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• Empirical evidence for choice of programming paradigm to address a problem

  - by Graham Lee

  The C2 wiki has a discussion of Empirical Evidence for Object-Oriented Programming that basically concludes there is none beyond appeal to authority. This was last edited in 2008. Discussion here seems to bear this out: questions on whether OO is outdated, when functional programming is a bad choice and the advantages and disadvantages of AOP are all answered with contributors' opinions without reliance on evidence. Of course, opinions of established and reputed practitioners are welcome and valuable things to have, but they're more plausible when they're consistent with experimental data. Does this evidence exist? Is evidence-based software engineering a thing? Specifically, if I have a particular problem P that I want to solve by writing software, does there exist a body of knowledge, studies and research that would let me see how the outcome of solving problems like P has depended on the choice of programming paradigm? I know that which paradigm comes out as "the right answer" can depend on what metrics a particular study pays attention to, on what conditions the study holds constant or varies, and doubtless on other factors too. That doesn't affect my desire to find this information and critically appraise it. It becomes clear that some people think I'm looking for a "turn the crank" solution - some sausage machine into which I put information about my problem and out of which comes a word like "functional" or "structured". This is not my intention. What I'm looking for is research into how - with a lot of caveats and assumptions that I'm not going into here but good literature on the matter would - certain properties of software vary depending on the problem and the choice of paradigm. In other words: some people say "OO gives better flexibility" or "functional programs have fewer bugs" - (part of) what I'm asking for is the evidence of this. The rest is asking for evidence against this, or the assumptions under which these statements are true, or evidence showing that these considerations aren't important. There are plenty of opinions on why one paradigm is better than another; is there anything objective behind any of these?

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• Recommendations for managing DNS issues when hosting customer sites.

  - by Thomas

  I'm working at a company which primarily provides SaaS products but also will host some of our customers corporate websites. My question relates to recommendations for managing DNS for client's domain names. My objectives: Not restrict my ability to change the server's IP address such as might happen when I move my servers to a new host. Not have to contact the customer to change their domain's DNS if I need to change the server's IP address. Often times, customers lose this information or have to track down the one person with any knowledge of the domain settings. Map both .clientdomain.com and www.clientdomain.com to the proper IIS site. However, I'm running into a couple of common problems: Sometimes, the DNS console provided by the client's hosting company does not allow for CNAME records. Sometimes, the DNS console provided by the client's hosting company will not let me create a CNAME entry for .spiffydomain.com because the given hosting company has created a SOA record for that entry or simply requires that .spiffydomain.com be an A record. I believe one solution to #2 is to use a wildcard for a CNAME entry (i.e. *.spiffydomain.com). Is that correct? How do other folks that are hosting many customer's site manage change of DNS entries on their servers?

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• Where should SQL/DB Queries be encapsulated in a software system?

  - by Stephen Bennet

  I frequently write small applications (either web based or otherwise) that require heavy database usage. i've attempted various ways of handling where to put the actual sql queries (sort of ad-hoc ORM systems). These include: Models that build themselves up - and only allowing SQL to be inside of a model. A sort of factory style method where the models are built by a factory class that is allowed to know about SQL. A third entity that maps models based on their fields/keys into the database and generates SQL code on the fly based on this. Is there a common knowledge of which method is best? Or another way I have missed? Clearly a lot of it will be based on the context of the system itself, which for me is usually to produce lightweight tools or utility frameworks. In experimenting, I've never found any of them that feel intuitively "right" and not clunky, but I also do not want to go for a full framework such as Django or Ruby - both because the tools I create are in a variety of languages and because they usually do not warrant that level of surrounding footprint.

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• I don't know C. And why should I learn it?

  - by Stephen

  My first programming language was PHP (gasp). After that I started working with JavaScript. I've recently done work in C#. I've never once looked at low or mid level languages like C. The general consensus in the programming-community-at-large is that "a programmer who hasn't learned something like C, frankly, just can't handle programming concepts like pointers, data types, passing values by reference, etc." I do not agree. I argue that: Because high level languages are easily accessible, more "non-programmers" dive in and make a mess, and In order to really get anything done in a high level language, one needs to understand the same similar concepts that most proponents of "learn-low-level-first" evangelize about. Some people need to know C. Those people have jobs that require them to write low to mid-level code. I'm sure C is awesome. I'm sure there are a few bad programmers who know C. My question is, why the bias? As a good, honest, hungry programmer, if I had to learn C (for some unforeseen reason), I would learn C. Considering the multitude of languages out there, shouldn't good programmers focus on learning what advances us? Shouldn't we learn what interests us? Should we not utilize our finite time moving forward? Why do some programmers disagree with this? I believe that striving for excellence in what you do is the fundamental deterministic trait between good programmers and bad ones. Does anyone have any real world examples of how something written in a high level language--say Java, Pascal, PHP, or Javascript--truely benefitted from a prior knowledge of C? Examples would be most appreciated. (revised to better coincide with the six guidelines.)

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• Advice on a good comeback strategy after years of java abstinence

  - by simou

  It's almost 5 yrs since I left the java IT-project/enterprise business. Before I was a highly skilled enterprise developer / OO architect with more than 10 years experience in the business. I was proficient in many of those enterprise related technologies, including DWHing. Since then I haven't been doing any large scale programming, a little bit of C, Python, some dips into Scala, hacking a small java-plugin framework, opengl, but only as fun projects. Now I want to re-enter the java stage again, i.e. I'm looking for job opportunities as a developer. But I fear I might have lost much of my former punching strength, e.g. I would have to give my SQL knowledge a deep refreshing breath, re-visit basic stuff like design patterns, enterprise architectures, etc. and probably learn the new stuff like EJB3.1, JEE 6 too. I also missed the whole scrum craze. So from your own experience, what subject should I tackle first? Like technology (which ones?) or design skills (uml..)? But what I'm also wondering is since the basic design / architectural principles haven't changed much by now, what would be the chance on the job market for someone like me who left the java-world at a time where everything was less fragmented and EJB2.1 and XDoclet were de-facto standards? And how could I convince a potential employer that I'm still an effective on-the-job learner? Should I rather aim for "junior positions" ? Lots of questions but I'd be really glad if you could share your (encouraging :) thoughts with me. cheers! (btw I'm based in Austria)

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• I'm a student learning C++ and I've recently found out about Ruby. Would learning (some of) Ruby help me with C++ or would it just confuse me?

  - by Von32

  Hi! As the title says, I'm a student that will be starting my second year of C++ very soon. I've discovered Ruby, however. While I've heard much buzz about the language before, I've disregarded it because I always thought it wasn't something that would be useful. However, I've found a number of FANTASTIC tutorials on ruby and am interested in learning it (probably because it seems so straightforward). Would playing around with ruby be a good or bad idea? I understand that there's not such thing as bad knowledge, but I'm afraid that Ruby will only confuse me when dealing with C++. How different from C++ is it? I've read it's based on C in some way, but my google-fu seems to be horrible today. How useful is Ruby in the real world? I'm not specifically asking about jobs- I'm more interested in what sort of applications may come from this language. Any specific examples worth looking at? Going back to Question two- I've read some posts on here that Ruby and C++ can hold hands once in a while. How flexible is this relationship? Is it rarely that this would work? Thank you Very much for your time! EDIT: This has to be the one community on the internet that doesn't suck. Why have I never posted before? You guys are awesome!

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• How can I make feasible the deployment of my application on the servers

  - by aklin81

  I am a Java Web Application Developer. I have an idea for a web application project that I am working on. I personally believe that the app has potential to become a popular website. Currently I am working on it as a developer with two others in the project. The development costs has been almost null uptil now since we are doing in-house development with open source technologies. But the costs are now going to appear as we'll have to host our application online on the servers. Right now I see this as the major expense as we go live. Are there any ways by which we can smartly deal with this hurdle ? We want to minimize the costs as much as possible, or even better, if we can make this null, perhaps, through some partnership agreement with the hosting solutions provider!? Your opinions are highly solicited!! Please enlighten with your experiences and knowledge. Thanks so much, for your time !

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• How do search engines handle hyphenated words?

  - by NinjaKC

  I am not sure my title fully explains what I mean. I thought this might be an interesting question. If I had a set of keywords, broken with a dash or 2, will search engines consider the dashed split keyword as maybe a full keyword? Say I have a site that sort of breaks words down, like the dictionary sites do. So a keyword for that page, might end up in the page, and / or the URL, as broken by dashes. Key-word = keyword Co-op-er-at-ive = cooperative Pho-to-gra-phy = Photography www.example.com/key-word/ www.example.com/co-op-er-at-ive/ www.example.com/pho-to-gra-phy/ I know search engines will consider a dash (at least Google) as a space, and understand it as multiple words. But in the English language, a dash can also break a word down (at least I think it can, can't it?), so will search engines also take this into consideration? I did a 'little' research, I Googled some words and placed random dashes, and it returned the words I searched for, but this could be considered a typo from the user on Google's search end, so really I am wondering if I can purposely put a dash in a keyword, and have the search engine spiders still catch that keyword as the real word without dashes? I've done a little Googling and looking here on Stackoverflow, but everything comes down to dashes for multiple words, not really the specific thing I'm trying to figure out. Hopefully that makes sense, I am not an expert in SEO, yet, but get the basics and have been playing, and this is just really a random question to satisfy my knowledge of playing :P

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• I need some career guidance, please.

  - by user18956

  Hi, I have been a teacher of guitar and music theory for the last ten years or so, and I have decided to get out of it and pursue something involving computers, but I am very confused about it all. I have no training related to programming besides a knowledge of xhtml and css - which I realize are not even programming languages. My problem is that I know I want to do something with either making video games, computer/online applications, or some other programming job, but I haven't a clue how to begin. I picked up a book from the Head First series entitled, Head First Programming that uses Python to teach programming concepts, but after that, I don't really know what is a good direction for me in terms of balancing career satisfaction with job availability and acceptable pay. I am not looking for a huge salary, I just want to be able to survive doing something I love, and which challenges me. I don't know even a single person involved in a related field, so I am in need of guidance. The first thing I would like to know is whether pursuing a career as a programmer for video games is a realistic option. I love video games, and play them all the time, and I have always wanted to make them. If this is an option, what would be the recommended course of action? What is a good language or technology to get involved in for the job market now? I have read that PHP/MySQL is a good place to find a job for some. Can I find a job without school, or do I need to got o college? Also, will the Python I learn in this book translate into any other language I need to learn? If it is anything like music, then I am sure it will, but I don't know much about programming - yet. And last, yet perhaps most important, is thirty years old too old to take such a radical redirection in careers? Thank you for any help you can offer. I really need it.

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• Are there opportunities working as full-time paid programmer for Non-profit organizations

  - by Rick

  Some recent events in my life have made me want to contribute more to causes I believe in rather than just working for a profit-driven company. I have been thinking that if I could find a non-profit organization that I like and believe in then I might feel more fulfilled working for them. I have a decent amount of web development experience and currently work as a Java / Spring web developer. I realize the compensation wouldn't have the same "ceiling" potential as for-profit but am wondering if its possible to get at least something close to a market rate for work as I am planning to start a family sometime soon and still need a legitimate income. If anyone has any knowledge or experience about this sort of thing would be happy to hear from you. EDIT: Without getting in to too much personal detail, I have a relative who recently passed away who suffered from a mental illness so while it doesn't have to be an organization specifically dedicated to this, I am hoping to work for something along these lines at least where there is more of a social cause rather than just working on an open-source project whose only cause is the advancement of technology.

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• Oracle Enterprise Data Quality Adds Global Address Verification Capabilities for Greater Accuracy and Broader Location Coverage

  - by Mala Narasimharajan

  Data quality – has many flavors to it.  Product, Customer – you name the data domain and there’s data quality associated with it.  Address verification and data quality are a little different.  in that there is a tremendous amount of variation as well as nuance attached to it.  Specifically, what makes address verification challenging is that more often than not, addresses are incomplete, riddled with misspellings, incorrect postal codes are assigned to locations or non-address items are present.  Almost all data has locations, and accurate locations power a wealth of business processes: Customer Relationship Management, data quality, delivery of materials, goods or services, fraud detection, insurance risk assessment, data analytics, store and territory planning, and much more. Oracle Address Verification Server provides location-based services as well as deeper parsing and analysis capabilities for Oracle Enterprise Data Quality.  Specifically, Pre-integrated with the EDQ platform, Oracle Address Verification Server provides robust parsing, validation, as well as specialized location information for over 240 countries – all populated countries on Earth.  Oracle Enterprise Data Quality (EDQ) is a data quality platform, dedicated to address the distinct challenges of customer and product data quality, and performs advanced data profiling to identify and measure poor quality data and identify rule requirements, as well as semantic and pattern-based recognition to accurately parse and standardize data that is poorly structured.   EDQ is integrated with Oracle Master Data Management, including Oracle Customer Hub and Oracle Product Hub, as well as Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition and Oracle CRM.  Address Verification Server provides key address verification services for Oracle CRM and Oracle Customer Hub.  In addition, Address Verification Server provides greater accuracy when handling address data due to its expanded sources and extensible knowledge repository, solid parsing across locales and countries as well as  adept handling of extraneous data in address fields.  For more information on Oracle Address Verification Server visit:  http://bit.ly/GMUE4H and http://bit.ly/GWf7U6

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• I'm a student learning C++ and I've recently found out about Ruby. Would learning (some of) Ruby help me with C++ or would it just confuse me?

  - by Von32

  As the title says, I'm a student that will be starting my second year of C++ very soon. I've discovered Ruby, however. While I've heard much buzz about the language before, I've disregarded it because I always thought it wasn't something that would be useful. However, I've found a number of FANTASTIC tutorials on ruby and am interested in learning it (probably because it seems so straightforward). Would playing around with ruby be a good or bad idea? I understand that there's not such thing as bad knowledge, but I'm afraid that Ruby will only confuse me when dealing with C++. How different from C++ is it? I've read it's based on C in some way. I've read some posts on here that Ruby and C++ can hold hands once in a while. How flexible is this relationship? Is it rarely that this would work? How useful is Ruby in the real world? I'm not specifically asking about jobs- I'm more interested in what sort of applications may come from this language. Any specific examples worth looking at?

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• Good Freelance models for web developers

  - by Matthew Underwood

  I am a web developer with four years of experience in PHP, MYSQL and experience in Javascript etc. One day I hope to develop a freelance career in web development. Areas of freelance that I am thinking of going towards includes Wordpress, Magento development along with bespoke applications. I am also thinking of doing some consultancy work for clients and businesses when I build up some more experience and technical knowledge. I want to offer a web development service to potential clients that plays on my strengths in what I know but most importantly has a market. Web development can cover so many subjects that its difficult to pick out the areas that have demand. I am also curious to find out if web developers offer services that bring in a monthly income e.g application maintenance or database maintenance? Is there a market for certain areas like WordPress plugins or bespoke applications? Are there certain things to avoid because of work duration, unrealistic client expectations or the fact that its impossible to find a market for it? As professional and experienced freelance web developers have you learned some important do's and don'ts? Is there certain services that the majority of web developers offer because its in high demand? This is the one area of web development freelancing that I cant get my head around. I know there is never a definitive answer but there must be some good practises and general consensus on this subject. Web designers design websites they offer a lump sum and get paid monthly sometimes to add new content, PPC and SEO consultants market sites to the top this will involve monthly payments, web development doesn’t seem so clear cut.

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• Oracle OpenWorld Kicks Off Today Delivering A Full Week of Insight, Education, and Unique Experiences

  - by Jeri Kelley

  San Francisco has been transformed into a sea of red and more than 50,000 attendees from 140 countries will converge in the Bay Area for a week of education and insight into Oracle's strategy and roadmap on today’s leading technology initiatives, including engineered systems, cloud computing, business analytics and big data, and customer experience.  Tonight kicked off with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison discussing how Oracle is taking a fundamentally different approach to delivering technology that is engineered to work together to give customers extreme performance, simplicity, and cost savings.  The jam-packed week continues with: More than 2,500 educational sessions Nearly 3,500 customer and partner speakers from marquee brands sharing how they are using Oracle technology to power their businesses Over 400 Oracle product demonstrations in the DEMOgrounds – make sure to stop by to see the latest demonstrations for our Customer Experience solutions including Oracle Commerce, Oracle RightNow, Oracle WebCenter, Oracle Fusion CRM, Oracle Social Relationship Management, and more. With more educational content than ever before, OpenWorld also expands to include six sub-conferences within the main OpenWorld umbrella including the Customer Experience Summit @ OpenWorld which runs October 3rd-5th.  All of this education and insight comes with some fun as well.  OpenWorld has become an exciting destination with new experiences unveiled each year including the debut of the first annual Oracle OpenWorld Music Festival, featuring some of today’s hottest acts, emerging bands and DJs over five nights playing at locations throughout San Francisco. Our Customer Experience team will be blogging and tweeting all week to keep you up-to-date so be sure to subscribe to our Customer Experience blog and follow us on Twitter and Facebook: @OracleCX @OracleCommerce @OracleCRM Facebook.com/OracleCustomerExperience If you are at OpenWorld, we hope you have a great week and get the knowledge you need to take your Oracle applications to the next level.  And, if you were not able to make it this year, be sure to tune into the sessions that are broadcast live online. 

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• Oracle Global HR Cloud Implementation Training Can Help Meet Your Business Needs

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By Jim Vonick A key goal for the deployment of your Oracle Global HR Cloud applications is to accelerate the implementation and adoption of your applications, so that your business can start realizing all of the benefits that this rich solution offers.    Implementation team members need to have the skills and knowledge to ensure a smooth, rapid and successful implementation of your applications. During set-up, you want to optimize the configuration to best meet your business needs. In order to do this you need to understand the foundation and configuration options of your applications, so that decisions can be made during set-up that best align with your business.  To that end product level implementation training is recommended for Oracle Global HR Cloud deployments. Training For Implementation Team Members and Consultants Fusion Applications: HCM Security: Learn how to implement security for Oracle Fusion HCM applications by creating and customizing roles. You'll learn how to create security profiles to restrict data access, provision roles to users, create and manage user accounts, and verify security setup. Fusion Applications: HCM Global Human Resources: Learn how to set up your enterprise and workforce structures, how to perform functional tasks, and how to configure security for Global Human Resources data. Fusion Applications: HCM Compensation: Learn how to implement, configure, and use Oracle Fusion Compensation to manage base pay, individual compensation, workforce compensation, and total compensation statements. Fusion Applications: HCM Benefits: This course teaches you to implement, configure and manage Oracle Fusion Benefits, including how to implement benefit plans and programs.  Fusion Applications: HCM Payroll Implementation (US): This course provides implementation training for payroll managers or payroll administrators. Learn how to process payroll to ensure accurate setup results.  Learn More: See all Fusion HCM Training Jim Vonick is a Senior Product Manager with Oracle University focusing on training for Oracle Applications and Industry Solutions.

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• Visual Basic link to SQL output to Word

  - by CLO_471

  I am in need of some advice/references. I am currently trying to develop a legal document interface. There are certain fields in which I need to query out of my sql db and have those fields output into a document that can be printed. I am trying to develop a user interface where people can enter fields that will output to a document template but at the same time I need the template to be able to pull data from the SQL database. This is the reason why I think that VB might be my best choice and because it is one of the only OOP languages I am familiar with presently. Does anyone know that best way to be able to handle this type of job?? I know that you can use VBA within MS Word and have the form output variables to a word template. But, is there a way to have the word document also pull information from the SQL db? Is the best option to use VB linked to SQL and run queries to get the information from the database and then have it output to a for within VB? Is it possible for VB to be linked to a SQL db and output variables and SQL fields to a Word Template? I have looked into Mail Merge and I see that it allows users to pull data from an Access query but I dont think it would be easy to automate and it seems that users would need to have an advanced knowledge of MS Word and Access to handle this. I am not finding much useful information online so I came here. Any advice or references would be greatly appreciated. If there is a better way please let me know.

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• [Dear Recruiter] I developed in Mo'Fusion

  - by refuctored

  Forward: Sometimes I really feel like technology recruiters have no experience or knowledge of the field they are recruting for.  A warning to those companies hiring technical recruiters -- ensure that the technical recruiters you hire to fill a position are actually technical.  Here's proof below, where I make up completely ridiculous technologies, but still have interest from the recruiter for an interview. Letter to me: Hello - Your name came up as a possible match for a long term contract Cold Fusion Developer role I have in Bothell, WA.  This role requires you to be onsite in Bothell, WA. This is  a tough role to fill so I was hoping you might have someone you can recommend? Unfortunately no telecommute. Thank you! Sincerly, Mindy Recruiter My response: Mindy -- Wow I'm super-excited that you took the time to contact me about this position!  Let me tell you, you won't be disappointed with my skill set! Firstly, I've been developing in ColdFusion since 1993 before it was owned by Adobe and it was operating under code name, "Hot-Jack".  Recently I started developing under the Domain-View-Driven-Domain-Model (DVDDM), integrating client-side CF on Moobuntu.  Not only do I have a boat load of ColdFusion EXP,  I also have a ton of experience in the open source communities lesser known derivative of CF, Mo'Fusion (MF).  I've also invested thousands of hours of my time learning esoteric programming languages. Look forward to working with you! George And her response: Hi George – just left you a message. Give me a call at your convenience.  The role does require someone to be onsite here.. are you able to relocate yourself? Mindy [Sigh]

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• Welcome to the FMW Install and Admin Proactive Team Blog

  - by Daniel Mortimer

  IntroductionWelcome to the Fusion Middleware Install and Administration Proactive Support blog.  This is our first post, so let's begin by introducing ourselves and our mission. Who We AreWe are a small team of support engineers based in Europe.  Our expertise covers all matters related to the installation and administration of Oracle Application Server 10g, Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and future versions to come. We particularly focus on core components such as the Installers and Configuration Wizards Web Tier ( Oracle HTTP Server ) OPMN Enterprise Manager Console for Application Server as well as general questions / problems relating to patching, maintenance and architecture. Our Mission Improve the customer experience Enable customers to avoid / prevent issues when working with our products Enable faster resolution of problems when they occur Our Activities Enhancement and maintenance of our knowledge base In particular, develop and maintain special content such as the Fusion Middleware Information Centers and Lifecycle Support Advisors Seek continuous improvement of the product documentation Contribute to the Fusion Middleware Support News Moderation of the "Oracle Application Server" support community Participate in the Support Advisor Webcast program Involved in the Lifecycle of diagnostic tools such as RDA and OCM User Acceptance Testing Logging of enhancements and health check ideas Provide feedback to product management / development Logging of product bugs and enhancements Suggest improvements that could be made to web sites like OTN Promote new support documents, tools via channels such as Newsletter and Social Media We hope that this blog will be a two-way communication as we are interested in feedback on what we can improve. Many suggestions we can act on immediately while others may take more time, but all of them will be acknowledged and followed up.Thank you for your time and we look forward to both informing and working with you.Postscript: Many links you will find in our blog entries will require a login to My Oracle Support. For readers who do not have a login, please accept our apologies - when and where possible we will endeavour to ensure the links will supplement rather than replace wording in the blog entries.

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• LibGdx efficient data saving/loading?

  - by grimrader22

  Currently, my LibGDX game consists of a 512 x 512 map of Tiles and entities such as players and monsters. I am wondering how to efficiently save and load the data of my levels. At the moment I am using JSON serialization for each class I want to save. I implement the Json.Serializable interface for all of these classes and write only the variables that are necessary. So my map consists of 512 x 512 tiles, that's 260,000 tiles. Each tile on the map consists of a Tile object, which points to some final Tile object like a GRASS_TILE or a STONE_TILE. When I serialize each level tile, the final Tile that it points to is re-serialized over and over again, so if I have 100 Tiles all pointing to GRASS_TILE, the data of GRASS_TILE is written 100 times over. When I go to load/deserialize my objects, 100 GrassTile objects are created, but they are each their own object. They no longer point to the final tile object. I feel like this reading/writing files very slow. If I were to abandon JSON serialization, to my knowledge my next best option would be saving the level data to a sql database. Unless there is a way to speed up serializing/deserializing 260,000 tiles I may have to do this. Is this a good idea? Could I really write that many tiles to the database efficiently? To sum all this up, I am trying to save my levels using JSON serialization, but it is VERY slow. What other options do I have for saving the data of so many tiles. I also must note that the JSON serialization is not slow on a PC, it is only VERY slow on a mobile device. Since file writing/reading is so slow on mobile devices, what can I do?

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• How Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server enable Compliance

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  One of the things that makes Team Foundation Server (TFS) the most powerful Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) platform is the traceability it provides to those that use it. This traceability is crucial to enable many companies to adhere to many of the Compliance regulations to which they are bound (e.g. CFR 21 Part 11 or Sarbanes–Oxley.)   From something as simple as relating Tasks to Check-in’s or being able to see the top 10 files in your codebase that are causing the most Bugs, to identifying which Bugs and Requirements are in which Release. All that information is available and more in TFS. Although all of this tradability is available within TFS you do need to understand that it is not for free. Well… I say that, but if you are using TFS properly you will have this information with no additional work except for firing up the reporting. Using Visual Studio ALM and Team Foundation Server you can relate every line of code changes all the way up to requirements and back down through Test Cases to the Test Results. Figure: The only thing missing is Build In order to build the relationship model below we need to examine how each of the relationships get there. Each member of your team from programmer to tester and Business Analyst to Business have their roll to play to knit this together. Figure: The relationships required to make this work can get a little confusing If Build is added to this to relate Work Items to Builds and with knowledge of which builds are in which environments you can easily identify what is contained within a Release. Figure: How are things progressing Along with the ability to produce the progress and trend reports the tractability that is built into TFS can be used to fulfil most audit requirements out of the box, and augmented to fulfil the rest. In order to understand the relationships, lets look at each of the important Artifacts and how they are associated with each other… Requirements – The root of all knowledge Requirements are the thing that the business cares about delivering. These could be derived as User Stories or Business Requirements Documents (BRD’s) but they should be what the Business asks for. Requirements can be related to many of the Artifacts in TFS, so lets look at the model: Figure: If the centre of the world was a requirement We can track which releases Requirements were scheduled in, but this can change over time as more details come to light. Figure: Who edited the Requirement and when There is also the ability to query Work Items based on the History of changed that were made to it. This is particularly important with Requirements. It might not be enough to say what Requirements were completed in a given but also to know which Requirements were ever assigned to a particular release. Figure: Some magic required, but result still achieved As an augmentation to this it is also possible to run a query that shows results from the past, just as if we had a time machine. You can take any Query in the system and add a “Asof” clause at the end to query historical data in the operational store for TFS. select <fields> from WorkItems [where <condition>] [order by <fields>] [asof <date>] Figure: Work Item Query Language (WIQL) format In order to achieve this you do need to save the query as a *.wiql file to your local computer and edit it in notepad, but one imported into TFS you run it any time you want. Figure: Saving Queries locally can be useful All of these Audit features are available throughout the Work Item Tracking (WIT) system within TFS. Tasks – Where the real work gets done Tasks are the work horse of the development team, but they only as useful as Excel if you do not relate them properly to other Artifacts. Figure: The Task Work Item Type has its own relationships Requirements should be broken down into Tasks that the development team work from to build what is required by the business. This may be done by a small dedicated group or by everyone that will be working on the software team but however it happens all of the Tasks create should be a Child of a Requirement Work Item Type. Figure: Tasks are related to the Requirement Tasks should be used to track the day-to-day activities of the team working to complete the software and as such they should be kept simple and short lest developers think they are more trouble than they are worth. Figure: Task Work Item Type has a narrower purpose Although the Task Work Item Type describes the work that will be done the actual development work involves making changes to files that are under Source Control. These changes are bundled together in a single atomic unit called a Changeset which is committed to TFS in a single operation. During this operation developers can associate Work Item with the Changeset. Figure: Tasks are associated with Changesets   Changesets – Who wrote this crap Changesets themselves are just an inventory of the changes that were made to a number of files to complete a Task. Figure: Changesets are linked by Tasks and Builds   Figure: Changesets tell us what happened to the files in Version Control Although comments can be changed after the fact, the inventory and Work Item associations are permanent which allows us to Audit all the way down to the individual change level. Figure: On Check-in you can resolve a Task which automatically associates it Because of this we can view the history on any file within the system and see how many changes have been made and what Changesets they belong to. Figure: Changes are tracked at the File level What would be even more powerful would be if we could view these changes super imposed over the top of the lines of code. Some people call this a blame tool because it is commonly used to find out which of the developers introduced a bug, but it can also be used as another method of Auditing changes to the system. Figure: Annotate shows the lines the Annotate functionality allows us to visualise the relationship between the individual lines of code and the Changesets. In addition to this you can create a Label and apply it to a version of your version control. The problem with Label’s is that they can be changed after they have been created with no tractability. This makes them practically useless for any sort of compliance audit. So what do you use? Branches – And why we need them Branches are a really powerful tool for development and release management, but they are most important for audits. Figure: One way to Audit releases The R1.0 branch can be created from the Label that the Build creates on the R1 line when a Release build was created. It can be created as soon as the Build has been signed of for release. However it is still possible that someone changed the Label between this time and its creation. Another better method can be to explicitly link the Build output to the Build. Builds – Lets tie some more of this together Builds are the glue that helps us enable the next level of tractability by tying everything together. Figure: The dashed pieces are not out of the box but can be enabled When the Build is called and starts it looks at what it has been asked to build and determines what code it is going to get and build. Figure: The folder identifies what changes are included in the build The Build sets a Label on the Source with the same name as the Build, but the Build itself also includes the latest Changeset ID that it will be building. At the end of the Build the Build Agent identifies the new Changesets it is building by looking at the Check-ins that have occurred since the last Build. Figure: What changes have been made since the last successful Build It will then use that information to identify the Work Items that are associated with all of the Changesets Changesets are associated with Build and change the “Integrated In” field of those Work Items . Figure: Find all of the Work Items to associate with The “Integrated In” field of all of the Work Items identified by the Build Agent as being integrated into the completed Build are updated to reflect the Build number that successfully integrated that change. Figure: Now we know which Work Items were completed in a build Now that we can link a single line of code changed all the way back through the Task that initiated the action to the Requirement that started the whole thing and back down to the Build that contains the finished Requirement. But how do we know wither that Requirement has been fully tested or even meets the original Requirements? Test Cases – How we know we are done The only way we can know wither a Requirement has been completed to the required specification is to Test that Requirement. In TFS there is a Work Item type called a Test Case Test Cases enable two scenarios. The first scenario is the ability to track and validate Acceptance Criteria in the form of a Test Case. If you agree with the Business a set of goals that must be met for a Requirement to be accepted by them it makes it both difficult for them to reject a Requirement when it passes all of the tests, but also provides a level of tractability and validation for audit that a feature has been built and tested to order. Figure: You can have many Acceptance Criteria for a single Requirement It is crucial for this to work that someone from the Business has to sign-off on the Test Case moving from the  “Design” to “Ready” states. The Second is the ability to associate an MS Test test with the Test Case thereby tracking the automated test. This is useful in the circumstance when you want to Track a test and the test results of a Unit Test designed to test the existence of and then re-existence of a a Bug. Figure: Associating a Test Case with an automated Test Although it is possible it may not make sense to track the execution of every Unit Test in your system, there are many Integration and Regression tests that may be automated that it would make sense to track in this way. Bug – Lets not have regressions In order to know wither a Bug in the application has been fixed and to make sure that it does not reoccur it needs to be tracked. Figure: Bugs are the centre of their own world If the fix to a Bug is big enough to require that it is broken down into Tasks then it is probably a Requirement. You can associate a check-in with a Bug and have it tracked against a Build. You would also have one or more Test Cases to prove the fix for the Bug. Figure: Bugs have many associations This allows you to track Bugs / Defects in your system effectively and report on them. Change Request – I am not a feature In the CMMI Process template Change Requests can also be easily tracked through the system. In some cases it can be very important to track Change Requests separately as an Auditor may want to know what was changed and who authorised it. Again and similar to Bugs, if the Change Request is big enough that it would require to be broken down into Tasks it is in reality a new feature and should be tracked as a Requirement. Figure: Make sure your Change Requests only Affect Requirements and not rewrite them Conclusion Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server together provide an exceptional Application Lifecycle Management platform that can help your team comply with even the harshest of Compliance requirements while still enabling them to be Agile. Most Audits are heavy on required documentation but most of that information is captured for you as long a you do it right. You don’t even need every team member to understand it all as each of the Artifacts are relevant to a different type of team member. Business Analysts manage Requirements and Change Requests Programmers manage Tasks and check-in against Change Requests and Bugs Testers manage Bugs and Test Cases Build Masters manage Builds Although there is some crossover there are still rolls or “hats” that are worn. Do you thing this is all achievable? Have I missed anything that you think should be there?

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• How do I get a Broadcom BCM4311 working?

  - by Fer1805

  I'm having serious problems installing the broadcom drivers for ubuntu 11.04. It worked perfectly on my previous version, but now, it is impossible. I'm a user with no advance knowledge in linux, so I would need clear explanations on make, compile, etc. I was following the instructions on the following blog, with no luck. Broadcom BCM4311 Wireless not working Can someone help me? Edit: For the command: "lspci | grep Network", I get the following message: 06:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01) For the command: iwconfig, i get the following: lo no wireless extensions. eth0 no wireless extensions. When i follow the following steps (from the above link), there are a NO error message at all: open the 'Synaptic Package Manager' and search for bcm uninstall the bcm-kernel-source package make sure that the firmware-b43-installer and the b43-fwcutter packages are installed type into terminal: cat /etc/modprobe.d/* | egrep '8180|acx|at76|ath|b43|bcm|CX|eth|ipw|irmware|isl|lbtf|orinoco|ndiswrapper|NPE|p54|prism|rtl|rt2|rt3|rt6|rt7|witch|wl' (you may want to copy this) and see if the term blacklist bcm43xx is there if it is, type cd /etc/modprobe.d/ and then sudo gedit blacklist.conf put a # in front of the line: blacklist bcm43xx then save the file (I was getting error messages in the terminal about not being able to save, but it actually did save properly). reboot 'End of procedure' Before (not ubuntu 11.04), if i wanted to connect wireles, i just went to the icon at the upper side of the screen, click, showed ALL the wireless network available, and done. Now, the only options i see are: Wired Network Auto Eth0 Disconnect VPN Enable networking Connection information Edit connection. hope above info is enough for your help.

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• Ubuntu security with services running from /opt

  - by thejartender

  It took me a while to understand what's going on here (I think), but can someone explain to me if there are security risks with regards to my logic of what's going on here as I am trying to set up a home web server as a developer with some good Linux knowledge? Ubuntu is not like other systems, as it has restricted the root user account. You can not log in as root or su to root. This was a problem for me as I have had to install numerous applications and services to /opt as per user documentation (XAMPPfor Linux is a good example). The problem here is that this directory is owned by root:root. I notice that my admin user account does not belong to root group through the following command: groups username so my understanding is that even though the files and services that I place in /opt belong to root, executing them by means of sudo (as required) does not mean that they are run as root? I imagine that the sudo command is hidden somewhere under belonging to the root user and has a 775 permission? So the question I have is if running a service like Tomcat, Apcahe, etc exposes my system like on other systems? Obviously I need to secure these in configurations, but isn't the golden rule to never run something as root? What happens if I have multiple services running under same user/group with regards to a compromised server?

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• Are you at Super Computing 10?

  - by Daniel Moth

  Like last year, I was going to attend SC this year, but other events are unfortunately keeping me here in Seattle next week. If you are going to be in New Orleans, have fun and be sure not to miss out on the following two opportunities. MPI Debugging UX Study Throughout the week, my team is conducting 90-minute studies on debugging MPI applications within Visual Studio. In exchange for your feedback (under NDA) you will receive a Microsoft Gratuity (and the knowledge that you are impacting the development of Visual Studio). If you are interested, sign up at the Microsoft Information Desk in the Exhibitor Hall during exhibit hours. Outside of exhibit hours, send email to [email protected]. If you took part in the GPGPU study, this is very similar except it is for MPI. Microsoft High Performance Computing Summit On Monday 15th, the Microsoft annual user group meeting takes place. Shuttle transportation and lunch is provided. For full details of this event and to register, please visit the official event page. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• Learn To Adjust Contrast Like a Pro in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET

  - by Eric Z Goodnight

  Brightness and Contrast tools are for beginners! Ever wondered what graphics programs offer advanced users to ensure their photographs have a great value range? Read on to learn about Levels, Curves, and Histograms in three major programs. Curves and Levels are not as intuitive as the more basic Brightness and Contrast sliders Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET all share. However, they offer a great deal more control over images that professionals and skilled image editors will demand. Combine these tools with a knowledge of how basic histograms work, and you’ll be well on your way to editing contrast like a pro! Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Learn To Adjust Contrast Like a Pro in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Have You Ever Wondered How Your Operating System Got Its Name? Should You Delete Windows 7 Service Pack Backup Files to Save Space? What Can Super Mario Teach Us About Graphics Technology? Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is Released: But Should You Install It? How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions Add a “Textmate Style” Lightweight Text Editor with Dropbox Syncing to Chrome and Iron Is the Forcefield Really On or Not? [Star Wars Parody Video] Google Updates Picasa Web Albums; Emphasis on Sharing and Showcasing Uwall.tv Turns YouTube into a Video Jukebox Early Morning Sunrise at the Beach Wallpaper Data Networks Visualized via Light Paintings [Video]

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• How to organize a programming course?

  - by Bogdan Gavril

  I've been given the task to train our manual testers to become developers in test (write test automation!). some have basic programing knowledge (either dabbling in PHP or reading stuff) and some who have no experience. Note that I do have teaching experience, but with real students, not employees, and one concern is that they will not put extra hours except the 20% management gave them for the transition. Language to be taught and used: C# We have 8 hours per week to do this and should decide if they will make it in 2 months. I am thinking of a combined approach: use a manual such as Head First C# (although I'm not happy with the labs, they're mostly games and I don't want to add UI complexities) have them read from the manual do labs with them, solving more and more difficult problems and explain the theoretical stuff as well have them do a bigger project towards the end Some questions: do you have a better suggestion as far as manuals go? do you have a better aproach? Focus less on labs? what kind of assesments should I use and how often? should I let them do a bigger project (bank system or small game) and how much time should I invest in that? ideeas on labs? other resources ? Any other tips would be most welcomed! Thanks!

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