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  • Quality for images in LaTeX documents

    - by Ladislav
    Hey all, What are some of the pointers that I need to follow if I want to have good quality images in a LaTeX document. These images are mostly screenshots of an software application or flow charts. Below are two such images. Flow Chart Screenshot Thanx Ladislav

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  • Determining the best audio quality.

    - by The Rook
    How can you determine the best audio quality in a list of audio files, with out looking at the audio file's header. What if all of the files came from differnt encoding types and they where all transcoded to the same format and bit rate.

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  • file_get_contents to image and change quality

    - by Chris
    Hey I have some code that downloads an image from a remote server $data = file_get_contents("$rURL"); I want to then change the quality of this image, but do not want to save it out to a file first, how do I convert $data into an image that I can then use in imagecopyresampled? Thanks

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  • How do I create tileable solid noise for map generation?

    - by nickbadal
    Hey guys, I'm trying to figure out how to generate tileable fractals in code (for game maps, but that's irrelevant) I've been trying to modify the Solid Noise plug-in shipped with GIMP (with my extremely limited understanding of how the code works) but I cant get mine to work correctly. My modified code so far (Java) GIMP's solid noise module that I'm basing my code off of (C) Here is what I'm trying to achieve but This is what I'm getting So if anybody can see what I've done wrong, or has a suggestion how I could go about doing it differently, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance. And if I'm asking way to much or if just a huge failure at life, I apologize.

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  • iTextSharp renders image with poor quality in PDF

    - by Sebastian
    Hello, I'm using iTextSharp to print a PDF document. Everything goes ok until I have to print the company logo in it. First I noticed that the logo had poor quality, but after testing with several images, I realize that was the iTextSharp rendering it poorly. The test I did to say this was to print the PDF using my code and then edit the document with Acrobat 8.0 and I drew an image. Then printed the two documents and saw the noticeable difference. My question is that if anyone know if this can be due to a scaling problem where I'm failing to tell iTextSharp how it must render the image or is an iTextSharp limitation. The code to render the image is the following: Dim para As Paragraph = New Paragraph para.Alignment = Image.RIGHT_ALIGN para.Add(text) Dim imageFile As String = String.Format("{0}{1}", GetAppSetting("UploadDirectory"), myCompany.LogoUrl) Dim thisImage As Image = Image.GetInstance(imageFile) thisImage.Alignment = Image.LEFT_ALIGN para.Add(thisImage) The printed images are the following: Image printed directly with iTextSharp Image edited and printed with Acrobat 8 Please let me know if I need to provide more info. Thanks

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  • Quality profile not found for org.codehaus.maven.dotnet.example:example, language cs

    - by senzacionale
    How can i add in sonar new CS profile. Now is just JAVA. I search in google and in sonar docs but i can't find it 11K downloaded (sonar-plugin-surefire-2.1.2-20100612230502.jar) [INFO] [sonar-core:internal {execution: default-internal}] [INFO] Database dialect class org.sonar.api.database.dialect.MsSql [INFO] ------------- Analyzing Example Solution .Net for Maven [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ERROR] BUILD ERROR [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] Can not execute Sonar Embedded error: Can not analyze the project Quality profile not found for org.codehaus.maven.dotnet.example:example, language cs [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] For more information, run Maven with the -e switch [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] Total time: 1 minute 19 seconds [INFO] Finished at: Sat Jun 12 23:08:14 CEST 2010 [INFO] Final Memory: 15M/31M [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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  • UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext gives poor quality / low resolution image, how do I get be

    - by user157733
    Ok so I am taking a screen shot of a photo I took with my camera on the iPhone. I put the camera photo into UIImageView and grab a screenshot of it using this sort of code (this is from http://www.skylarcantu.com/blog/2009/10/16/saving-a-view-as-an-image/)... - (void)takeScreenshot { UIWindow *theScreen = [[UIApplication sharedApplication].windows objectAtIndex:0]; UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(theScreen.frame.size); [[theScreen layer] renderInContext:UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()]; UIImage *screenshot = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext(); UIGraphicsEndImageContext(); [self doSomethingWith:screenshot]; } I have it working as I want but the image quality of the screenshot is much worse than the image I take with my camera. Is there a way to overcome this? I guess it is because this takes a screenshot which captures the resolution of the iPhone screen rather than the resolution of the camera - maybe?! Any suggestions would be great :-)

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  • High-quality ERD generator for PostgresQL under Linux?

    - by Dave Jarvis
    Background MySQL Workbench can produce appealing and high-quality ERDs such as: Research I have not found a tool that even comes close for PostgreSQL. Tools I have found: dbVisualizer - Yellow squares. AquaFold - Yellow squares. SQL Developer - Coloured squares. Dia - Coloured squares. SchemaBank - Can't export to PNG; looks okay, nothing stellar. SchemaSpy - XML export makes it possible to write an XSL skin... Gliffy - Incompatible Flash version. Druid - No. pgAdmin3 - Not applicable? phpPgAdmin - Couldn't login without a 30-minute configuration battle. Requirements Looking for an ERD tool: Visually stunning by default Can reverse-engineer a PostgreSQL (or JDBC-compliant) database Runs on Linux (or under WINE) Export high-resolution PNG (or SVG) FOSS

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  • Rreport / LaTeX quality output package

    - by aL3xa
    I'm looking for some LaTeX template for creating quality output. On R-bloggers I've bumped on Frank Harrel's Rreport package. Due to my, quite modest LaTeX abilities, only user-friendly (and noob-friendly) interface should suffice. Here's a link to an official website. I'm following the instructions, but I cannot manage to install an app. I use Ubuntu 9.10, R version is 2.10.1 (updated regularly from UCLA's CRAN server)... of course, cvs is installed on my sistem. Now, I'd like to know is there some user-friendly LaTeX template package (Sweave is still to advanced/spartan for me). I'm aware that my question is quite confounding, but brief glance on examples on Rreport page should give you a hint. I'm aware that LaTeX skills are a must, but just for now I need something that will suite my needs (as a psychological researcher). Is there any pandan for Rreport package?

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  • C# - High Quality Byte Array Conversion of Images

    - by Lijo
    Hi Team, I am converting images to byte array and storing in a text file using the following code. I am retrieving them successfully as well. My concern is that the quality of the retrieved image is not up to the expectation. Is there a way to have better conversion to byte array and retrieving? I am not worried about the space conception. Please share your thoughts. string plaintextStoringLocation = @"D:\ImageSource\Cha5.txt"; string bmpSourceLocation = @"D:\ImageSource\Cha50.bmp"; ////Read image Image sourceImg = Image.FromFile(bmpSourceLocation); ////Convert to Byte[] byte[] clearByteArray = ImageToByteArray(sourceImg); ////Store it for future use (in plain text form) StoreToLocation(clearByteArray, plaintextStoringLocation); //Read from binary byte[] retirevedImageBytes = ReadByteArrayFromFile(plaintextStoringLocation); //Retrieve from Byte[] Image destinationImg = ByteArrayToImage(retirevedImageBytes); //Display Image pictureBox1.Image = destinationImg; Thanks Lijo

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  • C++0x optimizing compiler quality

    - by aaa
    hello. I do some heavy numbercrunching and for me floating-point performance is very important. I like performance of Intel compiler very much and quite content with quality of assembly it produces. I am thinking at some point to try C++0x mainly for sugar parts, like auto, initializer list, etc, but also lambdas. at this point I use those features in regular C++ by the means of boost. How good of assembly code do compilers C++0x generate? specifically Intel and gcc compilers. Do they produce SSE code? is performance comparable to C++? are there any benchmarks? My Google search did not reveal much. Thank you.

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  • Are there compact external USB audio interfaces which are better than a on-board sound?

    - by rumtscho
    I am asking this for a friend. He loves his voice recognition software and dictates a lot of text using a headset. Now he has a new laptop, which only has a combined mic/headphones output, and wanted to buy an adapter. I told him to get an external USB sound interface instead, as the better sound quality will probably increase the hit rate of the voice recognition. He agreed, but when he saw a picture of the SoundBlaster X-Fi, he said that it is way too big, because he wants to carry the thing everywhere. He'd rather have one of these small things which are the size of a flash memory stick, with only one mic and one phones output, period. Now I am not sure whether these mini interfaces would produce a sound better than onboard sound. They all seem to come not from established audio interface manufacturers, but from electronic accessories manufacturers like Speedlink, or just noname brands. Is there a compact audio interface with good A/D quality (it is OK if the price is comparable to that of the bigger interfaces, even if there is no additional functionality like Chinch in-/output etc)?. And if there isn't, will the noname soundcardsticks offer any advantage over a simple adaptor for the onboard sound?

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  • Programming languages: out of the box legibility and extensibility

    - by sova
    Two excellent results of SOLID development ideology are - Legibility - Extensibility over the life of a project (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_(object-oriented_design) Although SOLID is a set of language-agnostic design ideas, some languages inherently support these ideas better than others. Out-of-the-box or after various customizations, in your opinion which language is best-suited to be both easily readable and easy to extend functionality in? Some definitions to pre-empt biases and flamewars: Legibility: amount of thinking done to understand the code proportional to the amount of code: (amount_think-energy / amount_code) is fairly constant and as low as possible in the optimal case. Extensibility: Addition of X amount of functionality requires a change in code or code additions in proportion to X (amount_added_functionality / amount_added_code) is fairly constant and as high as possible in the optimal case. Supporting information and tutorials encouraged. Code snippets welcome.

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  • Image resizing - sometimes very poor quality?!

    - by eWolf
    I'm resizing some images to the screen resolution of the user; if the aspect ratio is wrong, the image should be cut. My code looks like this: protected void ConvertToBitmap(string filename) { var origImg = System.Drawing.Image.FromFile(filename); var widthDivisor = (double)origImg.Width / (double)System.Windows.Forms.Screen.PrimaryScreen.Bounds.Width; var heightDivisor = (double)origImg.Height / (double)System.Windows.Forms.Screen.PrimaryScreen.Bounds.Height; int newWidth, newHeight; if (widthDivisor < heightDivisor) { newWidth = (int)((double)origImg.Width / widthDivisor); newHeight = (int)((double)origImg.Height / widthDivisor); } else { newWidth = (int)((double)origImg.Width / heightDivisor); newHeight = (int)((double)origImg.Height / heightDivisor); } var newImg = origImg.GetThumbnailImage(newWidth, newHeight, null, IntPtr.Zero); newImg.Save(this.GetBitmapPath(filename), System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp); } In most cases, this works fine. But for some images, the result has an extremely poor quality. It looks like the would have been resized to something very small (thumbnail size) and enlarged again.. But the resolution of the image is correct. What can I do? Example orig image: Example resized image: Note: I have a WPF application but I use the WinForms function for resizing because it's easier and because I already need a reference to System.Windows.Forms for a tray icon.

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  • Quality of TFS 2008 merged code

    - by paologios
    Does the quality of code merged by TFS 2008 depend on the used programming language? I know merging in Java / Subversion, and merging a branch to its trunk usually does not create much conflicts. Now in my company, we use VB.NET. When I merge two files TFS does not always get code blocks right, e.g. does not find the right If..then / end if lines. To give you an example, I mean: File 2 is created as a branch of File 1. Both files were changed later, now I'm going to merge those files and am recieving conficts: The marked end-if lines (1) are detected as corresponding, meaning the added event handler Button1_Click is being deleted. Now I wonder if this behavior is by language (C# vs. VB.NET) or are other source control solutions just better than TFS? (And I really liked TFS up to now :) ) File 1: Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load If Not Page.IsPostBack Then Label1.Text = "Hello" Label2.Text = "World" End If End Sub Protected Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender, ByVal e as System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click // .... If Page.IsValid Then Label3.Text = "Hello Button 2" End If // .... End Sub File 2 (Branch of File 1): Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load If Not Page.IsPostBack Then fillTableFromDatabase() End If // (1) End Sub Protected Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender, ByVal e as System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click // do something here End Sub Protected Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender, ByVal e as System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click // .... If Page.IsValid Then End If // (1) // .... End Sub

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  • Quality questionnaire php mysql graphipcs

    - by Marcelo
    Hi, i'm making a questionnaire about a service quality, its contains the options (poor, regular, good, very good). It's contains 6 questions (radio button) and a suggestion box (textbox). In the table of the database i created 6 rows for questions, 1 for suggestion and 1 for date (a friend of mine tole me to use this but i didn't get why). q1) I'm going to atribute a value form 1 to 4 to the radio buttons options, and i'd like to sum every answer for each question, and then divide by the numbers of user that answered that question and give the mean. how am i supposed to to that? I'd also like generate reports of the month, of the year. q2) not only about the questionnaire but for registration too. I need all the fields to be completed, no blank options, if he don't complete all of fields it'll not be submitted and there will be a warning message to the user. q3) about the field type, i'd like it to be the same class that is in the database, i'm having a "problem". Ex: Name(varchar) : 1234(int), in the field 'name' of the table of the database 1234 will be shown as name, and i don't want this, i want only the type that i declared in the construction of the table. q4) i'd also like to know if it's possible to create pizza graphics, about the percentage of each question, is this possible? q5) I'm using phpmyadmin and some of my id's are auto_increment, but 'cause of my tests they at a high number, i'd like to restart to 0 the ids number, is this possible? Thanks for the attention.

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  • How do I get developers to treat test code as "real" code?

    - by womp
    In the last two companies I've been at, there is an overriding mentality among developers that it's okay to write unit tests in a throw-away style. Code that they would never write in the actual product suddenly becomes OK in the unit tests. I'm talking Rampant copying and pasting between tests Code styling rules not followed Hard-coded magic strings across tests No object-oriented thought or design for integration tests, mocks or helper objects (250 line single-function tests!) .. and so on. I'm highly dissatisfied with the quality of the test code. Generally we do not do code reviews on our test assemblies, and we also do not enforce style or code analysis of them on our build server. Is that the only way to overcome this inertia about test quality? I'm looking for ideas to take to our developers, without having to go to higher management saying that we need to use resources for enforcement of test quality (although I will if I have to). Any thoughts or similar experiences?

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  • Master Data and Data Quality - Do You Really Know Your Customer?

    - by Mala Narasimharajan
    How well do you know your customer?   Data Quality and MDM go hand-in-hand when it comes to fully knowing your customers and information related to the Take a look at this video and see why customer data needs a consolidated management strategy that incorporates data quality.  Oracle MDM, specifically Oracle Customer Hub enables enterprises to truly understand their customers and ensure a single, trusted view for any customer.  It offers the most complete MDM application suite in the marketplace.  For more information on Oracle MDM and Oracle Enterprise Data Quality visit us on the web.  

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  • Trying to find a recent - PHP book - that utilizes SOLID principles! [closed]

    - by darga33
    Pulling my hair out! I have heard of Martin Fowler's book PoEAA and the other book Head First OOA OOD but those are not in PHP. I desperately want to read them, but ONLY in PHP utilizing the - SOLID acronym - principles! Does anyone know of the absolute best, most recent PHP book that utilizes the SOLID principles and GRASP, and all the other best practices? I want to learn from the best possible source! Not beginner books! I already understand OOP. This seems like an almost impossible question to find the answer to and so I thought, hey, might as well post on stackexchange!! Surely someone out there must know!!!!!!!!!! Or if noone happens to know, Maybe they know of an open source application that utilizes these principles that is relatively small that is not a framework. Something that I can go through every single class, and spend time understanding the insides and outs of how the program was developed. Thanks so much in advance! I really really really really appreciate it! Well it looks like we aren't supposed to ask about best books, so nevermind this question! Sorry about that!

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  • Image Resizing: Poor jpeg quality and black PNG backgrounds

    - by azz0r
    Hello, I have two issues with my class, basically the quality of the jpeg images is quite poor, but I'm not sure if thats down to my ratio resizing. Ideally I'd like this class to be strict with image sizes and crop into them, but I cant get my head around it. My main issue is that pngs always have a black bg, does anyone have experience with this happening? <?php class OpenSource_ImageResize { function __construct($theFile, $toWhere, $mime, $extension, $newWidth, $newHeight) { if ($mime == NULL) { $mime = getimagesize($theFile); $mime = $mime['mime']; } if ($mime == 'image/jpeg') { $size = getimagesize($theFile); if ($size[0] > $newWidth || $size[1] > $newHeight) { $sourceImage = imagecreatefromjpeg($theFile); } else { return copy($theFile, $toWhere); throw new exception('Could not create jpeg'); return false; } } else if ($mime == 'image/png') { $size = getimagesize($theFile); if ($size[0] > $newWidth || $size[1] > $newHeight) { $sourceImage = imagecreatefrompng($theFile); } else { return copy($theFile, $toWhere); //throw new exception('Could not create png'); return false; } } else if ($mime == 'image/gif') { $size = getimagesize($theFile); if ($size[0] > $newWidth || $size[1] > $newHeight) { $sourceImage = imagecreatefromgif ($theFile); } else { return copy($theFile, $toWhere); //throw new exception('Could not create gif'); return false; } } else { throw new exception('Not a valid mime type'); return false; } $oldX = imageSX($sourceImage); $oldY = imageSY($sourceImage); if ($newWidth == NULL) { $thumbHeight = $newHeight; $thumbWidth = round($newHeight/($oldY/$oldX)); } else if ($oldX > $oldY) { $thumbWidth = $newWidth; $thumbHeight = $oldY * ($newHeight/$oldX); } if ($oldX < $oldY) { $thumbWidth = round($newHeight/($oldY/$oldX)); $thumbHeight = $newHeight; } if ($oldX == $oldY) { $thumbWidth = $newWidth; $thumbHeight = $newHeight; } if (!gd_info()) { $dstImage = ImageCreate($thumbWidth, $thumbHeight); imagecopyresized($dstImage, $sourceImage, 0, 0, 0, 0, $thumbWidth, $thumbHeight, $oldX, $oldY); } else { $dstImage = ImageCreateTrueColor($thumbWidth, $thumbHeight); imagecopyresampled($dstImage, $sourceImage, 0, 0, 0, 0, $thumbWidth, $thumbHeight, $oldX, $oldY); } if ($mime == 'image/png') { $xparent = imagecolorresolvealpha($dstImage, 255,2,240, 0) ; imagecolortransparent($dstImage,$xparent); imagealphablending($dstImage,true); imagepng($dstImage, $toWhere); } else if ($mime == 'image/jpeg') { imagejpeg($dstImage, $toWhere); } else if ($mime == 'image/gif') { imagegif ($dstImage, $toWhere); } imagedestroy($dstImage); imagedestroy($sourceImage); return true; } }

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  • Check Checkboxes dynamically

    - by Selom
    Hi, ive been dealing with this for some time now and need your help. well I have an array $arrayAmenities which contains a combination of the following data based on what is fetched from the database: Air Conditioned Bar Brunch Party Room Tea Room Terrace Valet I would like the application to dynamically check the following set of checkboxes based on the data contained in the array. With my code only one checkbox is checked based on the first data contained in the array. Can you please tell what Im missing? Thanks for answering. code: //get amenities one by one in order to set the checkboxes $arrayAmenities = explode(',', $rest_amenities ); $i=0; while(count($arrayAmenities) > $i) { var_dump($arrayAmenities[$i]); switch($arrayAmenities[$i]) { case 'Air Conditioned': $checkedAir = 'checked=true'; break; case 'Bar': $checkedBar = 'checked=true'; break; case 'Brunch': $checkedBru = 'checked=true'; break; case 'Party Room'; $checkedPar = 'checked=true'; break; } $i+=1; } } checkboxes <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:10px"> <tr> <td style="border-top:1px solid #CCC;border-right:1px solid #CCC;border-left:1px solid #CCC; padding-left:5px ">Air Conditioned <input type="checkbox" name="air_cond" <?php print $checkedAir;?> value="Air Conditioned"></td> <td style="padding-left:10px; border-top:1px solid #CCC;border-right:1px solid #CCC;">Bar <input type="checkbox" name="bar" value="Bar" <?php print $checkedBar;?>></td> <td style="padding-left:10px; border-top:1px solid #CCC;border-right:1px solid #CCC; ">Brunch <input type="checkbox" name="brunch" value="Brunch" <?php print $checkedBru;?>></td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border-top:1px solid #CCC;border-right:1px solid #CCC; border-bottom:1px solid #CCC; border-left:1px solid #CCC; padding-left:5px">Party Room <input <?php print $checkedPar;?> type="checkbox" name="party_room" value="Party Room" ></td> <td style="padding-left:10px; border-top:1px solid #CCC;border-right:1px solid #CCC; border-bottom:1px solid #CCC;">Tea Room <input type="checkbox" name="tea_room" value="Tea Room" ></td> <td style="padding-left:10px; border-top:1px solid #CCC;border-right:1px solid #CCC; border-bottom:1px solid #CCC;">Terrace <input type="checkbox" name="terrace" value="Terrace"></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" style="border-bottom:1px solid #CCC; border-left:1px solid #CCC; border-right:1px solid #CCC; padding-left:5px">Valet <input type="checkbox" name="valet" value="Valet" ></td> </tr> </table>

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  • How can I get metrics such as incoming and outcoming traffic with Apache servers?

    - by hhh
    Suppose a network consisting of hubs A, B, C, D ... and X. I am looking for ways to visualize how users use the network such as incoming, outgoing and other metrics. In Apache logs, I can see some errs if something did not work but I have no realistic picture about such a system in general i.e. how the system actually works. I am looking for some sort of flow-analysis and I would like to get pure data to create some graph. Then analyze the graph with some metrics where I do not even know the right metrics, perhaps some dispersion metric. My goal is to create some sort of objective way to judge quality.

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  • Does Test Driven Development (TDD) improve Quality and Correctness? (Part 1)

    - by David V. Corbin
    Since the dawn of the computer age, various methodologies have been introduced to improve quality and reduce cost. In this posting, I will by sharing my experiences with Test Driven Development; both its benefits and limitations. To start this topic, we need to agree on what TDD is. The first is to define each of the three words as used in this context. Test - An item or action which measures something in some quantifiable form. Driven - The primary motivation or focus of a series of activities (process) Development - All phases of a software project/product from concept through delivery. The above are very simple definitions that result in the following: "TDD is a process where the primary focus is on measuring and quantifying all aspects of the creation of a (software) product." There are many places where TDD is used outside of software development, even though it is not known by this name. Consider the (conventional) education process that most of us grew up on. The focus was to get the best grades as measured by different tests. Many of these tests measured rote memorization and not understanding of the subject matter. The result of this that many people graduated with high scores but without "quality and correctness" in their ability to utilize the subject matter (of course, the flip side is true where certain people DID understand the material but were not very good at taking this type of test). Returning to software development, let us look at some common scenarios. While these items are generally applicable regardless of platform, language and tools; the remainder of this post will utilize Microsoft Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server (TFS) for examples. It should be realized that everyone does at least some aspect of TDD. At the most rudimentary level, getting a program to compile involves a "pass/fail" measurement (is the syntax valid) that drives their ability to proceed further (run the program). Other developers may create "Unit Tests" in the belief that having a test for every method/property of a class and good code coverage is the goal of TDD. These items may be helpful and even important, but really only address a small aspect of the overall effort. To see TDD in a bigger view, lets identify the various activities that are part of the Software Development LifeCycle. These are going to be presented in a Waterfall style for simplicity, but each item also occurs within Iterative methodologies such as Agile/Scrum. the key ones here are: Requirements Gathering Architecture Design Implementation Quality Assurance Can each of these items be subjected to a process which establishes metrics (quantified metrics) that reflect both the quality and correctness of each item? It should be clear that conventional Unit Tests do not apply to all of these items; at best they can verify that a local aspect (e.g. a Class/Method) of implementation matches the (test writers perspective of) the appropriate design document. So what can we do? For each of area, the goal is to create tests that are quantifiable and durable. The ability to quantify the measurements (beyond a simple pass/fail) is critical to tracking progress(eventually measuring the level of success that has been achieved) and for providing clear information on what items need to be addressed (along with the appropriate time to address them - in varying levels of detail) . Durability is important so that the test can be reapplied (ideally in an automated fashion) over the entire cycle. Returning for a moment back to our "education example", one must also be careful of how the tests are organized and how the measurements are taken. If a test is in a multiple choice format, there is a significant statistical probability that a correct answer might be the result of a random guess. Also, in many situations, having the student simply provide a final answer can obscure many important elements. For example, on a math test, having the student simply provide a numeric answer (rather than showing the methodology) may result in a complete mismatch between the process and the result. It is hard to determine which is worse: The student who makes a simple arithmetric error at one step of a long process (resulting in a wrong answer) or The student who (without providing the "workflow") uses a completely invalid approach, yet still comes up with the right number. The "Wrong Process"/"Right Answer" is probably the single biggest problem in software development. Even very simple items can suffer from this. As an example consider the following code for a "straight line" calculation....Is it correct? (for Integral Points)         int Solve(int m, int b, int x) { return m * x + b; }   Most people would respond "Yes". But let's take the question one step further... Is it correct for all possible values of m,b,x??? (no fair if you cheated by being focused on the bolded text!)  Without additional information regarding constrains on "the possible values of m,b,x" the answer must be NO, there is the risk of overflow/wraparound that will produce an incorrect result! To properly answer this question (i.e. Test the Code), one MUST be able to backtrack from the implementation through the design, and architecture all the way back to the requirements. And the requirement itself must be tested against the stakeholder(s). It is only when the bounding conditions are defined that it is possible to determine if the code is "Correct" and has "Quality". Yet, how many of us (myself included) have written such code without even thinking about it. In many canses we (think we) "know" what the bounds are, and that the code will be correct. As we all know, requirements change, "code reuse" causes implementations to be applied to different scenarios, etc. This leads directly to the types of system failures that plague so many projects. This approach to TDD is much more holistic than ones which start by focusing on the details. The fundamental concepts still apply: Each item should be tested. The test should be defined/implemented before (or concurrent with) the definition/implementation of the actual item. We also add concepts that expand the scope and alter the style by recognizing: There are many things beside "lines of code" that benefit from testing (measuring/evaluating in a formal way) Correctness and Quality can not be solely measured by "correct results" In the future parts, we will examine in greater detail some of the techniques that can be applied to each of these areas....

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