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  • Virtual Brown Bag: Ruby Newbies, Mockups, There *is* an I in SOLID, fuv

    - by Brian Schroer
    At this week's Virtual Brown Bag meeting: Claudio pointed us to Try Ruby! and Rails For Zombies, two sites to educate Ruby newbies We looked at the free version of Balsamiq, and other online mockup sites George walked us through a refactoring to isolate roles and adhere to the Interface Segregation Principle (the "I" in SOLID) We laughed at fuv, the code editor for "real programmers" For detailed notes, links, and the video recording, go to the VBB wiki page: https://sites.google.com/site/vbbwiki/main_page/2011-02-10

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  • What are good places to get programming online certifications?

    - by Oscar Mederos
    I was reading Am I unhireable? and one of the suggestions @JohnFx gave was getting a few certifications. What is a good place to get online developer certifications? Please, provide info about the site if you used it. I already have some certs in ExpertRating site. Note: It could be certifications about programming in general (methodologies -XP, Scrum, etc-, Modeling, Design Patterns, Architecture, Refactoring, etc.)

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  • Working with Legacy code #4 : Remove the hard dependencies

    - by andrewstopford
    During your refactoring cycle you should be seeking out the hard dependencies that the code may have, examples of these can include. File System Database Network (HTTP) Application Server (Crystal) Classes that service these kind (or code that can be abstracted to a class) of these kind of dependencies should be wrapped in an interface for easier mocking. If you team starts refering to the interface version of these classes the hard dependency will over time work it's self free.

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  • SQL University: What and why of database testing

    - by Mladen Prajdic
    This is a post for a great idea called SQL University started by Jorge Segarra also famously known as SqlChicken on Twitter. It’s a collection of blog posts on different database related topics contributed by several smart people all over the world. So this week is mine and we’ll be talking about database testing and refactoring. In 3 posts we’ll cover: SQLU part 1 - What and why of database testing SQLU part 2 - What and why of database refactoring SQLU part 2 – Tools of the trade With that out of the way let us sharpen our pencils and get going. Why test a database The sad state of the industry today is that there is very little emphasis on testing in general. Test driven development is still a small niche of the programming world while refactoring is even smaller. The cause of this is the inability of developers to convince themselves and their managers that writing tests is beneficial. At the moment they are mostly viewed as waste of time. This is because the average person (let’s not fool ourselves, we’re all average) is unable to think about lower future costs in relation to little more current work. It’s orders of magnitude easier to know about the current costs in relation to current amount of work. That’s why programmers convince themselves testing is a waste of time. However we have to ask ourselves what tests are really about? Maybe finding bugs? No, not really. If we introduce bugs, we’re likely to write test around those bugs too. But yes we can find some bugs with tests. The main point of tests is to have reproducible repeatability in our systems. By having a code base largely covered by tests we can know with better certainty what a small code change can break in other parts of the system. By having repeatability we can make code changes with confidence, since we know we’ll see what breaks in other tests. And here comes the inability to estimate future costs. By spending just a few more hours writing those tests we’d know instantly what broke where. Imagine we fix a reported bug. We check-in the code, deploy it and the users are happy. Until we get a call 2 weeks later about a certain monthly process has stopped working. What we don’t know is that this process was developed by a long gone coworker and for some reason it relied on that same bug we’ve happily fixed. There’s no way we could’ve known that. We say OK and go in and fix the monthly process. But what we have no clue about is that there’s this ETL job that relied on data from that monthly process. Now that we’ve fixed the process it’s giving unexpected (yet correct since we fixed it) data to the ETL job. So we have to fix that too. But there’s this part of the app we coded that relies on data from that exact ETL job. And just like that we enter the “Loop of maintenance horror”. With the loop eventually comes blame. Here’s a nice tip for all developers and DBAs out there: If you make a mistake man up and admit to it. All of the above is valid for any kind of software development. Keeping this in mind the database is nothing other than just a part of the application. But a big part! One reason why testing a database is even more important than testing an application is that one database is usually accessed from multiple applications and processes. This makes it the central and vital part of the enterprise software infrastructure. Knowing all this can we really afford not to have tests? What to test in a database Now that we’ve decided we’ll dive into this testing thing we have to ask ourselves what needs to be tested? The short answer is: everything. The long answer is: read on! There are 2 main ways of doing tests: Black box and White box testing. Black box testing means we have no idea how the system internals are built and we only have access to it’s inputs and outputs. With it we test that the internal changes to the system haven’t caused the input/output behavior of the system to change. The most important thing to test here are the edge conditions. It’s where most programs break. Having good edge condition tests we can be more confident that the systems changes won’t break. White box testing has the full knowledge of the system internals. With it we test the internal system changes, different states of the application, etc… White and Black box tests should be complementary to each other as they are very much interconnected. Testing database routines includes testing stored procedures, views, user defined functions and anything you use to access the data with. Database routines are your input/output interface to the database system. They count as black box testing. We test then for 2 things: Data and schema. When testing schema we only care about the columns and the data types they’re returning. After all the schema is the contract to the out side systems. If it changes we usually have to change the applications accessing it. One helpful T-SQL command when doing schema tests is SET FMTONLY ON. It tells the SQL Server to return only empty results sets. This speeds up tests because it doesn’t return any data to the client. After we’ve validated the schema we have to test the returned data. There no other way to do this but to have expected data known before the tests executes and comparing that data to the database routine output. Testing Authentication and Authorization helps us validate who has access to the SQL Server box (Authentication) and who has access to certain database objects (Authorization). For desktop applications and windows authentication this works well. But the biggest problem here are web apps. They usually connect to the database as a single user. Please ensure that that user is not SA or an account with admin privileges. That is just bad. Load testing ensures us that our database can handle peak loads. One often overlooked tool for load testing is Microsoft’s OSTRESS tool. It’s part of RML utilities (x86, x64) for SQL Server and can help determine if our database server can handle loads like 100 simultaneous users each doing 10 requests per second. SQL Profiler can also help us here by looking at why certain queries are slow and what to do to fix them.   One particular problem to think about is how to begin testing existing databases. First thing we have to do is to get to know those databases. We can’t test something when we don’t know how it works. To do this we have to talk to the users of the applications accessing the database, run SQL Profiler to see what queries are being run, use existing documentation to decipher all the object relationships, etc… The way to approach this is to choose one part of the database (say a logical grouping of tables that go together) and filter our traces accordingly. Once we’ve done that we move on to the next grouping and so on until we’ve covered the whole database. Then we move on to the next one. Database Testing is a topic that we can spent many hours discussing but let this be a nice intro to the world of database testing. See you in the next post.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, September 02, 2012

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, September 02, 2012Popular ReleasesThisismyusername's codeplex page.: HTML5 Multitouch Example - Fruit Ninja in HTML5: This is an example of how you could create a game such as Fruit Ninja using HTML5's multitouch capabilities. This example isn't responsive enough, so I will be working on that, and it doesn't have great graphics, either. If I had my own webpage, I could store some graphics and upload the game there and it might look halfway decent, but here the fruits are just circles. I hope you enjoy reading the source code anyway.GmailDefaultMaker: GmailDefaultMaker 3.0.0.2: Add QQ Mail BugfixRuminate XNA 4.0 GUI: Release 1.1.1: Fixed bugs with Slider and TextBox. Added ComboBox.Confuser: Confuser build 76542: This is a build of changeset 76542.SharePoint Column & View Permission: SharePoint Column and View Permission v1.2: Version 1.2 of this project. If you will find any bugs please let me know at enti@zoznam.sk or post your findings in Issue TrackerMihmojsos OS: Mihmojsos OS 3 (Smart Rabbit): !Mihmojsos OS 3 Smart Rabbit Mihmojsos Smart Rabbit is now availableDotNetNuke Translator: 01.00.00 Beta: First release of the project.YNA: YNA 0.2 alpha: Wath's new since 0.1 alpha ? A lot of changes but there are the most interresting : StateManager is now better and faster Mouse events for all YnObjects (Sprites, Images, texts) A really big improvement for YnGroup Gamepad support And the news : Tiled Map support (need refactoring) Isometric tiled map support (need refactoring) Transition effect like "FadeIn" and "FadeOut" (YnTransition) Timers (YnTimer) Path management (YnPath, need more refactoring) Downloads All downloads...Audio Pitch & Shift: Audio Pitch And Shift 5.1.0.2: fixed several issues with streaming modeUrlPager: UrlPager 1.2: Fixed bug in which url parameters will lost after paging; ????????url???bug;Sofire Suite: Sofire v1.5.0.0: Sofire v1.5.0.0 ?? ???????? ?????: 1、?? 2、????EntLib.com????????: EntLib.com???????? v3.0: EntLib eCommerce Solution ???Microsoft .Net Framework?????????????????????。Coevery - Free CRM: Coevery 1.0.0.24: Add a sample database, and installation instructions.Math.NET Numerics: Math.NET Numerics v2.2.1: Major linear algebra rework since v2.1, now available on Codeplex as well (previous versions were only available via NuGet). Since v2.2.0: Student-T density more robust for very large degrees of freedom Sparse Kronecker product much more efficient (now leverages sparsity) Direct access to raw matrix storage implementations for advanced extensibility Now also separate package for signed core library with a strong name (we dropped strong names in v2.2.0) Also available as NuGet packages...Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: AdventureWorks Databases – 2012, 2008R2 and 2008: About this release This release consolidates AdventureWorks databases for SQL Server 2012, 2008R2 and 2008 versions to one page. Each zip file contains an mdf database file and ldf log file. This should make it easier to find and download AdventureWorks databases since all OLTP versions are on one page. There are no database schema changes. For each release of the product, there is a light-weight and full version of the AdventureWorks sample database. The light-weight version is denoted by ...Christoc's DotNetNuke Module Development Template: DotNetNuke Project Templates V1.1 for VS2012: This release is specifically for Visual Studio 2012 Support, distributed through the Visual Studio Extensions gallery at http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/ After you build in Release mode the installable packages (source/install) can be found in the INSTALL folder now, within your module's folder, not the packages folder anymore Check out the blog post for all of the details about this release. http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Resources/Blogs/EntryId/3471/New-Visual-Studio-2012-Projec...Home Access Plus+: v8.0: v8.0.0901.1830 RELEASE CHANGED TO BETA Any issues, please log them on http://www.edugeek.net/forums/home-access-plus/ This is full release, NO upgrade ZIP will be provided as most files require replacing. To upgrade from a previous version, delete everything but your AppData folder, extract all but the AppData folder and run your HAP+ install Documentation is supplied in the Web Zip The Quota Services require executing a script to register the service, this can be found in there install ...Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 3.0.0.3406 (September 2012): New features: Extended ReflectionClass libxml error handling, constants DateTime::modify(), DateTime::getOffset() TreatWarningsAsErrors MSBuild option OnlyPrecompiledCode configuration option; allows to use only compiled code Fixes: ArgsAware exception fix accessing .NET properties bug fix ASP.NET session handler fix for OutOfProc mode DateTime methods (WordPress posting fix) Phalanger Tools for Visual Studio: Visual Studio 2010 & 2012 New debugger engine, PHP-like debugging ...MabiCommerce: MabiCommerce 1.0.1: What's NewSetup now creates shortcuts Fix spelling errors Minor enhancement to the Map window.ScintillaNET: ScintillaNET 2.5.2: This release has been built from the 2.5 branch. Version 2.5.2 is functionally identical to the 2.5.1 release but also includes the XML documentation comments file generated by Visual Studio. It is not 100% comprehensive but it will give you Visual Studio IntelliSense for a large part of the API. Just make sure the ScintillaNET.xml file is in the same folder as the ScintillaNET.dll reference you're using in your projects. (The XML file does not need to be distributed with your application)....New ProjectsATSV: this is a student project for making a new silverlight UI Bookmark Collector: This project is a best practice example of how to use content items in DotNetNuke. It allows you to quickly and easily manage a listing of external links.BPVotingmachine: BP Vote SystemClean My Space: Sort your files in a fun and fast! With Clean My Space you can!CutePlatform: CutePlatform is a platform game based around the PlanetCute graphics pack from Daniel cook, make him a visit in www.lostgardem.comDancTeX: This project is targeting the integration of LaTeX into VisusalStudio. Epi Info™ Companion for Android: A mobile companion to the Epi Info™ 7 desktop tool for epidemiologic data collection and analysis.Flucene: Object Document Mapper for Lucene.Netfluentserializer: FluentSerializer is a library for .NET usable to create serialize/deserialize data through its fluent interface. The methods it creates are compiled.hongjiapp: hongjiappidealthings educational comprehensive administration system: ?????????????????????????????????????????????.Java Accounting Library: The project aims at providing a Financial Accounting Java Library which may be integrated to any other Java Application independent of its Backend Database.mycnblogs: mycnblogsNETPack: Lightweight and flexible packer for .NETRandom Useful Code: This project is where I will store various useful classes I have built over time. Only the code will be provided, no Library or the like.Suleymaniye Tavimi: Namaz vakitleri hesaplama uygulamasidir. Istenilen yer için hesaplama yapar.

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  • What are the Top Developer Productivity Tools/Plugins for Java in Eclipse?

    - by Ryan Hayes
    I personally use CodeRush in Visual Studio 2010 to do refactoring, write code faster with templates and generally navigate my code 10 times faster than stock VS. Recently, I've been working on another Android app and got to thinking...What are the top productivity plugins for Eclipse? Preferably free. I'm looking for plugins that help write in Java, not PHP or Rails or any of the other languages Eclipse supports.

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  • My version of UnhandledExceptionModule

    - by Michael Freidgeim
    I've created my own version of UnhandledExceptionModule independantly of codePlex project in 2007, I've used code from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911816 with considerations from http://www.eggheadcafe.com/articles/20060305.asp   and done some refactoring. It also allows to use AppSettings["EventLogSourceName"]   The zip file also includes TestUnhandledExceptionWAP test project, that I used to investigate issue legacyUnhandledExceptionPolicy enabled="true" doesn't prevent ASP.NET application restarting   I've upload the code as patch here

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  • Help needed with pyparsing [closed]

    - by Zearin
    Overview So, I’m in the middle of refactoring a project, and I’m separating out a bunch of parsing code. The code I’m concerned with is pyparsing. I have a very poor understanding of pyparsing, even after spending a lot of time reading through the official documentation. I’m having trouble because (1) pyparsing takes a (deliberately) unorthodox approach to parsing, and (2) I’m working on code I didn’t write, with poor comments, and a non-elementary set of existing grammars. (I can’t get in touch with the original author, either.) Failing Test I’m using PyVows to test my code. One of my tests is as follows (I think this is clear even if you’re unfamiliar with PyVows; let me know if it isn’t): def test_multiline_command_ends(self, topic): output = parsed_input('multiline command ends\n\n',topic) expect(output).to_equal( r'''['multiline', 'command ends', '\n', '\n'] - args: command ends - multiline_command: multiline - statement: ['multiline', 'command ends', '\n', '\n'] - args: command ends - multiline_command: multiline - terminator: ['\n', '\n'] - terminator: ['\n', '\n']''') But when I run the test, I get the following in the terminal: Failed Test Results Expected topic("['multiline', 'command ends']\n- args: command ends\n- command: multiline\n- statement: ['multiline', 'command ends']\n - args: command ends\n - command: multiline") to equal "['multiline', 'command ends', '\\n', '\\n']\n- args: command ends\n- multiline_command: multiline\n- statement: ['multiline', 'command ends', '\\n', '\\n']\n - args: command ends\n - multiline_command: multiline\n - terminator: ['\\n', '\\n']\n- terminator: ['\\n', '\\n']" Note: Since the output is to a Terminal, the expected output (the second one) has extra backslashes. This is normal. The test ran without issue before this piece of refactoring began. Expected Behavior The first line of output should match the second, but it doesn’t. Specifically, it’s not including the two newline characters in that first list object. So I’m getting this: "['multiline', 'command ends']\n- args: command ends\n- command: multiline\n- statement: ['multiline', 'command ends']\n - args: command ends\n - command: multiline" When I should be getting this: "['multiline', 'command ends', '\\n', '\\n']\n- args: command ends\n- multiline_command: multiline\n- statement: ['multiline', 'command ends', '\\n', '\\n']\n - args: command ends\n - multiline_command: multiline\n - terminator: ['\\n', '\\n']\n- terminator: ['\\n', '\\n']" Earlier in the code, there is also this statement: pyparsing.ParserElement.setDefaultWhitespaceChars(' \t') …Which I think should prevent exactly this kind of error. But I’m not sure. Even if the problem can’t be identified with certainty, simply narrowing down where the problem is would be a HUGE help. Please let me know how I might take a step or two towards fixing this.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, September 03, 2012

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, September 03, 2012Popular ReleasesMetodología General Ajustada - MGA: 03.01.03: Cambios Aury: Ajuste del margen del reporte. Visualización de la columna de Supuestos en la parte del módulo de Decisión. Cambios John: Integración de código con cambios enviados por Aury Niño. Generación de instaladores. Soporte técnico por correo electrónico y telefónico.Iveely Search Engine: Iveely Search Engine (0.2.0): ????ISE?0.1.0??,?????,ISE?0.2.0?????????,???????,????????20???follow?ISE,????,??ISE??????????,??????????,?????????,?????????0.2.0??????,??????????。 Iveely Search Engine ?0.2.0?????????“??????????”,??????,?????????,???????,???????????????????,????、????????????。???0.1.0????????????: 1. ??“????” ??。??????????,?????????,???????????????????。??:????????,????????????,??????????????????。??????。 2. ??“????”??。?0.1.0??????,???????,???????????????,?????????????,????????,?0.2.0?,???????...Thisismyusername's codeplex page.: HTML5 Mulititouch Fruit Ninja Proof of Concept: This is an example of how you could create a game such as Fruit Ninja using HTML5's multitouch capabilities. Sorry this example doesn't have great graphics. If I had my own webpage, I could store some graphics and upload the game there and it might look halfway decent, but since I'm only using a Codeplex page and most mobile devices can't open .zip files, the fruits are just circles. I hope you enjoy reading the source code anyway.GmailDefaultMaker: GmailDefaultMaker 3.0.0.2: Add QQ Mail BugfixSmart Data Access layer: Smart Data access Layer Ver 3: In this version support executing inline query is added. Check Documentation section for detail.TSQL Code Smells Finder: POC 1.01: Proof of concept 1.01 TSQLDomTest.ps1 and Errors.Txt are requiredConfuser: Confuser build 76542: This is a build of changeset 76542.Reactive State Machine: ReactiveStateMachine-beta: TouchStateMachine now supports Microsoft Surface 2.0 SDK. The TouchStateMachine is an extension to the Reactive State Machine. Reactive State Machine uses NuGet for dependency managementSharePoint Column & View Permission: SharePoint Column and View Permission v1.2: Version 1.2 of this project. If you will find any bugs please let me know at enti@zoznam.sk or post your findings in Issue TrackerMihmojsos OS: Mihmojsos OS 3 (Smart Rabbit): !Mihmojsos OS 3 Smart Rabbit Mihmojsos Smart Rabbit is now availableDotNetNuke Translator: 01.00.00 Beta: First release of the project.YNA: YNA 0.2 alpha: Wath's new since 0.1 alpha ? A lot of changes but there are the most interresting : StateManager is now better and faster Mouse events for all YnObjects (Sprites, Images, texts) A really big improvement for YnGroup Gamepad support And the news : Tiled Map support (need refactoring) Isometric tiled map support (need refactoring) Transition effect like "FadeIn" and "FadeOut" (YnTransition) Timers (YnTimer) Path management (YnPath, need more refactoring) Downloads All downloads...Audio Pitch & Shift: Audio Pitch And Shift 5.1.0.2: fixed several issues with streaming modeUrlPager: UrlPager 1.2: Fixed bug in which url parameters will lost after paging; ????????url???bug;Sofire Suite: Sofire v1.5.0.0: Sofire v1.5.0.0 ?? ???????? ?????: 1、?? 2、????EntLib.com????????: EntLib.com???????? v3.0: EntLib eCommerce Solution ???Microsoft .Net Framework?????????????????????。Coevery - Free CRM: Coevery 1.0.0.24: Add a sample database, and installation instructions.Math.NET Numerics: Math.NET Numerics v2.2.1: Major linear algebra rework since v2.1, now available on Codeplex as well (previous versions were only available via NuGet). Since v2.2.0: Student-T density more robust for very large degrees of freedom Sparse Kronecker product much more efficient (now leverages sparsity) Direct access to raw matrix storage implementations for advanced extensibility Now also separate package for signed core library with a strong name (we dropped strong names in v2.2.0) Also available as NuGet packages...Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: AdventureWorks Databases – 2012, 2008R2 and 2008: About this release This release consolidates AdventureWorks databases for SQL Server 2012, 2008R2 and 2008 versions to one page. Each zip file contains an mdf database file and ldf log file. This should make it easier to find and download AdventureWorks databases since all OLTP versions are on one page. There are no database schema changes. For each release of the product, there is a light-weight and full version of the AdventureWorks sample database. The light-weight version is denoted by ...Christoc's DotNetNuke Module Development Template: DotNetNuke Project Templates V1.1 for VS2012: This release is specifically for Visual Studio 2012 Support, distributed through the Visual Studio Extensions gallery at http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/ After you build in Release mode the installable packages (source/install) can be found in the INSTALL folder now, within your module's folder, not the packages folder anymore Check out the blog post for all of the details about this release. http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Resources/Blogs/EntryId/3471/New-Visual-Studio-2012-Projec...New ProjectsBPVote4PPT: BPVote For PowerPointCosmo OS: La semplicità in un OSFinancial Analytic Tools: C#.Net Financial Analytic ToolsGeminiMVC: An Open Source CMS written in ASP.net MVC 4 with speed, extensibility, and ease-of-us in mind.JQuery SharePoint Autocomplete People Picker: This JQUery bundle provides an autocomplete people picker based on SharePoint profiles. It can be hosted on the SharePoint itself or on remote applications.Kerbal Space Program PartModule Library: This project is designed to add various functionalities to custom parts for the space program simulation game Kerbal Space Program.KeyboardRemapper: This tool to remaps keys in the keyboard. If you have more than one keyboard or an additional keypad, you can remap the keys of the each keyboard independentlyKHStudent: ??????Localized DataAnnotations with T4 templates: Simplified DataAnnotations localization using T4 templates.MfcLightToolkit: Supports development for small and simple MFC application. Provides asynchronous programming model like .NET, file download, easy control resizing, and so on.Müslüm ÖZTÜRK Code Lib: Test amaçli olusturulan projemdirPolska: Testproject in how a polish grammerprogram can look like.QueueLessApp: Here is the codeRusIS.CMS: aaaSGPS: Projeto de controle de produtos e serviçosStemmersNet: Stemmers pack for .Net FrameworkTrabajo Final de Ingenieria - Javier Vallejos: Tesis Final de la carrera de Ingenieria - Universidad Abierta Interamericana.TSQL Code Smells Finder: TSQL 'smells' findersXNA and Data Driven Design: This project includes links for XNA and Data Driven DesignXNA and System Testing: This project includes code for XNA and System TestingYUGI-AR Project: an open source project for yugioh based augmented reality???????? ? ?????????????: ???? ??????? ??????? ?????????????? ??????????? ?????????? ??? ? ????? ?????? ? ? ??? ??? ????? ? ??? ?????????? ????????????.

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  • SQL Server Developer Tools &ndash; Codename Juneau vs. Red-Gate SQL Source Control

    - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell
    So how do the new SQL Server Developer Tools (previously code-named Juneau) stack up against SQL Source Control?  Read on to find out. At the PASS Community Summit a couple of weeks ago, it was announced that the previously code-named Juneau software would be released under the name of SQL Server Developer Tools with the release of SQL Server 2012.  This replacement for Database Projects in Visual Studio (also known in a former life as Data Dude) has some great new features.  I won’t attempt to describe them all here, but I will applaud Microsoft for making major improvements.  One of my favorite changes is the way database elements are broken down.  Previously every little thing was in its own file.  For example, indexes were each in their own file.  I always hated that.  Now, SSDT uses a pattern similar to Red-Gate’s and puts the indexes and keys into the same file as the overall table definition. Of course there are really cool features to keep your database model in sync with the actual source scripts, and the rename refactoring feature is now touted as being more than just a search and replace, but rather a “semantic-aware” search and replace.  Funny, it reminds me of SQL Prompt’s Smart Rename feature.  But I’m not writing this just to criticize Microsoft and argue that they are late to the party with this feature set.  Instead, I do see it as a viable alternative for folks who want all of their source code to be version controlled, but there are a couple of key trade-offs that you need to know about when you choose which tool set to use. First, the basics Both tool sets integrate with a wide variety of source control systems including the most popular: Subversion, GIT, Vault, and Team Foundation Server.  Both tools have integrated functionality to produce objects to upgrade your target database when you are ready (DACPACs in SSDT, integration with SQL Compare for SQL Source Control).  If you regularly live in Visual Studio or the Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) then SSDT will likely be comfortable for you.  Like BIDS, SSDT is a Visual Studio Project Type that comes with SQL Server, and if you don’t already have Visual Studio installed, it will install the shell for you.  If you already have Visual Studio 2010 installed, then it will just add this as an available project type.  On the other hand, if you regularly live in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) then you will really enjoy the SQL Source Control integration from within SSMS.  Both tool sets store their database model in script files.  In SSDT, these are on your file system like other source files; in SQL Source Control, these are stored in the folder structure in your source control system, and you can always GET them to your file system if you want to browse them directly. For me, the key differentiating factors are 1) a single, unified check-in, and 2) migration scripts.  How you value those two features will likely make your decision for you. Unified Check-In If you do a continuous-integration (CI) style of development that triggers an automated build with unit testing on every check-in of source code, and you use Visual Studio for the rest of your development, then you will want to really consider SSDT.  Because it is just another project in Visual Studio, it can be added to your existing Solution, and you can then do a complete, or unified single check-in of all changes whether they are application or database changes.  This is simply not possible with SQL Source Control because it is in a different development tool (SSMS instead of Visual Studio) and there is no way to do one unified check-in between the two.  You CAN do really fast back-to-back check-ins, but there is the possibility that the automated build that is triggered from the first check-in will cause your unit tests to fail and the CI tool to report that you broke the build.  Of course, the automated build that is triggered from the second check-in which contains the “other half” of your changes should pass and so the amount of time that the build was broken may be very, very short, but if that is very, very important to you, then SQL Source Control just won’t work; you’ll have to use SSDT. Refactoring and Migrations If you work on a mature system, or on a not-so-mature but also not-so-well-designed system, where you want to refactor the database schema as you go along, but you can’t have data suddenly disappearing from your target system, then you’ll probably want to go with SQL Source Control.  As I wrote previously, there are a number of changes which you can make to your database that the comparison tools (both from Microsoft and Red Gate) simply cannot handle without the possibility (or probability) of data loss.  Currently, SSDT only offers you the ability to inject PRE and POST custom deployment scripts.  There is no way to insert your own script in the middle to override the default behavior of the tool.  In version 3.0 of SQL Source Control (Early Access version now available) you have that ability to create your own custom migration script to take the place of the commands that the tool would have done, and ensure the preservation of your data.  Or, even if the default tool behavior would have worked, but you simply know a better way then you can take control and do things your way instead of theirs. You Decide In the environment I work in, our automated builds are not triggered off of check-ins, but off of the clock (currently once per night) and so there is no point at which the automated build and unit tests will be triggered without having both sides of the development effort already checked-in.  Therefore having a unified check-in, while handy, is not critical for us.  As for migration scripts, these are critically important to us.  We do a lot of new development on systems that have already been in production for years, and it is not uncommon for us to need to do a refactoring of the database.  Because of the maturity of the existing system, that often involves data migrations or other additional SQL tasks that the comparison tools just can’t detect on their own.  Therefore, the ability to create a custom migration script to override the tool’s default behavior is very important to us.  And so, you can see why we will continue to use Red Gate SQL Source Control for the foreseeable future.

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  • Do you test your SQL/HQL/Criteria ?

    - by 0101
    Do you test your SQL or SQL generated by your database framework? There are frameworks like DbUnit that allow you to create real in-memory database and execute real SQL. But its very hard to use(not developer-friendly so to speak), because you need to first prepare test data(and it should not be shared between tests). P.S. I don't mean mocking database or framework's database methods, but tests that make you 99% sure that your SQL is working even after some hardcore refactoring.

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  • NetBeans IDE 7.3 Knows Null

    - by Geertjan
    What's the difference between these two methods, "test1" and "test2"? public int test1(String str) {     return str.length(); } public int test2(String str) {     if (str == null) {         System.err.println("Passed null!.");         //forgotten return;     }     return str.length(); } The difference, or at least, the difference that is relevant for this blog entry, is that whoever wrote "test2" apparently thinks that the variable "str" may be null, though did not provide a null check. In NetBeans IDE 7.3, you see this hint for "test2", but no hint for "test1", since in that case we don't know anything about the developer's intention for the variable and providing a hint in that case would flood the source code with too many false positives:  Annotations are supported in understanding how a piece of code is intended to be used. If method return types use @Nullable, @NullAllowed, @CheckForNull, the value is considered to be "strongly possible to be null", as well as if the variable is tested to be null, as shown above. When using @NotNull, @NonNull, @Nonnull, the value is considered to be non-null. (The exact FQNs of the annotations are ignored, only simple names are checked.) Here are examples showing where the hints are displayed for the non-null hints (the "strongly possible to be null" hints are not shown below, though you can see one of them in the screenshot above), together with a comment showing what is shown when you hover over the hint: There isn't a "one size fits all" refactoring for these various instances relating to null checks, hence you can't do an automated refactoring across your code base via tools in NetBeans IDE, as shown yesterday for class member reordering across code bases. However, you can, instead, go to Source | Inspect and then do a scan throughout a scope (e.g., current file/package/project or combinations of these or all open projects) for class elements that the IDE identifies as potentially having a problem in this area: Thanks to Jan Lahoda, who reports that this currently also works in NetBeans IDE 7.3 dev builds for fields but that may need to be disabled since right now too many false positives are returned, for help with the info above and any misunderstandings are my own fault!

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  • Which language and platform features really boosted your coding speed?

    - by Serge
    The question is about delivering working code faster without any regard for design, quality, maintainability, etc. Here is the list of things that help me to write and read code faster: Language: static typing, support for object-oriented and functional programming styles, embedded documentation, short compile-debug-fix cycle or REPL, automatic memory management Platform: "batteries" included (text, regex, IO, threading, networking), thriving community, tons of open-source libs Tools: IDE, visual debugger, code-completion, code navigation, refactoring

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  • Starting this week: Dublin, Maidenhead, and London

    - by KKline
    This might be most most overcommitted four-week period of time ever in my life. I’m tired just thinking about it! Not only am I traveling internationally and speaking over the next few weeks, I’m also helping on two book projects, learning some new applications from Quest Software, and helping on a small Transact-SQL refactoring project. Swag on hand? I’ve got a special printing of 500 video training DVDs for this trip: SQL Server Training on DMVs Performance Monitor and Wait Events Plus, I’ll have...(read more)

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  • NHibernate tutorial #6 - Parent-Child Relationships

    - by BobPalmer
    I've finally had a chance to continue my NHibernate tutorial series after a series of vacations and events.  In this tutorial, I cover one of the most common relationships, that of the parent-child, in NHibernate.  I also go through some optimization refactoring along the way. You can view the entire Google Docs article here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AUP-rKyyUMKhZGczejdxeHZfMzBmdjdzZDlkaA&hl=en   As always, feedback is appreciate! -Bob

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  • Testing Workflows &ndash; Test-First

    - by Timothy Klenke
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/05/30/testing-workflows-ndash-test-first.aspxThis is the second of two posts on some common strategies for approaching the job of writing tests.  The previous post covered test-after workflows where as this will focus on test-first.  Each workflow presented is a method of attack for adding tests to a project.  The more tools in your tool belt the better.  So here is a partial list of some test-first methodologies. Ping Pong Ping Pong is a methodology commonly used in pair programing.  One developer will write a new failing test.  Then they hand the keyboard to their partner.  The partner writes the production code to get the test passing.  The partner then writes the next test before passing the keyboard back to the original developer. The reasoning behind this testing methodology is to facilitate pair programming.  That is to say that this testing methodology shares all the benefits of pair programming, including ensuring multiple team members are familiar with the code base (i.e. low bus number). Test Blazer Test Blazing, in some respects, is also a pairing strategy.  The developers don’t work side by side on the same task at the same time.  Instead one developer is dedicated to writing tests at their own desk.  They write failing test after failing test, never touching the production code.  With these tests they are defining the specification for the system.  The developer most familiar with the specifications would be assigned this task. The next day or later in the same day another developer fetches the latest test suite.  Their job is to write the production code to get those tests passing.  Once all the tests pass they fetch from source control the latest version of the test project to get the newer tests. This methodology has some of the benefits of pair programming, namely lowering the bus number.  This can be good way adding an extra developer to a project without slowing it down too much.  The production coder isn’t slowed down writing tests.  The tests are in another project from the production code, so there shouldn’t be any merge conflicts despite two developers working on the same solution. This methodology is also a good test for the tests.  Can another developer figure out what system should do just by reading the tests?  This question will be answered as the production coder works there way through the test blazer’s tests. Test Driven Development (TDD) TDD is a highly disciplined practice that calls for a new test and an new production code to be written every few minutes.  There are strict rules for when you should be writing test or production code.  You start by writing a failing (red) test, then write the simplest production code possible to get the code working (green), then you clean up the code (refactor).  This is known as the red-green-refactor cycle. The goal of TDD isn’t the creation of a suite of tests, however that is an advantageous side effect.  The real goal of TDD is to follow a practice that yields a better design.  The practice is meant to push the design toward small, decoupled, modularized components.  This is generally considered a better design that large, highly coupled ball of mud. TDD accomplishes this through the refactoring cycle.  Refactoring is only possible to do safely when tests are in place.  In order to use TDD developers must be trained in how to look for and repair code smells in the system.  Through repairing these sections of smelly code (i.e. a refactoring) the design of the system emerges. For further information on TDD, I highly recommend the series “Is TDD Dead?”.  It discusses its pros and cons and when it is best used. Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) Whereas TDD focuses on small unit tests that concentrate on a small piece of the system, Acceptance Tests focuses on the larger integrated environment.  Acceptance Tests usually correspond to user stories, which come directly from the customer. The unit tests focus on the inputs and outputs of smaller parts of the system, which are too low level to be of interest to the customer. ATDD generally uses the same tools as TDD.  However, ATDD uses fewer mocks and test doubles than TDD. ATDD often complements TDD; they aren’t competing methods.  A full test suite will usually consist of a large number of unit (created via TDD) tests and a smaller number of acceptance tests. Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) BDD is more about audience than workflow.  BDD pushes the testing realm out towards the client.  Developers, managers and the client all work together to define the tests. Typically different tooling is used for BDD than acceptance and unit testing.  This is done because the audience is not just developers.  Tools using the Gherkin family of languages allow for test scenarios to be described in an English format.  Other tools such as MSpec or FitNesse also strive for highly readable behaviour driven test suites. Because these tests are public facing (viewable by people outside the development team), the terminology usually changes.  You can’t get away with the same technobabble you can with unit tests written in a programming language that only developers understand.  For starters, they usually aren’t called tests.  Usually they’re called “examples”, “behaviours”, “scenarios”, or “specifications”. This may seem like a very subtle difference, but I’ve seen this small terminology change have a huge impact on the acceptance of the process.  Many people have a bias that testing is something that comes at the end of a project.  When you say we need to define the tests at the start of the project many people will immediately give that a lower priority on the project schedule.  But if you say we need to define the specification or behaviour of the system before we can start, you’ll get more cooperation.   Keep these test-first and test-after workflows in your tool belt.  With them you’ll be able to find new opportunities to apply them.

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  • A TDD Journey: 3- Mocks vs. Stubs; Test Frameworks; Assertions; ReSharper Accelerators

    Test-Driven Development (TDD) involves the repetition of a very short development cycle that begins with an initially-failing test that defines the required functionality, and ends with producing the minimum amount of code to pass that test, and finally refactoring the new code. Michael Sorens continues his introduction to TDD that is more of a journey in six parts, by implementing the first tests and introducing the topics of Test doubles; Test Runners, Constraints and assertions

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  • is there a formal algebra method to analyze programs?

    - by Gabriel
    Is there a formal/academic connection between an imperative program and algebra, and if so where would I learn about it? The example I'm thinking of is: if(C1) { A1(); A2(); } if(C2) { A1(); A2(); } Represented as a sum of terms: (C1)(A1) + (C1)(A2) + (C2)(A1) + (C2)(A2) = (C1+C2)(A1+A2) The idea being that manipulation could lead to programatic refactoring - "factoring" being the common concept in this example.

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  • Paranoid management, contractor checking work [closed]

    - by user833345
    Just wanted to get some opinions and experiences on an issue I'm having at work. First, a little background. I've been working at a company for some time (past any probation periods) and rewriting a horrendous system. No tests, incomplete and broken functionality everywhere, enough copypasta to feed a small village, redundant code, more unused SQL tables than used ones and terrible performance. I've never seen such bad code, pretty much all of it is worthy of being posted on TheDailyWTF. The company has been operating for a number of years and have had a string of bad developers working on this system. I made a call on rewriting instead of refactoring since I judged it to be less work overall and decided that the result will address the requirements more appropriately, since the central requirement is to have a future-proof system for the next decade with plenty of room to scale up. Refactoring would have entailed untangling a huge ball of yarn and at the same time integrating it with a proper foundation or building a foundation from scratch. I've introduced the latest spiffy framework, unit & functional testing, CI, a bug tracker and agile workflow to the environment. I've fixed most of the performance issues of the old system (there were no indexes on any of the tables, for example). I've created an automated deployment process for the old system. The CTO has been maintaining the old system while I have been building the new one and he has been advising management that everything is being done as per best practices. However, management is hiring a contractor to come in and verify my work. In my experience, this is unprecedented. I can understand their reasoning to an extent, since they've had bad luck in the past, but can't help but feel somewhat offended at the fact that they distrust two senior developers who have been working with them for some time enough that a third party is being brought in. And it's not just me who is under watch - people's emails are constantly checked, someone had a remote desktop application installed on their computer of which I was asked to check the usage logs to try to determine if they were stealing sensitive data and there are CCTV cameras in one of the rooms. It's the first time I've decided to disable my Skype history at work. Am I right to feel indignant here? Has anyone else ever encountered such a situation? If so, how did it work out in the end? Was it worth sticking around? Should I just find another job?

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  • From Co-op to fulltime help with salary negotation [closed]

    - by Peter
    Hey I'm a coop student that worked at a particular medium size printing company for 8 months. I had a good time it was lax, sometimes insufficiently challenging but none the less I learned a whole lot. I stuck with them for another 5 months (including this month) at the same rate I was paid then, doing testing work, tool development, taking care of emergencies when the lead developers were away, and other smaller projects and now bigger projects and problem handling (bad printer output etc.). I know their website inside out (ecommerce), and I know their printing software inside out and have made many changes to them both without a hitch. I have also done a lot of refactoring of the existing code base which as far as Im concerned, I believe am the only one to do those sorts of restructuring even though there is constant talk about it. I guess the unit testing paid off and lets me see the value in modularity if even a tad more. Never the less I have faith in my skill and the restructuring I did turned out better than I had imagined . Now the problem is that I finish school next month and so I asked for a full time spot the month after. They have been expanding and have hired a new guy a few months after my coop spot, and just now they hired a new guy to deal with the CRM application. The lead developer who wrote all of the software had left 5 months ago so it was up to all of us to learn what he had done over 4 years (including db, networking). So now I'm afraid that if I assert myself for a salary similar to the other guys, which I believe I am certainly on par with, that I would be seen as ingrateful. It's hard to flip a switch and say, hey double my pay, although when I'm working with their bread and butter (printers) and writing new features, refactoring the whole application for extensibility. I love it regardless of pay. I also feel maybe I'm replaceeble, although nobody knows the website better than myself and the lead web dev (not by a long shot), and nobody knows the printer software/drivers better than myself. I just thought they would have brought up a raise earlier on, and now it feels like they don't value my work. I'm also tired of worrying about it. I think my question is, well what do I do next?

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  • Refactor: Sequential Coupling => Template Method

    Another colleague brought me present today - the blog post. Thank you. You were right!We will do some refactoring which will lead us from Anti-Pattern to Pattern. From Sequential Coupling to Template Method. And as I see it could be very common way to refactor bad code that represents mentioned anti

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  • Download NDepend Analysis Tool

    - by Editor
    NDepend is a tool that simplifies managing a complex .NET code base. Architects and developers can analyze code structure, specify design rules, plan massive refactoring, do effective code reviews and master evolution by comparing different versions of the code. The result is better communication, improved quality, easier maintenance and faster development. NDepend supports the Code Query Language [...]

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  • A TDD Journey: 2- Naming Tests; Mocking Frameworks; Dependency Injection

    Test-Driven Development (TDD) relies on the repetition of a very short development cycle Starting from an initially failing automated test that defines the functionality that is required, and then producing the minimum amount of code to pass that test, and finally refactoring the new code. Michael Sorens continues his introduction to TDD that is more of a journey in six parts, by implementing the first tests and introducing the topics of Test Naming, Mocking Frameworks and Dependency Injection

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  • Database Migration Scripts: Getting from place A to place B

    - by Phil Factor
    We’ll be looking at a typical database ‘migration’ script which uses an unusual technique to migrate existing ‘de-normalised’ data into a more correct form. So, the book-distribution business that uses the PUBS database has gradually grown organically, and has slipped into ‘de-normalisation’ habits. What’s this? A new column with a list of tags or ‘types’ assigned to books. Because books aren’t really in just one category, someone has ‘cured’ the mismatch between the database and the business requirements. This is fine, but it is now proving difficult for their new website that allows searches by tags. Any request for history book really has to look in the entire list of associated tags rather than the ‘Type’ field that only keeps the primary tag. We have other problems. The TypleList column has duplicates in there which will be affecting the reporting, and there is the danger of mis-spellings getting there. The reporting system can’t be persuaded to do reports based on the tags and the Database developers are complaining about the unCoddly things going on in their database. In your version of PUBS, this extra column doesn’t exist, so we’ve added it and put in 10,000 titles using SQL Data Generator. /* So how do we refactor this database? firstly, we create a table of all the tags. */IF  OBJECT_ID('TagName') IS NULL OR OBJECT_ID('TagTitle') IS NULL  BEGIN  CREATE TABLE  TagName (TagName_ID INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY ,     Tag VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL UNIQUE)  /* ...and we insert into it all the tags from the list (remembering to take out any leading spaces */  INSERT INTO TagName (Tag)     SELECT DISTINCT LTRIM(x.y.value('.', 'Varchar(80)')) AS [Tag]     FROM     (SELECT  Title_ID,          CONVERT(XML, '<list><i>' + REPLACE(TypeList, ',', '</i><i>') + '</i></list>')          AS XMLkeywords          FROM   dbo.titles)g    CROSS APPLY XMLkeywords.nodes('/list/i/text()') AS x ( y )  /* we can then use this table to provide a table that relates tags to articles */  CREATE TABLE TagTitle   (TagTitle_ID INT IDENTITY(1, 1),   [title_id] [dbo].[tid] NOT NULL REFERENCES titles (Title_ID),   TagName_ID INT NOT NULL REFERENCES TagName (Tagname_ID)   CONSTRAINT [PK_TagTitle]       PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([title_id] ASC, TagName_ID)       ON [PRIMARY])        CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX idxTagName_ID  ON  TagTitle (TagName_ID)  INCLUDE (TagTitle_ID,title_id)        /* ...and it is easy to fill this with the tags for each title ... */        INSERT INTO TagTitle (Title_ID, TagName_ID)    SELECT DISTINCT Title_ID, TagName_ID      FROM        (SELECT  Title_ID,          CONVERT(XML, '<list><i>' + REPLACE(TypeList, ',', '</i><i>') + '</i></list>')          AS XMLkeywords          FROM   dbo.titles)g    CROSS APPLY XMLkeywords.nodes('/list/i/text()') AS x ( y )    INNER JOIN TagName ON TagName.Tag=LTRIM(x.y.value('.', 'Varchar(80)'))    END    /* That's all there was to it. Now we can select all titles that have the military tag, just to try things out */SELECT Title FROM titles  INNER JOIN TagTitle ON titles.title_ID=TagTitle.Title_ID  INNER JOIN Tagname ON Tagname.TagName_ID=TagTitle.TagName_ID  WHERE tagname.tag='Military'/* and see the top ten most popular tags for titles */SELECT Tag, COUNT(*) FROM titles  INNER JOIN TagTitle ON titles.title_ID=TagTitle.Title_ID  INNER JOIN Tagname ON Tagname.TagName_ID=TagTitle.TagName_ID  GROUP BY Tag ORDER BY COUNT(*) DESC/* and if you still want your list of tags for each title, then here they are */SELECT title_ID, title, STUFF(  (SELECT ','+tagname.tag FROM titles thisTitle    INNER JOIN TagTitle ON titles.title_ID=TagTitle.Title_ID    INNER JOIN Tagname ON Tagname.TagName_ID=TagTitle.TagName_ID  WHERE ThisTitle.title_id=titles.title_ID  FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE).value('.', 'varchar(max)')  ,1,1,'')    FROM titles  ORDER BY title_ID So we’ve refactored our PUBS database without pain. We’ve even put in a check to prevent it being re-run once the new tables are created. Here is the diagram of the new tag relationship We’ve done both the DDL to create the tables and their associated components, and the DML to put the data in them. I could have also included the script to remove the de-normalised TypeList column, but I’d do a whole lot of tests first before doing that. Yes, I’ve left out the assertion tests too, which should check the edge cases and make sure the result is what you’d expect. One thing I can’t quite figure out is how to deal with an ordered list using this simple XML-based technique. We can ensure that, if we have to produce a list of tags, we can get the primary ‘type’ to be first in the list, but what if the entire order is significant? Thank goodness it isn’t in this case. If it were, we might have to revisit a string-splitter function that returns the ordinal position of each component in the sequence. You’ll see immediately that we can create a synchronisation script for deployment from a comparison tool such as SQL Compare, to change the schema (DDL). On the other hand, no tool could do the DML to stuff the data into the new table, since there is no way that any tool will be able to work out where the data should go. We used some pretty hairy code to deal with a slightly untypical problem. We would have to do this migration by hand, and it has to go into source control as a batch. If most of your database changes are to be deployed by an automated process, then there must be a way of over-riding this part of the data synchronisation process to do this part of the process taking the part of the script that fills the tables, Checking that the tables have not already been filled, and executing it as part of the transaction. Of course, you might prefer the approach I’ve taken with the script of creating the tables in the same batch as the data conversion process, and then using the presence of the tables to prevent the script from being re-run. The problem with scripting a refactoring change to a database is that it has to work both ways. If we install the new system and then have to rollback the changes, several books may have been added, or had their tags changed, in the meantime. Yes, you have to script any rollback! These have to be mercilessly tested, and put in source control just in case of the rollback of a deployment after it has been in place for any length of time. I’ve shown you how to do this with the part of the script .. /* and if you still want your list of tags for each title, then here they are */SELECT title_ID, title, STUFF(  (SELECT ','+tagname.tag FROM titles thisTitle    INNER JOIN TagTitle ON titles.title_ID=TagTitle.Title_ID    INNER JOIN Tagname ON Tagname.TagName_ID=TagTitle.TagName_ID  WHERE ThisTitle.title_id=titles.title_ID  FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE).value('.', 'varchar(max)')  ,1,1,'')    FROM titles  ORDER BY title_ID …which would be turned into an UPDATE … FROM script. UPDATE titles SET  typelist= ThisTaglistFROM     (SELECT title_ID, title, STUFF(    (SELECT ','+tagname.tag FROM titles thisTitle      INNER JOIN TagTitle ON titles.title_ID=TagTitle.Title_ID      INNER JOIN Tagname ON Tagname.TagName_ID=TagTitle.TagName_ID    WHERE ThisTitle.title_id=titles.title_ID    ORDER BY CASE WHEN tagname.tag=titles.[type] THEN 1 ELSE 0  END DESC    FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE).value('.', 'varchar(max)')    ,1,1,'')  AS ThisTagList  FROM titles)fINNER JOIN Titles ON f.title_ID=Titles.title_ID You’ll notice that it isn’t quite a round trip because the tags are in a different order, though we’ve managed to make sure that the primary tag is the first one as originally. So, we’ve improved the database for the poor book distributors using PUBS. It is not a major deal but you’ve got to be prepared to provide a migration script that will go both forwards and backwards. Ideally, database refactoring scripts should be able to go from any version to any other. Schema synchronization scripts can do this pretty easily, but no data synchronisation scripts can deal with serious refactoring jobs without the developers being able to specify how to deal with cases like this.

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  • LINQ to Twitter Maintenance Feedback

    - by Joe Mayo
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/WinAZ/archive/2013/06/16/linq-to-twitter-maintenance-feedback.aspxIt’s always fun to receive positive feedback on your work. If you receive a sufficient amount of positive feedback, you know you’re doing something right. Sometimes, people provide negative feedback too. There are a couple ways to handle it: come back fighting or engage for clarification. The way you handle the negative feedback depends on what your goals are. Feedback Approaches If you know the feedback is incorrect and you need to promote your idea or product, you might want to come back fighting. The feedback might just be comments by a troll or competitor wanting to spread FUD. However, this could be the totally wrong approach if you misjudge the source and intentions of the feedback. In a lot of cases, feedback is a golden opportunity. Sometimes, a problem exists that you either don’t know about or don’t realize the true impact of the problem. If you decide to come back fighting, you might loose the opportunity to learn something new. However, if you engage the person providing the feedback, looking for clarification, you might learn something very important. Negative feedback and it’s clarification can lead to the collection of useful and actionable data. In my case, something that prompted this blog post, I noticed someone who tweeted a negative comment about LINQ to Twitter. Normally, any less than stellar comments are usually from folks that need help – so I help if I can. This was different. I was like “Don’t use LINQ to Twitter”. This is an open source project, the comment didn’t come from a competing project, and  sounded more like an expression of frustration. So I engaged. Not only did the person respond, but I got some decent quality feedback. What’s also interesting is a couple other side conversations sprouted on the subject, which gave me more useful data. LINQ to Twitter Thread Actions Essentially, this particular issue centered around maintenance. There are actually several sub-issues at play here: dependencies, error handling, debugging, and visibility. I’ll describe each one and my interpretation. Dependencies Dependencies are where a library has references to other libraries. This means that when you build your application, you need DLLs for the entire dependency graph for your application. There are several potential problems with this that include more libraries for configuration management, potential versioning mismatches, and lack of cross-platform support. In the early days of LINQ to Twitter, I allowed developers to contribute and add dependencies, but it became very problematic (for reasons stated). It was like a ball and chain that kept me from moving forward. So, I refactored and pulled other open-source into my project to eliminate external dependencies. This lets me fix the code in my project without relying on someone else to upgrade or fix their DLL. The motivation for this was from early negative feedback that translated as important data and acted on it. Today, LINQ to Twitter has zero dependencies. Note: Rejecting good code from community members who worked hard to make your project better is a painful experience in itself. I have to point out that any contribution was not in vain because they had a positive influence on my subsequent refactoring that resulted in a better developer experience. Error Handling Error handling has been a problem in the past. I have this combination of supporting both synchronous and asynchronous (APM) processing that can be complex at times. Within the last 6 months, I did a fair amount of refactoring to detect errors and process them properly. I also refactored TwitterQueryException so it includes important data from Twitter. During this refactoring, I’ve made breaking changes that I felt would improve the development experience (small things like renaming a callback property to Exception, rather than Error). I think the async error handling is much better than it was a year ago. For all the work I’ve done, there is more to do. I think that a combination of more error handling support, e.g. improving semantics, and education through documentation and samples will improve the error handling story. Because of what I’ve done so far, it isn’t bad, but I see opportunities for improvement. Debugging Debugging can be painful. Here’s why: you have multiple layers of technology to navigate and figure out where the real problem is – Twitter API, Security, HTTP, LINQ to Twitter, and application. You can probably add your own nuances to that list, but the point is that debugging in this environment can be complex. I think that my plans for error handling will contribute to making the debugging process easier. However, there’s more I can do in the way of documentation and guidance. Some of the questions to be answered revolve around when something goes wrong, how does the developer figure out that there is a problem, what the problem is, and what to do about it. One example that has gone a long way to helping LINQ to Twitter developers is the 401 FAQ. A 401 Unauthorized is the error that the Twitter API returns when a use isn’t able to authenticate and is one of the most difficult problems faced by LINQ to Twitter developers. What I did was read guidance from Twitter and collect techniques from my own development and actions helping other developers to compile an extensive list of reasons for the 401 and ways to fix the problem. At one time, over half of the questions I answered in the forums were to help solve 401 issues. After publishing the 401 FAQ, I rarely get a 401 question and it’s because the person didn’t know about the FAQ. If the person is too lazy to read the FAQ, that’s not my issue, but the results in support issues have been dramatic. I think debugging can benefit from the education and documentation approach, but I’m always open to suggestions on whatever else I can do. Visibility Visibility is a nuance of the error handling/debugging discussion but is deeply rooted in comfort and control. The questions to ask in this area are what is happening as my code runs and how testable is the code. In support of these areas, LINQ to Twitter does have logging and TwitterContext properties that help see what’s happening on requests. The logging functionality allows any developer to connect a TextWriter to the Log property of TwitterContext to see what’s happening. Further, TwitterContext has a Headers property to see the headers Twitter returns and a RawResults property to show the Json string Twitter returns. From a testing perspective, I’ve been able to write hundreds of unit tests, over 600 when this post is published, and growing. If you write your own library, you have full control over all of these aspects. The tradeoff here is that while you have access to the LINQ to Twitter source code and modify it for all the visibility, LINQ to Twitter *will* change (which is good) and you will have to figure out how to merge that with your changes (which is hard). The fact is that this is a limitation of any 3rd party library, not just LINQ to Twitter. So, it’s a design decision where the tradeoff is between control and productivity. That said, there are things I can do with LINQ to Twitter to make the visibility story more compelling. I think there are opportunities to improve diagnostics. This would be a ton of work because it would need to provide multi-level logging that can be tuned for production and support any logging provider you want to attach. I’ve considered approaches such as how the new Semantic Logging application block connects to Windows Error Reporting as a potential target. Whatever I do would need to be extensible without creating native external dependencies. e.g. how many 3rd party libraries force a dependency on a logging framework that you don’t use. So, this won’t be an easy feat, but I believe it can be part of the roadmap. I think that a lot of developers are unaware of existing visibility features, so the first step would be to provide more documentation and guidance. My thought are that this would lead to more feedback that will help improve this area. Summary Recent feedback highlights some of items that are important to LINQ to Twitter developers, such as dependencies, error handling, debugging, and visibility. I know that there are maintenance issues that have been problems for LINQ to Twitter developers in the past. I’ve done a lot of work in this area, such as improving error handling, adding visibility features, and providing extensive API documentation. That said, there is more to be done to make LINQ to Twitter the best Twitter API experience available for .NET developers and I welcome anyone’s thoughts on what I’ve written here or new improvements. @JoeMayo

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