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• Career advice: stay with PHP or start a new career in something else ( .Net?)

  - by Christian P

  I'm planning on moving to NY in 6-12 months tops, so I'm forced to find a new job. When I'm planing to start my life in another city it's also probably a good time to think about career changes. I've found a lot of different opinions about PHP vs .Net vs Java and this is not topic here. I don't want to start a new fight about which language is better. Knowing programming language is not the most important thing for being a software developer. To be a really good developer you need to know OOP, design patterns, testing... and language is just a tool to make things happen. So back to my question. I have mixed experience in IT - 1 year as an IT support guy (Windows administration and support), around 2 years of experience in embedded programming (VB.Net 2005) and for the last 2 years I'm working with PHP/MySQL. I have worked with Magento web shop, assisted in some projects in Symfony, modified few Drupal sites. My main concerns are following: Do I continue to improve my skills in PHP e.g. to start learning some major PHP framework like Zend, Symfony maybe get some PHP certification. Or do I start learning .NET or Java. I'm more familiar to .NET so I'll probably choose it if choice falls between .NET and Java ( or you could convince me to choose Java :). Career-wise, I don't know what is the best choice. Learning new framework and language is more time consuming then improving my existing skills in PHP. But with .NET you have a lot of possibilities (Windows 7 Phone development, Silverlight, WPF) and possibly bigger chances to find better jobs. PHP jobs are less payed then .NET, at least, according to my researches (correct me if I'm wrong). But if I start now with .NET I'm just a beginner and my salary will be low. I need at least 2+ years of experience in some language to even try to find some job that is paying higher than $50-60k in NY. My main goal in next 2-3 years is to try to find a job in a $60-80k category. Don't get me wrong, I'm not just chasing money, but money is an important factor when you're trying to start a family. I'm 27 years old and I feel that there isn't a lot of room for wrong decisions regarding my career, so any advice will be very welcome. Update Thank you all for spending time to help me with my problem. All of the answers and comments have been very helpful. I have decided to stick with PHP but also to learn C# and Silverlight 4. We'll see where the life will take me.

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• The Minimalist's Approach to Content Governance

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  This week on the blog, we want to focus on the content lifecylce and how important it is to have the tools in place to be able to properly manage all te phases of the content lifecylce. John Brunswick has some great advice when it comes to this topic, so expect to hear a lot from him this week! Originally posted by John Brunswick. Let's be honest - content governance is far from an exciting topic. BUT the potential of a very small intranet team creating and maintaining a platform that provides an organization with relevant, high value information, helping workers to get their jobs done with greater accuracy and in less time is exciting. It is easy to quickly start producing content, but the challenge is ensuring that the environment is easy to navigate and use on the third week and during the third year.   What can be done to bridge this gap? Over the next few blog entries let's take a pragmatic, minimalistic view of a process that can help any team manage a wealth of unstructured information. Based on an earlier article that I wrote around Portal Governance, I am going to focus on using technology as much as possible to support the governance of content with minimal involvement from users. The only certainty about content production is that business users are not fans of maintaining content. Maintenance is overhead and is a long-term investment thats value will possibly not be realized under the current content creator's watch. To add context to how we will use technical tools in this process, each post will highlight one section of the content lifecycle process as outlined below Content Lifecycle Stages 1. Request - Understand the education, purpose, resource and success criteria for content 2. Create - Determine access and workflow for content 3. Manage - Understand ownership and review cycles 4. Retire - Act on thresholds established during the request stage Within each state we will also elaborate as to 1. Why - why would we entertain doing this? 2. How - the steps that are needed to make it happen 3. Impact - what is the net benefit or loss based on the process Over the course of this week, we will dive deep into the stages and the minimal amount of time, effort and process within each to make some meaningful gains in the improvement of user experience and productivity in their search for information. It might be a stretch to say that we can make content governance exciting, but hopefully it can end up being painless and paying dividends. And if you'd like to hear first hand from a customer that is managing their content lifecycle with Oracle WebCenter, be sure to join us on Wednesday for this webcast "ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter"!

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• The partition table is corrupt

  - by Tim

  I have a corrupt the partition table on the laptop that is running Ubunutu 10.4. Before the partition table was corrupt I had the following partitions: 2 primary partitions: 1st - NTFS 2nd - Extended 4 logical partitons that are built within 2nd extended: 1st NTFS (68 Gib) 2nd Linux (19 Gib) 3rd Swap (1.4 Gib) 4th Linux (24 Gib) The physical order of these partitions was the following: ( 4th Linux ) - ( 1st NTFS ) - ( 2nd Linux ) - ( 3rd Swap ) The logical order of the partition was different: ( 1st NTFS ) - ( 2nd Linux ) - ( 3rd Swap ) ( 4th Linux ) NTFS partition was big and it resided between 2 Linux partitions, neither of these partitions had enough space to install Oracle 11g. Therefore, I decided to a) either move the NTFS partion to the left or b) remove it completely and extend partition where Linux resides. As I tool I have chosen GParted. But unfortunately it was not able to move the partition because he found that in NTFS partition there are some blocks that are referenced multiple times. Also it was not able to remove the partition neither, because in this case the partitions that follow it ( 2nd Linux ) - ( 3rd Swap ) have to be in his opinion also removed, because the organization of extended partition is a linked list. Since GParted was not able to do such thing I was trying to find another tool. I found diskdrake tool on PSLinuxOS distribution of linux. That tool silently deleted ( 1st NTFS ) partition and I thought that everything was fine. But diskdrake has damaged the partition in a way that I am not able either to boot from the hard disk nor to see the partitions with GParted and even with diskdrake itself! Fortunately I have a live CD of Ubuntu 8.10 and I am able to boot and see hard disk. I have 2 ideas how I can solve the problem: 1) Manually change disk partitions and point them to the correct partitions. 2) Create partition table with GParted that as much as possible is the same with the previous one I find the 2nd approach less time consuming but some data will be lost because of it is not possible to place borders of the partitions exactly how it was before. And moreover I am not sure if such approach would work, for example, if the OS is able to locate files after repartitioning. I feel like that it will but not 100% sure. Are there some ideas how the problem may be solved?

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• How to be successful at BDD Specifications Workshops?

  - by sigo

  Today we tried to introduce BDD in our software development process by having a specification workshop. For this workshop we had 2 developers, 1 tester and 1 business analyst. The workshop lasted 1h30 and by the end of it we managed to figure out some BDD scenarios for our new feature. We tried to focus on finding the scenarios that we could miss, and the difficult ones. At the end of the workshop some people were actually unhappy with the workshop. One developer felt he wasted his time as he was used to be given out the scenarios directly by the business analyst and review them with her. The business analyst didn't feel confident with our scenario coverage (Had a feeling that we could have missed out other important stuff) but more importantly felt that this workshop was also a waste of time as she could have figured out all these scenarios by herself and in a shorter period of time. So my question is how that kind of workshop can actually work. In the theory, given you have a new feature to develop, you put the tree 'amigos' (dev/tester/ba) in the same room so that they can collaborate together on writing the differents requirements for the new feature using examples. I can see all the benefits from that. Specially in term of knowledge sharing and common product/end goal/done vision. But in practice, we still think it is more cost effective to first have a BA to work on his own on the examples and only then to have the scenarios to be reviewed/reworked by the 3 'amigos'. By having the BA to work on his own, we actually feel more confident that we are less going to miss out stuff + we still get to review the scenarios afterward to double check. We don't think than simple brainstorming/deliberate discovery is actually enought to seriously cover all the requirement for a feature. The business analyst is actually the best person for that kind of stuff. The thing we just do is to review what she wrote and see if then we have a common understanding (which could then lead to rewrite some of her scenarios or add new ones she could have missed). This workshop lasted 1h30, and by the end of it, we didn't feel confident enought about wha we did...sure we could have spent more time on it but honestly most people get exhausted after 1h30 of brainstorming. So how can you get that to work effectively in practice ?

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• I didn't mean to become a database developer, but now I am. Should I stop or try to get better?

  - by pretlow majette

  20 years ago I couldn't afford even a cheap POS program when I opened my first surf shop in the Virgin Islands. I bought a copy of Paradox (remember that?) in 1990 and spent months in a back room scratching out a POS application. Over many iterations, including a switch to Access (2000)/SQL Server (2003), I built a POS and backoffice solution that runs four stores with multiple cash registers, a warehouse and office. Until recently, all my stores were connected to the same LAN (in a small shopping center) and performance wasn't an issue. Now that we've opened a location in the States that's changed. Connecting to my local server via the internet has slowed that locations application to a crawl. This is partly due to the slow and crappy dsl service we have in the Virgin Islands, and partly due to my less-than-professional code and sql. With other far-away stores in the works, I need a better solution. I like my application. My staff knows it well, and I'm not inclined to take on the expense of a proper commercial solution. So where does that leave me? I should probably host my sql online to sidestep the slow dsl here. I think I can handle cleaning up my SQL querries to speed that up a bit. What about Access? My version seems so old, but I don't like the newer versions with the 'ribbon'. There are so many options... Should I be learning Visual Studio with an eye on moving completely to the web? Will my VBA skills help me at all there? I don't have the luxury of a year at the keyboard to figure it out anymore. What about dotnetnuke, sharepoint, or lightswitch? They all seem like possibilities, but even understanding their capabilities is daunting. I'm pretty deep into it, but maybe I should bail and hire a consultant or programmer. That sounds expensive tho, and there's no guarantee there either... Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Or, if anybody is interested in buying a small chain of surf shops...

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• Looking for recommendations for a server-side newsletter program

  - by Sparky672

  Hello- I'm currently using a server-side SQL based mailing list program called Php-List on multiple sites and it works fairly well. But installation and setup is quite cumbersome, quirky and the interface is not well organized... neither is the code... with pieces all over the place in random fashion. Customizing the "look & feel" and full site integration are both tedious and painful. Upgrading the version is made more complex since multiple edits need to be manually transferred each time. Also, probably due to a poor English translation, descriptions and instructions within certain areas of the user interface are contradictory and unclear. You just have to play with it and remember what you did last time it worked. It's supposed to be so my customers can send out their own newsletters... after supplying a written tutorial, about half of them seem to stumble through it okay and the other half just hire me to do it for them. So not quite easy enough for most average people to use. I'm looking for something that's as easy for them as using a blog or discussion forum. It also must be easier to set up and integrate into a site than Php-List. I have no problem getting dirty and writing CSS or HTML by hand. Nor do I have any problem editing the program code. Perhaps what I'm looking for is a solution that is more organized, a better GUI, and template or "skin" based. Therefore, if I spend many hours customizing a skin, I can simply update the program and re-use my custom skin without having to reproduce the tedious setup over and over. (I currently maintain a list of about 25 things I must manually edit or add to multiple files in multiple directories each time I install or upgrade Php-List) A great example of what I'm looking for is very much like WordPress or phpBB. They're both easy to install and customize yet powerful and packed full of features. They're also VERY well organized making customization less painful. So enough yammering for now... anyone know of something, besides Php-List, with many of the same features as Php-List; maintaining a mailing list with a server-side database, custom sign-up pages, automatic opt-in opt-out, allowing custom HTML newsletter templates, etc? Thank-you!

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• PASS Summit for SQL Starters

  - by Davide Mauri

  I’ve received a buch of emails from PASS Summit “First Timers” that are also somehow new to SQL Server (for “somehow” I mean people with less than 6 month experience but with some basic knowledge of SQL Server engine) or are catching up from SQL Server 2000. The common question regards the session one should not miss to have a broad view of the entire SQL Server platform have some insight into some specific areas of SQL Server Given that I’m on (semi-)vacantion and that I have more free time (not true, I have to prepare slides & demos for several conferences, PASS Summit  - Building the Agile Data Warehouse with SQL Server 2012 - and PASS 24H - Agile Data Warehousing with SQL Server 2012 - among them…but let’s pretend it to be true), I’ve decided to make a post to answer to this common questions. Of course this is my personal point of view and given the fact that the number and quality of session that will be delivered at PASS Summit is so high that is very difficoult to make a choice, fell free to jump into the discussion and leave your feedback or – even better – answer with another post. I’m sure it will be very helpful to all the SQL Server beginners out there. I’ve imposed to myself to choose 6 session at maximum for each Track. Why 6? Because it’s the maximum number of session you can follow in one day, and given that all the session will be on the Summit DVD, they are the answer to the following question: “If I have one day to spend in training, which session I should watch?”. Of course a Summit is not like a Course so a lot of very basics concept of well-established technologies won’t be found here. Analysis Services, Integration Services, MDX are not part of the Summit this time (at least for the basic part of them). Enough with that, let’s start with the session list ideal to have a good Overview of all the SQL Server Platform: Geospatial Data Types in SQL Server 2012 Inside Unstructured Data: SQL Server 2012 FileTable and Semantic Search XQuery and XML in SQL Server: Common Problems and Best Practice Solutions Microsoft's Big Play for Big Data Dashboards: When to Choose Which MSBI Tool Microsoft BI End-User Tools 360° for what concern Database Development, I recommend the following sessions Understanding Transaction Isolation Levels What to Look for in Execution Plans Improve Query Performance by Fixing Bad Parameter Sniffing A Window into Your Data: Using SQL Window Functions Practical Uses and Optimization of New T-SQL Features in SQL Server 2012 Taking MERGE Beyond the Basics For Business Intelligence Information Delivery Analyzing SSAS Data with Excel Building Compelling Power View Reports Managed Self-Service BI PowerPivot 101  SharePoint for Business Intelligence The Best Microsoft BI Tools You've Never Heard Of and for Business Intelligence Architecture & Development BI Power Hour Building a Tabular Model Database Enterprise Information Management: Bringing Together SSIS, DQS, and MDS SSIS Design Patterns Storing Columnstore Indexes Hadoop and Its Ecosystem Components in Action Beside the listed sessions, First Timers should also take a look the the page PASS set up for them: http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2012/Connect/FirstTimers.aspx See you at PASS Summit!

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• Changing Your Design for Testability

  Sometimes I come across a way of putting something that it is pithy good, not Hallmark trite, but an impactful and concise way of clarifying a previously obscure concept. A recent one of these happy occurrences was when I was reading the excellent Art of Unit Testing by Roy Osherove. After going through the basics of why youd want to test code and how to do it, Roy confronts a frequent objection to having unit tests, that it ends up changing how you design your components: When we write unit tests for our code, we are adding another end user (the test) to the object model. That end user is just as important as the original one, but it has different goals when using the model.  The test has specific requirements from the object model that seem to defy the basic logic behind a couple of object-oriented principles, mainly encapsulation. [emphasis added by me] When I read this, something clicked for me. I used to find it persuasive that because unit tests caused you to change your design they were more disruptive than they were worth. The counter argument I heard is that the disruption was OK, because testable design was just obviously better. That argument was not convincing as it seemed like delusional arrogance to suggest that any one of type of design was just inherently better for the particular applications I was building. What was missing was that I was not thinking of unit tests as an additional and equal end user to my design. If I accepted that proposition, than it was indeed obvious that a testable design was better because now all users of my component would be satisfied. Have I accepted that proposition? Id phrase it slightly different. I find more and more that having unit tests helps me write better, less buggy code before it gets to production or QA. As I write more unit tests, it gets easier to see how to create testable components, so I dont feel like its taking me as much extra time up front. I pick and choose components that seem most likely to benefit from automated tests and it is working out nicely. If you already implement Test Driven Development, this whole post was probably a waste of your time <g> If you hate the idea of unit tests, well, probably not a great value prop for you either. However, if you are somewhere in between, at least take a minute and check out a sample chapter from Roys book at: http://www.manning.com/osherove/.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• High CPU load for 1:30 minutes when mounting ext4-raid partition

  - by sirion

  I have a raid 5 (software) with 5x2TB drives. I encrypted the raid with cryptsetup and put an ext4-partition on top. In the beginning opening and mounting the raid took less than 10 seconds, now (for a few weeks) mounting alone takes 1:30 minutes and the cpu stays around 93% the whole time: The output of "time sudo mount /dev/mapper/8000 /media/8000" is: real 1m31.952s user 0m0.008s sys 1m25.229s At the same time only one line is added to /var/log/syslog: kernel: [ 2240.921381] EXT4-fs (dm-1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null) My Ubuntu-version is "12.04.1 LTS" and no updates are pending. I checked the partition with fsck, but it says that all is ok. The "cryptsetup luksOpen" command only takes a few seconds. I also tried changing the raid-bitmap (as it was suggested in some forum) but it did not change the behaviour. sudo mdadm --grow /dev/md0 -b internal and sudo mdadm --grow /dev/md0 -b none I had the idea that it might be the hardware being slow, but a read test with "sudo hdparm -t /dev/md0" spit out values between 62 and 159 MB/sec: Timing buffered disk reads: 382 MB in 3.00 seconds = 127.14 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 482 MB in 3.02 seconds = 159.62 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 190 MB in 3.03 seconds = 62.65 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 474 MB in 3.02 seconds = 157.12 MB/sec Although I think it is strange that the read rate jumps by more than 100% - could that mean something? The speed test when reading from the mapped (decrypted) device shows similar behavior, although it is of course much slower. "sudo hdparm -t /dev/mapper/8000": Timing buffered disk reads: 56 MB in 3.02 seconds = 18.54 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 122 MB in 3.09 seconds = 39.43 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 134 MB in 3.02 seconds = 44.35 MB/sec The output of a verbose mount "mount -vvv /dev/mapper/8000 /media/8000" does not help much: mount: fstab path: "/etc/fstab" mount: mtab path: "/etc/mtab" mount: lock path: "/etc/mtab~" mount: temp path: "/etc/mtab.tmp" mount: UID: 0 mount: eUID: 0 mount: spec: "/dev/mapper/8000" mount: node: "/media/8000" mount: types: "(null)" mount: opts: "(null)" mount: you didn't specify a filesystem type for /dev/mapper/8000 I will try type ext4 mount: mount(2) syscall: source: "/dev/mapper/8000", target: "/media/8000", filesystemtype: "ext4", mountflags: -1058209792, data: (null) Any idea where I could find additional information on why mounting takes so long, or what additional tests I could run?

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• Should accessible members of an internal class be internal too?

  - by Jeff Mercado

  I'm designing a set of APIs for some applications I'm working on. I want to keep the code style consistent in all the classes I write but I've found that there are a few inconsistencies that I'm introducing and I don't know what the best way to resolve them is. My example here is specific to C# but this would apply to any language with similar mechanisms. There are a few classes that I need for implementation purposes that I don't necessarily want to expose in the API so I make them internal whereever needed. Generally what I would do is design the class as I normally would (e.g., make members public/protected/private where necessary) and change the visibility level of the class itself to internal. So I might have a few classes that look like this: internal interface IMyItem { ItemSet AddTo(ItemSet set); } internal class _SmallItem : IMyItem { private readonly /* parameters */; public _SmallItem(/* small item parameters */) { /* ... */ } public ItemSet AddTo(ItemSet set) { /* ... */ } } internal abstract class _CompositeItem: IMyItem { private readonly /* parameters */; public _CompositeItem(/* composite item parameters */) { /* ... */ } public abstract object UsefulInformation { get; } protected void HelperMethod(/* parameters */) { /* ... */ } } internal class _BigItem : _CompositeItem { private readonly /* parameters */; public _BigItem(/* big item parameters */) { /* ... */ } public override object UsefulInformation { get { /* ... */ } } public ItemSet AddTo(ItemSet set) { /* ... */ } } In another generated class (part of a parser/scanner), there is a structure that contains fields for all possible values it can represent. The class generated is internal too but I have control over the visibility of the members and decided to make them internal as well. internal partial struct ValueType { internal string String; internal ItemSet ItemSet; internal IMyItem MyItem; } internal class TokenValue { internal static int EQ(ItemSetScanner scanner) { /* ... */ } internal static int NAME(ItemSetScanner scanner, string value) { /* ... */ } internal static int VALUE(ItemSetScanner scanner, string value) { /* ... */ } //... } To me, this feels odd because the first set of classes, I didn't necessarily have to make some members public, they very well could have been made internal. internal members of an internal type can only be accessed internally anyway so why make them public? I just don't like the idea that the way I write my classes has to change drastically (i.e., change all uses of public to internal) just because the class is internal. Any thoughts on what I should do here? It makes sense to me that I might want to make some members of a class declared public, internal. But it's less clear to me when the class is declared internal.

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• Why can't the IT industry deliver large, faultless projects quickly as in other industries?

  - by MainMa

  After watching National Geographic's MegaStructures series, I was surprised how fast large projects are completed. Once the preliminary work (design, specifications, etc.) is done on paper, the realization itself of huge projects take just a few years or sometimes a few months. For example, Airbus A380 "formally launched on Dec. 19, 2000", and "in the Early March, 2005", the aircraft was already tested. The same goes for huge oil tankers, skyscrapers, etc. Comparing this to the delays in software industry, I can't help wondering why most IT projects are so slow, or more precisely, why they cannot be as fast and faultless, at the same scale, given enough people? Projects such as the Airbus A380 present both: Major unforeseen risks: while this is not the first aircraft built, it still pushes the limits if the technology and things which worked well for smaller airliners may not work for the larger one due to physical constraints; in the same way, new technologies are used which were not used yet, because for example they were not available in 1969 when Boeing 747 was done. Risks related to human resources and management in general: people quitting in the middle of the project, inability to reach a person because she's on vacation, ordinary human errors, etc. With those risks, people still achieve projects like those large airliners in a very short period of time, and despite the delivery delays, those projects are still hugely successful and of a high quality. When it comes to software development, the projects are hardly as large and complicated as an airliner (both technically and in terms of management), and have slightly less unforeseen risks from the real world. Still, most IT projects are slow and late, and adding more developers to the project is not a solution (going from a team of ten developer to two thousand will sometimes allow to deliver the project faster, sometimes not, and sometimes will only harm the project and increase the risk of not finishing it at all). Those which are still delivered may often contain a lot of bugs, requiring consecutive service packs and regular updates (imagine "installing updates" on every Airbus A380 twice per week to patch the bugs in the original product and prevent the aircraft from crashing). How can such differences be explained? Is it due exclusively to the fact that software development industry is too young to be able to manage thousands of people on a single project in order to deliver large scale, nearly faultless products very fast?

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• Moms on Mobile: Are They Way Ahead of You?

  - by Mike Stiles

  You may have no idea how much and how fast moms are embracing mobile. Of all the demographics that can be targeted by marketers, moms have always been at or near the top of the list. And why not? They’re running households, they’re all over town, they’re making buying decisions, and they’re influencing family and friends. They, out of necessity, become masters of efficiency and time management. So when a technology tool, like mobile, comes along that assists with that efficiency and time management, we would obviously expect them to take advantage of it. So if it’s obvious, why are so many big, sophisticated brands left choking on the dust of moms who have zoomed past them in the adoption of mobile, and social on mobile? Let’s break down some hard truths as presented by a Mojiava report: -Moms spend 6.1 hours per day on average on their smartphones – more than magazines, TV or radio. -46% took action after seeing a mobile ad. -51% self-identify as “addicted” to their smartphone. -Households with an income of $25K-$50K have about the same mobile penetration among moms as those with incomes of $50K-$75K. So mobile is regarded as a necessity for middle-class moms. -Even moms without smartphones spend 2.5 hours on average per day on some connected mobile device. -Of moms with such devices, 9.8% have an iPad, 9.5% a Kindle and 5.7% an iPod Touch. -Of tablet-owning moms, 97% bought something using their tablet in the last month. -31% spend over 10 hours per week on their tablet, but less than 2 hours per week on their PCs. -62% of connected moms use shopping apps. -46% want to get info on their mobile while in a store. -Half of connected moms use social on their mobile. And they’re engaged. 81% are brand fans, 86% post updates, and 84% comment. If women and moms are one of your primary targets and you find yourself with no strong social channels where content is driving engagement and relationship-building, with sites not optimized for mobile, or with no tablet or smartphone apps, you have been solidly left behind by your customers and prospects. And their adoption of mobile and social on mobile is only exponentially speeding up, not slowing down. How much sense does it make when your customer is ready to act on your mobile ad, wants to user your iPad app to buy something from you, wants to be your fan on Facebook, wants to get messages and deals from you while they’re in your store…but you’re completely absent? I’ll help you cheat on the test by giving you the answer…no sense at all. Catch up to momma.

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• Oracle Linux Partner Pavilion Spotlight - Part II

  - by Ted Davis

  As we draw closer to the first day of Oracle OpenWorld, starting in less than a week, we continue to showcase some of our premier partners exhibiting in the Oracle Linux Partner Pavilion ( Booth #1033). We have Independent Hardware Vendors, Independent Software Vendors and Systems Integrators that show the breadth of support in the Oracle Linux and Oracle VM ecosystem. In today's post we highlight three additional Oracle Linux / Oracle VM Partners from the pavilion. Micro Focus delivers mainframe solutions software and software delivery tools with its Borland products. These tools are grouped under the following solutions: Analysis and testing tools for JDeveloper Micro Focus Enterprise Analyzer is key to the success of application overhaul and modernization strategies by ensuring that they are based on a solid knowledge foundation. It reveals the reality of enterprise application portfolios and the detailed constructs of business applications. COBOL for Oracle Database, Oracle Linux, and Tuxedo Micro Focus Visual COBOL delivers the next generation of COBOL development and deployment. Itbrings the productivity of the Eclipse IDE to COBOL, and provides the ability to deploy key business critical COBOL applications to Oracle Linux both natively and under a JVM. Migration and Modernization tooling for mainframes Enterprise application knowledge, development, test and workload re-hosting tools significantly improves the efficiency of business application delivery, enabling CIOs and IT leaders to modernize application portfolios and target platforms such as Oracle Linux. When it comes to Oracle Linux database environments, supporting high transaction rates with minimal response times is no longer just a goal. It’s a strategic imperative. The “data deluge” is impacting the ability of databases and other strategic applications to access data and provide real-time analytics and reporting. As such, customer demand for accelerated application performance is increasing. Visit LSI at the Oracle Linux Pavilion, #733, to find out how LSI Nytro Application Acceleration products are designed from the ground up for database acceleration. Our intelligent solid-state storage solutions help to eliminate I/O bottlenecks, increase throughput and enable Oracle customers achieve the highest levels of DB performance. Accelerate Your Exadata Success With Teleran. Teleran’s software solutions for Oracle Exadata and Oracle Database reduce the cost, time and effort of migrating and consolidating applications on Exadata. In addition Teleran delivers visibility and control solutions for BI/data warehouse performance and user management that ensure service levels and cost efficiency.Teleran will demonstrate these solutions at the Oracle Open World Linux Pavilion: Consolidation Accelerator - Reduces the cost, time and risk ofof migrating and consolidation applications on Exadata. Application Readiness – Identifies legacy application performance enhancements needed to take advantage of Exadata performance features Workload Accelerator – Identifies and clusters workloads for faster performance on Exadata Application Visibility and Control - Improves performance, user productivity, and alignment to business objectives while reducing support and resource costs. Thanks for reading today's Partner Spotlight. Three more partners will be highlighted tomorrow. If you missed our first Partner Spotlight check it out here.

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• Desparately Need Help: After a mishap, a folder shows 0 files in it

  - by bobby

  I'm hoping some of you guys may be able to shed some light on this scenario: I had a odt document on which I was working from one of many files in a folder among many on an internal hard-drive. Some kind of glitch occured and the document crashed (this could have been some kind of power charge whilst another hard drive was being unmounted). As I looked into the folders surrounding the folder in which my odt document was stored, they start to show 0 files in them. I immediately switched off the PC and then re-started. Upon the re-start, the folders would show the 1,000s of files I've stored in them and then within 5 minutes, as I started to back them up, freeze, cut-off the process of transfer. When I tried to open anything on the internal hard-drive, be it an avi film, an mp3, a cbr or a word doc, they all showed blank or would work. Some folders had vastly less files showing. Eventually, things calmed down. I closed the PC, checked that the connections were in firmly, gave it a vacuum and restarted the PC. All the files eventually showed up and I started to back them up (which I'd brought a hard drive for anyway but been distracted and not done). All folders show except the one which contained the document I was working on at the time of the trouble. Strangely, it was one that should itself full on several occasions on restarts. It shows zero files now. Properties shows zero files and zero space taken by it. Yet when I drop a file into this folder by pasting it in, it disappears too. Opening the folder, there is nothing there. But if I paste that document again, the PC asks would I like to replace the existing file with the same name (that I can't see), when I click yes, the file appears. When I exit, the folder shows the 0 files in the folder. Going back into the folder, it has disappeared again. I'm hoping that someone can help give me tips to recover the files in the folder, it would be greatly, greatly appreciated. All other films, music, comics, documents show and are fine!

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• What does path finding in internet routing do and how is it different from A*?

  - by alan2here

  Note: If you don't understand this question then feel free to ask clarification in the comments instead of voting down, it might be that this question needs some more work at the moment. I've been directed here from the Stack Excange chat room Root Access because my question didn't fit on Super User. In many aspects path finding algorithms like A star are very similar to internet routing. For example: A node in an A* path finding system can search for a path though edges between other nodes. A router that's part of the internet can search for a route though cables between other routers. In the case of A*, open and closed lists are kept by the system as a whole, sepratly from any individual node as well as each node being able to temporarily store a state involving several numbers. Routers on the internet seem to have remarkable properties, as I understand it: They are very performant. New nodes can be added at any time that use a free address from a finite (not tree like) address space. It's real routing, like A*, there's never any doubling back for example. Similar IP addresses don't have to be geographically nearby. The network reacts quickly to changes to the networks shape, for example if a line is down. Routers share information and it takes time for new IP's to be registered everywhere, but presumably every router doesn't have to store a list of all the addresses each of it's directions leads most directly to. I'm looking for a basic, general, high level description of the algorithms workings from the point of view of an individual router. Does anyone have one? I presume public internet routers don't use A* as the overheads would be to large, and scale to poorly. I also presume there is a single method worldwide because it seems as if must involve a lot of transferring data to update and communicate a reasonable amount of state between neighboring routers. For example, perhaps the amount of data that needs to be stored in each router scales logarithmically with the number of routers that exist worldwide, the detail and reliability of the routing is reduced over increasing distances, there is increasing backtracking involved in parts of the network that are less geographically uniform or maybe each router really does perform an A* style search, temporarily maintaining open and closed lists when a packet arrives.

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• Security Alert for CVE-2012-4681 Released

  - by Eric P. Maurice

  Hi, this is Eric Maurice again! Oracle has just released Security Alert CVE-2012-4681 to address 3 distinct but related vulnerabilities and one security-in-depth issue affecting Java running in desktop browsers.  These vulnerabilities are: CVE-2012-4681, CVE-2012-1682, CVE-2012-3136, and CVE-2012-0547.  These vulnerabilities are not applicable to standalone Java desktop applications or Java running on servers, i.e. these vulnerabilities do not affect any Oracle server based software. Vulnerabilities CVE-2012-4681, CVE-2012-1682, and CVE-2012-3136 have each received a CVSS Base Score of 10.0.  This score assumes that the affected users have administrative privileges, as is typical in Windows XP.  Vulnerability CVE-20120-0547 has received a CVSS Base Score of 0.0 because this vulnerability is not directly exploitable in typical user deployments, but Oracle has issued a security-in-depth fix for this issue as it can be used in conjunction with other vulnerabilities to significantly increase the overall impact of a successful exploit. If successfully exploited, these vulnerabilities can provide a malicious attacker the ability to plant discretionary binaries onto the compromised system, e.g. the vulnerabilities can be exploited to install malware, including Trojans, onto the targeted system.  Note that this malware may in some instances be detected by current antivirus signatures upon its installation.  Due to the high severity of these vulnerabilities, Oracle recommends that customers apply this Security Alert as soon as possible.  Furthermore, note that the technical details of these vulnerabilities are widely available on the Internet and Oracle has received external reports that these vulnerabilities are being actively exploited in the wild.    Developers should download the latest release at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html   Java users should download the latest release of JRE at http://java.com, and of course   Windows users can take advantage of the Java Automatic Update to get the latest release. For more information: The Advisory for Security Alert CVE-2012-4681 is located at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alert-cve-2012-4681-1835715.html  Users can verify that they’re running the most recent version of Java by visiting: http://java.com/en/download/installed.jsp    Instructions on removing older (and less secure) versions of Java can be found at http://java.com/en/download/faq/remove_olderversions.xml   

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• SMTP POP3 & PST. Acronyms from Hades.

  - by mikef

  A busy SysAdmin will occasionally have reason to curse SMTP. It is, certainly, one of the strangest events in the history of IT that such a deeply flawed system, designed originally purely for campus use, should have reached its current dominant position. The explanation was that it was the first open-standard email system, so SMTP/POP3 became the internet standard. We are, in consequence, dogged with a system with security weaknesses so extreme that messages are sent in plain text and you have no real assurance as to who the message came from anyway (SMTP-AUTH hasn't really caught on). Even without the security issues, the use of SMTP in an office environment provides a management nightmare to all commercial users responsible for complying with all regulations that control the conduct of business: such as tracking, retaining, and recording company documents. SMTP mail developed from various Unix-based systems designed for campus use that took the mail analogy so literally that mail messages were actually delivered to the users, using a 'store and forward' mechanism. This meant that, from the start, the end user had to store, manage and delete messages. This is a problem that has passed through all the releases of MS Outlook: It has to be able to manage mail locally in the dreaded PST file. As a stand-alone system, Outlook is flawed by its neglect of any means of automatic backup. Previous Outlook PST files actually blew up without warning when they reached the 2 Gig limit and became corrupted and inaccessible, leading to a thriving industry of 3rd party tools to clear up the mess. Microsoft Exchange is, of course, a server-based system. Emails are less likely to be lost in such a system if it is properly run. However, there is nothing to stop users from using local PSTs as well. There is the additional temptation to load emails into mobile devices, or USB keys for off-line working. The result is that the System Administrator is faced by a complex hybrid system where backups have to be taken from Servers, and PCs scattered around the network, where duplication of emails causes storage issues, and document retention policies become impossible to manage. If one adds to that the complexity of mobile phone email readers and mail synchronization, the problem is daunting. It is hardly surprising that the mood darkens when SysAdmins meet and discuss PST Hell. If you were promoted to the task of tormenting the souls of the damned in Hades, what aspects of the management of Outlook would you find most useful for your task? I'd love to hear from you. Cheers, Michael

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• Showing ZFS some LOVE

  - by Kristin Rose

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} L is for the way you look at us, and O because we’re Oracle, but V is very, very, extra ordinary, and E, well that’s obvious… E is because Oracle’s new Sun ZFS Storage Appliance is Excellent, and here at OPN, we like spell out the obvious!  If you haven’t already heard, the Sun ZFS Appliance has “A simple, GUI-driven setup and configuration, solid price-performance and world-class Oracle support behind it. The CRN Test Center recommends the Sun ZFS Storage”. Read more about what CRN said here. Oracle's Sun ZFS Appliance family delivers enterprise-class network attached storage (NAS) capabilities with leading Oracle integration, simplicity, efficiency, performance, and TCO.  The systems offer an easy way to manage and expand your storage environment at a lower cost, with more efficiency, better data integrity, and higher performance when compared with competitive NAS offerings. Did we mention that set up, including configuring, will take you less than an hour since it all comes in one box and is so darn simple to use? So if you L-O-V-E what you’re hearing about Oracle’s Sun Z-F-S, learn more by watching the video below, and visiting any of our available resources . It Had to Be You, The OPN Communications Team

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• Are separate business objects needed when persistent data can be stored in a usable format?

  - by Kylotan

  I have a system where data is stored in a persistent store and read by a server application. Some of this data is only ever seen by the server, but some of it is passed through unaltered to clients. So, there is a big temptation to persist data - whether whole rows/documents or individual fields/sub-documents - in the exact form that the client can use (eg. JSON), as this removes various layers of boilerplate, whether in the form of procedural SQL, an ORM, or any proxy structure which exists just to hold the values before having to re-encode them into a client-suitable form. This form can usually be used on the server too, though business logic may have to live outside of the object, On the other hand, this approach ends up leaking implementation details everywhere. 9 times out of 10 I'm happy just to read a JSON structure out of the DB and send it to the client, but 1 in every 10 times I have to know the details of that implicit structure (and be able to refactor access to it if the stored data ever changes). And this makes me think that maybe I should be pulling this data into separate business objects, so that business logic doesn't have to change when the data schema does. (Though you could argue this just moves the problem rather than solves it.) There is a complicating factor in that our data schema is constantly changing rapidly, to the point where we dropped our previous ORM/RDBMS system in favour of MongoDB and an implicit schema which was much easier to work with. So far I've not decided whether the rapid schema changes make me wish for separate business objects (so that server-side calculations need less refactoring, since all changes are restricted to the persistence layer) or for no separate business objects (because every change to the schema requires the business objects to change to stay in sync, even if the new sub-object or field is never used on the server except to pass verbatim to a client). So my question is whether it is sensible to store objects in the form they are usually going to be used, or if it's better to copy them into intermediate business objects to insulate both sides from each other (even when that isn't strictly necessary)? And I'd like to hear from anybody else who has had experience of a similar situation, perhaps choosing to persist XML or JSON instead of having an explicit schema which has to be assembled into a client format each time.

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• How can we unify business goals and technical goals?

  - by BAM

  Some background I work at a small startup: 4 devs, 1 designer, and 2 non-technical co-founders, one who provides funding, and the other who handles day-to-day management and sales. Our company produces mobile apps for target industries, and we've gotten a lot of lucky breaks lately. The outlook is good, and we're confident we can make this thing work. One reason is our product development team. Everyone on the team is passionate, driven, and has a great sense of what makes an awesome product. As a result, we've built some beautiful applications that we're all proud of. The other reason is the co-founders. Both have a brilliant business sense (one actually founded a multi-million dollar company already), and they have close ties in many of the industries we're trying to penetrate. Consequently, they've brought in some great business and continue to keep jobs in the pipeline. The problem The problem we can't seem to shake is how to bring these two awesome advantages together. On the business side, there is a huge pressure to deliver as fast as possible as much as possible, whereas on the development side there is pressure to take your time, come up with the right solution, and pay attention to all the details. Lately these two sides have been butting heads a lot. Developers are demanding quality while managers are demanding quantity. How can we handle this? Both sides are correct. We can't survive as a company if we build terrible applications, but we also can't survive if we don't sell enough. So how should we go about making compromises? Things we've done with little or no success: Work more (well, it did result in better quality and faster delivery, but the dev team has never been more stressed out before) Charge more (as a startup, we don't yet have the credibility to justify higher prices, so no one is willing to pay) Extend deadlines (if we charge the same, but take longer, we'll end up losing money) Things we've done with some success: Sacrifice pay to cut costs (everyone, from devs to management, is paid less than they could be making elsewhere. In return, however, we all have creative input and more flexibility and freedom, a typical startup trade off) Standardize project management (we recently started adhering to agile/scrum principles so we can base deadlines on actual velocity, not just arbitrary guesses) Hire more people (we used to have 2 developers and no designers, which really limited our bandwidth. However, as a startup we can only afford to hire a few extra people.) Is there anything we're missing or doing wrong? How is this handled at successful companies? Thanks in advance for any feedback :)

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• Trying to use stencils in 2D while retaining layer depth

  - by Steve

  This is a screen of what's going on just so you can get a frame of reference. http://i935.photobucket.com/albums/ad199/fobwashed/tilefloors.png The problem I'm running into is that my game is slowing down due to the amount of texture swapping I'm doing during my draw call. Since walls, characters, floors, and all objects are on their respective sprite sheet containing those types, per tile draw, the loaded texture is swapping no less than 3 to 5+ times as it cycles and draws the sprites in order to layer properly. Now, I've tried throwing all common objects together into their respective lists, and then using layerDepth drawing them that way which makes things a lot better, but the new problem I'm running into has to do with the way my doors/windows are drawn on walls. Namely, I was using stencils to clear out a block on the walls that are drawn in the shape of the door/window so that when the wall would draw, it would have a door/window sized hole in it. This is the way my draw was set up for walls when I was going tile by tile rather than grouped up common objects. first it would check to see if a door/window was on this wall. If not, it'd skip all the steps and just draw normally. Otherwise end the current spriteBatch Clear the buffers with a transparent color to preserve what was already drawn start a new spritebatch with stencil settings draw the door area end the spriteBatch start a new spritebatch that takes into account the previously set stencil draw the wall which will now be drawn with a hole in it end that spritebatch start a new spritebatch with the normal settings to continue drawing tiles In the tile by tile draw, clearing the depth/stencil buffers didn't matter since I wasn't using any layerDepth to organize what draws on top of what. Now that I'm drawing from lists of common objects rather than tile by tile, it has sped up my draw call considerably but I can't seem to figure out a way to keep the stencil system to mask out the area a door or window will be drawn into a wall. The root of the problem is that when I end a spriteBatch to change the DepthStencilState, it flattens the current RenderTarget and there is no longer any depth sorting for anything drawn further down the line. This means walls always get drawn on top of everything regardless of depth or positioning in the game world and even on top of each other as the stencil has to happen once for every wall that has a door or window. Does anyone know of a way to get around this? To boil it down, I need a way to draw having things sorted by layer depth while also being able to stencil/mask out portions of specific sprites.

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• Are You Meeting Social Customer Service Expectations?

  - by Mike Stiles

  Whether it’s B2B or B2C, one sure path to repeat business is making sure your buyer has a memorably pleasant and successful customer service experience with you. If they get that kind of treatment consistently, that’s called a relationship. And those aren’t broken easily. Social customer service, driven by integrated SRM (social relationship management) technology, is the venue that can effectively connect customers not only to the brand, but to other customers. Positive experiences, once administered, don’t just rest with the recipient. They’re published in the form of public raves and peer-to-peer recommendation, a force far more actionable than push advertising. What’s more, your customers have come to expect access to you and satisfaction from you using social. An NM Incite study shows 83% of Twitter users and 71% of Facebook users expect to get an answer from brands the same day they post to them on their social assets. To make sure you’re responding, you’ve got to have a tech platform that’s set up to moderate and alert so you’ll know ASAP a customer needs help. The more integrated your social enterprise is, the faster you can not only respond, but respond with the answer they’re looking for, because your system is connected to the internal resources that can surface the answer or put wheels in motion to rectify the situation in the shortest amount of time possible. But if you go to the necessary lengths to make sure your customers feel valued and important, will they really reward you? The study says 71% of consumers who got quick and effective responses from companies they contacted via social were more likely to recommend the brand to their friends and followers. So yes, sweeping people off their feet pays big dividends in terms of word-of-mouth marketing. But you should be keenly aware of the reverse side of that coin. Give people a negative experience, either in real world or virtual customer service, and that message is highly likely to get amplified through social channels faster and louder. Only 36% of the NM Incite study’s respondents reported that their problems were solved quickly and effectively. 36%? That’s hardly an impressive number. It gets worse. 10% never got so much as a response - at all. Going back to the relationship analogy, companies that are this deep in the ditch where customer service is concerned are making their girl or boyfriends really easy for a competitor to steal. Given the technology tools and data available right now for having an intimate knowledge of the customer, what products they’ve purchased, likely problems with those products, effective resolutions to those problems, and follow-up communication to gauge satisfaction, there are fewer excuses than ever for making the lifeblood of your business feel like you couldn’t care less. @mikestiles

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• Does it make the game more fun when the user is forced to progress through the levels sequentially rather than letting them pick and play?

  - by BeachRunnerJoe

  Hello. For the first time in my game, I'm stuck with a real design dilemma. I guess that's a good thing ;) I'm building a word puzzle game that has five levels, each with 30 puzzles. Currently, the user has to solve one puzzle at a time before moving to the next. However, I'm finding the user occasionally gets stuck on a puzzle, at which point they can no longer play until they solve it. This is obviously bad because many people will probably just quit playing the game and delete the app. The only elegant solution I can find to helping the player get unstuck is changing the design of the game to allow the users to pick any puzzle to play at any time. This way, if they get stuck, they can come back to it later and at least they have other puzzles to play in the meantime. It's my opinion, however, that this new flow design doesn't make the game as fun as the original flow design where the player has to complete a puzzle before moving to the next. To me, it's like anything else, when you only have one of something, it's more enjoyable, but when you have 30 of something, it's far less enjoyable. In fact, when I present the user with 30 puzzles to choose from, I'm concerned I might be making them feel like it's a lot of work they have to do and that's bad. I even had a tester voluntarily tell me that being forced to complete a puzzle before moving to the next is actually motivating. My questions are... Do you agree/disagree? Do you have any suggestions for how I can help the player get unstuck? Thanks so much in advance for your thoughts! EDIT: I should mention that I've already considered a few other solutions to helping the user get unstuck, but none of them seem like good ideas. They are... Add more hints: Currently, the user gets two hints per puzzle. If I increase the hint count, it only makes the game more easy and still leaves the possibility of the user getting stuck. Add a "Show Solution" button: This seems like a bad idea because it's my opinion this takes the fun out of the game for many people who would probably otherwise solve the puzzle if they didn't have the quick option to see the solution.

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• How can I create a flexible system for tiling a 2D RPG map?

  - by CptSupermrkt

  Using libgdx here. I've just finished learning some of the basics of creating a 2D environment and using an OrthographicCamera to view it. The tutorials I went through, however, hardcoded their tiled map in, and none made mention of how to do it any other way. By tiled map, I mean like Final Fantasy 1, where the world map is a grid of squares, each with a different texture. So for example, I've got a 6 tile x 6 tile map, using the following code: Array<Tile> tiles = new Array<Tile>(); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(0,5), TileType.FOREST)); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(1,5), TileType.FOREST)); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(2,5), TileType.FOREST)); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(3,5), TileType.GRASS)); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(4,5), TileType.STONE)); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(5,5), TileType.STONE)); //... x5 more times. Given the random nature of the environment, for loops don't really help as I have to start and finish a loop before I was able to do enough to make it worth setting up the loop. I can see how a loop might be helpful for like tiling an ocean or something, but not in the above case. The above code DOES get me my final desired output, however, if I were to decide I wanted to move a piece or swap two pieces out, oh boy, what a nightmare, even with just a 6x6 test piece, much less a 1000x1000 world map. There must be a better way of doing this. Someone on some post somewhere (can't find it now, of course) said to check out MapEditor. Looks legit. The question is, if that is the answer, how can I make something in MapEditor and have the output map plug in to a variable in my code? I need the tiles as objects in my code, because for example, I determine whether or not a tile is can be passed through or collided with based on my TileTyle enum variable. Are there alternative/language "native" (i.e. not using an outside tool) methods to doing this?

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• Organization &amp; Architecture UNISA Studies &ndash; Chap 13

  - by MarkPearl

  Learning Outcomes Explain the advantages of using a large number of registers Discuss the way in which compilers optimize register usage Discuss the evolution of CISC machines Describe the characteristics of RISC architecture Discuss the RISC vs. CISC controversy Describe the way in which RISC and CISC design principles can be combined Instruction Execution Characteristics To understand the the line of reasoning of RISC advocates, we need a brief overview of instruction execution characteristics. These include… Operations Operands Procedure Calls These three sections can be studied in depth in the textbook at pages 503 - 505 A number of groups have come up with the conclusion that the attempt to make the instruction set architecture closer to HLLs (High Level Languages) is not the most effective design strategy. Rather HLL’s can be best supported by optimizing performance of the most time-consuming features of typical HLL programs. Generally 3 main characteristics came up to improve performance… Use a large number of registers or use a compiler to optimize register usage Careful attention needs to be paid to the design of instruction pipelines A simplified (reduced) instruction set is indicated The use of a large register optimization One of the most important design principles of RISC machines is the use of a large number of registers. The concept of register windows and the use of a large register file versus the use of cache memory are discussed. On the face of it, the use of a large set of registers should decrease the need to access memory. The design task is to organize the registers in such a fashion that this goal is realized. Read page 507 – 510 for a detailed explanation. Compiler-based register optimization   Reduced Instructions Set Architecture There are two advantages to smaller programs… Because the program takes up less memory, there is a savings in that resource (this was more compelling when memory was more expensive) Smaller programs should improve performance, and this will happen in two ways – fewer instructions means fewer instruction bytes to be fetched and in a paging environment smaller programs occupy fewer pages, reducing page faults. Certain characteristics are common to RISC processors… One instruction per cycle Register-to-register operations Simple addressing modes Simple instruction formats RISC vs. CISC After initial enthusiasm for RISC machines, there has been a growing realization that RISC designs may benefit from the inclusion of some CISC features CISC designs may benefit from the inclusion of some RISC features

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