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  • How can we improve overall Programmer Education & Training?

    - by crosenblum
    Last week, I was just viewing this amazing interview by Kevin Rose of Phillip Rosedale, of Second Life. And they had an amazing discussion about how to find, hire and identify good programmer's, and how hard it is to find good ones. Which has lead me to really think about the way we programmer's learn, are taught. For a majority of us, myself included, we are self-taught. Which is great about being a programmer, anyone can learn and develop skills. But this also means, that there is no real standards of what a good programmer is/are, and what kind of environment's encourage the growth of programming skills. This isn't so much a question, but just a desire in me, to see how we can change the culture of programming, and the manager's of programming, so that education and self-improvement is encouraged. There are a lot of avenue's for continued education, youtube videos, books, conferences, but because of the experiental nature of what we do, it isn't always clear what's important to learn and to master. Let's look at the The Joel 12 Steps. The Joel Test Do you use source control? Can you make a build in one step? Do you make daily builds? Do you have a bug database? Do you fix bugs before writing new code? Do you have an up-to-date schedule? Do you have a spec? Do programmers have quiet working conditions? Do you use the best tools money can buy? Do you have testers? Do new candidates write code during their interview? Do you do hallway usability testing? I think all of these have important value, but because of something I call the Experiential Gap, if a programmer or manager has never experienced any of the negative consequences for not having done items on the list, they will never see the need to do any of them. The Experiental Gap, is my basic theory, that each of us has different jobs and different experiences. So for some of us, that have always worked with dozens of programmer's, source control is a must have. But for people who have always been the only programmer, they can not imagine the need for source control. And it's because of this major flaw in how we learn, that we evaluate people by what best practices they do or not do, and the reason for either can start a flame war. We always evaluate people in our field by what they do, and think "Oh if this guy/gal isn't doing xyz best practice, he/she can't be a good programmer, so let's not waste time or energy talking to them." This is exactly why we have so many programming flame wars, that it becomes, because of the Experiental Gap, we can't imagine people not having made the decisions that we have had to made. So this has lead me to think, that we totally need to rethink how we train, educate and manage programmer's. For example, what percentage of you have had encouragement by your manager's to go to conferences, and even have them pay for it? For me, and a lot of people, this is extremely rare, a lot of us would love to go to conferences, to learn more, but the money ain't there to do that. So the point of this question is really to spark a lot of how can we train, learn and manage better? How can we create a new culture of learning that doesn't insult people for not having the same job experiences. Yes we all have jobs and work to do, but our ability to do our jobs well, depends on our desire, interest and support in improving our mastery of our skills. Right now, I see our culture being rather disorganized, we support the elite, but those tons of us that want to get better, just don't have enough support to learn and improve ourselves. I mean, do we as an industry, want to be perceived as just replaceable cogs? Thank you...

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  • Get to Know a Candidate (8 of 25): Rocky Anderson&ndash;Justice Party

    - by Brian Lanham
    DISCLAIMER: This is not a post about “Romney” or “Obama”. This is not a post for whom I am voting. Information sourced for Wikipedia. Ross Carl “Rocky” Anderson served two terms as the 33rd mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, between 2000 and 2008.  He is the Executive Director of High Road for Human Rights.  Prior to serving as Mayor, he practiced law for 21 years in Salt Lake City, during which time he was listed in Best Lawyers in America, was rated A-V (highest rating) by Martindale-Hubbell, served as Chair of the Utah State Bar Litigation Section[4] and was Editor-in-Chief of, and a contributor to, Voir Dire legal journal. As mayor, Anderson rose to nationwide prominence as a champion of several national and international causes, including climate protection, immigration reform, restorative criminal justice, LGBT rights, and an end to the "war on drugs". Before and after the invasion by the U.S. of Iraq in 2003, Anderson was a leading opponent of the invasion and occupation of Iraq and related human rights abuses. Anderson was the only mayor of a major U.S. city who advocated for the impeachment of President George W. Bush, which he did in many venues throughout the United States. Anderson's work and advocacy led to local, national, and international recognition in numerous spheres, including being named by Business Week as one of the top twenty activists in the world on climate change,serving on the Newsweek Global Environmental Leadership Advisory Board, and being recognized by the Human Rights Campaign as one of the top ten straight advocates in the United States for LGBT equality. He has also received numerous awards for his work, including the EPA Climate Protection Award, the Sierra Club Distinguished Service Award, the Respect the Earth Planet Defender Award, the National Association of Hispanic Publications Presidential Award, The Drug Policy Alliance Richard J. Dennis Drugpeace Award, the Progressive Democrats of America Spine Award, the League of United Latin American Citizens Profile in Courage Award, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee Patriot Award, the Code Pink (Salt Lake City) Pink Star honor, the Morehouse University Gandhi, King, Ikeda Award, and the World Leadership Award for environmental programs. Formerly a member of the Democratic Party, Anderson expressed his disappointment with that Party in 2011, stating, “The Constitution has been eviscerated while Democrats have stood by with nary a whimper. It is a gutless, unprincipled party, bought and paid for by the same interests that buy and pay for the Republican Party." Anderson announced his intention to run for President in 2012 as a candidate for the newly-formed Justice Party. Although founded by Rocky Anderson of Utah, the Justice Party was first recognized by Mississippi and describes itself as advocating economic justice through measures such as green jobs and a right to organize, environment justice through enforcing employee safeguards in trade agreements, and social and civic justice through universal health care. In its first press release, the Utah Justice Party set forth its goals for justice in the economic, environmental, social and civic realms, along with a call to rid the corrupting influence of big money from government, to reverse the erosion of rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and to stop draining American resources to support illegal wars of aggression. Its press release says its grassroots supporters believe that now is the time for all to "shed their skeptical view that their voices don't matter", that "our 2-party system is a 'duopoly' controlled by the same corporate and military interests", and that the people must act to ensure "that our nation will achieve a brighter, sustainable future.” Anderson has ballot access in CO, CT, FL, ID, LA, MI, MN, MS, NJ, NM, OR, RI, TN, UT, VT, WA (152 electoral votes) and has write-in access in AL, AK, DE, GA, IL, IO, KS, MD, MO, NE, NH, NY, PA, TX Learn more about Rocky Anderson and Justice Party on Wikipedia.

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  • CFOs: Do You Have a Playbook for Growth?

    - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies
    by Jim Lein, Oracle Midsize Programs In most global markets, CFOs are optimistic about their company's growth opportunities. Deloitte's CFO Signals Report, "Time to Accelerate" found that: In the U.K. business optimism is at its highest level in three-and-a-half years Optimism in North America rose from a strong +42% last quarter (Q2 to Q3 2013) to an even stronger +54%. The inaugural Southeast Asia survey, 44% of CFOs reported a positive outlook despite worries over the Chinese economy and political uncertainty. Sustainable and profitable business growth doesn't usually happen by accident. Company's need a playbook for growth that's owned by the CFO. And today, that playbook must leverage the six enabling technologies--Social, Big Data, Mobile, Cloud, Analytics, and The Internet of Things (or, as Oracle president Mark Hurd explains, "The Internet of the People"). On Monday June 9 at  2:00 pm Eastern, CFO.com is hosting a webcast, "The CFO Playbook on Growth: How CFOs Can Boost Efficiency and Performance with Automation". 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;} “Investing in technology begins with a business metric driven business case with clear tangible business results expected," says John Lieblang, Affiliate Partner with Waterstone Management Group. "The progressive CFO has learned how to forge a partnership with the CIO to align everyone in the 'result value chain' to be accountable for the business results not just for functional technology.” Click HERE to register  Looking for more news and information about Oracle Solutions for Midsize Companies? Read the latest Oracle for Midsize Companies Newsletter Sign-up to receive the latest communications from Oracle’s industry leaders and experts Jim Lein I evangelize Oracle's enterprise solutions for growing midsize companies. I recently celebrated 15 years with Oracle, having joined JD Edwards in 1999. I'm based in Evergreen, Colorado and love relating stories about creativity and innovation whether they be about software, live music, or the mountains. The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of Oracle.

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  • Source-to-source compiler framework wanted

    - by cheungcc_2000
    Dear all, I used to use OpenC++ (http://opencxx.sourceforge.net/opencxx/html/overview.html) to perform code generation like: Source: class MyKeyword A { public: void myMethod(inarg double x, inarg const std::vector<int>& y, outarg double& z); }; Generated: class A { public: void myMethod(const string& x, double& y); // generated method below: void _myMehtod(const string& serializedInput, string& serializedOutput) { double x; std::vector<int> y; // deserialized x and y from serializedInput double z; myMethod(x, y, z); } }; This kind of code generation directly matches the use case in the tutorial of OpenC++ (http://www.csg.is.titech.ac.jp/~chiba/opencxx/tutorial.pdf) by writing a meta-level program for handling "MyKeyword", "inarg" and "outarg" and performing the code generation. However, OpenC++ is sort of out-of-date and inactive now, and my code generator can only work on g++ 3.2 and it triggers error on parsing header files of g++ of higher version. I have looked at VivaCore, but it does not provide the infra-structure for compiling meta-level program. I'm also looking at LLVM, but I cannot find documentation that tutor me on working out my source-to-source compilation usage. I'm also aware of the ROSE compiler framework, but I'm not sure whether it suits my usage, and whether its proprietary C++ front-end binary can be used in a commercial product, and whether a Windows version is available. Any comments and pointers to specific tutorial/paper/documentation are much appreciated.

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  • Why collection literals ?

    - by Green Hyena
    Hi fellow Java programmers. From the various online articles on Java 7 I have come to know that Java 7 will be having collection literals like the following: List<String> fruits = [ "Apple", "Mango", "Guava" ]; Set<String> flowers = { "Rose", "Daisy", "Chrysanthemum" }; Map<Integer, String> hindiNums = { 1 : "Ek", 2 : "Do", 3 : "Teen" }; My questions are: 1] Wouldn't it have been possible to provide a static method of in all of the collection classes which could be used as follows: List<String> fruits = ArrayList.of("Apple", "Mango", "Guava"); IMO this looks as good as the literal version and is also reasonably concise. Why then did they have to invent a new syntax? 2] When I say List<String> fruits = [ "Apple", "Mango", "Guava" ]; what List would I actually get? Would it be ArrayList or LinkedList or something else? Thanks.

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  • Fast sketching tools for drawing C/C++ structs, pointers, etc...

    - by tomasorti
    Hi. I would like to know what do you use to sketch relations between different entities in C/C++. This can be a very broad issue, so I'll try to clarify a bit more my question and give an example. I'm looking for something that is simple enough as a user, and let me sketch easily containers, pointers, etc... in an informal way. The aim is to document some structs relations to pass them to junior developers. A look at the drawings is supposed to accelerate the understanding of the code. My solutions at this moment are to use: 1) Paper & pencil. 2) Microsoft PowerPoint/Word Autoshapes. 3) Freeware Dia. Other ones could be: 4) Microsoft Visio, but my company does not own licenses. 5) UML tools. I don't want to go this way. This is what I mean a more formal solution. I know tools like Rational Rose are great, and I tried boUML and violet and they are fine in some parts, but I prefer the flexibility of options 2) or 3). Finally, let me write down a more concrete example: Let's say I what to sketch a map that contains another map as the mapped value, and that one contains a struct as the mapped value, that holds a vector of pointers of a type and a pointer to other type. Also, there exist other structs that hold pointers to the objects pointed by the previous map, so there are objects pointed from different places. This is just one example I have, but you can easily come with one from you experience. What would you use to sketch this example or another similar you have dealt with? Best regards, Tomas.

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  • links for 2011-01-13

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Webcast: Oracle WebCenter Suite: Giving Users a Modern Experience Speakers: Vince Casarez (VP Enterprise 2.0 Product Management, Oracle),  Erin Smith (Consulting Practice Manager – Portals, Oracle), Robert Wessa (Consulting Technical Director – Enterprise 2.0 Infrastructure, Oracle)  (tags: oracle otn webcenter webcast enterprise2.0) Oracle & StickyMinds.com Webcast: Load Testing Techniques for Enterprise Applications Mughees Minhas, Senior Director of Product Management, Oracle Server Technologies, answers your questions about the latest techniques for effectively and efficiently testing enterprise application performance. Thursday, January 20, 2011. 10am PT / 1pm ET. (tags: oracle otn stickymings webcast) Bay Area Coherence Special Interest Group (BACSIG) Jan 20, 5:30pm - 8:00pm PT. Presentations: Coherence 3.6 Clustering Features (Rob Lee), Efficient Management and Update of Coherence Clusters to Reduce Down Time ( Rao Bhethanabotla), How To Build a Coherence Practice (Christer Fahlgren). (tags: oracle, otn coherence bacsig) Podcast Show Notes: William Ulrich and Neal McWhorter on Business Architecture (ArchBeat) A four-part interview with the authors of  "Business Architecture: The Art and Practice of Business Transformation"  (tags: oracle otn podcast businessarchitecture) John Brunswick: Overlapping Social Networks in your Enterprise? Strategies to Understand and Govern "Overall it is important to consider if tacit knowledge being captured by the social systems is able to be retained and somehow summarized into an overall organizational directory." - John Brunswick (tags: oracle otn enterprise2.0 socialnetworking) Coherence - How to develop a custom push replication publisher (Middlewarepedia) Cosmin Todur describes "a way of developing a custom push replication publisher that publishes data to a database via JDBC."  (tags: oracle coherence grid) Aino Andriessen: Oracle Diagnostics Logging (ODL) for application development "Logging is a very important aspect of application development as it offers run-time access to the behaviour and data of the application. It’s important for debugging purposes but also to investigate exception situations on production." -- Aino Andriessen (tags: oracle odl java jdeveloper weblogic) Security issues when upgrading a Web Catalog from 10g to 11g Oracle BI By Bakboord "I blogged about upgrading from Oracle BI EE 10g to Oracle BI EE 11g R1 earlier. Although this is a very straight forward process, you could end up with some security issues." -- Daan Bakboord (tags: oracle businessintelligence obiee) Angelo Santagata: SOA Composite Sensors : Good Practice "A good best practice is that for any composites you create, consider publishing a composite sensor value using a primary key of some sort , e.g. orderId, that way if you need to manipulate/query composites you can easily look up the instanceId using the sensorid." - Angelo Santagata (tags: oracle soa sca) Javier Ductor: WebCenter Spaces 11g PS2 Task Flow Customization "Previously, I wrote about Spaces Template Customization. In order to adapt Spaces to customers prototype, it was necessary to change template and skin, as well as the members task flow. In this entry, I describe how to customize this task flow." - Javier Ductor (tags: oracle otn enterprise2.0 webcenter) RonBatra's blog: Cloud Computing Series: VI: Industry Directions "When someone says their 'Product/Solution is in the Cloud,' ask them basic questions to seperate the spin from the reality. I would start with 'tell me what that means' and see which way the conversation goes." - Oracle ACE Director Ron Batra (tags: oracle otn oracleace cloud) First JSRs Proposed for Java EE 7 (The Java Source) With the approval of Java SE 7 and Java SE 8 JSRs last month, attention is now shifting towards the Java EE platform. (tags: oracle java jsr javaee)

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  • How to provide stl like container with public const iterator and private non-const iterator?

    - by WilliamKF
    Hello, I am deriving a class privately from std::list and wish to provide public begin() and end() for const_iterator and private begin() and end() for just plain iterator. However, the compiler is seeing the private version and complaining that it is private instead of using the public const version. I understand that C++ will not overload on return type (in this case const_iterator and iterator) and thus it is choosing the non-const version since my object is not const. Short of casting my object to const before calling begin() or not overloading the name begin is there a way to accomplish this? I would think this is a known pattern that folks have solved before and would like to follow suit as to how this is typically solved. class myObject; class myContainer : private std::list<myObject> { public: typedef std::list<myObject>::const_iterator myContainer::const_iterator; private: typedef std::list<myObject>::iterator myContainer::iterator; public: myContainer::const_iterator begin() const { return std::list<myObject>::begin(); } myContainer::const_iterator end() const { return std::list<myObject>::end(); } private: myContainer::iterator begin() { return std::list<myObject>::begin(); } myContainer::iterator end() { return std::list<myObject>::end(); } }; void myFunction(myContainer &container) { myContainer::const_iterator aItr = container.begin(); myContainer::const_iterator aEndItr = container.end(); for (; aItr != aEndItr; ++aItr) { const myObject &item = *aItr; // Do something const on container's contents. } } The error from the compiler is something like this: ../../src/example.h:447: error: `std::_List_iterator<myObject> myContainer::begin()' is private caller.cpp:2393: error: within this context ../../src/example.h:450: error: `std::_List_iterator<myObject> myContainer::end()' is private caller.cpp:2394: error: within this context Thanks. -William

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  • Python performance improvement request for winkler

    - by Martlark
    I'm a python n00b and I'd like some suggestions on how to improve the algorithm to improve the performance of this method to compute the Jaro-Winkler distance of two names. def winklerCompareP(str1, str2): """Return approximate string comparator measure (between 0.0 and 1.0) USAGE: score = winkler(str1, str2) ARGUMENTS: str1 The first string str2 The second string DESCRIPTION: As described in 'An Application of the Fellegi-Sunter Model of Record Linkage to the 1990 U.S. Decennial Census' by William E. Winkler and Yves Thibaudeau. Based on the 'jaro' string comparator, but modifies it according to whether the first few characters are the same or not. """ # Quick check if the strings are the same - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # jaro_winkler_marker_char = chr(1) if (str1 == str2): return 1.0 len1 = len(str1) len2 = len(str2) halflen = max(len1,len2) / 2 - 1 ass1 = '' # Characters assigned in str1 ass2 = '' # Characters assigned in str2 #ass1 = '' #ass2 = '' workstr1 = str1 workstr2 = str2 common1 = 0 # Number of common characters common2 = 0 #print "'len1', str1[i], start, end, index, ass1, workstr2, common1" # Analyse the first string - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # for i in range(len1): start = max(0,i-halflen) end = min(i+halflen+1,len2) index = workstr2.find(str1[i],start,end) #print 'len1', str1[i], start, end, index, ass1, workstr2, common1 if (index > -1): # Found common character common1 += 1 #ass1 += str1[i] ass1 = ass1 + str1[i] workstr2 = workstr2[:index]+jaro_winkler_marker_char+workstr2[index+1:] #print "str1 analyse result", ass1, common1 #print "str1 analyse result", ass1, common1 # Analyse the second string - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # for i in range(len2): start = max(0,i-halflen) end = min(i+halflen+1,len1) index = workstr1.find(str2[i],start,end) #print 'len2', str2[i], start, end, index, ass1, workstr1, common2 if (index > -1): # Found common character common2 += 1 #ass2 += str2[i] ass2 = ass2 + str2[i] workstr1 = workstr1[:index]+jaro_winkler_marker_char+workstr1[index+1:] if (common1 != common2): print('Winkler: Wrong common values for strings "%s" and "%s"' % \ (str1, str2) + ', common1: %i, common2: %i' % (common1, common2) + \ ', common should be the same.') common1 = float(common1+common2) / 2.0 ##### This is just a fix ##### if (common1 == 0): return 0.0 # Compute number of transpositions - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # transposition = 0 for i in range(len(ass1)): if (ass1[i] != ass2[i]): transposition += 1 transposition = transposition / 2.0 # Now compute how many characters are common at beginning - - - - - - - - - - # minlen = min(len1,len2) for same in range(minlen+1): if (str1[:same] != str2[:same]): break same -= 1 if (same > 4): same = 4 common1 = float(common1) w = 1./3.*(common1 / float(len1) + common1 / float(len2) + (common1-transposition) / common1) wn = w + same*0.1 * (1.0 - w) return wn

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  • How to structurally display a multi-dimensional array in PHP?

    - by Jaime Cross
    How can I display the contents of an array as follows: Company Name - Username1 - Username2 Another Company Name - Username3 The array I have created is as follows: $array[1]['company_id'] = '12'; $array[1]['company_name'] = 'ABC Company'; $array[1]['company_type'] = 'default'; $array[1]['user_id'] = '23'; $array[1]['user_name'] = 'Andrew'; $array[2]['company_id'] = '12'; $array[2]['company_name'] = 'ABC Company'; $array[2]['company_type'] = 'default'; $array[2]['user_id'] = '27'; $array[2]['user_name'] = 'Jeffrey'; $array[3]['company_id'] = '1'; $array[3]['company_name'] = 'Some Company'; $array[3]['company_type'] = 'default'; $array[3]['user_id'] = '29'; $array[3]['user_name'] = 'William'; $array[4]['company_id'] = '51'; $array[4]['company_name'] = 'My Company'; $array[4]['company_type'] = 'default'; $array[4]['user_id'] = '20'; $array[4]['user_name'] = 'Jaime';

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  • Writing a report

    - by wvd
    Hello all, Since some time I've been investigating more time into profiling things better, really think about how to do a thing and why. Now I'm going to start a new project, where I will be writing a report about. The report will be about anything what I wrote in the project, why, and I'll be investigating some things and do particular research about them. I've seen some reports, such as game programming in Haskell using FRP. However, after reading several reports they all seem to be build different. I have a few questions about writing a report: 1] What are the things I really should include, and what are the things I really shouldn't include? 2] Is it useful to include graphs about different methods/approaches to a several problem, where you only included one into your project, to show WHY you didn't include the other methods. Or should I just explain the method/approach used into the project. 3] Should I only be writing the report after I've completed the project, or should I also write pages about what I expect, how I'm going to build the software? Thanks, William van Doorn

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  • Seriously, It’s Time to Get Your Content Act Together

    - by Mike Stiles
    Branded content, content marketing, social content, brand journalism, we’re seeing those terms more and more. Why? The technology tools are coming together. We should know. We can gather big data, crunch it, listen to the public, moderate, respond, get to know the customer intimately, know what they like, know what they want, we can target, distribute, amplify, measure engagement and reaction, modify strategy and even automate a great deal of all that. An amazing machine, a sleek, smooth-running engine has been built such that all the parts can interact and work together to deliver peak performance and maximum output. But that engine isn’t going anywhere without any gas. Content is the gas. Yes, we curate other people’s content. We can siphon their gas. There’s tech to help with that too. But as for the creation of original, worthwhile content made for a specific audience, our audience, machines can’t do that…at least not yet. Curated content is great. But somebody has to originate the content for it to be curated and shared. And since the need for good, curated content is obviously large and the desire to share is there, it’s a winning proposition for a brand to be a consistent producer of original content. And yet, it feels like content is an issue we’re avoiding. There’s a reluctance to build a massive pipeline if you have no idea what you’re going to run through it. The C-suite often doesn’t know what content is, that it’s different from ads, where to get it, who makes it, how long it should be, what the point of it is if there’s no hard sell of the product, what it costs, how to use it, how to measure it, how to make sure it’s good, or how to make sure it will keep flowing. It could be the reason many brands aren’t pulling the trigger on socially enabling the enterprise. And that’s a shame, because there are a lot of creative, daring, experimental, uniquely talented entertainers and journalists chomping at the bit to execute content for brands. But for many corporate executives, content is “weird,” and the people who make it are even weirder. The content side of the equation is human. It’s art, but art that can be informed by data. The natural inclination is for brands to turn to their agencies for such creative endeavors. But agencies are falling into one of two categories. They’re failing to transition from ads to content. In “Content Era, What’s the Role of Agencies?” Alexander Jutkowitz says agencies were made for one-hit campaigns, not ongoing content. Or, they’re ready and capable but can’t get clients to do the right things. Agencies have to make money, even if it means continuing to do the wrong things because that’s all the client will agree to. So what we wind up with in the pipeline is advertising, marketing-heavy content, content that was obviously created or spearheaded by non-creative executives, random & inconsistent content, copy written for SEO bots, and other completely uninteresting nightmares. Frank Rose, author of “The Art of Immersion,” writes, “Content without story and excitement is noise pollution.” In the old days, you made an ad and inserted it into shows made by people who knew what they were doing. You could bask in that show’s success and leverage their audience. Now, you are tasked with attracting, amassing and holding your own audience. You may just want to make, advertise and sell your widgets. But now there’s a war on for a precious commodity, attention. People are busy. They have filters to keep uninteresting and irrelevant things out. They value their time and expect value back when they give it up. Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, says, "Your customers don't care about you, your products, your services…they care about themselves, their wants and their needs." Is it worth getting serious about content and doing it right? 61% of consumers feel better about a company that delivers custom content (Custom Content Council). Interesting content is one of the top 3 reasons people follow brands on social (Content+). 78% of consumers think organizations that provide custom content want to build good relationships with them (TMG Custom Media). On the B2B side, 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company info in a series of articles vs. an ad. So what’s the hang-up? Cited barriers to content marketing are lack of human resources (42%) and lack of budget (35%). 54% of brands don’t have a single on-site, dedicated content creator. And only 38% of brands have a content marketing strategy. Tech has built the biggest, most incredible stage for brands that’s ever been built. Putting something on that stage is your responsibility. Do a bad show, or no show at all, and you’ll be the beautiful, talented actress that never got discovered. @mikestilesPhoto: Gabriella Fabbri, stock.xchng

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  • Reflections on GiveCamp

    - by Reed
    I participated in the Seattle GiveCamp over the weekend, and am entirely impressed.  GiveCamp is a great event – I especially like how rewarding it is for everybody involved.  I strongly encourage any and all developers to watch for future GiveCamp events, and consider participating, for many reasons… GiveCamp provides real value to organizations that truly need help.  The Seattle event alone succeeded in helping sixteen non-profit organizations in many different ways.  The projects involved varied dramatically, including website redesigns, SEO, reworking data management workflows, and even game development.  Many non-profits have a strong need for good, quality technical help.  However, nearly every non-profit organization has an incredibly limited budget.  GiveCamp is a way to really give back, and provide incredibly valuable help to organizations that truly benefit. My experience has shown many developers to be incredibly generous – this is a chance to dedicate your energy to helping others in a way that really takes advantage of your expertise.  Your time as a developer is incredibly valuable, and this puts something of incredible value directly into the hands of places its needed. First, and foremost, GiveCamp is about providing technical help to non-profit organizations in need. GiveCamp can make you a better developer.  This is a fantastic opportunity for us, as developers, to work with new people, in a new setting.  The incredibly short time frame (one weekend for a deliverable project) and intense motivation to succeed provides a huge opportunity for learning from peers.  I’d personally like to thank off the developers with whom I worked – I learned something from each and every one of you.  I hope to see and work with all of you again someday. GiveCamp provides an opportunity for you to work outside of your comfort zone. While it’s always nice to be an expert, it’s also valuable to work on a project where you have little or no direct experience.  My team focused on a complete reworking of our organizations message and a complete new website redesign and deployment using WordPress.  While I’d used WordPress for my blog, and had some experience, this is completely unrelated to my professional work.  In fact, nobody on our team normally worked directly with the technologies involved – yet together we managed to succeed in delivering our goals.  As developers, it’s easy to want to stay abreast of new technology surrounding our expertise, but its rare that we get a chance to sit down and work on something practical that is completely outside of our normal realm of work.  I’m a desktop developer by trade, and spent much of the weekend working with CSS and Photoshop.  Many of the projects organizations need don’t match perfectly with the skill set in the room – yet all of the software professionals rose to the occasion and delivered practical, usable applications. GiveCamp is a short term, known commitment. While this seems obvious, I think it’s an important aspect to remember.  This is a huge part of what makes it successful – you can work, completely focused, on a project, then walk away completely when you’re done.  There is no expectation of continued involvement.  While many of the professionals I’ve talked to are willing to contribute some amount of their time beyond the camp, this is not expected. The freedom this provides is immense.  In addition, the motivation this brings is incredibly valuable.  Every developer in the room was very focused on delivering in time – you have one shot to get it as good as possible, and leave it with the organization in a way that can be maintained by them.  This is a rare experience – and excellent practice at time management for everyone involved. GiveCamp provides a great way to meet and network with your peers. Not only do you get to network with other software professionals in your area – you get to network with amazing people.  Every single person in the room is there to try to help people.  The balance of altruism, intelligence, and expertise in the room is something I’ve never before experienced. During the presentations of what was accomplished, I felt blessed to participate.  I know many people in the room were incredibly touched by the level of dedication and accomplishment over the weekend. GiveCamp is fun. At the end of the experience, I would have signed up again, even if it was a painful, tedious weekend – merely due to the amazing accomplishments achieved throughout the event.  However, the event is fun.  Everybody I talked to, the entire weekend, was having a good time.  While there were many faces focused into a near grimace at times (including mine, I’ll admit), this was always in response to a particularly challenging problem or task.  The challenges just added to the overall enjoyment of the weekend – part of why I became a developer in the first place is my love for challenge and puzzles, and a short deadline using unfamiliar technology provided plenty of opportunity for puzzles.  As soon as people would stand up, it was another smile.   If you’re a developer, I’d recommend looking at GiveCamp more closely.  Watch for an event in your area.  If there isn’t one, consider building a team and organizing an event.  The experience is worth the commitment. 

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  • Silverlight Cream Monday WP7 App Review # 1

    - by Dave Campbell
    I'm going to try something here... if it seems useful, I'll continue, if it doesn't, I'll stop... so give me feedback! There are *lots* of Apps in the WP7 Marketplace, and heaven help me, but the Marketplace sucks for finding stuff. I won't rehash what's already been said in the blogs, but I agree with one and all. I went out last Saturday to find 2 apps that I knew were released, and couldn't do so on my device. Even in the Zune app, it took quite a while to find them... ok, I'll back off a bit, because I just found out I can do 'Search' now if I know the name... I didn't think that was working before. So my thought is on Monday (like today), I will post a review of 5 apps/games I either use or have played with on my device. These are strictly my opinions, you understand, but hey... it's better than a poke in the eye with an iPhone! A few disclaimers:     Feel free to write me about your app and tell me about it. While it would be very cool to receive a whole bunch of xap files to review, at this point, for technical reasons, I'm unable to side-load my device. Since I plan on only doing this one day a week, and only 5, I may never get caught up, so if you send me some info, be patient. Re: games ... remember I'm old... I'm from the era of Colossal Cave and Zork. Duke-Nukem 2D and Captain Comic were awesome. I don't own an XBOX or any other game system, so take game reviews from my perspective -- who knows, it may be refreshing :) I won't pay for an app or game just to try it. If you expect me to test-drive your app, it's going to have to have a Free Trial. In this Issue:   Jingo! is the first app I bought, just to see what the experience was like. It's very much like a game we used to play in school in the Army in 1971 on paper we passed around. Sort of a cross between hangman and Mastermind, you try to figure out the hidden word in 5 tries. You get really good at 5-letter words after a while. I like this because you have to think, and you're not pressured by a clock Jingo! is by James Furdell and is $1.99 I reviewed René Schulte's Pictures Lab a while back, and have not changed my mind. This is an excellent app for playing with any photo on your device... one you've just taken, one you've synced from your PC, or one you've saved from email. I like this because you can get some cool effects for your photos, and it just works. Pictures Lab is by Schulte Software Development and is $1.99 Since I work as a consultant, and from home, I wanted something I could track my time with. I've test-driven all the contenders I could find so far on the phone, and so far I like ONTRACK! the best. If asked, I have some suggestions, but it's probably just the way I work or think. What I do like is I can tap a project to start/stop/restart a counter, and at the end of the day it shows me how much time I've been working. If there's a way to make an adjustment in case you forget to tap the counter, I don't know how to do it, and that's my biggest complaint. I like this because you can get a daily readout which you can also email as a spreadsheet. The daily results display is very good. ONTRACK! is by Qmino and is $2.99 Remember Item 4 above... I've been playing guitar for 48 years... obviously since before the invention of 'tuners', so I'm not as dependent upon these as some folks are. I've tried some in the past and have always felt I can do just as good by ear (I have perfect relative pitch). So, I gave this app by András Velvárt a dance just to see how it works, and it is surprisingly good. If you're used to one of the stage tuners this may take a little getting used to, but it does the job. The difference with this one is there is no real 'null' point inside which you can think your guitar is in tune. The soundwave stays visible on the device, and if it's moving to the right, your string is flat, if it's moving to the left, your string is sharp. Getting it exact might be tricky, but it is exact! If you need to rely on a tuner, this is a good choice in my opinion, exactly because of the sensitivity.. tune up with this and you're dead-on. Guitar Tuner is by Kinabalu Innovation Limited and is $0.99 Popper 2 is the WP7 version of a wildly popular game by Bill Reiss named Dr. Popper. You can get a trial, or you can now get a free lite version of the game. Popper 2 is a fast-paced bubble breaker game. I find it something fun to play when I just want to buzz out, but maybe the best review is that my daughter didn't want to give my phone back when I showed it to her, and always wants to grab my phone to play 'that game'. A fun distraction with great graphics and a great price Popper 2 is by Blue Rose Systems, LLC and is $1.29 Let me know what you think of the idea of doing reviews, or the layout/whatever, and Stay in the 'Light!   Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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  • Rules for Naming

    - by PointsToShare
    © 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved Naming Documents (or is it “Document, Naming”?) Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name And for that name which is no part of thee Take all myself.  Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet Act II, Scene 2 We normally only use the bold portion of the famous Shakespearean quote above, but it is really out of context. As the play unfolds, we learn that a name is all too powerful. Indeed it is because of their names that the doomed lovers die. There might be life and death in a name (BTW, when I wrote this monogram, I was in Hatfield, PA. Remember the Hatfields and the McCoys?) This is a bit extreme, but in the field of Knowledge Management (KM) names are of the utmost importance as well. When I write an article about managing SharePoint sites, how should I name it? “Managing a site” or “Site, managing”? Nine times out of ten I’d opt for the latter. Almost everything we do is “Managing” so to make life easier for a person looking for meaningful content, we title our articles starting with the differentiator rather than the common factor. As a rule of thumb, we start the name with the noun rather than the verb. It is not what we do that is the primary key; it is what we do it to. So, answer this – is it a “rule of thumb” or a “thumb rule?” This is tough. A lot of what we do when naming is a judgment call. Both thumb and rule are nouns, albeit concrete and abstract (more about this later), but to most people “thumb rule” is meaningless while “rule of thumb” is an idiom. The difference between knowledge and information is that knowledge is meaningful information placed in context. Thus I elect the “rule of thumb”. It is the more meaningful title. Abstract and Concrete are relative terms. Many nouns (and verbs) that are abstract to a commoner, are concrete to a practitioner of one profession or another and may even have different concrete meanings in different professional jargons. Think about “running”. To an executive it means running a business, to a marathoner its meaning is much more literal. Generally speaking, we store and disseminate knowledge within a practice more than we do it in general. Even dictionaries encyclopedias define terms as they apply to different audiences. The rule of thumb is to put the more concrete first, but within the audience’s jargon. Even the title of this monogram is a question. Do I name it “Naming Documents” or “Documents, Naming”? Well, my own rule of thumb (“Here he goes again!?”) states that the latter is better because it starts with a noun, but this is a document about naming more than it about documents. The rules of naming also apply to graphs and charts, excel spreadsheets, and so on. Thus, I vote for the former.  A better title could have been “Naming Objects” only the word “Object” is a bit too abstract. How about just “Naming” or “Naming, rules of”? You get the drift. One of the ways to resolve all of this is to store the documents in Knowledge-Bases, which may become the subjects of a future punditry. Knowledge bases use keywords to describe their content.  Use a Metadata store for the keywords to at least attempt some common grounds. Here is another general rule (rule of thumb?!!) – put at least the one keyword in the title. Use subtitles. Here is an example: Migrating documents – Screening, cleaning, and organizing our knowledge. The main keyword is “documents”, next is “migrating”, other keywords also appear in the subtitle. They are “screening”, “cleaning”, and “organizing”. Any questions? Send me an amply named document by email: [email protected]

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  • Copying Columns from Grid to Clipboard in SQL Developer

    - by thatjeffsmith
    There are several ways to get data from a query or a table|view to the clipboard. You know the tried and true, copy and paste. But what if you only want one or more columns, not every column? There are several ways to do this, let’s see if we can’t identify all of them. Write your query to only include the data you want Obvious? Yes. Needed to be said? Definitely. The best tuning tip is to only ask for the data you need, only when you absolutely need it. But let’s look at a few more practical ways to do this. Hide the unwanted columns Mouse right click on an column header. In the context menu, select ‘Columns.’ Hide the columns you don’t want. Copy and paste. WYSIWYG Grids, Hide Columns and Filter Rows Mouse select the columns Obvious, but a bit painful. For a very large dataset, you’ll be holding down the Shift and PageDown buttons – but it works. Remember to use Ctrl+Shift+C to get the column headers with the data. Use the Export Wizard This used to be called ‘Unload’ – agreed, not a great name. So, we changed it. In a grid, right mouse click on the data, and on the context menu, select ‘Export…’ Select your format – I suggest ‘delimited’ or ‘fixed’ for copying data to the clipboard. You can export to the clipboard, yes you can! Click ‘Next.’ Click in the Columns dialog, and choose the columns you want copied. Trim the columns you don't want copied Click ‘Finish.’ Alt or Ctrl tab to your window or application of choice. And Paste! "FIRST_NAME" "LAST_NAME" "Donald" "OConnell" "Douglas" "Grant" "Jennifer" "Whalen" "Pat" "Fay" "Susan" "Mavris" "William" "Gietz" "Alexander" "Hunold" "Bruce" "Ernst" "David" "Austin" "Valli" "Pataballa" "Diana" "Lorentz" "Daniel" "Faviet" "John" "Chen" "Ismael" "Sciarra" "Jose Manuel" "Urman" "Luis" "Popp" "Alexander" "Khoo" "Shelli" "Baida" "Sigal" "Tobias" "Guy" "Himuro" "Karen" "Colmenares" "Matthew" "Weiss" "Adam" "Fripp" "Payam" "Kaufling" "Shanta" "Vollman" "Kevin" "Mourgos" "Julia" "Nayer" "Irene" "Mikkilineni" ... There’s probably at least 2 or 3 more ways, but… But, try these and let me know how we can improve things. I’ve already gotten a request to be able to include the SQL text used to populate the dataset on the the copy to clipboard, and it’s now on our to-do list

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  • How to Play PC Games on Your TV

    - by Chris Hoffman
    No need to wait for Valve’s Steam Machines — connect your Windows gaming PC to your TV and use powerful PC graphics in the living room today. It’s easy — you don’t need any unusual hardware or special software. This is ideal if you’re already a PC gamer who wants to play your games on a larger screen. It’s also convenient if you want to play multiplayer PC games with controllers in your living rom. HDMI Cables and Controllers You’ll need an HDMI cable to connect your PC to your television. This requires a TV with HDMI-in, a PC with HDMI-out, and an HDMI cable. Modern TVs and PCs have had HDMI built in for years, so you should already be good to go. If you don’t have a spare HDMI cable lying around, you may have to buy one or repurpose one of your existing HDMI cables. Just don’t buy the expensive HDMI cables — even a cheap HDMI cable will work just as well as a more expensive one. Plug one end of the HDMI cable into the HDMI-out port on your PC and one end into the HDMI-In port on your TV. Switch your TV’s input to the appropriate HDMI port and you’ll see your PC’s desktop appear on your TV.  Your TV becomes just another external monitor. If you have your TV and PC far away from each other in different rooms, this won’t work. If you have a reasonably powerful laptop, you can just plug that into your TV — or you can unplug your desktop PC and hook it up next to your TV. Now you’ll just need an input device. You probably don’t want to sit directly in front of your TV with a wired keyboard and mouse! A wireless keyboard and wireless mouse can be convenient and may be ideal for some games. However, you’ll probably want a game controller like console players use. Better yet, get multiple game controllers so you can play local-multiplayer PC games with other people. The Xbox 360 controller is the ideal controller for PC gaming. Windows supports these controllers natively, and many PC games are designed specifically for these controllers. Note that Xbox One controllers aren’t yet supported on Windows because Microsoft hasn’t released drivers for them. Yes, you could use a third-party controller or go through the process of pairing a PlayStation controller with your PC using unofficial tools, but it’s better to get an Xbox 360 controller. Just plug one or more Xbox controllers into your PC’s USB ports and they’ll work without any setup required. While many PC games to support controllers, bear in mind that some games require a keyboard and mouse. A TV-Optimized Interface Use Steam’s Big Picture interface to more easily browse and launch games. This interface was designed for using on a television with controllers and even has an integrated web browser you can use with your controller. It will be used on the Valve’s Steam Machine consoles as the default TV interface. You can use a mouse with it too, of course. There’s also nothing stopping you from just using your Windows desktop with a mouse and keyboard — aside from how inconvenient it will be. To launch Big Picture Mode, open Steam and click the Big Picture button at the top-right corner of your screen. You can also press the glowing Xbox logo button in the middle of an Xbox 360 Controller to launch the Big Picture interface if Steam is open. Another Option: In-Home Streaming If you want to leave your PC in one room of your home and play PC games on a TV in a different room, you can consider using local streaming to stream games over your home network from your gaming PC to your television. Bear in mind that the game won’t be as smooth and responsive as it would if you were sitting in front of your PC. You’ll also need a modern router with fast wireless network speeds to keep up with the game streaming. Steam’s built-in In-Home Streaming feature is now available to everyone. You could plug a laptop with less-powerful graphics hardware into your TV and use it to stream games from your powerful desktop gaming rig. You could also use an older desktop PC you have lying around. To stream a game, log into Steam on your gaming PC and log into Steam with the same account on another computer on your home network. You’ll be able to view the library of installed games on your other PC and start streaming them. NVIDIA also has their own GameStream solution that allows you to stream games from a PC with powerful NVIDIA graphics hardware. However, you’ll need an NVIDIA Shield handheld gaming console to do this. At the moment, NVIDIA’s game streaming solution can only stream to the NVIDIA Shield. However, the NVIDIA Shield device can be connected to your TV so you can play that streaming game on your TV. Valve’s Steam Machines are supposed to bring PC gaming to the living room and they’ll do it using HDMI cables, a custom Steam controller, the Big Picture interface, and in-home streaming for compatibility with Windows games. You can do all of this yourself today — you’ll just need an Xbox 360 controller instead of the not-yet-released Steam controller. Image Credit: Marco Arment on Flickr, William Hook on Flickr, Lewis Dowling on Flickr

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  • What was your the most impressive technical programming achievement performed to impress a romantic

    - by DVK
    OK, so the archetypal human story is for a guy to go out and impress the girl with some wonderful achievement like slaying a dragon or building a monument or conquering neighboring tribe. This being enlightened 21st century on SO, let's morph this into a: StackOverflower performing a feat of programming to impress a romantic interest. There are two ways to do this: Technical achievement: Impressing a person with suitable background/understanding of programming with actual coding powerss you displayed. A dumb movie example would be that kid in "Hackers" move showing off his hacking skills in front of Angeline Jolie. Artistic achievement: Impressing a person with a result of running said code, whether they understand just how incredible the code itself is. An example is the animated ANSI rose (for a guy who actually wrote the ANSI code) This question is only about the first kind (technical achievements) - e.g. the person of interest was presented with impressive code/design that (s)he was able to properly appreciate. Rules (what doesn't qualify): The target audience must have been a person of romantic interest (prospective or present significant other or random hook-up). E.g. showing your program to your sister who's also a software developer doesn't count. The achievement must have been done specifically with the goal to impress such a person. However, it is OK if the achievement was done to impress a generic qualifying person, not someone specific. Although... if you write code to impress girls in general, I'd say "get a better idea of the opposite sex" The achievement must have been done with the goal of impressing the person. In other words, if you would have done it without romantic interest's knowledge anyway, it doesn't count. As examples, the following does not count: programming for your job. Programming for a coding contest. Open Source program that you'd have done anyway. The precise nature of the awesomeness of the achievement is somewhat irrelevant - from learning entire J2EE in 2 days to writing fancy game engine to implementing Python compiler in LOGO. As long as it's programming/software development related. The achievement should preferably be something other people would rank highly as well. If your date was impressed with your skill at calculating Fibonacci sequence without recursive function calls, it doesn't mean most developers will be. But it does mean you need to start finding better things to do on dates ;)

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  • Source-control 'wet-work'?

    - by Phil Factor
    When a design or creative work is flawed beyond remedy, it is often best to destroy it and start again. The other day, I lost the code to a long and intricate SQL batch I was working on. I’d thought it was impossible, but it happened. With all the technology around that is designed to prevent this occurring, this sort of accident has become a rare event.  If it weren’t for a deranged laptop, and my distraction, the code wouldn’t have been lost this time.  As always, I sighed, had a soothing cup of tea, and typed it all in again.  The new code I hastily tapped in  was much better: I’d held in my head the essence of how the code should work rather than the details: I now knew for certain  the start point, the end, and how it should be achieved. Instantly the detritus of half-baked thoughts fell away and I was able to write logical code that performed better.  Because I could work so quickly, I was able to hold the details of all the columns and variables in my head, and the dynamics of the flow of data. It was, in fact, easier and quicker to start from scratch rather than tidy up and refactor the existing code with its inevitable fumbling and half-baked ideas. What a shame that technology is now so good that developers rarely experience the cleansing shock of losing one’s code and having to rewrite it from scratch.  If you’ve never accidentally lost  your code, then it is worth doing it deliberately once for the experience. Creative people have, until Technology mistakenly prevented it, torn up their drafts or sketches, threw them in the bin, and started again from scratch.  Leonardo’s obsessive reworking of the Mona Lisa was renowned because it was so unusual:  Most artists have been utterly ruthless in destroying work that didn’t quite make it. Authors are particularly keen on writing afresh, and the results are generally positive. Lawrence of Arabia actually lost the entire 250,000 word manuscript of ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by accidentally leaving it on a train at Reading station, before rewriting a much better version.  Now, any writer or artist is seduced by technology into altering or refining their work rather than casting it dramatically in the bin or setting a light to it on a bonfire, and rewriting it from the blank page.  It is easy to pick away at a flawed work, but the real creative process is far more brutal. Once, many years ago whilst running a software house that supplied commercial software to local businesses, I’d been supervising an accounting system for a farming cooperative. No packaged system met their needs, and it was all hand-cut code.  For us, it represented a breakthrough as it was for a government organisation, and success would guarantee more contracts. As you’ve probably guessed, the code got mangled in a disk crash just a week before the deadline for delivery, and the many backups all proved to be entirely corrupted by a faulty tape drive.  There were some fragments left on individual machines, but they were all of different versions.  The developers were in despair.  Strangely, I managed to re-write the bulk of a three-month project in a manic and caffeine-soaked weekend.  Sure, that elegant universally-applicable input-form routine was‘nt quite so elegant, but it didn’t really need to be as we knew what forms it needed to support.  Yes, the code lacked architectural elegance and reusability. By dawn on Monday, the application passed its integration tests. The developers rose to the occasion after I’d collapsed, and tidied up what I’d done, though they were reproachful that some of the style and elegance had gone out of the application. By the delivery date, we were able to install it. It was a smaller, faster application than the beta they’d seen and the user-interface had a new, rather Spartan, appearance that we swore was done to conform to the latest in user-interface guidelines. (we switched to Helvetica font to look more ‘Bauhaus’ ). The client was so delighted that he forgave the new bugs that had crept in. I still have the disk that crashed, up in the attic. In IT, we have had mixed experiences from complete re-writes. Lotus 123 never really recovered from a complete rewrite from assembler into C, Borland made the mistake with Arago and Quattro Pro  and Netscape’s complete rewrite of their Navigator 4 browser was a white-knuckle ride. In all cases, the decision to rewrite was a result of extreme circumstances where no other course of action seemed possible.   The rewrite didn’t come out of the blue. I prefer to remember the rewrite of Minix by young Linus Torvalds, or the rewrite of Bitkeeper by a slightly older Linus.  The rewrite of CP/M didn’t do too badly either, did it? Come to think of it, the guy who decided to rewrite the windowing system of the Xerox Star never regretted the decision. I’ll agree that one should often resist calls for a rewrite. One of the worst habits of the more inexperienced programmer is to denigrate whatever code he or she inherits, and then call loudly for a complete rewrite. They are buoyed up by the mistaken belief that they can do better. This, however, is a different psychological phenomenon, more related to the idea of some motorcyclists that they are operating on infinite lives, or the occasional squaddies that if they charge the machine-guns determinedly enough all will be well. Grim experience brings out the humility in any experienced programmer.  I’m referring to quite different circumstances here. Where a team knows the requirements perfectly, are of one mind on methodology and coding standards, and they already have a solution, then what is wrong with considering  a complete rewrite? Rewrites are so painful in the early stages, until that point where one realises the payoff, that even I quail at the thought. One needs a natural disaster to push one over the edge. The trouble is that source-control systems, and disaster recovery systems, are just too good nowadays.   If I were to lose this draft of this very blog post, I know I’d rewrite it much better. However, if you read this, you’ll know I didn’t have the nerve to delete it and start again.  There was a time that one prayed that unreliable hardware would deliver you from an unmaintainable mess of a codebase, but now technology has made us almost entirely immune to such a merciful act of God. An old friend of mine with long experience in the software industry has long had the idea of the ‘source-control wet-work’,  where one hires a malicious hacker in some wild eastern country to hack into one’s own  source control system to destroy all trace of the source to an application. Alas, backup systems are just too good to make this any more than a pipedream. Somehow, it would be difficult to promote the idea. As an alternative, could one construct a source control system that, on doing all the code-quality metrics, would systematically destroy all trace of source code that failed the quality test? Alas, I can’t see many managers buying into the idea. In reading the full story of the near-loss of Toy Story 2, it set me thinking. It turned out that the lucky restoration of the code wasn’t the happy ending one first imagined it to be, because they eventually came to the conclusion that the plot was fundamentally flawed and it all had to be rewritten anyway.  Was this an early  case of the ‘source-control wet-job’?’ It is very hard nowadays to do a rapid U-turn in a development project because we are far too prone to cling to our existing source-code.

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  • Source-control 'wet-work'?

    - by Phil Factor
    When a design or creative work is flawed beyond remedy, it is often best to destroy it and start again. The other day, I lost the code to a long and intricate SQL batch I was working on. I’d thought it was impossible, but it happened. With all the technology around that is designed to prevent this occurring, this sort of accident has become a rare event.  If it weren’t for a deranged laptop, and my distraction, the code wouldn’t have been lost this time.  As always, I sighed, had a soothing cup of tea, and typed it all in again.  The new code I hastily tapped in  was much better: I’d held in my head the essence of how the code should work rather than the details: I now knew for certain  the start point, the end, and how it should be achieved. Instantly the detritus of half-baked thoughts fell away and I was able to write logical code that performed better.  Because I could work so quickly, I was able to hold the details of all the columns and variables in my head, and the dynamics of the flow of data. It was, in fact, easier and quicker to start from scratch rather than tidy up and refactor the existing code with its inevitable fumbling and half-baked ideas. What a shame that technology is now so good that developers rarely experience the cleansing shock of losing one’s code and having to rewrite it from scratch.  If you’ve never accidentally lost  your code, then it is worth doing it deliberately once for the experience. Creative people have, until Technology mistakenly prevented it, torn up their drafts or sketches, threw them in the bin, and started again from scratch.  Leonardo’s obsessive reworking of the Mona Lisa was renowned because it was so unusual:  Most artists have been utterly ruthless in destroying work that didn’t quite make it. Authors are particularly keen on writing afresh, and the results are generally positive. Lawrence of Arabia actually lost the entire 250,000 word manuscript of ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by accidentally leaving it on a train at Reading station, before rewriting a much better version.  Now, any writer or artist is seduced by technology into altering or refining their work rather than casting it dramatically in the bin or setting a light to it on a bonfire, and rewriting it from the blank page.  It is easy to pick away at a flawed work, but the real creative process is far more brutal. Once, many years ago whilst running a software house that supplied commercial software to local businesses, I’d been supervising an accounting system for a farming cooperative. No packaged system met their needs, and it was all hand-cut code.  For us, it represented a breakthrough as it was for a government organisation, and success would guarantee more contracts. As you’ve probably guessed, the code got mangled in a disk crash just a week before the deadline for delivery, and the many backups all proved to be entirely corrupted by a faulty tape drive.  There were some fragments left on individual machines, but they were all of different versions.  The developers were in despair.  Strangely, I managed to re-write the bulk of a three-month project in a manic and caffeine-soaked weekend.  Sure, that elegant universally-applicable input-form routine was‘nt quite so elegant, but it didn’t really need to be as we knew what forms it needed to support.  Yes, the code lacked architectural elegance and reusability. By dawn on Monday, the application passed its integration tests. The developers rose to the occasion after I’d collapsed, and tidied up what I’d done, though they were reproachful that some of the style and elegance had gone out of the application. By the delivery date, we were able to install it. It was a smaller, faster application than the beta they’d seen and the user-interface had a new, rather Spartan, appearance that we swore was done to conform to the latest in user-interface guidelines. (we switched to Helvetica font to look more ‘Bauhaus’ ). The client was so delighted that he forgave the new bugs that had crept in. I still have the disk that crashed, up in the attic. In IT, we have had mixed experiences from complete re-writes. Lotus 123 never really recovered from a complete rewrite from assembler into C, Borland made the mistake with Arago and Quattro Pro  and Netscape’s complete rewrite of their Navigator 4 browser was a white-knuckle ride. In all cases, the decision to rewrite was a result of extreme circumstances where no other course of action seemed possible.   The rewrite didn’t come out of the blue. I prefer to remember the rewrite of Minix by young Linus Torvalds, or the rewrite of Bitkeeper by a slightly older Linus.  The rewrite of CP/M didn’t do too badly either, did it? Come to think of it, the guy who decided to rewrite the windowing system of the Xerox Star never regretted the decision. I’ll agree that one should often resist calls for a rewrite. One of the worst habits of the more inexperienced programmer is to denigrate whatever code he or she inherits, and then call loudly for a complete rewrite. They are buoyed up by the mistaken belief that they can do better. This, however, is a different psychological phenomenon, more related to the idea of some motorcyclists that they are operating on infinite lives, or the occasional squaddies that if they charge the machine-guns determinedly enough all will be well. Grim experience brings out the humility in any experienced programmer.  I’m referring to quite different circumstances here. Where a team knows the requirements perfectly, are of one mind on methodology and coding standards, and they already have a solution, then what is wrong with considering  a complete rewrite? Rewrites are so painful in the early stages, until that point where one realises the payoff, that even I quail at the thought. One needs a natural disaster to push one over the edge. The trouble is that source-control systems, and disaster recovery systems, are just too good nowadays.   If I were to lose this draft of this very blog post, I know I’d rewrite it much better. However, if you read this, you’ll know I didn’t have the nerve to delete it and start again.  There was a time that one prayed that unreliable hardware would deliver you from an unmaintainable mess of a codebase, but now technology has made us almost entirely immune to such a merciful act of God. An old friend of mine with long experience in the software industry has long had the idea of the ‘source-control wet-work’,  where one hires a malicious hacker in some wild eastern country to hack into one’s own  source control system to destroy all trace of the source to an application. Alas, backup systems are just too good to make this any more than a pipedream. Somehow, it would be difficult to promote the idea. As an alternative, could one construct a source control system that, on doing all the code-quality metrics, would systematically destroy all trace of source code that failed the quality test? Alas, I can’t see many managers buying into the idea. In reading the full story of the near-loss of Toy Story 2, it set me thinking. It turned out that the lucky restoration of the code wasn’t the happy ending one first imagined it to be, because they eventually came to the conclusion that the plot was fundamentally flawed and it all had to be rewritten anyway.  Was this an early  case of the ‘source-control wet-job’?’ It is very hard nowadays to do a rapid U-turn in a development project because we are far too prone to cling to our existing source-code.

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  • Delegates in Action -Help

    - by Amutha
    I am learning delegates.I am very curious to apply delegates to the following chain-of-responsibility pattern. Kindly help me the way to apply delegates to the following piece. Thanks in advance.Thanks for your effort. #region Chain of Responsibility Pattern namespace Chain { public class Player { public string Name { get; set; } public int Score { get; set; } } public abstract class PlayerHandler { protected PlayerHandler _Successor = null; public abstract void HandlePlayer(Player _player); public void SetupHandler(PlayerHandler _handler) { _Successor = _handler; } } public class Employee : PlayerHandler { public override void HandlePlayer(Player _player) { if (_player.Score <= 100) { MessageBox.Show(string.Format("{0} is greeted by Employee", _player.Name)); } else { _Successor.HandlePlayer(_player); } } } public class Supervisor : PlayerHandler { public override void HandlePlayer(Player _player) { if (_player.Score >100 && _player.Score<=200) { MessageBox.Show(string.Format("{0} is greeted by Supervisor", _player.Name)); } else { _Successor.HandlePlayer(_player); } } } public class Manager : PlayerHandler { public override void HandlePlayer(Player _player) { if (_player.Score > 200) { MessageBox.Show(string.Format("{0} is greeted by Manager", _player.Name)); } else { MessageBox.Show(string.Format("{0} got low score", _player.Name)); } } } } #endregion #region Main() void Main() { Chain.Player p1 = new Chain.Player(); p1.Name = "Jon"; p1.Score = 100; Chain.Player p2 = new Chain.Player(); p2.Name = "William"; p2.Score = 170; Chain.Player p3 = new Chain.Player(); p3.Name = "Robert"; p3.Score = 300; Chain.Employee emp = new Chain.Employee(); Chain.Manager mgr = new Chain.Manager(); Chain.Supervisor sup = new Chain.Supervisor(); emp.SetupHandler(sup); sup.SetupHandler(mgr); emp.HandlePlayer(p1); emp.HandlePlayer(p2); emp.HandlePlayer(p3); } #endregion

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  • Chart Filtering

    - by Tim Dexter
    Interesting question from a colleague this week. Can you add a filter to a chart to just show a specific set of data? In an RTF template, you need to do a little finagling in the chart definition. In an online template, a couple of clicks and you're done. RTF Build your chart as you would normally to include all the data to start with. Now flip to the Advanced tab to see the code behind the chart. Its not very pretty but with a little effort you can get it looking a little more friendly. Here's my chart showing employees and their salaries. <Graph depthAngle="50" depthRadius="8" seriesEffect="SE_AUTO_GRADIENT"> <LegendArea visible="true"/>  <Title text="Executive Department Only" visible="true" horizontalAlignment="CENTER"/>  <LocalGridData colCount="{count(.//G_2)}" rowCount="1">   <RowLabels>    <Label>SALARY</Label>   </RowLabels>   <ColLabels>    <xsl:for-each select=".//G_2">     <Label><xsl:value-of select="EMP_NAME"/></Label>    </xsl:for-each>   </ColLabels>   <DataValues>    <RowData>     <xsl:for-each select=".//G_2">      <Cell><xsl:value-of select="SALARY"/></Cell>     </xsl:for-each>    </RowData>   </DataValues>  </LocalGridData> </Graph> Note the emboldened text. Its currently grabbing all values in the G_2 level of the data. We can use an XPATH expression to filter the data to the set we want to see. In my case I want to only see the employees that are in the Executive department. My  data is structured thus:   <DATA_DS>     <G_1>         <DEPARTMENT_NAME>Accounting</DEPARTMENT_NAME>         <G_2>             <MANAGER>Higgins</MANAGER>             <EMPLOYEE_ID>206</EMPLOYEE_ID>             <HIRE_DATE>2002-06-07T00:00:00.000-04:00</HIRE_DATE>             <SALARY>8300</SALARY>             <JOB_TITLE>Public Accountant</JOB_TITLE>             <PARAS>11000</PARAS>             <EMP_NAME>William Gietz</EMP_NAME>         </G_2> So the XPATH expression Im going to use to limit the data to the Executive department would be .//G_2[../DEPARTMENT_NAME='Executive'] Note the ../ moves the parser up the XML tree to be able to test the DEPARTMENT_NAME value. I added this XPATH expression to the three instances that need it ColCount, ColLabels and RowData. Its simple enough to do. Testing your XPATH expression is easier to do using a table of data. Please note, as soon as you make changes to the chart code. Going back to the Builder tab, you'll find that everything is grayed out. I recommend you make all the changes you can via the chart dialog before updating the code. Online Template Implementing the filter is much simpler, there is a dialog box to help you out. Add you chart and fill out the various data points you want to show. then hit the Filter item in the ribbon above the chart. That will pop the filter dialog box where you can then add a filter to the chart.   You can add multiple filters if needed and of course you can use the Manage Filters button to re-open and edit the filters. Pretty straightforward stuff!

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  • How to group using XSLT

    - by AdRock
    I'm having trouble grouping a set of nodes. I've found an article that does work with grouping and i have tested it and it works on a small test stylesheet i have I now need to use it in my stylesheet where I only want to select node sets that have a specific value. What I want to do in my stylesheet is select all users who have a userlevel of 2 then to group them by the volunteer region. What happens at the minute is that it gets the right amount of users with userlevel 2 but doesn't print them. It just repeats the first user in the xml file. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:key name="volunteers-by-region" match="volunteer" use="region" /> <xsl:template name="hoo" match="/"> <html> <head> <title>Registered Volunteers</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="volunteer.css" /> </head> <body> <h1>Registered Volunteers</h1> <h3>Ordered by the username ascending</h3> <xsl:for-each select="folktask/member[user/account/userlevel='2']"> <xsl:for-each select="volunteer[count(. | key('volunteers-by-region', region)[1]) = 1]"> <xsl:sort select="region" /> <xsl:for-each select="key('volunteers-by-region', region)"> <xsl:sort select="folktask/member/user/personal/name" /> <div class="userdiv"> <xsl:call-template name="member_userid"> <xsl:with-param name="myid" select="/folktask/member/user/@id" /> </xsl:call-template> <xsl:call-template name="volunteer_volid"> <xsl:with-param name="volid" select="/folktask/member/volunteer/@id" /> </xsl:call-template> <xsl:call-template name="volunteer_role"> <xsl:with-param name="volrole" select="/folktask/member/volunteer/roles" /> </xsl:call-template> <xsl:call-template name="volunteer_region"> <xsl:with-param name="volloc" select="/folktask/member/volunteer/region" /> </xsl:call-template> </div> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:for-each> <xsl:if test="position()=last()"> <div class="count"><h2>Total number of volunteers: <xsl:value-of select="count(/folktask/member/user/account/userlevel[text()=2])"/></h2></div> </xsl:if> </body> </html> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="member_userid"> <xsl:param name="myid" select="'Not Available'" /> <div class="heading bold"><h2>USER ID: <xsl:value-of select="$myid" /></h2></div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="volunteer_volid"> <xsl:param name="volid" select="'Not Available'" /> <div class="heading2 bold"><h2>VOLUNTEER ID: <xsl:value-of select="$volid" /></h2></div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="volunteer_role"> <xsl:param name="volrole" select="'Not Available'" /> <div class="small bold">ROLES:</div> <div class="large"> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test="string-length($volrole)!=0"> <xsl:value-of select="$volrole" /> </xsl:when> <xsl:otherwise> <xsl:text> </xsl:text> </xsl:otherwise> </xsl:choose> </div> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="volunteer_region"> <xsl:param name="volloc" select="'Not Available'" /> <div class="small bold">REGION:</div> <div class="large"><xsl:value-of select="$volloc" /></div> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> here is my full xml file <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="volunteers.xsl"?> <folktask xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xs:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="folktask.xsd"> <member> <user id="1"> <personal> <name>Abbie Hunt</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>108 Access Road</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Wells</city> <county>Somerset</county> <postcode>BA5 8GH</postcode> <telephone>01528927616</telephone> <mobile>07085252492</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>AdRock</username> <password>269eb625e2f0cf6fae9a29434c12a89f</password> <userlevel>4</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="1"> <roles></roles> <region>South West</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="2"> <personal> <name>Aidan Harris</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>103 Aiken Street</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Chichester</city> <county>Sussex</county> <postcode>PO19 4DS</postcode> <telephone>01905149894</telephone> <mobile>07784467941</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>AmbientExpert</username> <password>8e64214160e9dd14ae2a6d9f700004a6</password> <userlevel>2</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="2"> <roles>Van Driver,gas Fitter</roles> <region>South Central</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="3"> <personal> <name>Skye Saunders</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>31 Anns Court</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Cirencester</city> <county>Gloucestershire</county> <postcode>GL7 1JG</postcode> <telephone>01958303514</telephone> <mobile>07260491667</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>BigUndecided</username> <password>ea297847f80e046ca24a8621f4068594</password> <userlevel>2</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="3"> <roles>Scaffold Erector</roles> <region>South West</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="4"> <personal> <name>Connor Lawson</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>12 Ash Way</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Swindon</city> <county>Wiltshire</county> <postcode>SN3 6GS</postcode> <telephone>01791928119</telephone> <mobile>07338695664</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>iTuneStinker</username> <password>3a1f5fda21a07bfff20c41272bae7192</password> <userlevel>3</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <festival id="1"> <event> <eventname>Oxford Folk Festival</eventname> <url>http://www.oxfordfolkfestival.com/</url> <datefrom>2010-04-07</datefrom> <dateto>2010-04-09</dateto> <location>Oxford</location> <eventpostcode>OX1 9BE</eventpostcode> <additional>Oxford Folk Festival is going into it's third year in 2006. As well as needing volunteers to steward for the event on the weekend itself, we would be delighted to hear from people willing to help in year round festival work such as stuffing envelopes for mailings, poster and leaflet distribution, and stewarding duties at festival pre-events.</additional> <coords> <lat>51.735640</lat> <lng>-1.276136</lng> </coords> </event> <contact> <conname>Stuart Vincent</conname> <conaddress1>P.O. Box 642</conaddress1> <conaddress2></conaddress2> <concity>Oxford</concity> <concounty>Bedfordshire</concounty> <conpostcode>OX1 3BY</conpostcode> <contelephone>01865 79073</contelephone> <conmobile></conmobile> <fax></fax> <conemail>[email protected]</conemail> </contact> </festival> </member> <member> <user id="5"> <personal> <name>Lewis King</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>67 Arbors Way</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Sherborne</city> <county>Dorset</county> <postcode>DT9 0GS</postcode> <telephone>01446139701</telephone> <mobile>07292614033</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>Runninglife</username> <password>98fab0a27c34ddb2b0618bc184d4331d</password> <userlevel>2</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="4"> <roles>Van Driver</roles> <region>South West</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="6"> <personal> <name>Cameron Lee</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>77 Arrington Road</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Solihull</city> <county>Warwickshire</county> <postcode>B90 6FG</postcode> <telephone>01435158624</telephone> <mobile>07789503179</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>love2Mixer</username> <password>1df752d54876928639cea07ce036a9c0</password> <userlevel>2</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="5"> <roles>Fire Warden</roles> <region>Midlands</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="7"> <personal> <name>Lexie Dean</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>38 Bloomfield Court</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Windermere</city> <county>Westmorland</county> <postcode>LA23 8BM</postcode> <telephone>01781207188</telephone> <mobile>07127461231</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>MailNetworker</username> <password>0e070701839e612bf46af4421db4f44b</password> <userlevel>3</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <festival id="2"> <event> <eventname>Middlewich Folk And Boat Festival</eventname> <url>http://midfest.org.uk/mfab/</url> <datefrom>2010-06-16</datefrom> <dateto>2010-06-18</dateto> <location>Middlewich</location> <eventpostcode>CW10 9BX</eventpostcode> <additional>We welcome stewards staying on campsite or boats.</additional> <coords> <lat>53.190562</lat> <lng>-2.444926</lng> </coords> </event> <contact> <conname>Festival Committee</conname> <conaddress1>PO Box 141</conaddress1> <conaddress2></conaddress2> <concity>Winsford</concity> <concounty>Cheshire</concounty> <conpostcode>CW10 9WB</conpostcode> <contelephone>07092 39050</contelephone> <conmobile>07092 39050</conmobile> <fax></fax> <conemail>[email protected]</conemail> </contact> </festival> </member> <member> <user id="8"> <personal> <name>Liam Chapman</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>99 Black Water Drive</address1> <address2></address2> <city>St.Austell</city> <county>Cornwall</county> <postcode>PL25 3GF</postcode> <telephone>01835629418</telephone> <mobile>07695179069</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>GreenWimp</username> <password>1fe3df99a841dc4f723d21af89e0990f</password> <userlevel>1</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> </member> <member> <user id="9"> <personal> <name>Brandon Harrison</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>41 Arlington Way</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Dorchester</city> <county>Dorset</county> <postcode>DT1 3JS</postcode> <telephone>01293626735</telephone> <mobile>07277145760</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>LovelyStar</username> <password>8b53b66f323aa5e6a083edb4fd44456b</password> <userlevel>1</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> </member> <member> <user id="10"> <personal> <name>Samuel Young</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>102 Bailey Hill Road</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Wolverhampton</city> <county>Staffordshire</county> <postcode>WV7 8HS</postcode> <telephone>01594531382</telephone> <mobile>07544663654</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>GuruSassy</username> <password>00da02da6c143c3d136bf60b8bfcf43e</password> <userlevel>2</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="6"> <roles>Fire Warden</roles> <region>Midlands</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="11"> <personal> <name>Alexander Harris</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>93 Beguine Drive</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Winchester</city> <county>Hampshire</county> <postcode>S23 2FD</postcode> <telephone>01452496582</telephone> <mobile>07353867291</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>GuitarExpert</username> <password>0102ad3740028e155925e9918ead3bde</password> <userlevel>2</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="7"> <roles>Scaffold Erector</roles> <region>North East</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="12"> <personal> <name>Tyler Mcdonald</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>44 Baker Road</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Bromley</city> <county>Kent</county> <postcode>BR1 2GD</postcode> <telephone>01918704546</telephone> <mobile>07314062451</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>WildWish</username> <password>073220bb5e9a12ad202bb7d94dcc86f7</password> <userlevel>1</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> </member> <member> <user id="13"> <personal> <name>Skye Mason</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>56 Cedar Creek Church Road</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Bracknell</city> <county>Berkshire</county> <postcode>RG12 1AQ</postcode> <telephone>01787607618</telephone> <mobile>07540218868</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>PizzaDork</username> <password>74c54937ee7051ee7f4ebc11296ed531</password> <userlevel>1</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> </member> <member> <user id="14"> <personal> <name>Maryam Rose</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>98 Baptist Circle</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Newbury</city> <county>Berkshire</county> <postcode>RG14 8DF</postcode> <telephone>01691317999</telephone> <mobile>07212477154</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>SexTech</username> <password>f1c21f9f1e999da97d7dc460bb876fcf</password> <userlevel>3</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <festival id="3"> <event> <eventname>Birdsedge Village Festival</eventname> <url>http://www.birdsedge.co.uk/</url> <datefrom>2010-07-08</datefrom> <dateto>2010-07-09</dateto> <location>Birdsedge</location> <eventpostcode>HD8 8XT</eventpostcode> <additional></additional> <coords> <lat>53.565644</lat> <lng>-1.696196</lng> </coords> </event> <contact> <conname>Jacey Bedford</conname> <conaddress1>Penistone Road</conaddress1> <conaddress2>Birdsedge</conaddress2> <concity>Huddersfield</concity> <concounty>West Yorkshire</concounty> <conpostcode>HD8 8XT</conpostcode> <contelephone>01484 60623</contelephone> <conmobile></conmobile> <fax></fax> <conemail>[email protected]</conemail> </contact> </festival> </member> <member> <user id="15"> <personal> <name>Lexie Rogers</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>38 Bishop Road</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Matlock</city> <county>Derbyshire</county> <postcode>DE4 1BX</postcode> <telephone>01961168823</telephone> <mobile>07170855351</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>ShipBurglar</username> <password>cc190488a95667cb117e20bc6c7c330e</password> <userlevel>2</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="8"> <roles>Gas Fitter</roles> <region>Midlands</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="16"> <personal> <name>Noah Parker</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>112 Canty Road</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Keswick</city> <county>Cumberland</county> <postcode>CA12 4TR</postcode> <telephone>01931272522</telephone> <mobile>07610026576</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>AwsomeMoon</username> <password>50b770539bdf08543f15778fc7a6f188</password> <userlevel>2</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <volunteer id="9"> <roles>Van Driver</roles> <region>North West</region> </volunteer> </member> <member> <user id="17"> <personal> <name>Elliot Mitchell</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>102 Brown Loop</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Grimsby</city> <county>Lincolnshire</county> <postcode>OX16 4QP</postcode> <telephone>01212971319</telephone> <mobile>07544663654</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>msBasher</username> <password>c38fad85badcdff6e3559ef38656305d</password> <userlevel>1</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> </member> <member> <user id="18"> <personal> <name>Scarlett Rose</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>93 Cedar Lane</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Stourbridge</city> <county>Warminster</county> <postcode>DY8 4NX</postcode> <telephone>01537477435</telephone> <mobile>07353867291</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>MakeupWimp</username> <password>16a9b7910fc34304c1d1a6a1b0c31502</password> <userlevel>1</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> </member> <member> <user id="19"> <personal> <name>Katie Butler</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>44 Boulder Crest Road</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Bungay</city> <county>Suffolk</county> <postcode>NR35 1LT</postcode> <telephone>01419124094</telephone> <mobile>07314062451</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>TomatoCrunch</username> <password>d7eba53443ec4ddcee69ed71b2023fc0</password> <userlevel>1</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> </member> <member> <user id="20"> <personal> <name>Jayden Richards</name> <sex>Male</sex> <address1>56 Corson Trail</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Sandy</city> <county>Bedfordshire</county> <postcode>SG19 6DF</postcode> <telephone>01882134438</telephone> <mobile>07540218868</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>nightmareTwig</username> <password>8a9c08c7b6473493e8a5da15dd541025</password> <userlevel>3</userlevel> <signupdate>2010-03-26T09:23:50</signupdate> </account> </user> <festival id="4"> <event> <eventname>East Barnet Festival</eventname> <url>http://www.eastbarnetfestival.org.uk</url> <datefrom>2010-07-01</datefrom> <dateto>2010-07-03</dateto> <location>East Barnet</location> <eventpostcode>EN4 8TB</eventpostcode> <additional></additional> <coords> <lat>51.641556</lat> <lng>-0.163018</lng> </coords> </event> <contact> <conname>East Barnet Festival Commitee</conname> <conaddress1>Oak Hill Park</conaddress1> <conaddress2>Church Hill Road</conaddress2> <concity>East Barnet</concity> <concounty>Hertfordshire</concounty> <conpostcode>EN4 8TB</conpostcode> <contelephone>07071781745</contelephone> <conmobile>07071781745</conmobile> <fax></fax> <conemail>[email protected]</conemail> </contact> </festival> </member> <member> <user id="21"> <personal> <name>Abbie Jackson</name> <sex>Female</sex> <address1>98 Briarwood Lane</address1> <address2></address2> <city>Weymouth</city> <county>Dorset</county> <postcode>DT3 6TS</postcode> <telephone>01575629969</telephone> <mobile>07212477154</mobile> <email>[email protected]</email> </personal> <account> <username>CrazyBlockhead</username> <password>4ce56fb13d043be605037ace4fbd9fa5</password> <userlevel>2</u

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  • Neo4j increasing latency as SKIP increases on Cypher query + REST API

    - by voldomazta
    My setup: Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_45-b18) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.45-b08, mixed mode) Neo4j 2.0.0-M06 Enterprise First I made sure I warmed up the cache by executing the following: START n=node(*) RETURN COUNT(n); START r=relationship(*) RETURN count(r); The size of the table is 63,677 nodes and 7,169,995 relationships Now I have the following query: START u1=node:node_auto_index('uid:39') MATCH (u1:user)-[w:WANTS]->(c:card)<-[h:HAS]-(u2:user) WHERE u2.uid <> 39 WITH u2.uid AS uid, (CASE WHEN w.qty < h.qty THEN w.qty ELSE h.qty END) AS have RETURN uid, SUM(have) AS total ORDER BY total DESC SKIP 0 LIMIT 25 This UID has about 40k+ results that I want to be able to put a pagination to. The initial skip was around 773ms. I tried page 2 (skip 25) and the latency was around the same even up to page 500 it only rose up to 900ms so I didn't really bother. Now I tried some fast forward paging and jumped by thousands so I did 1000, then 2000, then 3000. I was hoping the ORDER BY arrangement will already have been cached by Neo4j and using SKIP will just move to that index in the result and wont have to iterate through each one again. But for each thousand skip I made the latency increased by alot. It's not just cache warming because for one I already warmed up the cache and two, I tried the same skip a couple of times for each skip and it yielded the same results: SKIP 0: 773ms SKIP 1000: 1369ms SKIP 2000: 2491ms SKIP 3000: 3899ms SKIP 4000: 5686ms SKIP 5000: 7424ms Now who the hell would want to view 5000 pages of results? 40k even?! :) Good point! I will probably put a cap on the maximum results a user can view but I was just curious about this phenomenon. Will somebody please explain why Neo4j seems to be re-iterating through stuff which appears to be already known to it? Here is my profiling for the 0 skip: ==> ColumnFilter(symKeys=["uid", " INTERNAL_AGGREGATE65c4d6a2-1930-4f32-8fd9-5e4399ce6f14"], returnItemNames=["uid", "total"], _rows=25, _db_hits=0) ==> Slice(skip="Literal(0)", _rows=25, _db_hits=0) ==> Top(orderBy=["SortItem(Cached( INTERNAL_AGGREGATE65c4d6a2-1930-4f32-8fd9-5e4399ce6f14 of type Any),false)"], limit="Add(Literal(0),Literal(25))", _rows=25, _db_hits=0) ==> EagerAggregation(keys=["uid"], aggregates=["( INTERNAL_AGGREGATE65c4d6a2-1930-4f32-8fd9-5e4399ce6f14,Sum(have))"], _rows=41659, _db_hits=0) ==> ColumnFilter(symKeys=["have", "u1", "uid", "c", "h", "w", "u2"], returnItemNames=["uid", "have"], _rows=146826, _db_hits=0) ==> Extract(symKeys=["u1", "c", "h", "w", "u2"], exprKeys=["uid", "have"], _rows=146826, _db_hits=587304) ==> Filter(pred="((NOT(Product(u2,uid(0),true) == Literal(39)) AND hasLabel(u1:user(0))) AND hasLabel(u2:user(0)))", _rows=146826, _db_hits=146826) ==> TraversalMatcher(trail="(u1)-[w:WANTS WHERE (hasLabel(NodeIdentifier():card(1)) AND hasLabel(NodeIdentifier():card(1))) AND true]->(c)<-[h:HAS WHERE (NOT(Product(NodeIdentifier(),uid(0),true) == Literal(39)) AND hasLabel(NodeIdentifier():user(0))) AND true]-(u2)", _rows=146826, _db_hits=293696) And for the 5000 skip: ==> ColumnFilter(symKeys=["uid", " INTERNAL_AGGREGATE99329ea5-03cd-4d53-a6bc-3ad554b47872"], returnItemNames=["uid", "total"], _rows=25, _db_hits=0) ==> Slice(skip="Literal(5000)", _rows=25, _db_hits=0) ==> Top(orderBy=["SortItem(Cached( INTERNAL_AGGREGATE99329ea5-03cd-4d53-a6bc-3ad554b47872 of type Any),false)"], limit="Add(Literal(5000),Literal(25))", _rows=5025, _db_hits=0) ==> EagerAggregation(keys=["uid"], aggregates=["( INTERNAL_AGGREGATE99329ea5-03cd-4d53-a6bc-3ad554b47872,Sum(have))"], _rows=41659, _db_hits=0) ==> ColumnFilter(symKeys=["have", "u1", "uid", "c", "h", "w", "u2"], returnItemNames=["uid", "have"], _rows=146826, _db_hits=0) ==> Extract(symKeys=["u1", "c", "h", "w", "u2"], exprKeys=["uid", "have"], _rows=146826, _db_hits=587304) ==> Filter(pred="((NOT(Product(u2,uid(0),true) == Literal(39)) AND hasLabel(u1:user(0))) AND hasLabel(u2:user(0)))", _rows=146826, _db_hits=146826) ==> TraversalMatcher(trail="(u1)-[w:WANTS WHERE (hasLabel(NodeIdentifier():card(1)) AND hasLabel(NodeIdentifier():card(1))) AND true]->(c)<-[h:HAS WHERE (NOT(Product(NodeIdentifier(),uid(0),true) == Literal(39)) AND hasLabel(NodeIdentifier():user(0))) AND true]-(u2)", _rows=146826, _db_hits=293696) The only difference is the LIMIT clause on the Top function. I hope we can make this work as intended, I really don't want to delve into doing an embedded Neo4j + my own Jetty REST API for the web app.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, October 25, 2012

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, October 25, 2012Popular ReleasesTEncoder: 2.9: -2.9 -Added: Support for audio codec Opus -Added: Support for .opus files -Added: Decreased main window dimensions (will reset position info) -Fixed: Custom arguments were not passed if codec is "Copy" -Fixed: MEncoder "Direct Stream Copy" container problem -Fixed: Minor UI problems -Updated: MPlayer and MEncoder to SB41 -Updated: MediaInfo to 0.7.61 -Updated: FFmpeg to latest from ffmpeg.zeranoe.comdcview: DCView 1.3.9: Clien ?? ?????? ??, ???, ??? ??? ??CRM 2011 Web Resource Linker/Publisher: WebResourceLinker: Initial releaseMobilviWP7: MobilviWP7 1.2: Stabilna i przetestowana wersja.Posh for Jammer: jammer_v0.1_beta: First release of a number of PowerShell Functions calling the Yammer API.Style MVVM: 2.0.3: This is both a feature release and a Bug Fix release Features The Main new Feature is the ability to add event handlers from XAML using this new syntax View:EventHandler.Attach="EventName => ViewModelMethod($eventArgs)" New Example app that shows one or two features of the framework on each page, allowing for more straight forward examples. Bug Fixes IUIVisualizationService is now exported correctly and you can import it into your ViewModels DelegateCommand had a bug where it wasn't r...MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.3.5: Changelog for 2.3.5 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Fixed a bug causing MCEBuddy to crash during or after installation on Windows XP 2. Bugfix for resource leak with UPnP which would lead to a failure after many days 3. Increased the UPnP discovery re-scan interval from 10 minutes to 30 minutes 4. Added support for specifying TVDB and IMDB id’s in the conversion task page (forcing the internet lookup for metadata)WPF About Box: WPF About Box 1.1.1.1: First Stable ReleaseEdi: First Alpha Version: The initial release does a lot of things out of the box (theming, editing with highlighting, Find/Replace, MRU List). Read the Readme.txt file in the Edi Sub-project to get full details.CRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor (1.3.1025.5): [NEW] Support for connecting to CRM Online via Office 365 (OSDP) [NEW] Current connection information and loaded ribbon name are displayed in the status bar [IMPROVED] Connect dialog minor improvements and error message descriptions [IMPROVED] Connecting to a CRM server will close currently loaded ribbon upon confirmation (if another ribbon was loaded previously) [FIX] Fixed bug in Open Ribbon dialog which would not allow to refresh entity list more than oncejob board light version: version 1.0: recuiter section jobseeker section spam flagging advanced search filtering customizable templatesReadable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.8.0: Changes: Interrogative phrases (questions) like why did the statesman burgle amidst lucid sunlamps Support transitive / intransitive verbs (whether a verb needs a subject or not). Change adverbs to be either before or after the verb, at random. Add an "equal" version of each strength, where each possibility is equally likely (for password purists). 3401 words in the default dictionary (~400 more than previous release) Fixed bugs when choosing verb tensesfastJSON: v2.0.9: - added support for root level DataSet and DataTable deserialize (you have to do ToObject<DataSet>(...) ) - added dataset testsMicrosoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.72: Fix for Issue #18819 - bad optimization of return/assign operator.DNN Module Creator: 01.01.00: Updated templates for DNN7 ( ie. DAL2, Web Service API ). Numerous bug fixes and enhancements.WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.5.0.390: Version 2.5.0.390 (Release Candidate): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Changelog Legend: [B] Breaking change; [O] Marked member as obsolete WAF: Fix recent file list remove issue. WAF: Minor code improvements. BookLibrary: Fix Blend design time support o...Fiskalizacija za developere: FiskalizacijaDev 1.1: Ovo je prva nadogradnja ovog projekta nakon inicijalnog predstavljanja - dodali smo nekoliko feature-a, bilo zato što smo sami primijetili da bi ih bilo dobro dodati, bilo na osnovu vaših sugestija - hvala svima koji su se ukljucili :) Ovo su stvari riješene u v1.1.: 1. Bilo bi dobro da se XML dokument koji se šalje u CIS može snimiti u datoteku (http://fiskalizacija.codeplex.com/workitem/612) 2. Podrška za COM DLL (VB6) (http://fiskalizacija.codeplex.com/workitem/613) 3. Podrška za DOS (unu...Liberty: v3.4.0.0 Release 20th October 2012: Change Log -Added -Halo 4 support (invincibility, ammo editing) -Reach A warning dialog now shows up when you first attempt to swap a weapon -Fixed -A few minor bugsClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.68.1: ClosedXML now resolves formulas! Yes it finally happened. If you call cell.Value and it has a formula the library will try to evaluate the formula and give you the result. For example: var wb = new XLWorkbook(); var ws = wb.AddWorksheet("Sheet1"); ws.Cell("A1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("B1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("C1").FormulaA1 = "\"The total value is: \" & SUM(A1:B2)"; var...Orchard Project: Orchard 1.6 RC: RELEASE NOTES This is the Release Candidate version of Orchard 1.6. You should use this version to prepare your current developments to the upcoming final release, and report problems. Please read our release notes for Orchard 1.6 RC: http://docs.orchardproject.net/Documentation/Orchard-1-6-Release-Notes Please do not post questions as reviews. Questions should be posted in the Discussions tab, where they will usually get promptly responded to. If you post a question as a review, you wil...New Projects6_6_6_w_m_s_open: jwervxsdf7COM0207 Web Scripting and Content Creation Exercises: Loretta Rose Web Scripting and Content Creation ExercisesAcademyPVT: The project is dedicated to my studies at the Academy Pvt. It will be posted various learning tasks, and my research on the ASP.NET.Arduino Solar Meter: An Arduino is used to monitor several item in the meter cabinet. The standard version can log 3 S0 kWh meters and upload results to PVoutput and local SD card.BookCaching: BookCaching - GeoCaching with books. A funny new way to discover books around you!BruceCommonCMS: This is a CMS system developed by ASP.net(C#) with Visual Studio 2010/2012. My aim is to build a dynamic & flexible CMS system.Bullet On Rails for MS MVC: Bullet On Rails provides out-of-box scaffold controllers ala Ruby on Rails for MS MVC. It also provides automatic validations for information found in the LINQ to SQL generated file such as: - Type of field - Date format - Length of field - Required fieldCalculator++: Calculator++ will be the best application in parsing and calculating equations results.Collections: Collection Management for TV Series and Anime.Common Key Password Generator: This utility constructs a complex password from a GUID. The number of possible combinations generated approaches 16 to the power of 32.Cosmos HiDefOs: HiDef Os is a research project, to make a HD driver that runs smoothly. This is a subproject of QuicksilverOS and is fully open-source.EmpireWork Professional Social Network: EmpireWork Professional Social Network Locations: http://empirework.com http://empirework.ru http://empirework.com.ua http://empirework.byeWay payment gateway provider for NB_Store: eWay payment gateway provider for NB_StoreHDK - WinRT MVVM and MEF Friendly Prism Framework port: HDK - is a "spare-time" framework for WinRT development. Solution consists of: - MVVM - Event Aggregator - PRISM - other useful extensions HowToSetUpACodeplexProject: Er is nog niets gebeurdiBackup Explorer: The goal of this application is to provide a quick way to explore any iOS backup (IPhone, Ipad..)istomato: istomatojob board light version: job board light versionMaternity System: It's a project in development stage objectived to help maternity hospitals to make a better treatment for him usersmeu-projeto: sdalçfj lasdjlfjdsalfj lsdafldsajl fjsdalf jlsdaj flsadjl fjdsal fjdsal jflsdajf lksdajfksadMicrosoft Casablanca Samples and Tutorials: The code repository associated with http://cloudysea.wordpress.com, which discusses the Casablanca Project (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/casablanca)myvideo: myvideoProject13251024: papaProjekt PHP: Mitt projekt i kursen PHPSharePoint Version History Extractor: Windows app used to migrate/extract version history from a versioned document library into separate files with historical metadata.Site Backup Repackager: Use the Site Backup Repackager to reformat a SP2007 site backup (.cmp) for SP2010. SpiritMVVM: SpiritMVVM is a Model-View-ViewModel library, focused on richness of feature-set and cross-platform compatibility, using the Portable Class Library.SQL Data transfer wizard: It replaces export data in SSMS by offering dependency aware order of table transfer. studyproject: PHP, HTML, ZFTAPI Connector for Dynamics CRM 2011: Open source Caller ID screenpop/CTI for TAPI enabled phone systems. Simply install the TAPI software on your computer then configure this to connect to DynamicsTFS2012: This is project that used for coding VP8.NET: VP8.NET is a dual-licensed commercial/GPL C++ CLR wrapper which allows .NET applications to easily use the VP8 video codec.X0s0m0a0r0t0W1M1S1: 32432432432432

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