tired of repeating time and again that the test-driven way of software development is highly preferable for many reasons - I don’t want to spent my time exclusively on stating the obvious… So, again, let’s say it clearly: TDD is programming, and programming is TDD. Other ways of programming (code-first, sometimes called cowboy-coding) are exceptional and need justification. – I know that there are many people out there who will disagree with this radical statement, and I also know that it’s not a description of the real world but more of a mission statement or something. But nevertheless I’m absolutely sure that in some years this statement will be nothing but a platitude. Side note: Some parts of this post read as if I were paid by Jetbrains (the manufacturer of the ReSharper add-in – R#), but I swear I’m not. Rather I think that Visual Studio is just not production-complete without it, and I wouldn’t even consider to do professional work without having this add-in installed... The three parts of a software component Before I go into some details, I first should describe my understanding of what belongs to a software component (assembly, type, or method) during the production process (i.e. the coding phase). Roughly, I come up with the three parts shown below:   First, we need to have some initial sort of requirement. This can be a multi-page formal document, a vague idea in some programmer’s brain of what might be needed, or anything in between. In either way, there has to be some sort of requirement, be it explicit or not. – At the C# micro-level, the best way that I found to formulate that is to define interfaces for just about everything, even for internal classes, and to provide them with exhaustive xml comments. The next step then is to re-formulate these requirements in an executable form. This is specific to the respective programming language. - For C#/.NET, the Gallio framework (which includes MbUnit) in conjunction with the ReSharper add-in for Visual Studio is my toolset of choice. The third part then finally is the production code itself. It’s development is entirely driven by the requirements and their executable formulation. This is the delivery, the two other parts are ‘only’ there to make its production possible, to give it a decent quality and reliability, and to significantly reduce related costs down the maintenance timeline. So while the first two parts are not really relevant for the customer, they are very important for the developer. The customer (or in Scrum terms: the Product Owner) is not interested at all in how  the product is developed, he is only interested in the fact that it is developed as cost-effective as possible, and that it meets his functional and non-functional requirements. The rest is solely a matter of the developer’s craftsmanship, and this is what I want to talk about during the remainder of this article… An example To demonstrate my way of doing real-world TDD, I decided to show the development of a (very) simple Calculator component. The example is deliberately trivial and silly, as examples always are. I am totally aware of the fact that real life is never that simple, but I only want to show some development principles here… The requirement As already said above, I start with writing down some words on the initial requirement, and I normally use interfaces for that, even for internal classes - the typical question “intf or not” doesn’t even come to mind. I need them for my usual workflow and using them automatically produces high componentized and testable code anyway. To think about their usage in every single situation would slow down the production process unnecessarily. So this is what I begin with: namespace Calculator {     /// <summary>     /// Defines a very simple calculator component for demo purposes.     /// </summary>     public interface ICalculator     {         /// <summary>         /// Gets the result of the last successful operation.         /// </summary>         /// <value>The last result.</value>         /// <remarks>         /// Will be <see langword="null" /> before the first successful operation.         /// </remarks>         double? LastResult { get; }       } // interface ICalculator   } // namespace Calculator So, I’m not beginning with a test, but with a sort of code declaration - and still I insist on being 100% test-driven. There are three important things here: Starting this way gives me a method signature, which allows to use IntelliSense and AutoCompletion and thus eliminates the danger of typos - one of the most regular, annoying, time-consuming, and therefore expensive sources of error in the development process. In my understanding, the interface definition as a whole is more of a readable requirement document and technical documentation than anything else. So this is at least as much about documentation than about coding. The documentation must completely describe the behavior of the documented element. I normally use an IoC container or some sort of self-written provider-like model in my architecture. In either case, I need my components defined via service interfaces anyway. - I will use the LinFu IoC framework here, for no other reason as that is is very simple to use. The ‘Red’ (pt. 1)   First I create a folder for the project’s third-party libraries and put the LinFu.Core dll there. Then I set up a test project (via a Gallio project template), and add references to the Calculator project and the LinFu dll. Finally I’m ready to write the first test, which will look like the following: namespace Calculator.Test {     [TestFixture]     public class CalculatorTest     {         private readonly ServiceContainer container = new ServiceContainer();           [Test]         public void CalculatorLastResultIsInitiallyNull()         {             ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();               Assert.IsNull(calculator.LastResult);         }       } // class CalculatorTest   } // namespace Calculator.Test       This is basically the executable formulation of what the interface definition states (part of). Side note: There’s one principle of TDD that is just plain wrong in my eyes: I’m talking about the Red is 'does not compile' thing. How could a compiler error ever be interpreted as a valid test outcome? I never understood that, it just makes no sense to me. (Or, in Derick’s terms: this reason is as wrong as a reason ever could be…) A compiler error tells me: Your code is incorrect, but nothing more.  Instead, the ‘Red’ part of the red-green-refactor cycle has a clearly defined meaning to me: It means that the test works as intended and fails only if its assumptions are not met for some reason. Back to our Calculator. When I execute the above test with R#, the Gallio plugin will give me this output: So this tells me that the test is red for the wrong reason: There’s no implementation that the IoC-container could load, of course. So let’s fix that. With R#, this is very easy: First, create an ICalculator - derived type:        Next, implement the interface members: And finally, move the new class to its own file: So far my ‘work’ was six mouse clicks long, the only thing that’s left to do manually here, is to add the Ioc-specific wiring-declaration and also to make the respective class non-public, which I regularly do to force my components to communicate exclusively via interfaces: This is what my Calculator class looks like as of now: using System; using LinFu.IoC.Configuration;   namespace Calculator {     [Implements(typeof(ICalculator))]     internal class Calculator : ICalculator     {         public double? LastResult         {             get             {                 throw new NotImplementedException();             }         }     } } Back to the test fixture, we have to put our IoC container to work: [TestFixture] public class CalculatorTest {     #region Fields       private readonly ServiceContainer container = new ServiceContainer();       #endregion // Fields       #region Setup/TearDown       [FixtureSetUp]     public void FixtureSetUp()     {        container.LoadFrom(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "Calculator.dll");     }       ... Because I have a R# live template defined for the setup/teardown method skeleton as well, the only manual coding here again is the IoC-specific stuff: two lines, not more… The ‘Red’ (pt. 2) Now, the execution of the above test gives the following result: This time, the test outcome tells me that the method under test is called. And this is the point, where Derick and I seem to have somewhat different views on the subject: Of course, the test still is worthless regarding the red/green outcome (or: it’s still red for the wrong reasons, in that it gives a false negative). But as far as I am concerned, I’m not really interested in the test outcome at this point of the red-green-refactor cycle. Rather, I only want to assert that my test actually calls the right method. If that’s the case, I will happily go on to the ‘Green’ part… The ‘Green’ Making the test green is quite trivial. Just make LastResult an automatic property:     [Implements(typeof(ICalculator))]     internal class Calculator : ICalculator     {         public double? LastResult { get; private set; }     }         One more round… Now on to something slightly more demanding (cough…). Let’s state that our Calculator exposes an Add() method:         ...   /// <summary>         /// Adds the specified operands.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="operand1">The operand1.</param>         /// <param name="operand2">The operand2.</param>         /// <returns>The result of the additon.</returns>         /// <exception cref="ArgumentException">         /// Argument <paramref name="operand1"/> is &lt; 0.<br/>         /// -- or --<br/>         /// Argument <paramref name="operand2"/> is &lt; 0.         /// </exception>         double Add(double operand1, double operand2);       } // interface ICalculator A remark: I sometimes hear the complaint that xml comment stuff like the above is hard to read. That’s certainly true, but irrelevant to me, because I read xml code comments with the CR_Documentor tool window. And using that, it looks like this:   Apart from that, I’m heavily using xml code comments (see e.g. here for a detailed guide) because there is the possibility of automating help generation with nightly CI builds (using MS Sandcastle and the Sandcastle Help File Builder), and then publishing the results to some intranet location.  This way, a team always has first class, up-to-date technical documentation at hand about the current codebase. (And, also very important for speeding up things and avoiding typos: You have IntelliSense/AutoCompletion and R# support, and the comments are subject to compiler checking…).     Back to our Calculator again: Two more R# – clicks implement the Add() skeleton:         ...           public double Add(double operand1, double operand2)         {             throw new NotImplementedException();         }       } // class Calculator As we have stated in the interface definition (which actually serves as our requirement document!), the operands are not allowed to be negative. So let’s start implementing that. Here’s the test: [Test] [Row(-0.5, 2)] public void AddThrowsOnNegativeOperands(double operand1, double operand2) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       Assert.Throws<ArgumentException>(() => calculator.Add(operand1, operand2)); } As you can see, I’m using a data-driven unit test method here, mainly for these two reasons: Because I know that I will have to do the same test for the second operand in a few seconds, I save myself from implementing another test method for this purpose. Rather, I only will have to add another Row attribute to the existing one. From the test report below, you can see that the argument values are explicitly printed out. This can be a valuable documentation feature even when everything is green: One can quickly review what values were tested exactly - the complete Gallio HTML-report (as it will be produced by the Continuous Integration runs) shows these values in a quite clear format (see below for an example). Back to our Calculator development again, this is what the test result tells us at the moment: So we’re red again, because there is not yet an implementation… Next we go on and implement the necessary parameter verification to become green again, and then we do the same thing for the second operand. To make a long story short, here’s the test and the method implementation at the end of the second cycle: // in CalculatorTest:   [Test] [Row(-0.5, 2)] [Row(295, -123)] public void AddThrowsOnNegativeOperands(double operand1, double operand2) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       Assert.Throws<ArgumentException>(() => calculator.Add(operand1, operand2)); }   // in Calculator: public double Add(double operand1, double operand2) {     if (operand1 < 0.0)     {         throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand1");     }     if (operand2 < 0.0)     {         throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand2");     }     throw new NotImplementedException(); } So far, we have sheltered our method from unwanted input, and now we can safely operate on the parameters without further caring about their validity (this is my interpretation of the Fail Fast principle, which is regarded here in more detail). Now we can think about the method’s successful outcomes. First let’s write another test for that: [Test] [Row(1, 1, 2)] public void TestAdd(double operand1, double operand2, double expectedResult) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       double result = calculator.Add(operand1, operand2);       Assert.AreEqual(expectedResult, result); } Again, I’m regularly using row based test methods for these kinds of unit tests. The above shown pattern proved to be extremely helpful for my development work, I call it the Defined-Input/Expected-Output test idiom: You define your input arguments together with the expected method result. There are two major benefits from that way of testing: In the course of refining a method, it’s very likely to come up with additional test cases. In our case, we might add tests for some edge cases like ‘one of the operands is zero’ or ‘the sum of the two operands causes an overflow’, or maybe there’s an external test protocol that has to be fulfilled (e.g. an ISO norm for medical software), and this results in the need of testing against additional values. In all these scenarios we only have to add another Row attribute to the test. Remember that the argument values are written to the test report, so as a side-effect this produces valuable documentation. (This can become especially important if the fulfillment of some sort of external requirements has to be proven). So your test method might look something like that in the end: [Test, Description("Arguments: operand1, operand2, expectedResult")] [Row(1, 1, 2)] [Row(0, 999999999, 999999999)] [Row(0, 0, 0)] [Row(0, double.MaxValue, double.MaxValue)] [Row(4, double.MaxValue - 2.5, double.MaxValue)] public void TestAdd(double operand1, double operand2, double expectedResult) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       double result = calculator.Add(operand1, operand2);       Assert.AreEqual(expectedResult, result); } And this will produce the following HTML report (with Gallio):   Not bad for the amount of work we invested in it, huh? - There might be scenarios where reports like that can be useful for demonstration purposes during a Scrum sprint review… The last requirement to fulfill is that the LastResult property is expected to store the result of the last operation. I don’t show this here, it’s trivial enough and brings nothing new… And finally: Refactor (for the right reasons) To demonstrate my way of going through the refactoring portion of the red-green-refactor cycle, I added another method to our Calculator component, namely Subtract(). Here’s the code (tests and production): // CalculatorTest.cs:   [Test, Description("Arguments: operand1, operand2, expectedResult")] [Row(1, 1, 0)] [Row(0, 999999999, -999999999)] [Row(0, 0, 0)] [Row(0, double.MaxValue, -double.MaxValue)] [Row(4, double.MaxValue - 2.5, -double.MaxValue)] public void TestSubtract(double operand1, double operand2, double expectedResult) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       double result = calculator.Subtract(operand1, operand2);       Assert.AreEqual(expectedResult, result); }   [Test, Description("Arguments: operand1, operand2, expectedResult")] [Row(1, 1, 0)] [Row(0, 999999999, -999999999)] [Row(0, 0, 0)] [Row(0, double.MaxValue, -double.MaxValue)] [Row(4, double.MaxValue - 2.5, -double.MaxValue)] public void TestSubtractGivesExpectedLastResult(double operand1, double operand2, double expectedResult) {     ICalculator calculator = container.GetService<ICalculator>();       calculator.Subtract(operand1, operand2);       Assert.AreEqual(expectedResult, calculator.LastResult); }   ...   // ICalculator.cs: /// <summary> /// Subtracts the specified operands. /// </summary> /// <param name="operand1">The operand1.</param> /// <param name="operand2">The operand2.</param> /// <returns>The result of the subtraction.</returns> /// <exception cref="ArgumentException"> /// Argument <paramref name="operand1"/> is &lt; 0.<br/> /// -- or --<br/> /// Argument <paramref name="operand2"/> is &lt; 0. /// </exception> double Subtract(double operand1, double operand2);   ...   // Calculator.cs:   public double Subtract(double operand1, double operand2) {     if (operand1 < 0.0)     {         throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand1");     }       if (operand2 < 0.0)     {         throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand2");     }       return (this.LastResult = operand1 - operand2).Value; }   Obviously, the argument validation stuff that was produced during the red-green part of our cycle duplicates the code from the previous Add() method. So, to avoid code duplication and minimize the number of code lines of the production code, we do an Extract Method refactoring. One more time, this is only a matter of a few mouse clicks (and giving the new method a name) with R#: Having done that, our production code finally looks like that: using System; using LinFu.IoC.Configuration;   namespace Calculator {     [Implements(typeof(ICalculator))]     internal class Calculator : ICalculator     {         #region ICalculator           public double? LastResult { get; private set; }           public double Add(double operand1, double operand2)         {             ThrowIfOneOperandIsInvalid(operand1, operand2);               return (this.LastResult = operand1 + operand2).Value;         }           public double Subtract(double operand1, double operand2)         {             ThrowIfOneOperandIsInvalid(operand1, operand2);               return (this.LastResult = operand1 - operand2).Value;         }           #endregion // ICalculator           #region Implementation (Helper)           private static void ThrowIfOneOperandIsInvalid(double operand1, double operand2)         {             if (operand1 < 0.0)             {                 throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand1");             }               if (operand2 < 0.0)             {                 throw new ArgumentException("Value must not be negative.", "operand2");             }         }           #endregion // Implementation (Helper)       } // class Calculator   } // namespace Calculator But is the above worth the effort at all? It’s obviously trivial and not very impressive. All our tests were green (for the right reasons), and refactoring the code did not change anything. It’s not immediately clear how this refactoring work adds value to the project. Derick puts it like this: STOP! Hold on a second… before you go any further and before you even think about refactoring what you just wrote to make your test pass, you need to understand something: if your done with your requirements after making the test green, you are not required to refactor the code. I know… I’m speaking heresy, here. Toss me to the wolves, I’ve gone over to the dark side! Seriously, though… if your test is passing for the right reasons, and you do not need to write any test or any more code for you class at this point, what value does refactoring add? Derick immediately answers his own question: So why should you follow the refactor portion of red/green/refactor? When you have added code that makes the system less readable, less understandable, less expressive of the domain or concern’s intentions, less architecturally sound, less DRY, etc, then you should refactor it. I couldn’t state it more precise. From my personal perspective, I’d add the following: You have to keep in mind that real-world software systems are usually quite large and there are dozens or even hundreds of occasions where micro-refactorings like the above can be applied. It’s the sum of them all that counts. And to have a good overall quality of the system (e.g. in terms of the Code Duplication Percentage metric) you have to be pedantic on the individual, seemingly trivial cases. My job regularly requires the reading and understanding of ‘foreign’ code. So code quality/readability really makes a HUGE difference for me – sometimes it can be even the difference between project success and failure… Conclusions The above described development process emerged over the years, and there were mainly two things that guided its evolution (you might call it eternal principles, personal beliefs, or anything in between): Test-driven development is the normal, natural way of writing software, code-first is exceptional. So ‘doing TDD or not’ is not a question. And good, stable code can only reliably be produced by doing TDD (yes, I know: many will strongly disagree here again, but I’ve never seen high-quality code – and high-quality code is code that stood the test of time and causes low maintenance costs – that was produced code-first…) It’s the production code that pays our bills in the end. (Though I have seen customers these days who demand an acceptance test battery as part of the final delivery. Things seem to go into the right direction…). The test code serves ‘only’ to make the production code work. But it’s the number of delivered features which solely counts at the end of the day - no matter how much test code you wrote or how good it is. With these two things in mind, I tried to optimize my coding process for coding speed – or, in business terms: productivity - without sacrificing the principles of TDD (more than I’d do either way…).  As a result, I consider a ratio of about 3-5/1 for test code vs. production code as normal and desirable. In other words: roughly 60-80% of my code is test code (This might sound heavy, but that is mainly due to the fact that software development standards only begin to evolve. The entire software development profession is very young, historically seen; only at the very beginning, and there are no viable standards yet. If you think about software development as a kind of casting process, where the test code is the mold and the resulting production code is the final product, then the above ratio sounds no longer extraordinary…) Although the above might look like very much unnecessary work at first sight, it’s not. With the aid of the mentioned add-ins, doing all the above is a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds (while writing this post took hours and days…). The most important thing is to have the right tools at hand. Slow developer machines or the lack of a tool or something like that - for ‘saving’ a few 100 bucks -  is just not acceptable and a very bad decision in business terms (though I quite some times have seen and heard that…). Production of high-quality products needs the usage of high-quality tools. This is a platitude that every craftsman knows… The here described round-trip will take me about five to ten minutes in my real-world development practice. I guess it’s about 30% more time compared to developing the ‘traditional’ (code-first) way. But the so manufactured ‘product’ is of much higher quality and massively reduces maintenance costs, which is by far the single biggest cost factor, as I showed in this previous post: It's the maintenance, stupid! (or: Something is rotten in developerland.). In the end, this is a highly cost-effective way of software development… But on the other hand, there clearly is a trade-off here: coding speed vs. code quality/later maintenance costs. The here described development method might be a perfect fit for the overwhelming majority of software projects, but there certainly are some scenarios where it’s not - e.g. if time-to-market is crucial for a software project. So this is a business decision in the end. It’s just that you have to know what you’re doing and what consequences this might have… Some last words First, I’d like to thank Derick Bailey again. His two aforementioned posts (which I strongly recommend for reading) inspired me to think deeply about my own personal way of doing TDD and to clarify my thoughts about it. I wouldn’t have done that without this inspiration. I really enjoy that kind of discussions… I agree with him in all respects. But I don’t know (yet?) how to bring his insights into the described production process without slowing things down. The above described method proved to be very “good enough” in my practical experience. But of course, I’m open to suggestions here… My rationale for now is: If the test is initially red during the red-green-refactor cycle, the ‘right reason’ is: it actually calls the right method, but this method is not yet operational. Later on, when the cycle is finished and the tests become part of the regular, automated Continuous Integration process, ‘red’ certainly must occur for the ‘right reason’: in this phase, ‘red’ MUST mean nothing but an unfulfilled assertion - Fail By Assertion, Not By Anything Else!

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