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• Is inline SQL still classed as bad practice now that we have Micro ORMs?

  - by Grofit

  This is a bit of an open ended question but I wanted some opinions, as I grew up in a world where inline SQL scripts were the norm, then we were all made very aware of SQL injection based issues, and how fragile the sql was when doing string manipulations all over the place. Then came the dawn of the ORM where you were explaining the query to the ORM and letting it generate its own SQL, which in a lot of cases was not optimal but was safe and easy. Another good thing about ORMs or database abstraction layers were that the SQL was generated with its database engine in mind, so I could use Hibernate/Nhibernate with MSSQL, MYSQL and my code never changed it was just a configuration detail. Now fast forward to current day, where Micro ORMs seem to be winning over more developers I was wondering why we have seemingly taken a U-Turn on the whole in-line sql subject. I must admit I do like the idea of no ORM config files and being able to write my query in a more optimal manner but it feels like I am opening myself back up to the old vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and I am also tying myself to one database engine so if I want my software to support multiple database engines I would need to do some more string hackery which seems to then start to make code unreadable and more fragile. (Just before someone mentions it I know you can use parameter based arguments with most micro orms which offers protection in most cases from sql injection) So what are peoples opinions on this sort of thing? I am using Dapper as my Micro ORM in this instance and NHibernate as my regular ORM in this scenario, however most in each field are quite similar. What I term as inline sql is SQL strings within source code. There used to be design debates over SQL strings in source code detracting from the fundamental intent of the logic, which is why statically typed linq style queries became so popular its still just 1 language, but with lets say C# and Sql in one page you have 2 languages intermingled in your raw source code now. Just to clarify, the SQL injection is just one of the known issues with using sql strings, I already mention you can stop this from happening with parameter based queries, however I highlight other issues with having SQL queries ingrained in your source code, such as the lack of DB Vendor abstraction as well as losing any level of compile time error capturing on string based queries, these are all issues which we managed to side step with the dawn of ORMs with their higher level querying functionality, such as HQL or LINQ etc (not all of the issues but most of them). So I am less focused on the individual highlighted issues and more the bigger picture of is it now becoming more acceptable to have SQL strings directly in your source code again, as most Micro ORMs use this mechanism. Here is a similar question which has a few different view points, although is more about the inline sql without the micro orm context: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5303746/is-inline-sql-hard-coding

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• Testing Workflows &ndash; Test-After

  - by Timothy Klenke

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/05/30/testing-workflows-ndash-test-after.aspxIn this post I’m going to outline a few common methods that can be used to increase the coverage of of your test suite.  This won’t be yet another post on why you should be doing testing; there are plenty of those types of posts already out there.  Assuming you know you should be testing, then comes the problem of how do I actual fit that into my day job.  When the opportunity to automate testing comes do you take it, or do you even recognize it? There are a lot of ways (workflows) to go about creating automated tests, just like there are many workflows to writing a program.  When writing a program you can do it from a top-down approach where you write the main skeleton of the algorithm and call out to dummy stub functions, or a bottom-up approach where the low level functionality is fully implement before it is quickly wired together at the end.  Both approaches are perfectly valid under certain contexts. Each approach you are skilled at applying is another tool in your tool belt.  The more vectors of attack you have on a problem – the better.  So here is a short, incomplete list of some of the workflows that can be applied to increasing the amount of automation in your testing and level of quality in general.  Think of each workflow as an opportunity that is available for you to take. Test workflows basically fall into 2 categories:  test first or test after.  Test first is the best approach.  However, this post isn’t about the one and only best approach.  I want to focus more on the lesser known, less ideal approaches that still provide an opportunity for adding tests.  In this post I’ll enumerate some test-after workflows.  In my next post I’ll cover test-first. Bug Reporting When someone calls you up or forwards you a email with a vague description of a bug its usually standard procedure to create or verify a reproduction plan for the bug via manual testing and log that in a bug tracking system.  This can be problematic.  Often reproduction plans when written down might skip a step that seemed obvious to the tester at the time or they might be missing some crucial environment setting. Instead of data entry into a bug tracking system, try opening up the test project and adding a failing unit test to prove the bug.  The test project guarantees that all aspects of the environment are setup properly and no steps are missing.  The language in the test project is much more precise than the English that goes into a bug tracking system. This workflow can easily be extended for Enhancement Requests as well as Bug Reporting. Exploratory Testing Exploratory testing comes in when you aren’t sure how the system will behave in a new scenario.  The scenario wasn’t planned for in the initial system requirements and there isn’t an existing test for it.  By definition the system behaviour is “undefined”. So write a new unit test to define that behaviour.  Add assertions to the tests to confirm your assumptions.  The new test becomes part of the living system specification that is kept up to date with the test suite. Examples This workflow is especially good when developing APIs.  When you are finally done your production API then comes the job of writing documentation on how to consume the API.  Good documentation will also include code examples.  Don’t let these code examples merely exist in some accompanying manual; implement them in a test suite. Example tests and documentation do not have to be created after the production API is complete.  It is best to write the example code (tests) as you go just before the production code. Smoke Tests Every system has a typical use case.  This represents the basic, core functionality of the system.  If this fails after an upgrade the end users will be hosed and they will be scratching their heads as to how it could be possible that an update got released with this core functionality broken. The tests for this core functionality are referred to as “smoke tests”.  It is a good idea to have them automated and run with each build in order to avoid extreme embarrassment and angry customers. Coverage Analysis Code coverage analysis is a tool that reports how much of the production code base is exercised by the test suite.  In Visual Studio this can be found under the Test main menu item. The tool will report a total number for the code coverage, which can be anywhere between 0 and 100%.  Coverage Analysis shouldn’t be used strictly for numbers reporting.  Companies shouldn’t set minimum coverage targets that mandate that all projects must have at least 80% or 100% test coverage.  These arbitrary requirements just invite gaming of the coverage analysis, which makes the numbers useless. The analysis tool will break down the coverage by the various classes and methods in projects.  Instead of focusing on the total number, drill down into this view and see which classes have high or low coverage.  It you are surprised by a low number on a class this is an opportunity to add tests. When drilling through the classes there will be generally two types of reaction to a surprising low test coverage number.  The first reaction type is a recognition that there is low hanging fruit to be picked.  There may be some classes or methods that aren’t being tested, which could easy be.  The other reaction type is “OMG”.  This were you find a critical piece of code that isn’t under test.  In both cases, go and add the missing tests. Test Refactoring The general theme of this post up to this point has been how to add more and more tests to a test suite.  I’ll step back from that a bit and remind that every line of code is a liability.  Each line of code has to be read and maintained, which costs money.  This is true regardless whether the code is production code or test code. Remember that the primary goal of the test suite is that it be easy to read so that people can easily determine the specifications of the system.  Make sure that adding more and more tests doesn’t interfere with this primary goal. Perform code reviews on the test suite as often as on production code.  Hold the test code up to the same high readability standards as the production code.  If the tests are hard to read then change them.  Look to remove duplication.  Duplicate setup code between two or more test methods that can be moved to a shared function.  Entire test methods can be removed if it is found that the scenario it tests is covered by other tests.  Its OK to delete a test that isn’t pulling its own weight anymore. Remember to only start refactoring when all the test are green.  Don’t refactor the tests and the production code at the same time.  An automated test suite can be thought of as a double entry book keeping system.  The unchanging, passing production code serves as the tests for the test suite while refactoring the tests. As with all refactoring, it is best to fit this into your regular work rather than asking for time later to get it done.  Fit this into the standard red-green-refactor cycle.  The refactor step no only applies to production code but also the tests, but not at the same time.  Perhaps the cycle should be called red-green-refactor production-refactor tests (not quite as catchy).   That about covers most of the test-after workflows I can think of.  In my next post I’ll get into test-first workflows.

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• Merge Join component sorted outputs [SSIS]

  - by jamiet

  One question that I have been asked a few times of late in regard to performance tuning SSIS data flows is this: Why isn’t the Merge Join output sorted (i.e.IsSorted=True)? This is a fair question. After all both of the Merge Join inputs are sorted, hence why wouldn’t the output be sorted as well? Well here’s a little secret, the Merge Join output IS sorted! There’s a caveat though – it is only under certain circumstances and SSIS itself doesn’t do a good job of informing you of it. Let’s take a look at an example. Here we have a dataflow that consumes data from the [AdventureWorks2008].[Sales].[SalesOrderHeader] & [AdventureWorks2008].[Sales].[SalesOrderDetail] tables then joins them using a Merge Join component: Let’s take a look inside the editor of the Merge Join: We are joining on the [SalesOrderId] field (which is what the two inputs just happen to be sorted upon). We are also putting [SalesOrderHeader].[SalesOrderId] into the output. Believe it or not the output from this Merge Join component is sorted (i.e. has IsSorted=True) but unfortunately the Merge Join component does not have an Advanced Editor hence it is hidden away from us. There are a couple of ways to prove to you that is the case; I could open up the package XML inside the .dtsx file and show you the metadata but there is an easier way than that – I can attach a Sort component to the output. Take a look: Notice that the Sort component is attempting to sort on the [SalesOrderId] column. This gives us the following warning: Validation warning. DFT Get raw data: {992B7C9A-35AD-47B9-A0B0-637F7DDF93EB}: The data is already sorted as specified so the transform can be removed. The warning proves that the output from the Merge Join is sorted! It must be noted that the Merge Join output will only have IsSorted=True if at least one of the join columns is included in the output. So there you go, the Merge Join component can indeed produce a sorted output and that’s very useful in order to avoid unnecessary expensive Sort operations downstream. Hope this is useful to someone out there! @Jamiet  P.S. Thank you to Bob Bojanic on the SSIS product team who pointed this out to me!

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• Design for complex ATG applications

  - by Glen Borkowski

  Overview Needless to say, some ATG applications are more complex than others.  Some ATG applications support a single site, single language, single catalog, single currency, have a single development staff, single business team, and a relatively simple business model.  The real complex applications have to support multiple sites, multiple languages, multiple catalogs, multiple currencies, a couple different development teams, multiple business teams, and a highly complex business model (and processes to go along with it).  While it's still important to implement a proper design for simple applications, it's absolutely critical to do this for the complex applications.  Why?  It's all about time and money.  If you are unable to manage your complex applications in an efficient manner, the cost of managing it will increase dramatically as will the time to get things done (time to market).  On the positive side, your competition is most likely in the same situation, so you just need to be more efficient than they are. This article is intended to discuss a number of key areas to think about when designing complex applications on ATG.  Some of this can get fairly technical, so it may help to get some background first.  You can get enough of the required background information from this post.  After reading that, come back here and follow along. Application Design Of all the various types of ATG applications out there, the most complex tend to be the ones in the telecommunications industry - especially the ones which operate in multiple countries.  To get started, let's assume that we are talking about an application like that.  One that has these properties: Operates in multiple countries - must support multiple sites, catalogs, languages, and currencies The organization is fairly loosely-coupled - single brand, but different businesses across different countries There is some common functionality across all sites in all countries There is some common functionality across different sites within the same country Sites within a single country may have some unique functionality - relative to other sites in the same country Complex product catalog (mostly in terms of bundles, eligibility, and compatibility) At this point, I'll assume you have read through the required reading and have a decent understanding of how ATG modules work... Code / configuration - assemble into modules When it comes to defining your modules for a complex application, there are a number of goals: Divide functionality between the modules in a way that maps to your business Group common functionality 'further down in the stack of modules' Provide a good balance between shared resources and autonomy for countries / sites Now I'll describe a high level approach to how you could accomplish those goals...  Let's start from the bottom and work our way up.  At the very bottom, you have the modules that ship with ATG - the 'out of the box' stuff.  You want to make sure that you are leveraging all the modules that make sense in order to get the most value from ATG as possible - and less stuff you'll have to write yourself.  On top of the ATG modules, you should create what we'll refer to as the Corporate Foundation Module described as follows: Sits directly on top of ATG modules Used by all applications across all countries and sites - this is the foundation for everyone Contains everything that is common across all countries / all sites Once established and settled, will change less frequently than other 'higher' modules Encapsulates as many enterprise-wide integrations as possible Will provide means of code sharing therefore less development / testing - faster time to market Contains a 'reference' web application (described below) The next layer up could be multiple modules for each country (you could replace this with region if that makes more sense).  We'll define those modules as follows: Sits on top of the corporate foundation module Contains what is unique to all sites in a given country Responsible for managing any resource bundles for this country (to handle multiple languages) Overrides / replaces corporate integration points with any country-specific ones Finally, we will define what should be a fairly 'thin' (in terms of functionality) set of modules for each site as follows: Sits on top of the country it resides in module Contains what is unique for a given site within a given country Will mostly contain configuration, but could also define some unique functionality as well Contains one or more web applications The graphic below should help to indicate how these modules fit together: Web applications As described in the previous section, there are many opportunities for sharing (minimizing costs) as it relates to the code and configuration aspects of ATG modules.  Web applications are also contained within ATG modules, however, sharing web applications can be a bit more difficult because this is what the end customer actually sees, and since each site may have some degree of unique look & feel, sharing becomes more challenging.  One approach that can help is to define a 'reference' web application at the corporate foundation layer to act as a solid starting point for each site.  Here's a description of the 'reference' web application: Contains minimal / sample reference styling as this will mostly be addressed at the site level web app Focus on functionality - ensure that core functionality is revealed via this web application Each individual site can use this as a starting point There may be multiple types of web apps (i.e. B2C, B2B, etc) There are some techniques to share web application assets - i.e. multiple web applications, defined in the web.xml, and it's worth investigating, but is out of scope here. Reference infrastructure In this complex environment, it is assumed that there is not a single infrastructure for all countries and all sites.  It's more likely that different countries (or regions) could have their own solution for infrastructure.  In this case, it will be advantageous to define a reference infrastructure which contains all the hardware and software that make up the core environment.  Specifications and diagrams should be created to outline what this reference infrastructure looks like, as well as it's baseline cost and the incremental cost to scale up with volume.  Having some consistency in terms of infrastructure will save time and money as new countries / sites come online.  Here are some properties of the reference infrastructure: Standardized approach to setup of hardware Type and number of servers Defines application server, operating system, database, etc... - including vendor and specific versions Consistent naming conventions Provides a consistent base of terminology and understanding across environments Defines which ATG services run on which servers Production Staging BCC / Preview Each site can change as required to meet scale requirements Governance / organization It should be no surprise that the complex application we're talking about is backed by an equally complex organization.  One of the more challenging aspects of efficiently managing a series of complex applications is to ensure the proper level of governance and organization.  Here are some ideas and goals to work towards: Establish a committee to make enterprise-wide decisions that affect all sites Representation should be evenly distributed Should have a clear communication procedure Focus on high level business goals Evaluation of feature / function gaps and how that relates to ATG release schedule / roadmap Determine when to upgrade & ensure value will be realized Determine how to manage various levels of modules Who is responsible for maintaining corporate / country / site layers Determine a procedure for controlling what goes in the corporate foundation module Standardize on source code control, database, hardware, OS versions, J2EE app servers, development procedures, etc only use tested / proven versions - this is something that should be centralized so that every country / site does not have to worry about compatibility between versions Create a innovation team Quickly develop new features, perform proof of concepts All teams can benefit from their findings Summary At this point, it should be clear why the topics above (design, governance, organization, etc) are critical to being able to efficiently manage a complex application.  To summarize, it's all about competitive advantage...  You will need to reduce costs and improve time to market with the goal of providing a better experience for your end customers.  You can reduce cost by reducing development time, time allocated to testing (don't have to test the corporate foundation module over and over again - do it once), and optimizing operations.  With an efficient design, you can improve your time to market and your business will be more flexible  and agile.  Over time, you'll find that you're becoming more focused on offering functionality that is new to the market (creativity) and this will be rewarded - you're now a leader. In addition to the above, you'll realize soft benefits as well.  Your staff will be operating in a culture based on sharing.  You'll want to reward efforts to improve and enhance the foundation as this will benefit everyone.  This culture will inspire innovation, which can only lend itself to your competitive advantage.

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• Should I be an algorithm developer, or java web frameworks type developer?

  - by Derek

  So - as I see it, there are really two kinds of developers. Those that do frameworks, web services, pretty-making front ends, etc etc. Then there are developers that write the algorithms that solve the problem. That is, unless the problem is "display this raw data in some meaningful way." In that case, the framework/web developer guy might be doing both jobs. So my basic problem is this. I have been an algorithms kind of software developer for a few years now. I double majored in Math and Computer science, and I have a master's in systems engineering. I have never done any web-dev work, with the exception of a couple minor jobs, and some hobby level stuff. I have been job interviewing lately, and this is what happens: Job is listed as "programmer- 5 years of experience with the following: C/C++, Java,Perl, Ruby, ant, blah blah blah" Recruiter calls me, says they want me to come in for interview In the interview, find out they have some webservices development, blah blah blah When asked in the interview, talk about my experience doing algorithms, optimization, blah blah..but very willing to learn new languages, frameworks, etc Get a call back saying "we didn't think you were a fit for the job you interviewed wtih, but our algorithm team got wind of you and wants to bring you on" This has happened to me a couple times now - see a vague-ish job description looking for a "programmer" Go in, find out they are doing some sort of web-based tool, maybe with some hardcore algorithms running in the background. interview with people for the web-based tool, but get an offer from the algorithms people. So the question is - which job is the better job? I basically just want to get a wide berth of experience at this level of my career, but are algorithm developers so much in demand? Even more so than all these supposed hot in demand web developer guys? Will I be ok in the long run if I go into the niche of math based algorithm development, and just little to no, or hobby level web-dev experience? I basically just don't want to pigeon hole myself this early. My salary is already starting to get pretty high - and I can see a company later on saying "we really need a web developer, but we'll hire this 50k/year college guy, instead of this 100k/year experience algorithm guy" Cliffs notes: I have been doing algorithm development. I consider myself to be a "good programmer." I would have no problem picking up web technologies and those sorts of frameworks. During job interviews, I keep getting "we think you've got a good skillset - talk to our algorithm team" instead of wanting me to learn new skills on the job to do their web services or whhatever other new technology they are doing. Edit: Whenever I am talking about algorithm development here - I am talking about the code that produces the answer. Typically I think of more math-based algorithms: solving a financial problem, solving a finite element method, image processing, etc

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• Torchlight Black Screen and doesn't show up

  - by Lelouch Reyiz

  When I open it in full screen I get a black screen that covers whole screen,in windowed mode middle of screen.Here is a video: https://copy.com/fvrGw7QIJ8Z0 Terminal Output: alperen@alperen-Inspiron-N5010 /usr/local/games/Torchlight $ ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64 Creating resource group General Creating resource group Internal Creating resource group Autodetect SceneManagerFactory for type 'DefaultSceneManager' registered. Registering ResourceManager for type Material Registering ResourceManager for type Mesh Registering ResourceManager for type Skeleton MovableObjectFactory for type 'ParticleSystem' registered. OverlayElementFactory for type Panel registered. OverlayElementFactory for type BorderPanel registered. OverlayElementFactory for type TextArea registered. Registering ResourceManager for type Font ArchiveFactory for archive type FileSystem registered. ArchiveFactory for archive type Zip registered. FreeImage version: 3.13.1 This program uses FreeImage, a free, open source image library supporting all common bitmap formats. See http://freeimage.sourceforge.net for details Supported formats: bmp,ico,jpg,jif,jpeg,jpe,jng,koa,iff,lbm,mng,pbm,pbm,pcd,pcx,pgm,pgm,png,ppm,ppm,ras,tga,targa,tif,tiff,wap,wbmp,wbm,psd,cut,xbm,xpm,gif,hdr,g3,sgi,exr,j2k,j2c,jp2,pfm,pct,pict,pic,bay,bmq,cr2,crw,cs1,dc2,dcr,dng,erf,fff,hdr,k25,kdc,mdc,mos,mrw,nef,orf,pef,pxn,raf,raw,rdc,sr2,srf,arw,3fr,cine,ia,kc2,mef,nrw,qtk,rw2,sti,drf,dsc,ptx,cap,iiq,rwz DDS codec registering Registering ResourceManager for type HighLevelGpuProgram Registering ResourceManager for type Compositor MovableObjectFactory for type 'Entity' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'Light' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'BillboardSet' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'ManualObject' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'BillboardChain' registered. MovableObjectFactory for type 'RibbonTrail' registered. Loading library lib64/OGRE/RenderSystem_GL Installing plugin: GL RenderSystem OpenGL Rendering Subsystem created. Plugin successfully installed Loading library lib64/OGRE/Plugin_ParticleFX Installing plugin: ParticleFX Particle Emitter Type 'Point' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Box' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Ellipsoid' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Cylinder' registered Particle Emitter Type 'Ring' registered Particle Emitter Type 'HollowEllipsoid' registered Particle Affector Type 'LinearForce' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourFader' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourFader2' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourImage' registered Particle Affector Type 'ColourInterpolator' registered Particle Affector Type 'Scaler' registered Particle Affector Type 'Rotator' registered Particle Affector Type 'DirectionRandomiser' registered Particle Affector Type 'DeflectorPlane' registered Plugin successfully installed Loading library lib64/OGRE/Plugin_OctreeSceneManager Installing plugin: Octree & Terrain Scene Manager Plugin successfully installed *-*-* OGRE Initialising *-*-* Version 1.6.5 (Shoggoth) terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::out_of_range' what(): basic_string::substr Error: signal: 6 ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN10LinuxUtils13crash_handlerEi+0x25)[0x17eb6f5] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(+0x37000)[0x7fc647877000] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(gsignal+0x39)[0x7fc647876f89] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(abort+0x148)[0x7fc64787a398] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(_ZN9__gnu_cxx27__verbose_terminate_handlerEv+0x155)[0x7fc6481826b5] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0x5e836)[0x7fc648180836] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0x5e863)[0x7fc648180863] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0x5eaa2)[0x7fc648180aa2] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(_ZSt20__throw_out_of_rangePKc+0x67)[0x7fc6481d25d7] /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6(+0xbe3d3)[0x7fc6481e03d3] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN11CFileSystem21buildMassiveDataGroupEv+0x453)[0x1617805] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN11CFileSystemC1Eb+0x14be)[0x16145ae] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN22CMasterResourceManagerC1EP9CSettings+0x41a)[0xfe1d0a] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN5CGame5setupEb+0x79a)[0x73ceaa] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(_ZN5CGame5beginEPv+0x28d)[0x73b839] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64(main+0x649)[0x146dbe4] /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xf5)[0x7fc647861ec5] ./Torchlight.bin.x86_64[0x739ca9]

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• Allocating Entities within an Entity System

  - by miguel.martin

  I'm quite unsure how I should allocate/resemble my entities within my entity system. I have various options, but most of them seem to have cons associated with them. In all cases entities are resembled by an ID (integer), and possibly has a wrapper class associated with it. This wrapper class has methods to add/remove components to/from the entity. Before I mention the options, here is the basic structure of my entity system: Entity An object that describes an object within the game Component Used to store data for the entity System Contains entities with specific components Used to update entities with specific components World Contains entities and systems for the entity system Can create/destroy entites and have systems added/removed from/to it Here are my options, that I have thought of: Option 1: Do not store the Entity wrapper classes, and just store the next ID/deleted IDs. In other words, entities will be returned by value, like so: Entity entity = world.createEntity(); This is much like entityx, except I see some flaws in this design. Cons There can be duplicate entity wrapper classes (as the copy-ctor has to be implemented, and systems need to contain entities) If an Entity is destroyed, the duplicate entity wrapper classes will not have an updated value Option 2: Store the entity wrapper classes within an object pool. i.e. Entities will be return by pointer/reference, like so: Entity& e = world.createEntity(); Cons If there is duplicate entities, then when an entity is destroyed, the same entity object may be re-used to allocate another entity. Option 3: Use raw IDs, and forget about the wrapper entity classes. The downfall to this, I think, is the syntax that will be required for it. I'm thinking about doing thisas it seems the most simple & easy to implement it. I'm quite unsure about it, because of the syntax. i.e. To add a component with this design, it would look like: Entity e = world.createEntity(); world.addComponent<Position>(e, 0, 3); As apposed to this: Entity e = world.createEntity(); e.addComponent<Position>(0, 3); Cons Syntax Duplicate IDs

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• Is there an appropriate coding style for implementing an algorithm during an interview?

  - by GlenPeterson

  I failed an interview question in C years ago about converting hex to decimal by not exploiting the ASCII table if (inputDigitByte > 9) hex = inputDigitByte - 'a'. The rise of Unicode has made this question pretty silly, but the point was that the interviewer valued raw execution speed above readability and error handling. They tell you to review algorithms textbooks to prepare for these interviews, yet these same textbooks tend to favor the implementation with the fewest lines of code, even if it has to rely on magic numbers (like "infinity") and a slower, more memory-intensive implementation (like a linked list instead of an array) to do that. I don't know what is right. Coding an algorithm within the space of an interview has at least 3 constraints: time to code, elegance/readability, and efficiency of execution. What trade-offs are appropriate for interview code? How much do you follow the textbook definition of an algorithm? Is it better to eliminate recursion, unroll loops, and use arrays for efficiency? Or is it better to use recursion and special values like "infinity" or Integer.MAX_VALUE to reduce the number of lines of code needed to write the algorithm? Interface: Make a very self-contained, bullet-proof interface, or sloppy and fast? On the one extreme, the array to be sorted might be a public static variable. On the other extreme, it might need to be passed to each method, allowing methods to be called individually from different threads for different purposes. Is it appropriate to use a linked-list data structure for items that are traversed in one direction vs. using arrays and doubling the size when the array is full? Implementing a singly-linked list during the interview is often much faster to code and easier remember for recursive algorithms like MergeSort. Thread safety - just document that it's unsafe, or say so verbally? How much should the interviewee be looking for opportunities for parallel processing? Is bit shifting appropriate? x / 2 or x >> 1 Polymorphism, type safety, and generics? Comments? Variable and method names: qs(a, p, q, r) vs: quickSort(theArray, minIdx, partIdx, maxIdx) How much should you use existing APIs? Obviously you can't use a java.util.HashMap to implement a hash-table, but what about using a java.util.List to accumulate your sorted results? Are there any guiding principals that would answer these and other questions, or is the guiding principal to ask the interviewer? Or maybe this should be the basis of a discussion while writing the code? If an interviewer can't or won't answer one of these questions, are there any tips for coaxing the information out of them?

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• Five Key Strategies in Master Data Management

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Here is a very interesting Profit Magazine article on MDM: A recent customer survey reveals the deleterious effects of data fragmentation. by Trevor Naidoo, December 2010   Across industries and geographies, IT organizations have grown in complexity, whether due to mergers and acquisitions, or decentralized systems supporting functional or departmental requirements. With systems architected over time to support unique, one-off process needs, they are becoming costly to maintain, and the Internet has only further added to the complexity. Data fragmentation has become a key inhibitor in delivering flexible, user-friendly systems. The Oracle Insight team conducted a survey assessing customers' master data management (MDM) capabilities over the past two years to get a sense of where they are in terms of their capabilities. The responses, by 27 respondents from six different industries, reveal five key areas in which customers need to improve their data management in order to get better financial results. 1. Less than 15 percent of organizations surveyed understand the sources and quality of their master data, and have a roadmap to address missing data domains. Examples of the types of master data domains referred to are customer, supplier, product, financial and site. Many organizations have multiple sources of master data with varying degrees of data quality in each source -- customer data stored in the customer relationship management system is inconsistent with customer data stored in the order management system. Imagine not knowing how many places you stored your customer information, and whether a customer's address was the most up to date in each source. In fact, more than 55 percent of the respondents in the survey manage their data quality on an ad-hoc basis. It is important for organizations to document their inventory of data sources and then profile these data sources to ensure that there is a consistent definition of key data entities throughout the organization. Some questions to ask are: How do we define a customer? What is a product? How do we define a site? The goal is to strive for one common repository for master data that acts as a cross reference for all other sources and ensures consistent, high-quality master data throughout the organization. 2. Only 18 percent of respondents have an enterprise data management strategy to ensure that data is treated as an asset to the organization. Most respondents handle data at the department or functional level and do not have an enterprise view of their master data. The sales department may track all their interactions with customers as they move through the sales cycle, the service department is tracking their interactions with the same customers independently, and the finance department also has a different perspective on the same customer. The salesperson may not be aware that the customer she is trying to sell to is experiencing issues with existing products purchased, or that the customer is behind on previous invoices. The lack of a data strategy makes it difficult for business users to turn data into information via reports. Without the key building blocks in place, it is difficult to create key linkages between customer, product, site, supplier and financial data. These linkages make it possible to understand patterns. A well-defined data management strategy is aligned to the business strategy and helps create the governance needed to ensure that data stewardship is in place and data integrity is intact. 3. Almost 60 percent of respondents have no strategy to integrate data across operational applications. Many respondents have several disparate sources of data with no strategy to keep them in sync with each other. Even though there is no clear strategy to integrate the data (see #2 above), the data needs to be synced and cross-referenced to keep the business processes running. About 55 percent of respondents said they perform this integration on an ad hoc basis, and in many cases, it is done manually with the help of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. For example, a salesperson needs a report on global sales for a specific product, but the product has different product numbers in different countries. Typically, an analyst will pull all the data into Excel, manually create a cross reference for that product, and then aggregate the sales. The exact same procedure has to be followed if the same report is needed the following month. A well-defined consolidation strategy will ensure that a central cross-reference is maintained with updates in any one application being propagated to all the other systems, so that data is synchronized and up to date. This can be done in real time or in batch mode using integration technology. 4. Approximately 50 percent of respondents spend manual efforts cleansing and normalizing data. Information stored in various systems usually follows different standards and formats, making it difficult to match the data. A customer's address can be stored in different ways using a variety of abbreviations -- for example, "av" or "ave" for avenue. Similarly, a product's attributes can be stored in a number of different ways; for example, a size attribute can be stored in inches and can also be entered as "'' ". These types of variations make it difficult to match up data from different sources. Today, most customers rely on manual, heroic efforts to match, cleanse, and de-duplicate data -- clearly not a scalable, sustainable model. To solve this challenge, organizations need the ability to standardize data for customers, products, sites, suppliers and financial accounts; however, less than 10 percent of respondents have technology in place to automatically resolve duplicates. It is no wonder, therefore, that we get communications about products we don't own, at addresses we don't reside, and using channels (like direct mail) we don't like. An all-too-common example of a potential challenge follows: Customers end up receiving duplicate communications, which not only impacts customer satisfaction, but also incurs additional mailing costs. Cleansing, normalizing, and standardizing data will help address most of these issues. 5. Only 10 percent of respondents have the ability to share data that was mastered in a master data hub. Close to 60 percent of respondents have efforts in place that profile, standardize and cleanse data manually, and the output of these efforts are stored in spreadsheets in various parts of the organization. This valuable information is not easily shared with the rest of the organization and, more importantly, this enriched information cannot be sent back to the source systems so that the data is fixed at the source. A key benefit of a master data management strategy is not only to clean the data, but to also share the data back to the source systems as well as other systems that need the information. Aside from the source systems, another key beneficiary of this data is the business intelligence system. Having clean master data as input to business intelligence systems provides more accurate and enhanced reporting.  Characteristics of Stellar MDM When deciding on the right master data management technology, organizations should look for solutions that have four main characteristics: enterprise-grade MDM performance complete technology that can be rapidly deployed and addresses multiple business issues end-to-end MDM process management with data quality monitoring and assurance pre-built MDM business relevant applications with data stores and workflows These master data management capabilities will aid in moving closer to a best-practice maturity level, delivering tremendous efficiencies and savings as well as revenue growth opportunities as a result of better understanding your customers.  Trevor Naidoo is a senior director in Industry Strategy and Insight at Oracle. 

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, August 03, 2014

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, August 03, 2014Popular ReleasesBoxStarter: Boxstarter 2.4.76: Running the Setup.bat file will install Chocolatey if not present and then install the Boxstarter modules.GMare: GMare Beta 1.2: Features Added: - Instance painting by holding the alt key down while pressing the left mouse button - Functionality to the binary exporter so that backgrounds from image files can be used - On the binary exporter background information can be edited manually now - Update to the GMare binary read GML script - Game Maker Studio export - Import from GMare project. Multiple options to import desired properties of a .gmpx - 10 undo/redo levels instead of 5 is now the default - New preferences dia...Json.NET: Json.NET 6.0 Release 4: New feature - Added Merge to LINQ to JSON New feature - Added JValue.CreateNull and JValue.CreateUndefined New feature - Added Windows Phone 8.1 support to .NET 4.0 portable assembly New feature - Added OverrideCreator to JsonObjectContract New feature - Added support for overriding the creation of interfaces and abstract types New feature - Added support for reading UUID BSON binary values as a Guid New feature - Added MetadataPropertyHandling.Ignore New feature - Improv...SQL Server Dialog: SQL Server Dialog: Input server, user and password Show folder and file in treeview Customize icon Filter file extension Skip system generate folder and fileAitso-a platform for spatial optimization and based on artificial immune systems: Aitso_0.14.08.01: Aitso0.14.08.01Installer.zipVidCoder: 1.5.24 Beta: Added NL-Means denoiser. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 6254. Added extra error handling to DVD player code to avoid a crash when the player was moved.AutoUpdater.NET : Auto update library for VB.NET and C# Developer: AutoUpdater.NET 1.3: Fixed problem in DownloadUpdateDialog where download continues even if you close the dialog. Added support for new url field for 64 bit application setup. AutoUpdater.NET will decide which download url to use by looking at the value of IntPtr.Size. Added German translation provided by Rene Kannegiesser. Now developer can handle update logic herself using event suggested by ricorx7. Added italian translation provided by Gianluca Mariani. Fixed bug that prevents Application from exiti...SEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.041.012 Release 1: Added voxel material textures to read in with mods. Fixed missing texture replacements for mods. Fixed rounding issue in raytrace code. Fixed repair issue with corrupt checkpoint file. Fixed issue with updated SE binaries 01.041.012 using new container configuration.Magick.NET: Magick.NET 6.8.9.601: Magick.NET linked with ImageMagick 6.8.9.6 Breaking changes: - Changed arguments for the Map method of MagickImage. - QuantizeSettings uses Riemersma by default.Multiple Threads TCP Server: Project: this Project is based on VS 2013, .net freamwork 4.0, you can open it by vs 2010 or laterAricie Shared: Aricie.Shared Version 1.8.00: Version 1.8.0 - Release Notes New: Expression Builder to design Flee Expressions New: Cryptographic helpers and configuration classes Improvement: Many fixes and improvements with property editor Improvement: Token Replace Property explorer now has a restricted mode for additional security Improvement: Better variables, types and object manipulation Fixed: smart file and flee bugs Fixed: Removed Exception while trying to read unsuported files Improvement: several performance twe...Accesorios de sitios Torrent en Español para Synology Download Station: Pack de Torrents en Español 6.0.0: Agregado los módulos de DivXTotal, el módulo de búsqueda depende del de alojamiento para bajar las series Utiliza el rss: http://www.divxtotal.com/rss.php DbEntry.Net (Leafing Framework): DbEntry.Net 4.2: DbEntry.Net is a lightweight Object Relational Mapping (ORM) database access compnent for .Net 4.0+. It has clearly and easily programing interface for ORM and sql directly, and supoorted Access, Sql Server, MySql, SQLite, Firebird, PostgreSQL and Oracle. It also provide a Ruby On Rails style MVC framework. Asp.Net DataSource and a simple IoC. DbEntry.Net.v4.2.Setup.zip include the setup package. DbEntry.Net.v4.2.Src.zip include source files and unit tests. DbEntry.Net.v4.2.Samples.zip ...Azure Storage Explorer: Azure Storage Explorer 6 Preview 1: Welcome to Azure Storage Explorer 6 Preview 1 This is the first release of the latest Azure Storage Explorer, code-named Phoenix. What's New?Here are some important things to know about version 6: Open Source Now being run as a full open source project. Full source code on CodePlex. Collaboration encouraged! Updated Code Base Brand-new code base (WPF/C#/.NET 4.5) Visual Studio 2013 solution (previously VS2010) Uses the Task Parallel Library (TPL) for asynchronous background operat...Wsus Package Publisher: release v1.3.1407.29: Updated WPP to recognize the very latest console version. Some files was missing into the latest release of WPP which lead to crash when trying to make a custom update. Add a workaround to avoid clipboard modification when double-clicking on a label when creating a custom update. Add the ability to publish detectoids. (This feature is still in a BETA phase. Packages relying on these detectoids to determine which computers need to be updated, may apply to all computers).VG-Ripper & PG-Ripper: PG-Ripper 1.4.32: changes NEW: Added Support for 'ImgMega.com' links NEW: Added Support for 'ImgCandy.net' links NEW: Added Support for 'ImgPit.com' links NEW: Added Support for 'Img.yt' links FIXED: 'Radikal.ru' links FIXED: 'ImageTeam.org' links FIXED: 'ImgSee.com' links FIXED: 'Img.yt' linksAsp.Net MVC-4,Entity Framework and JQGrid Demo with Todo List WebApplication: Asp.Net MVC-4,Entity Framework and JQGrid Demo: Asp.Net MVC-4,Entity Framework and JQGrid Demo with simple Todo List WebApplication, Overview TodoList is a simple web application to create, store and modify Todo tasks to be maintained by the users, which comprises of following fields to the user (Task Name, Task Description, Severity, Target Date, Task Status). TodoList web application is created using MVC - 4 architecture, code-first Entity Framework (ORM) and Jqgrid for displaying the data.Waterfox: Waterfox 31.0 Portable: New features in Waterfox 31.0: Added support for Unicode 7.0 Experimental support for WebCL New features in Firefox 31.0:New Add the search field to the new tab page Support of Prefer:Safe http header for parental control mozilla::pkix as default certificate verifier Block malware from downloaded files Block malware from downloaded files audio/video .ogg and .pdf files handled by Firefox if no application specified Changed Removal of the CAPS infrastructure for specifying site-sp...SuperSocket, an extensible socket server framework: SuperSocket 1.6.3: The changes below are included in this release: fixed an exception when collect a server's status but it has been stopped fixed a bug that can cause an exception in case of sending data when the connection dropped already fixed the log4net missing issue for a QuickStart project fixed a warning in a QuickStart projectYnote Classic: Ynote Classic 2.8.5 Beta: Several Changes - Multiple Carets and Multiple Selections - Improved Startup Time - Improved Syntax Highlighting - Search Improvements - Shell Command - Improved StabilityNew ProjectsCreek: Creek is a Collection of many C# Frameworks and my ownSpeaking Speedometer (android): Simple speaking speedometerT125Protocol { Alpha version }: implement T125 Protocol for communicate with a mainframe.Unix Time: This library provides a System.UnixTime as a new Type providing conversion between Unix Time and .NET DateTime.

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• Virtual Lab part 2&ndash;Templates, Patterns, Baselines

  - by Geoff N. Hiten

  Once you have a good virtualization platform chosen, whether it is a desktop, server or laptop environment, the temptation is to build “X”.  “X” may be a SharePoint lab, a Virtual Cluster, an AD test environment or some other cool project that you really need RIGHT NOW.  That would be doing it wrong. My grandfather taught woodworking and cabinetmaking for twenty-seven years at a trade school in Alabama.  He was the first instructor hired at that school and the only teacher for the first two years.  His students built tables, chairs, and workbenches so the school could start its HVAC courses.   Visiting as a child, I also noticed many extra “helper” stands, benches, holders, and gadgets all built from wood.  What does that have to do with a virtual lab, you ask?  Well, that is the same approach you should take.  Build stuff that you will use.  Not for solving a particular problem, but to let the Virtual Lab be part of your normal troubleshooting toolkit. Start with basic copies of various Operating Systems.  Load and patch server and desktop OS environments.  This also helps build your collection of ISO files, another essential element of a virtual Lab.  Once you have these “baseline” images, you can use your Virtualization software’s snapshot capability to freeze the image.  Clone the snapshot and you have a brand new fully patched machine in mere moments.  You may have to sysprep some of the Microsoft OS environments if you are going to create a domain environment or experiment with clustering.  That is still much faster than loading and patching from scratch. So once you have a stock of raw materials (baseline images in this case) where should you start.  Again, my grandfather’s workshop gives us the answer.  In the shop it was workbenches and tables to hold large workpieces that made the equipment more useful.  In a Windows environment the same role falls to the fundamental network services:  DHCP, DNS, Active Directory, Routing, File Services, and Storage services.  Plan your internal network setup.  Build out an AD controller with all the features listed.  Make the actual domain an isolated domain so it will not care about where you take it.  Add the Microsoft iSCSI target.  Once you have this single system, you can leverage it for almost any network environment beyond a simple stand-alone system. Having these templates and fundamental infrastructure elements ready to run means I can build a quick lab in minutes instead of hours.  My solutions are well-tested, my processes fully documented with screenshots, and my plans validated well before I have to make any changes to client systems.  the work I put in is easily returned in increased value and client satisfaction.

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• ApiChange Is Released!

  - by Alois Kraus

  I have been working on little tool to simplify my life and perhaps yours as developer as well. It is basically a command line tool that allows you to execute queries on your compiled .NET code base. The main purpose is to find out how big the impact of an api change would be if you changed this or that.  Now you can do high level operations like Diff public types for breaking changes. Who uses a method? Who uses a type? Who uses implements an interface? Who references me? What format has the binary  (32/64, Managed C++, Pure IL, Unmanaged)? Search for all event subscribers and unsubscribers. A unique feature is to check for event subscription imbalances. Forgotten event subscriptions are the 90% cause of managed memory leaks. It is done at a per class level. If one class does subscribe to one event more often than it does unsubscribe it is treated as possible event subscription imbalance. Another unique ability is to search for users of string literals which allows you to track users of a string constant which is not possible otherwise. For incremental builds the ShowRebuildTargets command can be used to identify the dependant targets that need a rebuild after you did compile one assembly. It has some heuristics in place to determine the impact of breaking changes and finds out which targets need to be recompiled as well. It has a ton of other features and a an API to access these things programmatically so you can build upon these simple queries create even better tools. Perhaps we get a Visual Studio plug in? You can download it from CodePlex here. It works via XCopy deployment. Simply let it run and check the command line help out. The best feature in my opinion is that the output of nearly all commands can be piped to Excel for further analysis. Since it does read also the pdbs it can show you the source file name and line number as well for all matches. The following picture shows the output of a –WhousesType query. The following command checks where type from BaseLibraryV1.dll are used inside DependantLibV1.dll. All matches are printed out with the reason and matching item along with file and line number. There is even a hyper link to the match which will open Visual Studio. ApiChange -whousestype "*" BaseLibraryV1.dll -in DependantLibV1.dll –excel The "*” is the actual query which means all types. The syntax is the same like in C# just that placeholders are allowed ;-). More info's can be found at the Codeplex Documentation.     The tool was developed in a TDD style manner which means that it is heavily tested and already used by a quite large user base inside the company I do work for. Luckily for you I got the permission to make it public so you take advantage of it. It is fully instrumented with tracing. If you find bugs simply add the –trace command line switch to find out what is failing and send me the output. How is it done? Your first guess might be that it uses reflection. Wrong. It is based on Mono Cecil a free IL parser with a fantastic API to access all internals of a managed assembly. The speed is awesome and to make it even faster I did make the tool heavily multi threaded. The query above did execute in 1.8s with the Excel output. On a rather slow machine I can analyze over 1500 assemblies in less than 40s with a very low memory consumption. The true power of Mono Cecil is that I can load an assembly like any other data file. I have no problems unloading a file but if I would have used reflection I would need to unload a whole AppDomain just to get rid of one assembly in my memory. Just to give you a glimpse how ApiChange.Api.dll can be used I show you one of the unit tests:           public void Can_Find_GenericMethodInvocations_With_Type_Parameters()         { // 1. Create an aggregator to collect our matches             UsageQueryAggregator agg = new UsageQueryAggregator();   // 2. This is the type we want to search for. Load it via the type query             var decimalType = TypeQuery.GetTypeByName(TestConstants.MscorlibAssembly, "System.Decimal");   // 3. register the type query which searches for uses of the Decimal type             new WhoUsesType(agg, decimalType);   // 4. Search for all users of the Decimal type in the DependandLibV1Assembly             agg.Analyze(TestConstants.DependandLibV1Assembly);   // Extract matches and assert             Assert.AreEqual(2, agg.MethodMatches.Count, "Method match count");             Assert.AreEqual("UseGenericMethod", agg.MethodMatches[0].Match.Name);             Assert.AreEqual("UseGenericMethod", agg.MethodMatches[1].Match.Name);         } Many thanks go from here to Jb Evian for the creation of Mono.Cecil. Without this fantastic piece of code it would have been much much harder. There are other options around like the Common Compiler Infrastructure  Metadata Api which should do the same thing but it was not a real option since the Microsoft reader did fail on even simple assemblies (at least in September 2009 this was the case). Besides this I found the CCI Apis much harder to use. The only real competitor was Reflector which does support many things but does not let me access his cool high level analyze commands. So I decided to dig into the IL specs and as a result you can query your compiled binaries from the command line or programmatically. The best thing is you try it out for yourself and give me some feedback what you miss. If you want to contribute or have a cool idea what should be added drop me a mail at A Kraus1@___No [email protected]. There is much more inside the tool I did not talk about it (yet).

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• How to get tens of millions of pages indexed by Google bot?

  - by Chris Adragna

  We are currently developing a site that currently has 8 million unique pages that will grow to about 20 million right away, and eventually to about 50 million or more. Before you criticize... Yes, it provides unique, useful content. We continually process raw data from public records and by doing some data scrubbing, entity rollups, and relationship mapping, we've been able to generate quality content, developing a site that's quite useful and also unique, in part due to the breadth of the data. It's PR is 0 (new domain, no links), and we're getting spidered at a rate of about 500 pages per day, putting us at about 30,000 pages indexed thus far. At this rate, it would take over 400 years to index all of our data. I have two questions: Is the rate of the indexing directly correlated to PR, and by that I mean is it correlated enough that by purchasing an old domain with good PR will get us to a workable indexing rate (in the neighborhood of 100,000 pages per day). Are there any SEO consultants who specialize in aiding the indexing process itself. We're otherwise doing very well with SEO, on-page especially, besides, the competition for our "long-tail" keyword phrases is pretty low, so our success hinges mostly on the number of pages indexed. Our main competitor has achieved approx 20MM pages indexed in just over one year's time, along with an Alexa 2000-ish ranking. Noteworthy qualities we have in place: page download speed is pretty good (250-500 ms) no errors (no 404 or 500 errors when getting spidered) we use Google webmaster tools and login daily friendly URLs in place I'm afraid to submit sitemaps. Some SEO community postings suggest a new site with millions of pages and no PR is suspicious. There is a Google video of Matt Cutts speaking of a staged on-boarding of large sites, too, in order to avoid increased scrutiny (at approx 2:30 in the video). Clickable site links deliver all pages, no more than four pages deep and typically no more than 250(-ish) internal links on a page. Anchor text for internal links is logical and adds relevance hierarchically to the data on the detail pages. We had previously set the crawl rate to the highest on webmaster tools (only about a page every two seconds, max). I recently turned it back to "let Google decide" which is what is advised.

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• parallel_for_each from amp.h – part 1

  - by Daniel Moth

  This posts assumes that you've read my other C++ AMP posts on index<N> and extent<N>, as well as about the restrict modifier. It also assumes you are familiar with C++ lambdas (if not, follow my links to C++ documentation). Basic structure and parameters Now we are ready for part 1 of the description of the new overload for the concurrency::parallel_for_each function. The basic new parallel_for_each method signature returns void and accepts two parameters: a grid<N> (think of it as an alias to extent) a restrict(direct3d) lambda, whose signature is such that it returns void and accepts an index of the same rank as the grid So it looks something like this (with generous returns for more palatable formatting) assuming we are dealing with a 2-dimensional space: // some_code_A parallel_for_each( g, // g is of type grid<2> [ ](index<2> idx) restrict(direct3d) { // kernel code } ); // some_code_B The parallel_for_each will execute the body of the lambda (which must have the restrict modifier), on the GPU. We also call the lambda body the "kernel". The kernel will be executed multiple times, once per scheduled GPU thread. The only difference in each execution is the value of the index object (aka as the GPU thread ID in this context) that gets passed to your kernel code. The number of GPU threads (and the values of each index) is determined by the grid object you pass, as described next. You know that grid is simply a wrapper on extent. In this context, one way to think about it is that the extent generates a number of index objects. So for the example above, if your grid was setup by some_code_A as follows: extent<2> e(2,3); grid<2> g(e); ...then given that: e.size()==6, e[0]==2, and e[1]=3 ...the six index<2> objects it generates (and hence the values that your lambda would receive) are:    (0,0) (1,0) (0,1) (1,1) (0,2) (1,2) So what the above means is that the lambda body with the algorithm that you wrote will get executed 6 times and the index<2> object you receive each time will have one of the values just listed above (of course, each one will only appear once, the order is indeterminate, and they are likely to call your code at the same exact time). Obviously, in real GPU programming, you'd typically be scheduling thousands if not millions of threads, not just 6. If you've been following along you should be thinking: "that is all fine and makes sense, but what can I do in the kernel since I passed nothing else meaningful to it, and it is not returning any values out to me?" Passing data in and out It is a good question, and in data parallel algorithms indeed you typically want to pass some data in, perform some operation, and then typically return some results out. The way you pass data into the kernel, is by capturing variables in the lambda (again, if you are not familiar with them, follow the links about C++ lambdas), and the way you use data after the kernel is done executing is simply by using those same variables. In the example above, the lambda was written in a fairly useless way with an empty capture list: [ ](index<2> idx) restrict(direct3d), where the empty square brackets means that no variables were captured. If instead I write it like this [&](index<2> idx) restrict(direct3d), then all variables in the some_code_A region are made available to the lambda by reference, but as soon as I try to use any of those variables in the lambda, I will receive a compiler error. This has to do with one of the direct3d restrictions, where only one type can be capture by reference: objects of the new concurrency::array class that I'll introduce in the next post (suffice for now to think of it as a container of data). If I write the lambda line like this [=](index<2> idx) restrict(direct3d), all variables in the some_code_A region are made available to the lambda by value. This works for some types (e.g. an integer), but not for all, as per the restrictions for direct3d. In particular, no useful data classes work except for one new type we introduce with C++ AMP: objects of the new concurrency::array_view class, that I'll introduce in the post after next. Also note that if you capture some variable by value, you could use it as input to your algorithm, but you wouldn’t be able to observe changes to it after the parallel_for_each call (e.g. in some_code_B region since it was passed by value) – the exception to this rule is the array_view since (as we'll see in a future post) it is a wrapper for data, not a container. Finally, for completeness, you can write your lambda, e.g. like this [av, &ar](index<2> idx) restrict(direct3d) where av is a variable of type array_view and ar is a variable of type array - the point being you can be very specific about what variables you capture and how. So it looks like from a large data perspective you can only capture array and array_view objects in the lambda (that is how you pass data to your kernel) and then use the many threads that call your code (each with a unique index) to perform some operation. You can also capture some limited types by value, as input only. When the last thread completes execution of your lambda, the data in the array_view or array are ready to be used in the some_code_B region. We'll talk more about all this in future posts… (a)synchronous Please note that the parallel_for_each executes as if synchronous to the calling code, but in reality, it is asynchronous. I.e. once the parallel_for_each call is made and the kernel has been passed to the runtime, the some_code_B region continues to execute immediately by the CPU thread, while in parallel the kernel is executed by the GPU threads. However, if you try to access the (array or array_view) data that you captured in the lambda in the some_code_B region, your code will block until the results become available. Hence the correct statement: the parallel_for_each is as-if synchronous in terms of visible side-effects, but asynchronous in reality.   That's all for now, we'll revisit the parallel_for_each description, once we introduce properly array and array_view – coming next. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Dealing with coworkers when developing, need advice [closed]

  - by Yippie-Kai-Yay

  I developed our current project architecture and started developing it on my own (reaching something like, revision 40). We're developing a simple subway routing framework and my design seemed to be done extremely well - several main models, corresponding views, main logic and data structures were modeled "as they should be" and fully separated from rendering, algorithmic part was also implemented apart from the main models and had a minor number of intersection points. I would call that design scalable, customizable, easy-to-implement, interacting mostly based on the "black box interaction" and, well, very nice. Now, what was done: I started some implementations of the corresponding interfaces, ported some convenient libraries and wrote implementation stubs for some application parts. I had the document describing coding style and examples of that coding style usage (my own written code). I forced the usage of more or less modern C++ development techniques, including no-delete code (wrapped via smart pointers) and etc. I documented the purpose of concrete interface implementations and how they should be used. Unit tests (mostly, integration tests, because there wasn't a lot of "actual" code) and a set of mocks for all the core abstractions. I was absent for 12 days. What do we have now (the project was developed by 4 other members of the team): 3 different coding styles all over the project (I guess, two of them agreed to use the same style :), same applies to the naming of our abstractions (e.g CommonPathData.h, SubwaySchemeStructures.h), which are basically headers declaring some data structures. Absolute lack of documentation for the recently implemented parts. What I could recently call a single-purpose-abstraction now handles at least 2 different types of events, has tight coupling with other parts and so on. Half of the used interfaces now contain member variables (sic!). Raw pointer usage almost everywhere. Unit tests disabled, because "(Rev.57) They are unnecessary for this project". ... (that's probably not everything). Commit history shows that my design was interpreted as an overkill and people started combining it with personal bicycles and reimplemented wheels and then had problems integrating code chunks. Now - the project still does only a small amount of what it has to do, we have severe integration problems, I assume some memory leaks. Is there anything possible to do in this case? I do realize that all my efforts didn't have any benefit, but the deadline is pretty soon and we have to do something. Did someone have a similar situation? Basically I thought that a good (well, I did everything that I could) start for the project would probably lead to something nice, however, I understand that I'm wrong. Any advice would be appreciated, sorry for my bad english.

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• Computer Networks UNISA - Chap 10 &ndash; In Depth TCP/IP Networking

  - by MarkPearl

  After reading this section you should be able to Understand methods of network design unique to TCP/IP networks, including subnetting, CIDR, and address translation Explain the differences between public and private TCP/IP networks Describe protocols used between mail clients and mail servers, including SMTP, POP3, and IMAP4 Employ multiple TCP/IP utilities for network discovery and troubleshooting Designing TCP/IP-Based Networks The following sections explain how network and host information in an IPv4 address can be manipulated to subdivide networks into smaller segments. Subnetting Subnetting separates a network into multiple logically defined segments, or subnets. Networks are commonly subnetted according to geographic locations, departmental boundaries, or technology types. A network administrator might separate traffic to accomplish the following… Enhance security Improve performance Simplify troubleshooting The challenges of Classful Addressing in IPv4 (No subnetting) The simplest type of IPv4 is known as classful addressing (which was the Class A, Class B & Class C network addresses). Classful addressing has the following limitations. Restriction in the number of usable IPv4 addresses (class C would be limited to 254 addresses) Difficult to separate traffic from various parts of a network Because of the above reasons, subnetting was introduced. IPv4 Subnet Masks Subnetting depends on the use of subnet masks to identify how a network is subdivided. A subnet mask indicates where network information is located in an IPv4 address. The 1 in a subnet mask indicates that corresponding bits in the IPv4 address contain network information (likewise 0 indicates the opposite) Each network class is associated with a default subnet mask… Class A = 255.0.0.0 Class B = 255.255.0.0 Class C = 255.255.255.0 An example of calculating  the network ID for a particular device with a subnet mask is shown below.. IP Address = 199.34.89.127 Subnet Mask = 255.255.255.0 Resultant Network ID = 199.34.89.0 IPv4 Subnetting Techniques Subnetting breaks the rules of classful IPv4 addressing. Read page 490 for a detailed explanation Calculating IPv4 Subnets Read page 491 – 494 for an explanation Important… Subnetting only applies to the devices internal to your network. Everything external looks at the class of the IP address instead of the subnet network ID. This way, traffic directed to your network externally still knows where to go, and once it has entered your internal network it can then be prioritized and segmented. CIDR (classless Interdomain Routing) CIDR is also known as classless routing or supernetting. In CIDR conventional network class distinctions do not exist, a subnet boundary can move to the left, therefore generating more usable IP addresses on your network. A subnet created by moving the subnet boundary to the left is known as a supernet. With CIDR also came new shorthand for denoting the position of subnet boundaries known as CIDR notation or slash notation. CIDR notation takes the form of the network ID followed by a forward slash (/) followed by the number of bits that are used for the extended network prefix. To take advantage of classless routing, your networks routers must be able to interpret IP addresses that don;t adhere to conventional network class parameters. Routers that rely on older routing protocols (i.e. RIP) are not capable of interpreting classless IP addresses. Internet Gateways Gateways are a combination of software and hardware that enable two different network segments to exchange data. A gateway facilitates communication between different networks or subnets. Because on device cannot send data directly to a device on another subnet, a gateway must intercede and hand off the information. Every device on a TCP/IP based network has a default gateway (a gateway that first interprets its outbound requests to other subnets, and then interprets its inbound requests from other subnets). The internet contains a vast number of routers and gateways. If each gateway had to track addressing information for every other gateway on the Internet, it would be overtaxed. Instead, each handles only a relatively small amount of addressing information, which it uses to forward data to another gateway that knows more about the data’s destination. The gateways that make up the internet backbone are called core gateways. Address Translation An organizations default gateway can also be used to “hide” the organizations internal IP addresses and keep them from being recognized on a public network. A public network is one that any user may access with little or no restrictions. On private networks, hiding IP addresses allows network managers more flexibility in assigning addresses. Clients behind a gateway may use any IP addressing scheme, regardless of whether it is recognized as legitimate by the Internet authorities but as soon as those devices need to go on the internet, they must have legitimate IP addresses to exchange data. When a clients transmission reaches the default gateway, the gateway opens the IP datagram and replaces the client’s private IP address with an Internet recognized IP address. This process is known as NAT (Network Address Translation). TCP/IP Mail Services All Internet mail services rely on the same principles of mail delivery, storage, and pickup, though they may use different types of software to accomplish these functions. Email servers and clients communicate through special TCP/IP application layer protocols. These protocols, all of which operate on a variety of operating systems are discussed below… SMTP (Simple Mail transfer Protocol) The protocol responsible for moving messages from one mail server to another over TCP/IP based networks. SMTP belongs to the application layer of the ODI model and relies on TCP as its transport protocol. Operates from port 25 on the SMTP server Simple sub-protocol, incapable of doing anything more than transporting mail or holding it in a queue MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) The standard message format specified by SMTP allows for lines that contain no more than 1000 ascii characters meaning if you relied solely on SMTP you would have very short messages and nothing like pictures included in an email. MIME us a standard for encoding and interpreting binary files, images, video, and non-ascii character sets within an email message. MIME identifies each element of a mail message according to content type. MIME does not replace SMTP but works in conjunction with it. Most modern email clients and servers support MIME POP (Post Office Protocol) POP is an application layer protocol used to retrieve messages from a mail server POP3 relies on TCP and operates over port 110 With POP3 mail is delivered and stored on a mail server until it is downloaded by a user Disadvantage of POP3 is that it typically does not allow users to save their messages on the server because of this IMAP is sometimes used IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) IMAP is a retrieval protocol that was developed as a more sophisticated alternative to POP3 The single biggest advantage IMAP4 has over POP3 is that users can store messages on the mail server, rather than having to continually download them Users can retrieve all or only a portion of any mail message Users can review their messages and delete them while the messages remain on the server Users can create sophisticated methods of organizing messages on the server Users can share a mailbox in a central location Disadvantages of IMAP are typically related to the fact that it requires more storage space on the server. Additional TCP/IP Utilities Nearly all TCP/IP utilities can be accessed from the command prompt on any type of server or client running TCP/IP. The syntaxt may differ depending on the OS of the client. Below is a list of additional TCP/IP utilities – research their use on your own! Ipconfig (Windows) & Ifconfig (Linux) Netstat Nbtstat Hostname, Host & Nslookup Dig (Linux) Whois (Linux) Traceroute (Tracert) Mtr (my traceroute) Route

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• Lambda&rsquo;s for .NET made easy&hellip;

  - by mbcrump

  The purpose of my blog is to explain things for a beginner to intermediate c# programmer. I’ve seen several blog post that use lambda expressions always assuming the audience is familiar with them. The purpose of this post is to make them simple and easily understood. Let’s begin with a definition. A lambda expression is an anonymous function that can contain expressions and statements, and can be used to create delegates or expression tree types. So anonymous function… delegates or expression tree types? I don’t get it??? Confused yet?   Lets break this into a few definitions and jump right into the code. anonymous function – is an "inline" statement or expression that can be used wherever a delegate type is expected. delegate - is a type that references a method. Once a delegate is assigned a method, it behaves exactly like that method. The delegate method can be used like any other method, with parameters and a return value. Expression trees - represent code in a tree-like data structure, where each node is an expression, for example, a method call or a binary operation such as x < y.   Don’t worry if this still sounds confusing, lets jump right into the code with a simple 3 line program. We are going to use a Function Delegate (all you need to remember is that this delegate returns a value.) Lambda expressions are used most commonly with the Func and Action delegates, so you will see an example of both of these. Lambda Expression 3 lines. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text;   namespace ConsoleApplication7 {     class Program     {          static void Main(string[] args)         {             Func<int, int> myfunc = x => x *x;             Console.WriteLine(myfunc(6).ToString());             Console.ReadLine();         }       } } Is equivalent to Old way of doing it. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text;   namespace ConsoleApplication7 {     class Program     {          static void Main(string[] args)         {               Console.WriteLine(myFunc(6).ToString());             Console.ReadLine();         }            static int myFunc(int x)          {              return x * x;            }       } } In the example, there is a single parameter, x, and the expression is x*x. I’m going to stop here to make sure you are still with me. A lambda expression is an unnamed method written in place of a delegate instance. In other words, the compiler converts the lambda expression to either a : A delegate instance An expression tree All lambda have the following form: (parameters) => expression or statement block Now look back to the ones we have created. It should start to sink in. Don’t get stuck on the => form, use it as an identifier of a lambda. A Lamba expression can also be written in the following form: Lambda Expression. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text;   namespace ConsoleApplication7 {     class Program     {          static void Main(string[] args)         {             Func<int, int> myFunc = x =>             {                 return x * x;             };               Console.WriteLine(myFunc(6).ToString());             Console.ReadLine();         }       } } This form may be easier to read but consumes more space. Lets try an Action delegate – this delegate does not return a value. Action Delegate example. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text;   namespace ConsoleApplication7 {     class Program     {          static void Main(string[] args)         {             Action<string> myAction = (string x) => { Console.WriteLine(x); };             myAction("michael has made this so easy");                                   Console.ReadLine();         }       } } Lambdas can also capture outer variables (such as the example below) A lambda expression can reference the local variables and parameters of the method in which it’s defined. Outer variables referenced by a lambda expression are called captured variables. Capturing Outer Variables using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text;   namespace ConsoleApplication7 {     class Program     {          static void Main(string[] args)         {             string mike = "Michael";             Action<string> myAction = (string x) => {                 Console.WriteLine("{0}{1}", mike, x);          };             myAction(" has made this so easy");                                   Console.ReadLine();         }       } } Lamba’s can also with a strongly typed list to loop through a collection.   Used w a strongly typed list. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text;   namespace ConsoleApplication7 {     class Program     {          static void Main(string[] args)         {             List<string> list = new List<string>() { "1", "2", "3", "4" };             list.ForEach(s => Console.WriteLine(s));             Console.ReadLine();         }       } } Outputs: 1 2 3 4 I think this will get you started with Lambda’s, as always consult the MSDN documentation for more information. Still confused? Hopefully you are not.

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• Workflow 4.5 is Awesome, cant wait for 5.0!

  - by JoshReuben

  About 2 years ago I wrote a blog post describing what I would like to see in Workflow vnext: http://geekswithblogs.net/JoshReuben/archive/2010/08/25/workflow-4.0---not-there-yet.aspx At the time WF 4.0 was a little rough around the edges – the State Machine was on codeplex and people were simulating state machines with Flowcharts. Last year I built a near- realtime machine management system using WF 4.0.1 – its managing the internal operations of this device: http://landanano.com/products/commercial   Well WF 4.5 has come a long way – many of my gripes have been addressed: C# expressions - no more VB 'AndAlso' clauses state machine awesomeness - can query current state many designer improvements - Document Outline is so much more succinct than Designer! Separate WCF Service Contract interfaces and ability to generate activities from contract operations ability to rehydrate to updated flow definitions via DynamicUpdateMap and WorkflowIdentity you can read about the new features here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh305677(VS.110).aspx   2013 could be the year of Workflow evangelism for .NET, as it comes together as the DSL language. Eg on Azure it could be used to graphically orchestrate between WebRoles, WorkerRoles and AppFabric Queues and the ServiceBus – that would be grand.   Here’s a list of things I’d like to see in Workflow 5.0: Stronger Parallelism support for true multithreaded workflows . A Workflow executes on a single thread – wouldn’t it be great if we had the ability to model TPL DataFlow? Parallel is not really parallel, just allows AsyncCodeActivity.     support for recursion an ExpressionTree activity with an editor design surface a math activity pack return of application level protocol (3.51 WF services) – automatically expose a state machine as a WCF service with bookmark Receive activities generated from OperationContract automatically placed in state transition triggers. A new HTML5 ActivityDesigner control – support with different CSS3  skinnable hooks,  remote connectivity (had to roll my own) A data flow view – crucial to understanding the big picture Ability to refactor a Sequence to custom activity in a separate .xaml file – like Expression Blend does for UserControl state machine global error handling - if all states goto an error state, you quickly get visual spagetti. Now you could nest a state machine, but what if you want an application level protocol whereby each state exposes certain WCF ops. DSL RAD editing - Make the Document Outline into a DSL editor for adding activities  – For WF to really succeed as a higher level of abstraction, It needs to be more productive than raw coding - drag & drop on the designer is currently too slow compared to just typing code. Extensible Wizard API - for pluggable WF editor experience other execution models beyond Sequence, Flowchart & StateMachine: SSIS, Behavior Trees,  Wolfram Model tool – surprise us! improvements to Designer debugging API - SourceLocation is tied to XAML file line number and char position, and ModelService access seems convoluted - why not leverage WPF LogicalTreeHelper / VisualTreeHelper ? Workflow Team , keep on rocking!

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• Start Time & Calculated Column Wonkiness in a SharePoint Event Calendar

  - by _zekeMouseOver

  I was creating some custom rollups on some of our event calendars and came across a very odd bug when trying to grab only the date component of the built-in Start Time field. One's first inclination will be to create a calculated column and give it the formula... =[Start Time]... and then assign its output type to be "Date Only." This works well until a user adds an All Day Event. For reasons unexplainable, the All Day Event flag causes your =[Start Time] to display the date minus one day. Here is an example of this in action:  Start Date and Time, Duration, Start Date Value and Start Day are all calculated fields. Notice how the Start Date and Time (=[Start Time]) is reporting 6:00PM of the previous day. The Start Date Value (=[Start Time] - Output Type: Number) confirms this (.75 = 6:00 PM.) Curiously enough, the Duration (=[End Time]-[Start Time]) is properly reporting the duration between 12:00AM and 11:59PM. Why? I don't know. Perhaps it's somehow bound to the regional settings on the site, but I'm not interested in changing a global site setting for the sake of one calculated field.With this information at our disposal, our calculated column to display the date part of the start date needs to be modified to add one day to the [Start Time] field if an All Day Event is selected. To determine this, we use the Duration above to assume the item is an all-day event and change our formula to be:=IF(TEXT(([End Time]-[Start Time])-TRUNC(([End Time]-[Start Time]),0),"0.000000000")="0.999305556",[Start Time] + 1, [Start Time])This will work, but what happens when the user de-selects the "All Day Event" checkbox? The duration stays the same, but all other values begin reporting the correct time: Since our formula above is strictly based on an expected duration, it will add one to the correct date, causing the date 5/11/2010 to appear. Notice though that the raw value of the start time (in this case) is a non-fractional number (40,308) whereas the all-day event was being represented as 6:00 PM (.75) of the previous day. We can use this to add one more nested branch of logic to our calculation:=IF(TEXT(([End Time]-[Start Time])-TRUNC(([End Time]-[Start Time]),0),"0.000000000")="0.999305556",IF([Start Time]=ROUND([Start Time],0),[Start Time],[Start Time]+1),[Start Time]) I feel somewhat... dirty about having to resort to this kind of calculation in what SHOULD have been a simple =[Start Time] to extract the date part of the Start Time field, but there you have it. Make sure to shower extra longer after having used it.

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• Getting Started with jqChart for ASP.NET Web Forms

  - by jqChart

  Official Site | Samples | Download | Documentation | Forum | Twitter Introduction jqChart takes advantages of HTML5 Canvas to deliver high performance client-side charts and graphs across browsers (IE 6+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari) and devices, including iOS and Android mobile devices. Some of the key features are: High performance rendering. Animaitons. Scrolling/Zoooming. Support for unlimited number of data series and data points. Support for unlimited number of chart axes. True DateTime Axis. Logarithmic and Reversed axis scale. Large set of chart types - Bar, Column, Pie, Line, Spline, Area, Scatter, Bubble, Radar, Polar. Financial Charts - Stock Chart and Candlestick Chart. The different chart types can be easily combined.  System Requirements Browser Support jqChart supports all major browsers: Internet Explorer - 6+ Firefox Google Chrome Opera Safari jQuery version support jQuery JavaScript framework is required. We recommend using the latest official stable version of the jQuery library. Visual Studio Support jqChart for ASP.NET does not require using Visual Studio. You can use your favourite code editor. Still, the product has been tested with several versions of Visual Studio .NET and you can find the list of supported versions below: Visual Studio 2008 Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio 2012 ASP.NET Web Forms support Supported version - ASP.NET Web Forms 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5 Installation Download and unzip the contents of the archive to any convenient location. The package contains the following folders: [bin] - Contains the assembly DLLs of the product (JQChart.Web.dll) for WebForms 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5. This is the assembly that you can reference directly in your web project (or better yet, add it to your ToolBox and then drag & drop it from there). [js] - The javascript files of jqChart and jqRangeSlider (and the needed libraries). You need to include them in your ASPX page, in order to gain the client side functionality of the chart. The first file is "jquery-1.5.1.min.js" - this is the official jQuery library. jqChart is built upon jQuery library version 1.4.3. The second file you need is the "excanvas.js" javascript file. It is used from the versions of IE, which dosn't support canvas graphics. The third is the jqChart javascript code itself, located in "jquery.jqChart.min.js". The last one is the jqRangeSlider javascript, located in "jquery.jqRangeSlider.min.js". It is used when the chart zooming is enabled. [css] - Contains the Css files that the jqChart and the jqRangeSlider need. [samples] - Contains some examples that use the jqChart. For full list of samples plese visit - jqChart for ASP.NET Samples. [themes] - Contains the themes shipped with the products. It is used from the jqRangeSlider. Since jqRangeSlider supports jQuery UI Themeroller, any theme compatible with jQuery UI ThemeRoller will work for jqRangeSlider as well. You can download any additional themes directly from jQuery UI's ThemeRoller site available here: http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/ or reference them from Microsoft's / Google's CDN. <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.ui/1.8.21/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css" /> The final result you will have in an ASPX page containing jqChart would be something similar to that (assuming you have copied the [js] to the Script folder and [css] to Content folder of your ASP.NET site respectively). <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="samples_cs.Default" %> <%@ Register Assembly="JQChart.Web" Namespace="JQChart.Web.UI.WebControls" TagPrefix="jqChart" %> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html > <head runat="server"> <title>jqChart ASP.NET Sample</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="~/Content/jquery.jqChart.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="~/Content/jquery.jqRangeSlider.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="~/Content/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui-1.8.21.css" /> <script src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/jquery-1.5.1.min.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/jquery.jqRangeSlider.min.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/jquery.jqChart.min.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> <!--[if IE]><script lang="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="<% = ResolveUrl("~/Scripts/excanvas.js") %>"></script><![endif]--> </head> <body> <form id="form1" runat="server"> <asp:ObjectDataSource ID="ObjectDataSource1" runat="server" SelectMethod="GetData" TypeName="SamplesBrowser.Models.ChartData"></asp:ObjectDataSource> <jqChart:Chart ID="Chart1" Width="500px" Height="300px" runat="server" DataSourceID="ObjectDataSource1"> <Title Text="Chart Title"></Title> <Animation Enabled="True" Duration="00:00:01" /> <Axes> <jqChart:CategoryAxis Location="Bottom" ZoomEnabled="true"> </jqChart:CategoryAxis> </Axes> <Series> <jqChart:ColumnSeries XValuesField="Label" YValuesField="Value1" Title="Column"> </jqChart:ColumnSeries> <jqChart:LineSeries XValuesField="Label" YValuesField="Value2" Title="Line"> </jqChart:LineSeries> </Series> </jqChart:Chart> </form> </body> </html>   Official Site | Samples | Download | Documentation | Forum | Twitter

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• Data Transformation Pipeline

  - by davenewza

  I have create some kind of data pipeline to transform coordinate data into more useful information. Here is the shell of pipeline: public class PositionPipeline { protected List<IPipelineComponent> components; public PositionPipeline() { components = new List<IPipelineComponent>(); } public PositionPipelineEntity Process(Position position) { foreach (var component in components) { position = component.Execute(position); } return position; } public PositionPipeline RegisterComponent(IPipelineComponent component) { components.Add(component); return this; } } Every IPipelineComponent accepts and returns the same type - a PositionPipelineEntity. Code: public interface IPipelineComponent { PositionPipelineEntity Execute(PositionPipelineEntity position); } The PositionPipelineEntity needs to have many properties, many which are unused in certain components and required in others. Some properties will also have become redundant at the end of the pipeline. For example, these components could be executed: TransformCoordinatesComponent: Parse the raw coordinate data into a Coordinate type. DetermineCountryComponent: Determine and stores country code. DetermineOnRoadComponent: Determine and store whether coordinate is on a road. Code: pipeline .RegisterComponent(new TransformCoordinatesComponent()) .RegisterComponent(new DetermineCountryComponent()) .RegisterComponent(new DetermineOnRoadComponent()); pipeline.Process(positionPipelineEntity); The PositionPipelineEntity type: public class PositionPipelineEntity { // Only relevant to the TransformCoordinatesComponent public decimal RawCoordinateLatitude { get; set; } // Only relevant to the TransformCoordinatesComponent public decimal RawCoordinateLongitude { get; set; } // Required by all components after TransformCoordinatesComponent public Coordinate CoordinateLatitude { get; set; } // Required by all components after TransformCoordinatesComponent public Coordinate CoordinateLongitude { get; set; } // Set in DetermineCountryComponent, not required anywhere. // Requires CoordinateLatitude and CoordinateLongitude (TransformCoordinatesComponent) public string CountryCode { get; set; } // Set in DetermineOnRoadComponent, not required anywhere. // Requires CoordinateLatitude and CoordinateLongitude (TransformCoordinatesComponent) public bool OnRoad { get; set; } } Problems: I'm very concerned about the dependency that a component has on properties. The way to solve this would be to create specific types for each component. The problem then is that I cannot chain them together like this. The other problem is the order of components in the pipeline matters. There is some dependency. The current structure does not provide any static or runtime checking for such a thing. Any feedback would be appreciated.

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• Best way to remote restart Ubuntu from Windows machine

  - by robsoft

  Background: I'm looking to put a series of Ubuntu machines into retail locations, they're being used as dumb kiosks to show a series of slides onto large LCD panel TV screens. Once installed, they won't have a keyboard or mouse connected but will have a fixed IP on the local network. Everything is configured to auto-start, no automatic updates, no power saving etc - I think we're pretty-much good to go apart from one thing. I need the retail staff to be able to restart the boxes if a problem arises. We have VNC running (now that we've turned off desktop enhancements!) so that we can remotely get into the machines if we need to, but that's not something we would allow the retail staff to do. The machines are going to be physically 'out of the way' (probably in the ceiling space) so the power button is not easily accessible!. I'd like to have some means of allowing the retail staff to restart the Ubuntu machine, from the desktop of one of their Windows terminals. I don't really want to give them some kind of raw terminal access (the command line will frighten them!) and I don't want them to use VNC (as stated above). Ideally there would be an icon on the Windows desktop, they double-click it, reply to a simple 'are you sure?' prompt, and then the Ubuntu box is told to restart. The Windows side of that won't be a problem, we can write something using Delphi, Python & Qt4, whatever - it's the Ubuntu side of it I'm stuck with. Out of sight/view, could I have a Windows program open a terminal across the network and tell Ubuntu to restart? Is this what SSH could be used for (I have never set that kind of thing up). The Windows programming side isn't really an issue, it's just that I'm a total Ubuntu noob and don't know where to start from the platform point of view. The other thing we considered is also having the machine automatically restart itself at a set time each day (obviously out of store hours!). To me, that seems a bit unnecessary (though forcing a restart once a week/month might be worthwhile). Any thoughts or suggestions? Being able to restart the box on demand across the network is my prime requirement.

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• Data Model Dissonance

  - by Tony Davis

  So often at the start of the development of database applications, there is a premature rush to the keyboard. Unless, before we get there, we’ve mapped out and agreed the three data models, the Conceptual, the Logical and the Physical, then the inevitable refactoring will dog development work. It pays to get the data models sorted out up-front, however ‘agile’ you profess to be. The hardest model to get right, the most misunderstood, and the one most neglected by the various modeling tools, is the conceptual data model, and yet it is critical to all that follows. The conceptual model distils what the business understands about itself, and the way it operates. It represents the business rules that govern the required data, its constraints and its properties. The conceptual model uses the terminology of the business and defines the most important entities and their inter-relationships. Don’t assume that the organization’s understanding of these business rules is consistent or accurate. Too often, one department has a subtly different understanding of what an entity means and what it stores, from another. If our conceptual data model fails to resolve such inconsistencies, it will reduce data quality. If we don’t collect and measure the raw data in a consistent way across the whole business, how can we hope to perform meaningful aggregation? The conceptual data model has more to do with business than technology, and as such, developers often regard it as a worthy but rather arcane ceremony like saluting the flag or only eating fish on Friday. However, the consequences of getting it wrong have a direct and painful impact on many aspects of the project. If you adopt a silo-based (a.k.a. Domain driven) approach to development), you are still likely to suffer by starting with an incomplete knowledge of the domain. Even when you have surmounted these problems so that the data entities accurately reflect the business domain that the application represents, there are likely to be dire consequences from abandoning the goal of a shared, enterprise-wide understanding of the business. In reading this, you may recall experiences of the consequence of getting the conceptual data model wrong. I believe that Phil Factor, for example, witnessed the abandonment of a multi-million dollar banking project due to an inadequate conceptual analysis of how the bank defined a ‘customer’. We’d love to hear of any examples you know of development projects poleaxed by errors in the conceptual data model. Cheers, Tony

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• determine if udp socket can be accessed via external client

  - by JohnMerlino

  I don't have access to company firewall server. but supposedly the port 1720 is open on my one ubuntu server. So I want to test it with netcat: sudo nc -ul 1720 The port is listening on the machine ITSELF: sudo netstat -tulpn | grep nc udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:1720 0.0.0.0:* 29477/nc The port is open and in use on the machine ITSELF: lsof -i -n -P | grep 1720 gateway 980 myuser 8u IPv4 187284576 0t0 UDP *:1720 Checked the firewall on current server: sudo ufw allow 1720/udp Skipping adding existing rule Skipping adding existing rule (v6) sudo ufw status verbose | grep 1720 1720/udp ALLOW IN Anywhere 1720/udp ALLOW IN Anywhere (v6) But I try echoing data to it from another computer (I replaced the x's with the real integers): echo "Some data to send" | nc xx.xxx.xx.xxx 1720 But it didn't write anything. So then I try with telnet from the other computer as well: telnet xx.xxx.xx.xxx 1720 Trying xx.xxx.xx.xxx... telnet: connect to address xx.xxx.xx.xxx: Operation timed out telnet: Unable to connect to remote host Although I don't think telnet works with udp sockets. I ran nmap from another computer within the same local network and this is what I got: sudo nmap -v -A -sU -p 1720 xx.xxx.xx.xx Starting Nmap 5.21 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-10-31 15:41 EDT NSE: Loaded 36 scripts for scanning. Initiating Ping Scan at 15:41 Scanning xx.xxx.xx.xx [4 ports] Completed Ping Scan at 15:41, 0.10s elapsed (1 total hosts) Initiating Parallel DNS resolution of 1 host. at 15:41 Completed Parallel DNS resolution of 1 host. at 15:41, 0.00s elapsed Initiating UDP Scan at 15:41 Scanning xtremek.com (xx.xxx.xx.xx) [1 port] Completed UDP Scan at 15:41, 0.07s elapsed (1 total ports) Initiating Service scan at 15:41 Initiating OS detection (try #1) against xtremek.com (xx.xxx.xx.xx) Retrying OS detection (try #2) against xtremek.com (xx.xxx.xx.xx) Initiating Traceroute at 15:41 Completed Traceroute at 15:41, 0.01s elapsed NSE: Script scanning xx.xxx.xx.xx. NSE: Script Scanning completed. Nmap scan report for xtremek.com (xx.xxx.xx.xx) Host is up (0.00013s latency). PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 1720/udp closed unknown Too many fingerprints match this host to give specific OS details Network Distance: 1 hop TRACEROUTE (using port 1720/udp) HOP RTT ADDRESS 1 0.13 ms xtremek.com (xx.xxx.xx.xx) Read data files from: /usr/share/nmap OS and Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://nmap.org/submit/ . Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 2.04 seconds Raw packets sent: 27 (2128B) | Rcvd: 24 (2248B). The only thing I can think of is a firewall or vpn issue. Is there anything else I can check for before requesting that they look at the firewall server again?

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• Entity Framework 6: Alpha2 Now Available

  - by ScottGu

  The Entity Framework team recently announced the 2nd alpha release of EF6.   The alpha 2 package is available for download from NuGet. Since this is a pre-release package make sure to select “Include Prereleases” in the NuGet package manager, or execute the following from the package manager console to install it: PM> Install-Package EntityFramework -Pre This week’s alpha release includes a bunch of great improvements in the following areas: Async language support is now available for queries and updates when running on .NET 4.5. Custom conventions now provide the ability to override the default conventions that Code First uses for mapping types, properties, etc. to your database. Multi-tenant migrations allow the same database to be used by multiple contexts with full Code First Migrations support for independently evolving the model backing each context. Using Enumerable.Contains in a LINQ query is now handled much more efficiently by EF and the SQL Server provider resulting greatly improved performance. All features of EF6 (except async) are available on both .NET 4 and .NET 4.5. This includes support for enums and spatial types and the performance improvements that were previously only available when using .NET 4.5. Start-up time for many large models has been dramatically improved thanks to improved view generation performance. Below are some additional details about a few of the improvements above: Async Support .NET 4.5 introduced the Task-Based Asynchronous Pattern that uses the async and await keywords to help make writing asynchronous code easier. EF 6 now supports this pattern. This is great for ASP.NET applications as database calls made through EF can now be processed asynchronously – avoiding any blocking of worker threads. This can increase scalability on the server by allowing more requests to be processed while waiting for the database to respond. The following code shows an MVC controller that is querying a database for a list of location entities:     public class HomeController : Controller     {         LocationContext db = new LocationContext();           public async Task<ActionResult> Index()         {             var locations = await db.Locations.ToListAsync();               return View(locations);         }     } Notice above the call to the new ToListAsync method with the await keyword. When the web server reaches this code it initiates the database request, but rather than blocking while waiting for the results to come back, the thread that is processing the request returns to the thread pool, allowing ASP.NET to process another incoming request with the same thread. In other words, a thread is only consumed when there is actual processing work to do, allowing the web server to handle more concurrent requests with the same resources. A more detailed walkthrough covering async in EF is available with additional information and examples. Also a walkthrough is available showing how to use async in an ASP.NET MVC application. Custom Conventions When working with EF Code First, the default behavior is to map .NET classes to tables using a set of conventions baked into EF. For example, Code First will detect properties that end with “ID” and configure them automatically as primary keys. However, sometimes you cannot or do not want to follow those conventions and would rather provide your own. For example, maybe your primary key properties all end in “Key” instead of “Id”. Custom conventions allow the default conventions to be overridden or new conventions to be added so that Code First can map by convention using whatever rules make sense for your project. The following code demonstrates using custom conventions to set the precision of all decimals to 5. As with other Code First configuration, this code is placed in the OnModelCreating method which is overridden on your derived DbContext class:         protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)         {             modelBuilder.Properties<decimal>()                 .Configure(x => x.HasPrecision(5));           } But what if there are a couple of places where a decimal property should have a different precision? Just as with all the existing Code First conventions, this new convention can be overridden for a particular property simply by explicitly configuring that property using either the fluent API or a data annotation. A more detailed description of custom code first conventions is available here. Community Involvement I blogged a while ago about EF being released under an open source license.  Since then a number of community members have made contributions and these are included in EF6 alpha 2. Two examples of community contributions are: AlirezaHaghshenas contributed a change that increases the startup performance of EF for larger models by improving the performance of view generation. The change means that it is less often necessary to use of pre-generated views. UnaiZorrilla contributed the first community feature to EF: the ability to load all Code First configuration classes in an assembly with a single method call like the following: protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder) {        modelBuilder.Configurations            .AddFromAssembly(typeof(LocationContext).Assembly); } This code will find and load all the classes that inherit from EntityTypeConfiguration<T> or ComplexTypeConfiguration<T> in the assembly where LocationContext is defined. This reduces the amount of coupling between the context and Code First configuration classes, and is also a very convenient shortcut for large models. Other upcoming features coming in EF 6 Lots of information about the development of EF6 can be found on the EF CodePlex site, including a roadmap showing the other features that are planned for EF6. One of of the nice upcoming features is connection resiliency, which will automate the process of retying database operations on transient failures common in cloud environments and with databases such as the Windows Azure SQL Database. Another often requested feature that will be included in EF6 is the ability to map stored procedures to query and update operations on entities when using Code First. Summary EF6 is the first open source release of Entity Framework being developed in CodePlex. The alpha 2 preview release of EF6 is now available on NuGet, and contains some really great features for you to try. The EF team are always looking for feedback from developers - especially on the new features such as custom Code First conventions and async support. To provide feedback you can post a comment on the EF6 alpha 2 announcement post, start a discussion or file a bug on the CodePlex site. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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