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  • point light illumination using Phong model

    - by Myx
    Hello: I wish to render a scene that contains one box and a point light source using the Phong illumination scheme. The following are the relevant code snippets for my calculation: R3Rgb Phong(R3Scene *scene, R3Ray *ray, R3Intersection *intersection) { R3Rgb radiance; if(intersection->hit == 0) { radiance = scene->background; return radiance; } ... // obtain ambient term ... // this is zero for my test // obtain emissive term ... // this is also zero for my test // for each light in the scene, obtain calculate the diffuse and specular terms R3Rgb intensity_diffuse(0,0,0,1); R3Rgb intensity_specular(0,0,0,1); for(unsigned int i = 0; i < scene->lights.size(); i++) { R3Light *light = scene->Light(i); R3Rgb light_color = LightIntensity(scene->Light(i), intersection->position); R3Vector light_vector = -LightDirection(scene->Light(i), intersection->position); // check if the light is "behind" the surface normal if(normal.Dot(light_vector)<=0) continue; // calculate diffuse reflection if(!Kd.IsBlack()) intensity_diffuse += Kd*normal.Dot(light_vector)*light_color; if(Ks.IsBlack()) continue; // calculate specular reflection ... // this I believe to be irrelevant for the particular test I'm doing } radiance = intensity_diffuse; return radiance; } R3Rgb LightIntensity(R3Light *light, R3Point position) { R3Rgb light_intensity; double distance; double denominator; if(light->type != R3_DIRECTIONAL_LIGHT) { distance = (position-light->position).Length(); denominator = light->constant_attenuation + (light->linear_attenuation*distance) + (light->quadratic_attenuation*distance*distance); } switch(light->type) { ... case R3_POINT_LIGHT: light_intensity = light->color/denominator; break; ... } return light_intensity; } R3Vector LightDirection(R3Light *light, R3Point position) { R3Vector light_direction; switch(light->type) { ... case R3_POINT_LIGHT: light_direction = position - light->position; break; ... } light_direction.Normalize(); return light_direction; } I believe that the error must be somewhere in either LightDirection(...) or LightIntensity(...) functions because when I run my code using a directional light source, I obtain the desired rendered image (thus this leads me to believe that the Phong illumination equation is correct). Also, in Phong(...), when I computed the intensity_diffuse and while debugging, I divided light_color by 10, I was obtaining a resulting image that looked more like what I need. Am I calculating the light_color correctly? Thanks.

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  • Best way to handle multiple tables to replace one big table in Rails? (e.g. 'Books1', 'Books2', etc.

    - by mikep
    Hello, I've decided to use multiple tables for an entity (e.g. Books1, Books2, Books3, etc.), instead of just one main table which could end up having a lot of rows (e.g. just Books). I'm doing this to try and to avoid a potential future performance drop that could come with having too many rows in one table. With that, I'm looking for a good way to handle this in Rails, mainly by trying to avoid loading a bunch of unused associations. (I know that I could use a partition for this, but, for now, I've decided to go the 'multiple tables' route.) Each user has their books placed into a specific table. The actual book table is chosen when the user is created, and all of their books go into the same table. I'm going to split the adds across the tables. The goal is to try and keep each table pretty much even -- but that's a different issue. One thing I don't particularly want to have is a bunch of unused associations in the User class. Right now, it looks like I'd have to do the following: class User < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :books1, :books2, :books3, :books4, :books5 end class Books1 < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user end class Books2 < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user end class Books3 < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user end I'm assuming that the main performance hit would come in terms of memory and possibly some method call overhead for each User object, since it has to load all of those associations, which in turn creates all of those nice, dynamic model accessor methods like User.find_by_. But for each specific user, only one of the book tables would be usable/applicable, since all of a user's books are stored in the same table. So, only one of the associations would be in use at any time and any other has_many :bookX association that was loaded would be a waste. For example, with a user.id of 2, I'd only need books3.find_by_author('Author'), but the way I'm thinking of setting this up, I'd still have access to Books1..n. I don't really know Ruby/Rails does internally with all of those has_many associations though, so maybe it's not so bad. But right now I'm thinking that it's really wasteful, and that there may just be a better, more efficient way of doing this. So, a few questions: 1) Is there's some sort of special Ruby/Rails methodology that could be applied to this 'multiple tables to represent one entity' scheme? Are there any 'best practices' for this? 2) Is it really bad to have so many unused has_many associations for each object? Is there a better way to do this? 3) Does anyone have any advice on how to abstract the fact that there's multiple book tables behind a single books model/class? For example, so I can call books.find_by_author('Author') instead of books3.find_by_author('Author'). Thank you!

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  • How do I use connect to DB2 with DBI and mod_perl?

    - by Matthew
    I'm having issues with getting DBI's IBM DB2 driver to work with mod_perl. My test script is: #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use CGI; use Data::Dumper; use DBI; { my $q; my $dsn; my $username; my $password; my $sth; my $dbc; my $row; $q = CGI->new; print $q->header; print $q->start_html(); $dsn = "DBI:DB2:SAMPLE"; $username = "username"; $password = "password"; print "<pre>".$q->escapeHTML(Dumper(\%ENV))."</pre>"; $dbc = DBI->connect($dsn, $username, $password); $sth = $dbc->prepare("SELECT * FROM SOME_TABLE WHERE FIELD='SOMETHING'"); $sth->execute(); $row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref(); print "<pre>".$q->escapeHTML(Dumper($row))."</pre>"; print $q->end_html; } This script works as CGI but not under mod_perl. I get this error in apache's error log: DBD::DB2::dr connect warning: [unixODBC][Driver Manager]Data source name not found, and no default driver specified at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/Apache/DBI.pm line 190. DBI connect('SAMPLE','username',...) failed: [unixODBC][Driver Manager]Data source name not found, and no default driver specified at /data/www/perl/test.pl line 15 First of all, why is it using ODBC? The native DB2 driver is installed (hence it works as CGI). Running Apache 2.2.3, mod_perl 2.0.4 under RHEL5. This guy had the same problem as me: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg22909.html But I have no idea how he fixed it. What does mod_php4 have to do with mod_perl? Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm having no luck with google. Update: As james2vegas pointed out, the problem has something to do with PHP: I disable PHP all together I get the a different error: Total Environment allocation failure! Did you set up your DB2 client environment? I believe this error is to do with environment variables not being set up correctly, namely DB2INSTANCE. However, I'm not able to turn off PHP to resolve this problem (I need it for some legacy applications). So I now have 2 questions: How can I fix the original issue without disabling PHP all together? How can I fix the environment issue? I've set DB2INSTANCE, DB2_PATH and SQLLIB variables correctly using SetEnv and PerlSetEnv in httpd.conf, but with no luck. Note: I've edited the code to determine if the problem was to do with Global Variable Persistence.

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  • Advice on displaying and allowing editing of data using ASP.NET MVC?

    - by Remnant
    I am embarking upon my first ASP.NET MVC project and I would like to get some input on possible ways to display database data and general best practice. In short, the body of my webpage will show data from my database in a table like format, with each table row showing similar data. For example: Name Age Position Date Joined Jon Smith 23 Striker 18th Mar 2005 John Doe 38 Defender 3rd Jan 1988 In terms of functionality, primarily I’d like to give the user the ability to edit the data and, after the edit, commit the edit to the database and refresh the view.The reason I want to refresh the view is because the data is date ordered and I will need to re-sort if the user edits a date field. My main question is what architecture / tools would be best suited to this fulfil my requirements at a high level? From the research I have done so far my initial conclusions were: ADO.NET for data retrieval. This is something I have used before and feel comfortable with. I like the look of LINQ to SQL but don’t want to make the learning curve any steeper for my first outing into MVC land just yet. Partial Views to create a template and then iterate through a datatable that I have pulled back from my database model. jQuery to allow the user to edit data in the table, error check edited data entries etc. Also, my intial view was that caching the data would not be a key requirement here. The only field a user will be able to update is the field and, if they do, I will need to commit that data to the database immediately and then refresh the view (as the data is date sorted). Any thoughts on this? Alternatively, I have seen some jQuery plug-ins that emulate a datagrid and provide associated functionality. My first thoughts are that I do not need all the functionality that comes with these plug-ins (e.g. zebra striping, ability to sort by column using sort glyph in column headers etc .) and I don’t really see any benefit to this over and above the solution I have outlined above. Again, is there reason to reconsider this view? Finally, when a user edits a date , I will need to refresh the view. In order to do this I had been reading about Html.RenderAction and this seemed like it may be a better option than using Partial Views as I can incorporate application logic into the action method. Am I right to consider Html.RenderAction or have I misunderstood its usage? Hope this post is clear and not too long. I did consider separate posts for each topic (e.g. Partial View vs. Html.RenderAction, when to use jQury datagrid plug-in) but it feels like these issues are so intertwined that they need to be dealt with in contect of each other. Thanks

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  • Good Secure Backups Developers at Home

    - by slashmais
    What is a good, secure, method to do backups, for programmers who do research & development at home and cannot afford to lose any work? Conditions: The backups must ALWAYS be within reasonably easy reach. Internet connection cannot be guaranteed to be always available. The solution must be either FREE or priced within reason, and subject to 2 above. Status Report This is for now only considering free options. The following open-source projects are suggested in the answers (here & elsewhere): BackupPC is a high-performance, enterprise-grade system for backing up Linux, WinXX and MacOSX PCs and laptops to a server's disk. Storebackup is a backup utility that stores files on other disks. mybackware: These scripts were developed to create SQL dump files for basic disaster recovery of small MySQL installations. Bacula is [...] to manage backup, recovery, and verification of computer data across a network of computers of different kinds. In technical terms, it is a network based backup program. AutoDL 2 and Sec-Bk: AutoDL 2 is a scalable transport independant automated file transfer system. It is suitable for uploading files from a staging server to every server on a production server farm [...] Sec-Bk is a set of simple utilities to securely back up files to a remote location, even a public storage location. rsnapshot is a filesystem snapshot utility for making backups of local and remote systems. rbme: Using rsync for backups [...] you get perpetual incremental backups that appear as full backups (for each day) and thus allow easy restore or further copying to tape etc. Duplicity backs directories by producing encrypted tar-format volumes and uploading them to a remote or local file server. [...] uses librsync, [for] incremental archives Other Possibilities: Using a Distributed Version Control System (DVCS) such as Git(/Easy Git), Bazaar, Mercurial answers the need to have the backup available locally. Use free online storage space as a remote backup, e.g.: compress your work/backup directory and mail it to your gmail account. Strategies See crazyscot's answer

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  • How can arguments to variadic functions be passed by reference in PHP?

    - by outis
    Assuming it's possible, how would one pass arguments by reference to a variadic function without generating a warning in PHP? We can no longer use the '&' operator in a function call, otherwise I'd accept that (even though it would be error prone, should a coder forget it). What inspired this is are old MySQLi wrapper classes that I unearthed (these days, I'd just use PDO). The only difference between the wrappers and the MySQLi classes is the wrappers throw exceptions rather than returning FALSE. class DBException extends RuntimeException {} ... class MySQLi_throwing extends mysqli { ... function prepare($query) { $stmt = parent::prepare($query); if (!$stmt) { throw new DBException($this->error, $this->errno); } return new MySQLi_stmt_throwing($this, $query, $stmt); } } // I don't remember why I switched from extension to composition, but // it shouldn't matter for this question. class MySQLi_stmt_throwing /* extends MySQLi_stmt */ { protected $_link, $_query, $_delegate; public function __construct($link, $query, $prepared) { //parent::__construct($link, $query); $this->_link = $link; $this->_query = $query; $this->_delegate = $prepared; } function bind_param($name, &$var) { return $this->_delegate->bind_param($name, $var); } function __call($name, $args) { //$rslt = call_user_func_array(array($this, 'parent::' . $name), $args); $rslt = call_user_func_array(array($this->_delegate, $name), $args); if (False === $rslt) { throw new DBException($this->_link->error, $this->errno); } return $rslt; } } The difficulty lies in calling methods such as bind_result on the wrapper. Constant-arity functions (e.g. bind_param) can be explicitly defined, allowing for pass-by-reference. bind_result, however, needs all arguments to be pass-by-reference. If you call bind_result on an instance of MySQLi_stmt_throwing as-is, the arguments are passed by value and the binding won't take. try { $id = Null; $stmt = $db->prepare('SELECT id FROM tbl WHERE ...'); $stmt->execute() $stmt->bind_result($id); // $id is still null at this point ... } catch (DBException $exc) { ... } Since the above classes are no longer in use, this question is merely a matter of curiosity. Alternate approaches to the wrapper classes are not relevant. Defining a method with a bunch of arguments taking Null default values is not correct (what if you define 20 arguments, but the function is called with 21?). Answers don't even need to be written in terms of MySQL_stmt_throwing; it exists simply to provide a concrete example.

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  • Access Database using do.cmd openform where clasue - returning all values

    - by primus285
    DoCmd.OpenForm "Database Search", acFormDS, , srcLastName & "AND " & srcFirstName This is only a small sample of the where clause - there are many more terms. First, there is a set of If, Then type tings up top that set the variable srcLastName and srcFirstName to some value. These are not the problem and work just fine. The trouble is getting them to return all values (for instance if you only want to search by one, on neither(return full database list)) Thus far I have settled for (in the if then section): srcLastName = "[Lastname] =" & Chr(34) & cboLastName & Chr(34) - to search for something and srcLastName = "[Lastname] <" & Chr(34) & "Nuthin" & Chr(34) - to return everything (not equal to an absurd and mispelled database term.) The trouble is that data that is null is also not returned. If I have a null firstname, it will not show up in any search period. is there a term I can set [lastname] and [firstname] equal to that will return EVERYTHING (null, open, data, numbers, wierd stuff and otherwise) in a search an SQL form of "give me everything shes got scotty" if you will. the real issue here comes from the data entry - if I could just know that the people would enter everything 100% of the time, this code would work. but forget to enter the persons age or whatever, and it wont return that entry. So far, the only other solution I have come up with is to put a counter in each if then statement. The count will go up by one for each thing that is being searched by. Then if the count is = 1, then I can search by something like just DoCmd.OpenForm "Database Search", acFormDS, , srcLastName or DoCmd.OpenForm "Database Search", acFormDS, , srcFirstName then revert back to the DoCmd.OpenForm "Database Search", acFormDS, , srcLastName & "AND " & srcFirstName when the count is 2 or more truoble here is that it only works for one (unless I so wanted to create a custon list of 2 combined, 3 combined, 4 combined, but that is not happening)

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  • Java: why is declaration not sufficient in interface?

    - by HH
    Big class contains Format-interfcase and Format-class. The Format-class contains the methods and the interface has the values of the fields. I could have the fields in the class Format but the goal is with Interface. So do I just create dummy-vars to get the errors away, design issue or something ELSE? KEY: Declaration VS Initialisation Explain by the terms, why you have to init in interface. What is the logic behind it? To which kind of problems it leads the use of interface? Sample Code having the init-interface-problem import java.util.*; import java.io.*; public class FormatBig { private static class Format implements Format { private static long getSize(File f){return f.length();} private static long getTime(File f){return f.lastModified();} private static boolean isFile(File f){if(f.isFile()){return true;}} private static boolean isBinary(File f){return Match.isBinary(f);} private static char getType(File f){return Match.getTypes(f);} private static String getPath(File f){return getNoErrPath(f);} //Java API: isHidden, --- SYSTEM DEPENDED: toURI, toURL Format(File f) { // PUZZLE 0: would Stack<Object> be easier? size=getSize(f); time=getTime(f); isfile=isFile(f); isBinary=isBinary(f); type=getType(f); path=getPath(f); //PUZZLE 1: how can simplify the assignment? values.push(size); values.push(time); values.push(isfile); values.push(isBinary); values.push(type); values.push(path); } } public static String getNoErrPath(File f) { try{return f.getCanonicalPath(); }catch(Exception e){e.printStackTrace();} } public static final interface Format { //ERR: IT REQUIRES "=" public long size; public long time; public boolean isFile=true; //ERROR goes away if I initialise wit DUMMY public boolean isBinary; public char type; public String path; Stack<Object> values=new Stack<Object>(); } public static void main(String[] args) { Format fm=new Format(new File(".")); for(Object o:values){System.out.println(o);} } }

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  • C++ vs Matlab vs Python as a main language for Computer Vision Research

    - by Hough
    Hi all, Firstly, sorry for a somewhat long question but I think that many people are in the same situation as me and hopefully they can also gain some benefit from this. I'll be starting my PhD very soon which involves the fields of computer vision, pattern recognition and machine learning. Currently, I'm using opencv (2.1) C++ interface and I especially like its powerful Mat class and the overloaded operations available for matrix and image operations and seamless transformations. I've also tried (and implemented many small vision projects) using opencv python interface (new bindings; opencv 2.1) and I really enjoy python's ability to integrate opencv, numpy, scipy and matplotlib. But recently, I went back to opencv C++ interface because I felt that the official python new bindings were not stable enough and no overloaded operations are available for matrices and images, not to mention the lack of machine learning modules and slow speeds in certain operations. I've also used Matlab extensively in the past and although I've used mex files and other means to speed up the program, I just felt that Matlab's performance was inadequate for real-time vision tasks, be it for fast prototyping or not. When the project becomes larger and larger, many tasks have to be re-written in C and compiled into Mex files increasingly and Matlab becomes nothing more than a glue language. Here comes the sub-questions: For carrying out research in these fields (machine learning, vision, pattern recognition), what is your main or ideal programming language for rapid prototyping of ideas and testing algorithms contained in papers? For computer vision research work, can you list down the pros and cons of using the following languages? C++ (with opencv + gsl + svmlib + other libraries) vs Matlab (with all its toolboxes) vs python (with the imcomplete opencv bindings + numpy + scipy + matplotlib). Are there computer vision PhD/postgrad students here who are using only C++ (with all its availabe libraries including opencv) without even needing to resort to Matlab or python? In other words, given the current existing computer vision or machine learning libraries, is C++ alone sufficient for fast prototyping of ideas? If you're currently using Java or C# for your research, can you list down the reasons why they should be used and how they compare to other languages in terms of available libraries? What is the de facto vision/machine learning programming language and its associated libraries used in your research group? Thanks in advance. Edit: As suggested, I've opened the question to both academic and non-academic computer vision/machine learning/pattern recognition researchers and groups.

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  • XML Parsing Error - C#

    - by Indebi
    My code is having an XML parsing error at line 7 position 32 and I'm not really sure why Exact Error Dump 5/1/2010 10:21:42 AM System.Xml.XmlException: An error occurred while parsing EntityName. Line 7, position 32. at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e) at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(String res, Int32 lineNo, Int32 linePos) at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.HandleEntityReference(Boolean isInAttributeValue, EntityExpandType expandType, Int32& charRefEndPos) at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseAttributeValueSlow(Int32 curPos, Char quoteChar, NodeData attr) at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseAttributes() at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElement() at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElementContent() at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Read() at System.Xml.XmlLoader.LoadNode(Boolean skipOverWhitespace) at System.Xml.XmlLoader.LoadDocSequence(XmlDocument parentDoc) at System.Xml.XmlLoader.Load(XmlDocument doc, XmlReader reader, Boolean preserveWhitespace) at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Load(XmlReader reader) at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Load(String filename) at Lookoa.LoadingPackages.LoadingPackages_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) in C:\Users\Administrator\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\Lookoa\Lookoa\LoadingPackages.cs:line 30 Xml File, please note this is just a sample because I want the program to work before I begin to fill this repository <repo> <Packages> <TheFirstPackage id="00001" longname="Mozilla Firefox" appver="3.6.3" pkgver="0.01" description="Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. A Net Applications statistic put Firefox at 24.52% of the recorded usage share of web browsers as of March 2010[update], making it the second most popular browser in terms of current use worldwide after Microsoft's Internet Explorer." cat="WWW" rlsdate="4/8/10" pkgloc="http://google.com"/> </Packages> <categories> <WWW longname="World Wide Web" description="Software that's focus is communication or primarily uses the web for any particular reason."> </WWW> <Fun longname="Entertainment & Other" description="Music Players, Video Players, Games, or anything that doesn't fit in any of the other categories."> </Fun> <Work longname="Productivity" description="Application's commonly used for occupational needs or, stuff you work on"> </Work> <Advanced longname="System & Security" description="Applications that protect the computer from malware, clean the computer, and other utilities."> </Advanced> </categories> </repo> Small part of C# Code //Loading the Package and Category lists //The info from them is gonna populate the listboxes for Category and Packages Repository.Load("repo.info"); XmlNodeList Categories = Repository.GetElementsByTagName("categories"); foreach (XmlNode Category in Categories) { CategoryNumber++; CategoryNames[CategoryNumber] = Category.Name; MessageBox.Show(CategoryNames[CategoryNumber]); } The Messagebox.Show() is just to make sure it's getting the correct results

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  • Confused as to how to validate spring mvc form, what are my options?

    - by Blankman
    Latest spring mvc, using freemarker. Hoping someone could tell me what my options are in terms of validating a form with spring mvc, and what the recommend way would be to do this. I have a form that doesn't map directly to a model, it has input fields that when posted, will be used to initialze 2 model objects which I will then need to validate, and if they pass I will save them. If they fail, I want to return back to the form, pre-fill the values with what the user entered and display the error messages. I have read here and there about 2 methods, once of which I have done and understand how it works: @RequestMapping(...., method = RequestMethod.POST) public ModelAndView myMethod(@Valid MyModel, BindingResult bindingResult) { ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView("some/view"); mav.addObject("mymodel", myModel); if(bindingResult.hasErrors()) { return mav; } } Now this worked if my form mapped directly to the form, but in my situation I have: form fields that don't map to any specific model, they have a few properties from 2 models. before validation occurrs, I need to create the 2 models manually, set the values from the values from the form, and manually set some properties also: Call validate on both models (model1, model2), and append these error messages to the errors collection which I need to pass back to the same view page if things don't work. when the form posts, I have to do some database calls, and based on those results may need to add additional messages to the errors collection Can someone tell me how to do this sort of validation? Pseudo code below: Model1 model1 = new Model1(); Model2 model2 = new Model2(); // manually or somehow automatically set the posted form values to model1 and model2. // set some fields manually, not from posted form model1.setProperty10(GlobalSettings.getDefaultProperty10()); model2.setProperty11(GlobalSettings.getDefaultProperty11()); // db calls, if they fail, add to errors collection if(bindingResult.hasErrors()) { return mav; } // validation passed, save Model1Service.save(model1); Model2Service.save(model2); redirect to another view Update I have using the JSR 303 annotations on my models right now, and it would great if I can use those still. Update II Please read the bounty description below for a summary of what I am looking for.

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  • hand coding a parser

    - by John Leidegren
    For all you compiler gurus, I wanna write a recursive descent parser and I wanna do it with just code. No generating lexers and parsers from some other grammar and don't tell me to read the dragon book, i'll come around to that eventually. I wanna get into the gritty details about implementing a lexer and parser for a reasonable simple langauge, say CSS. And I wanna do this right. This will probably end up being a series of questions but right now I'm starting with a lexer. Tokenization rules for CSS can be found here. I find my self writing code like this (hopefully you can infer the rest from this snippet): public CssToken ReadNext() { int val; while ((val = _reader.Read()) != -1) { var c = (char)val; switch (_stack.Top) { case ParserState.Init: if (c == ' ') { continue; // ignore } else if (c == '.') { _stack.Transition(ParserState.SubIdent, ParserState.Init); } break; case ParserState.SubIdent: if (c == '-') { _token.Append(c); } _stack.Transition(ParserState.SubNMBegin); break; What is this called? and how far off am I from something reasonable well understood? I'm trying to balence something which is fair in terms of efficiency and easy to work with, using a stack to implement some kind of state machine is working quite well, but I'm unsure how to continue like this. What I have is an input stream, from which I can read 1 character at a time. I don't do any look a head right now, I just read the character then depending on the current state try to do something with that. I'd really like to get into the mind set of writing reusable snippets of code. This Transition method is currently means to do that, it will pop the current state of the stack and then push the arguments in reverse order. That way, when I write Transition(ParserState.SubIdent, ParserState.Init) it will "call" a sub routine SubIdent which will, when complete, return to the Init state. The parser will be implemented in much the same way, currently, having everyhing in a single big method like this allows me to easily return a token when I found one, but it also forces me to keep everything in one single big method. Is there a nice way to split these tokenization rules into seperate methods? Any input/advice on the matter would be greatly appriciated!

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  • Going from a math career to a cs career: how to do it?

    - by Joseph
    Hey, I'm looking for some advice on how to successfully make the transition from mathematics to CS. My academic background is in mathematics (BS and MSc), and I've taken loads of math courses as well. You name it, and I took it: Measure Theory, Algebra, PDES, Manifolds, Complex Analysis, etc. I progressed quite far along this track, and at one point, I thought I would be a professional mathematician...But around the time I was finishing my MSc, I really got sick of it. Studying very abstract mathematics was fun, but it really lost it's appeal to me. Outside of a couple hundred people, I'm not sure if anybody would understand my research. I did not want to be 60 years old and say that my only contribution to the world consisted of published papers. Anyways, I've been an off and on hobbyist programmer since 2002. I've programmed in C and Java (just small projects), and I really started to be drawn to the area as time passed. There's a real appeal to CS work because, well, it actually means something to other people out there! I enjoy all parts of it: designing webpages (a real artistic appeal). On the other end, I do enjoy toying with compilers and more nitty-gritty stuff as well. Suffice to say, I have broad interests out there. Anyways, I know it's a bit late, but I was wondering if there were other folks out there who made the change, and if so, how I could do so. I know I have some fairly big gaps to fill in terms of data structures, lack of internship experience, etc. But I really would like to make this work. So my question is simply: How can I make the switch from math to CS? To pay the bills, I'll be doing financial analysis for a company, but I'd like to eventually transition into a developer type position. I've been reading "Algorithm Design" by Tardos and doing all the problems. It's not hard to make progress since the problems are far more concrete than the stuff I've been doing the past six years. I feel I can make fairly rapid progress in picking up all the materials from data structures, etc. but none of it can substitute the past several years I've lost. Anyways, I'm eager to learn but would love some advice/concrete direction. Thanks, Joseph

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  • How do you attract programmers in rural areas?

    - by Reed Copsey
    I run a software development group for a very small, but stable and established company in a small town, somewhat outside of the "big city". Unfortunately, the "programmer" labor pool is much smaller due to the size of the city. There are many positives to working in this area, especially in terms of quality of life (particularly for people interested in outdoor activities), lower cost of living, great schools and neighborhoods, etc. However, I've always had difficulty attracting high-qualtiy, experienced developers. For those of you who hire developers outside of large cities: Where do you advertise to find good developers? Many of the large sites are very focused in certain metropolitan areas, and seem inappropriate places to advertise if you're outside of that main region. How do you attract quality developers to rural (or at least less metropolitan) locations? Do you find that you make more sacrifices in your hiring due to a smaller labor pool? Or do you just wait, and take extra time to attract people? What sacrifices do you expect to make if you are outside of the main developer-rich cities? For all of the developers out there... What would entice you to working in a smaller town? Are there things that would stand out and make you willing to relocate or at least apply to a position that was not nearby? What specific qualities would help you want to move outside of the city? In the past, I've had difficulty with finding good people. Most of the people who've applied and been willing to move out to a more rural location seem like the types that can't keep a quality job elsewhere. I'd like to know what advice people have to attracting quality technical staff. I don't believe its the work itself that's been the problem - The work is both interesting and challenging, and nearly 100% new development. The developers I have seem very happy with their situation - they love the work, the atmosphere, etc. It's more a matter of finding willing, able developers. Edit: More info after the first couple of answers: Right now, some of my best developers telecommute (some work from overseas); however, for this question, I'm trying to figure out how to get people who want to live and work full time locally. I need some people with whom I interact every day.

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  • Learning to create beautiful /next-generation GUI

    - by ShaChris23
    I really want to create a stunning-looking GUI desktop application that looks like, for example: Mac OS X interface Picasa desktop client on windows IPhone apps Office 2007 I've mostly been programming GUI using Qt/Swing/WinForm and I'm tired of creating so plain looking GUI, lol. So I was thinking about diving into stuff like: jQuery WPF/C# iPhone SDK Silverlight Adobe Air/Flex Just to get some ideas on how to create really cool looking UI. Does that sound like a good list? Any developers here that could share what platform they use to create very cool looking desktop app? On a sidenote, I really wonder what developers at Apple / Microsoft use to develop their own cool-looking software. EDIT A lot of responses talk about the importance of usability over "cool-looking".. I totally agree that usability and simplicity are the most important aspects of user interface design. I've been doing GUI development for a while now ( 3 years), so that I understand. But using cool-looking UI also improves user experience + it could make big difference on whether or not your software sells. I mean, otherwise why would Microsoft/Apple try to make their OS UI look "cooler" everytime there's a new version? Why would websites like pragprog.com, or versionsapp.com. make their websites look like that? Basically you kill 2 birds with one stone: stunnning-looking UI + super usability (because it looks simple and intuitive). That is what I'm striving for. And as far as I know, I cannot achieve that using Qt/Winform. Most of the books I have read just show you how to make average-looking (read: 1990's) UI. I want to learn how to create cool-looking UI. And the only place I see cool-looking UIs these days are the technology I list above. I'm not enamored with any technology; but I just want to know how things are done in other technology to see if I could apply them to the technology I'm using, or see if I could use those technology in my line of work. An example: if I were to pick between this UI and this UI, I probably would pick the latter, if just based on looks alone. Functionally, they are just the same UI; they both allow you to keep track of your time. They both contain buttons and textboxes, etc. But the fact that they look different, also differentiate them in terms of attractiveness. So in all, I think the "ice on the cake" is very important. I would say it's the thing you strive for after you are certain you have a totally intuitive, usable UI.

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  • ASP.Net JSON Web Service Post Form Data

    - by Will D
    I have a ASP.NET web service decorated with System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService() so it can return json formatted data. This much is working for me, but ASP.Net has a requirement that parameters to the web service must be in json in order to get json out. I'm using jquery to run my ajax calls and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to create a nice javascript object from the form elements. I have looked at serialiseArray in the json2 library but it doesn't encode the field names as property name in the object. If you have 2 form elements like this <input type="text" name="namefirst" id="namefirst" value="John"/> <input type="text" name="namelast" id="namelast" value="Doe"/> calling $("form").serialize() will get you the standard query string namefirst=John&namelast=Doe calling JSON.stringify($("form").serializeArray()) will get you the (bulky) json representation [{"name":"namefirst","value":"John"},{"name":"namelast","value":"Doe"}] This will work when passing to the web service but its ugly as you have to have code like this to read it in: Public Class NameValuePair Public name As String Public value As String End Class <WebMethod()> _ Public Function GetQuote(ByVal nvp As NameValuePair()) As String End Function You would also have to wrap that json text inside another object nameed nvp to make the web service happy. Then its more work as all you have is an array of NameValuePair when you want an associative array. I might be kidding myself but i imagined something more elegant when i started this project - more like this Public Class Person Public namefirst As String Public namelast As String End Class which would require the json to look something like this: {"namefirst":"John","namelast":"Doe"} Is there an easy way to do this? Obviously it is simple for a form with two parameters but when you have a very large form concatenating strings gets ugly. Having nested objects would also complicate things The cludge I have settled on for the moment is to use the standard name value pair format stuffed inside a json object. This is compact and fast {"q":"namefirst=John&namelast=Doe"} then have a web method like this on the server that parses the query string into an associate array. <WebMethod()> _ Public Function AjaxForm(ByVal q As String) as string Dim params As NameValueCollection = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(q) 'do stuff return "Hello" End Sub As far a cludges go this one seems reasonably elegant in terms of amount of code, but my question is: is there a better way? Is there a generally accepted way of passing form data to asp.net web/script services?

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  • NHibernate IUserType convert nullable DateTime to DB not-null value

    - by barakbbn
    I have legacy DB that store dates that means no-date as 9999-21-31, The column Till_Date is of type DateTime not-null="true". in the application i want to build persisted class that represent no-date as null, So i used nullable DateTime in C# //public DateTime? TillDate {get; set; } I created IUserType that knows to convert the entity null value to DB 9999-12-31 but it seems that NHibernate doesn't call SafeNullGet, SafeNullSet on my IUserType when the entity value is null, and report a null is used for not-null column. I tried to by-pass it by mapping the column as not-null="false" (changed only the mapping file, not the DB) but it still didn't help, only now it tries to insert the null value to the DB and get ADOException. Any knowledge if NHibernate doesn't support IUseType that convert null to not-null values? Thanks //Implementation public class NullableDateTimeToNotNullUserType : IUserType { private static readonly DateTime MaxDate = new DateTime(9999, 12, 31); public new bool Equals(object x, object y) { //This didn't work as well if (ReferenceEquals(x, y)) return true; //if(x == null && y == null) return false; if (x == null || y == null) return false; return x.Equals(y); } public int GetHashCode(object x) { return x == null ? 0 : x.GetHashCode(); } public object NullSafeGet(IDataReader rs, string[] names, object owner) { var value = rs.GetDateTime(rs.GetOrdinal(names[0])); return (value == MaxDate)? null : value; } public void NullSafeSet(IDbCommand cmd, object value, int index) { var dateValue = (DateTime?)value; var dbValue = (dateValue.HasValue) ? dateValue.Value : MaxDate; ((IDataParameter)cmd.Parameters[index]).Value = dbValue; } public object DeepCopy(object value) { return value; } public object Replace(object original, object target, object owner) { return original; } public object Assemble(object cached, object owner) { return cached; } public object Disassemble(object value) { return value; } public SqlType[] SqlTypes { get { return new[] { NHibernateUtil.DateTime.SqlType }; } } public Type ReturnedType { get { return typeof(DateTime?); } } public bool IsMutable { get { return false; } } } } //Final Implementation with fixes. make the column mapping in hbm.xml not-null="false" public class NullableDateTimeToNotNullUserType : IUserType { private static readonly DateTime MaxDate = new DateTime(9999, 12, 31); public new bool Equals(object x, object y) { //This didn't work as well if (ReferenceEquals(x, y)) return true; //if(x == null && y == null) return false; if (x == null || y == null) return false; return x.Equals(y); } public int GetHashCode(object x) { return x == null ? 0 : x.GetHashCode(); } public object NullSafeGet(IDataReader rs, string[] names, object owner) { var value = NHibernateUtil.Date.NullSafeGet(rs, names[0]); return (value == MaxDate)? default(DateTime?) : value; } public void NullSafeSet(IDbCommand cmd, object value, int index) { var dateValue = (DateTime?)value; var dbValue = (dateValue.HasValue) ? dateValue.Value : MaxDate; NHibernateUtil.Date.NullSafeSet(cmd, valueToSet, index); } public object DeepCopy(object value) { return value; } public object Replace(object original, object target, object owner) { return original; } public object Assemble(object cached, object owner) { return cached; } public object Disassemble(object value) { return value; } public SqlType[] SqlTypes { get { return new[] { NHibernateUtil.DateTime.SqlType }; } } public Type ReturnedType { get { return typeof(DateTime?); } } public bool IsMutable { get { return false; } } } }

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  • Reading Source Code Aloud

    - by Jon Purdy
    After seeing this question, I got to thinking about the various challenges that blind programmers face, and how some of them are applicable even to sighted programmers. Particularly, the problem of reading source code aloud gives me pause. I have been programming for most of my life, and I frequently tutor fellow students in programming, most often in C++ or Java. It is uniquely aggravating to try to verbally convey the essential syntax of a C++ expression. The speaker must give either an idiomatic translation into English, or a full specification of the code in verbal longhand, using explicit yet slow terms such as "opening parenthesis", "bitwise and", et cetera. Neither of these solutions is optimal. On the one hand, an idiomatic translation is only useful to a programmer who can de-translate back into the relevant programming code—which is not usually the case when tutoring a student. In turn, education (or simply getting someone up to speed on a project) is the most common situation in which source is read aloud, and there is a very small margin for error. On the other hand, a literal specification is aggravatingly slow. It takes far far longer to say "pound, include, left angle bracket, iostream, right angle bracket, newline" than it does to simply type #include <iostream>. Indeed, most experienced C++ programmers would read this merely as "include iostream", but again, inexperienced programmers abound and literal specifications are sometimes necessary. So I've had an idea for a potential solution to this problem. In C++, there is a finite set of keywords—63—and operators—54, discounting named operators and treating compound assignment operators and prefix versus postfix auto-increment and decrement as distinct. There are just a few types of literal, a similar number of grouping symbols, and the semicolon. Unless I'm utterly mistaken, that's about it. So would it not then be feasible to simply ascribe a concise, unique pronunciation to each of these distinct concepts (including one for whitespace, where it is required) and go from there? Programming languages are far more regular than natural languages, so the pronunciation could be standardised. Speakers of any language would be able to verbally convey C++ code, and due to the regularity and fixity of the language, speech-to-text software could be optimised to accept C++ speech with a high degree of accuracy. So my question is twofold: first, is my solution feasible; and second, does anyone else have other potential solutions? I intend to take suggestions from here and use them to produce a formal paper with an example implementation of my solution.

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  • Rendering javascript at the server side level. A good or bad idea?

    - by davidhong
    I want to make it clear first: This isn't a question in relation to server-side Javascript or running Javascript server side. This is a question regarding rendering of Javascript code (which will be executed on the client-side) from server-side code. Having said that, take a look at below ASP.net code for example: hlRemoveCategory.Attributes.Add("onclick", "return confirm('Are you sure you want to delete this?');") This is prescribing the client-side onclick event on the server-side. As oppose to: $('a[rel=remove]').bind('click', function(event) { return confirm('Are you sure you want to delete this?'); } Now the question I want to ask is: What is the benefit of rendering javascript from the server-side code? Or the vice-versa? I personally prefer the second way of hooking up client-side UI/behaviour to HTML elements for the following reasons: Server-side does what ever it needs to already, including data-validation, event delegation and etc; and What server-side sees as an event is not necessarily the same process on the client-side. i.e., there are plenty more events on client-side (just look at custom events); and What happens on client-side and on server-side, during an event, could be completely irrelevant and decoupled; and What ever happens on client-side happens on client-side, there is no need for the server to know. Server should process and run what is given to them, how the process comes to life is not really up to them to decide in the event of the client-side events; and so and so forth. These are my thoughts obviously. I want to know what others think and if there has been any discussions on this topic. Topics branching from this argument can reach: Code management: is it easier to render everything from server-side? Separation of concern: is it easier if client-side logic is separated to server-side logic? Efficiency: which is more efficient both in terms of coding and running? At the end of the day, I am trying to move my team to go towards the second approach. There are lot of old guys in this team who are afraid of this change. I just wish to convince them with the right facts and stats. Let me know your thoughts.

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  • Is the Unix Philosophy still relevant in the Web 2.0 world?

    - by David Titarenco
    Introduction Hello, let me give you some background before I begin. I started programming when I was 5 or 6 on my dad's PSION II (some primitive BASIC-like language), then I learned more and more, eventually inching my way up to C, C++, Java, PHP, JS, etc. I think I'm a pretty decent coder. I think most people would agree. I'm not a complete social recluse, but I do stuff like write a virtual machine for fun. I've never taken a computer course in college because I've been in and out for the past couple of years and have only been taking core classes; never having been particularly amazing at school, perhaps I'm missing some basic tenet that most learn in CS101. I'm currently reading Coders at Work and this question is based on some ideas I read in there. A Brief (Fictionalized) Example So a certain sunny day I get an idea. I hire a designer and hammer away at some C/C++ code for a couple of months, soon thereafter releasing silvr.com, a website that transmutes lead into silver. Yep, I started my very own start-up and even gave it a clever web 2.0 name with a vowel missing. Mom and dad are proud. I come up with some numbers I should be seeing after 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12 months and set sail. Obviously, my transmuting server isn't perfect, sometimes it segfaults, sometimes it leaks memory. I fix it and keep truckin'. After all, gdb is my best friend. Eventually, I'm at a position where a very small community of people are happily transmuting lead into silver on a semi-regular basis, but they want to let their friends on MySpace know how many grams of lead they transmuted today. And they want to post images of their lead and silver nuggets on flickr. I'm losing out on potential traffic unless I let them log in with their Yahoo, Google, and Facebook accounts. They want webcam support and live cock fighting, merry-go-rounds and Jabberwockies. All these things seem necessary. The Aftermath Of course, I have to re-write the transmuting server! After all, I've been losing money all these months. I need OAuth libraries and OpenID libraries, JSON support, and the only stable Jabberwocky API is for Java. C++ isn't even an option anymore. I'm just one guy! The Java binary just grows and grows since I need some legacy Apache include for the JSON library, and some antiquated Sun dependency for OAuth support. Then I pick up a book like Coders at Work and read what people like jwz say about complexity... I think to myself.. Keep it simple, stupid. I like simple things. I've always loved the Unix Philosophy but even after trying to keep the new server source modular and sleek, I loathe having to write one more line of code. It feels that I'm just piling crap on top of other crap. Maybe I'm naive thinking every piece of software can be simple and clever. Maybe it's just a phase.. or is the Unix Philosophy basically dead when it comes to the current state of (web) development? I'm just kind of disheartened :(

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  • handling filename* parameters with spaces via RFC 5987 results in '+' in filenames

    - by Peter Friend
    I have some legacy code I am dealing with (so no I can't just use a URL with an encoded filename component) that allows a user to download a file from our website. Since our filenames are often in many different languages they are all stored as UTF-8. I wrote some code to handle the RFC5987 conversion to a proper filename* parameter. This works great until I have a filename with non-ascii characters and spaces. Per RFC, the space character is not part of attr_char so it gets encoded as %20. I have new versions of Chrome as well as Firefox and they are all converting to %20 to + on download. I have tried not encoding the space and putting the encoded filename in quotes and get the same result. I have sniffed the response coming from the server to verify that the servlet container wasn't mucking with my headers and they look correct to me. The RFC even has examples that contain %20. Am I missing something, or do all of these browsers have a bug related to this? Many thanks in advance. The code I use to encode the filename is below. Peter public static boolean bcsrch(final char[] chars, final char c) { final int len = chars.length; int base = 0; int last = len - 1; /* Last element in table */ int p; while (last >= base) { p = base + ((last - base) >> 1); if (c == chars[p]) return true; /* Key found */ else if (c < chars[p]) last = p - 1; else base = p + 1; } return false; /* Key not found */ } public static String rfc5987_encode(final String s) { final int len = s.length(); final StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(len << 1); final char[] digits = {'0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9','A','B','C','D','E','F'}; final char[] attr_char = {'!','#','$','&','\'','+','-','.','0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9','A','B','C','D','E','F','G','H','I','J','K','L','M','N','O','P','Q','R','S','T','U','V','W','X','Y','Z','^','_','a','b','c','d','e','f','g','h','i','j','k','l','m','n','o','p','q','r','s','t','u','v','w','x','y','z','|', '~'}; for (int i = 0; i < len; ++i) { final char c = s.charAt(i); if (bcsrch(attr_char, c)) sb.append(c); else { final char[] encoded = {'%', 0, 0}; encoded[1] = digits[0x0f & (c >>> 4)]; encoded[2] = digits[c & 0x0f]; sb.append(encoded); } } return sb.toString(); } Update Here is a screen shot of the download dialog I get for a file with Chinese characters with spaces as mentioned in my comment.

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  • IE is ignoring Z-Index on positioned elements

    - by Mike
    IE yet again is proving to be the bane of my existence. The top of a site I'm working on has a horizontal menu, an item of which triggers a pure-CSS menu that is positioned absolute within the parent menu DIV (positioned relative). This places the menu perfectly in both IE and the W3C compliant browsers. The problem arises when I have more positioned elements further down on the page. These are also positioned relative, because there is data inside them that needs to be positioned absolute... again, this displays properly in all browsers I've tested it on. The problem is, that then the top menu is opened, part is obscured by the positioned elements further down the page - in effect, it's positioned BELOW these elements even though there are z-index properties defined on all. (in both the CSS file and inline). The only way to get IE to display this properly is to place the actual HTML for the menu at the bottom of the page, below (in DOM terms) the positioned elements elsewhere on the page. I would only do this as an absolute last resort. All Elements are the same type (div). Here is the relevant HTML: <div id='menu'> <div id='cat_menu' style='display:none;z-index:10000;'> <table cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0' class='brmenu' width='100%'> [data] </table> </div> <div class='product_new' style='z-index:20;'>[data]</div> <div class='product_listing' style='background-color:#FFFFFF;'>[data]</div> And the relevant CSS: div#menu { height: 26px; padding: 0; position: relative; } div#cat_menu { position: absolute; top: 25px; left: 115px; width: 300px; z-index: 1000; } div.product_new { background-image: url("/images/sp_images.png"); background-position: 0 -108px; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding 0px; height: 40px; font-size: 9pt; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; z-index: 20; }

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  • Armchair Linguists: 'code' vs. 'codes'--or why I write 'code' and my manager asks for 'codes'

    - by Ukko
    I wanted to tap into the collective wisdom here to see if I can get some insight into one of my pet peeves, people who thread "code" as a countable noun. Let me also preface this by saying that I am not talking about anyone who speaks english as a second language, this is a native phenomenon. For those of us who slept through grammar class there are two classes of nouns which basically refer to things that are countable and non-countable (sometimes referred to as count and noncount). For instance 'sand' is a non-count noun and 'apple' is count. You can talk about "two apples" but "two sands" does not parse. The bright students then would point out a word like "beer" where is looks like this is violated. Beer as a substance is certainly a non-count noun, but I can ask for "two beers" without offending the grammar police. The reason is that there are actually two words tied up in that one utterance, Definition #1 is a yummy golden substance and Definition #2 is a colloquial term for a container of said substance. #1 is non-count and #2 is countable. This gets to my problem with "codes" as a countable noun. In my mind the code that we programmers write is non-count, "I wrote some code today." When used in the plural like "Have you got the codes" I can only assume that you are asking if I have the cryptographically significant numbers for launching a missile or the like. Every time my peer in marketing asks about when we will have the new codes ready I have a vision of rooms of code breakers going over the latest Enigma coded message. I corrected the usage in all the documents I am asked to review, but then I noticed that our customer was also using the work "codes" when they meant "code". At this point I have realized that there is a significant sub-population that uses "codes" and they seem to be impervious to what I see as the dominant "correct" usage. This is the part I want some help on, has anyone else noticed this phenomenon? Do you know what group it is associated with, old Fortran programmer perhaps? Is it a regionalism? I have become quick to change my terms when I notice a customer's usage, but it would be nice to know if I am sending a proposal somewhere what style they expect. I would hate to get canned with a review of "Ha, these guy's must be morons they don't even know 'code' is plural!"

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  • How to designing a generic databse whos layout may change over time?

    - by mawg
    Here's a tricky one - how do I programatically create and interrogate a database who's contents I can't really foresee? I am implementing a generic input form system. The user can create PHP forms with a WYSIWYG layout and use them for any purpose he wishes. He can also query the input. So, we have three stages: a form is designed and generated. This is a one-off procedure, although the form can be edited later. This designs the database. someone or several people make use of the form - say for daily sales reports, stock keeping, payroll, etc. Their input to the forms is written to the database. others, maybe management, can query the database and generate reports. Since these forms are generic, I can't predict the database structure - other than to say that it will reflect HTML form fields and consist of a the data input from collection of edit boxes, memos, radio buttons and the like. Questions and remarks: A) how can I best structure the database, in terms of tables and columns? What about primary keys? My first thought was to use the control name to identify each column, then I realized that the user can edit the form and rename, so that maybe "name" becomes "employee" or "wages" becomes ":salary". I am leaning towards a unique number for each. B) how best to key the rows? I was thinking of a timestamp to allow me to query and a column for the row Id from A) C) I have to handle column rename/insert/delete. Foe deletion, I am unsure whether to delete the data from the database. Even if the user is not inputting it from the form any more he may wish to query what was previously entered. Or there may be some legal requirements to retain the data. Any gotchas in column rename/insert/delete? D) For the querying, I can have my PHP interrogate the database to get column names and generate a form with a list where each entry has a database column name, a checkbox to say if it should be used in the query and, based on column type, some selection criteria. That ought to be enough to build searches like "position = 'senior salesman' and salary 50k". E) I probably have to generate some fancy charts - graphs, histograms, pie charts, etc for query results of numerical data over time. I need to find some good FOSS PHP for this. F) What else have I forgotten? This all seems very tricky to me, but I am database n00b - maybe it is simple to you gurus?

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  • How hard programming is? Really. [closed]

    - by Bubba88
    Hi! The question is about your perception of programming activity. How hard/exacting this task is? There is much buzz about programming nowadays, people say that programmers are smart, very technical and abstract at a time, know much about world, psychology etc.. They say, that programmers got really powerful brain thing, cause there is much to keep in consideration simultaneously again with much information folded into each other associatively (up 10 levels of folding they say))) Still, there are some terms to specify at our own.. So that is the question: What do you think about programming in general? Is it hard? Is it 'for everyone' or for the particular kind of people only? How much non-CS background do you need to program (just to program, really; enterprise applications for example)? How long is the learning curve? (again, for programming in general) And another bunch of random questions: - If you were not to like/love programming, would that be a serious trouble bothering your current employment? - If you were to start from the beginning, would you chose that direction this time? - What other areas (jobs or maybe hobbies) are comparable to programming in the way they can explode someone's lovely brain? - Is 'non turing-complete programming' (SQL, XML, etc.) comparable to what we do or is it really way easier, less requiring, cheap and akin to cooking :)? Well, the essence is: How would you describe programming activity WRT to its difficulty? Or, on the other hand: Did you ever catch yourself thinking at some point: OMG, it's sooo hard! I don't know how would I ever program, even carried away this way and doing programming just for fun? It's very interesting to know your opinion, your'e the programmers after all. I mean much people must be exaggerating/speculating about the thing they do not really know about. But that musn't be the case here on SO :) P.S.: I'll try my best to update this post later, and you please edit it too. At least I'll get decent English in my question text :)

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