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• KISS principle applied to programming language design?

  - by Giorgio

  KISS ("keep it simple stupid", see e.g. here) is an important principle in software development, even though it apparently originated in engineering. Citing from the wikipedia article: The principle is best exemplified by the story of Johnson handing a team of design engineers a handful of tools, with the challenge that the jet aircraft they were designing must be repairable by an average mechanic in the field under combat conditions with only these tools. Hence, the 'stupid' refers to the relationship between the way things break and the sophistication available to fix them. If I wanted to apply this to the field of software development I would replace "jet aircraft" with "piece of software", "average mechanic" with "average developer" and "under combat conditions" with "under the expected software development / maintenance conditions" (deadlines, time constraints, meetings / interruptions, available tools, and so on). So it is a commonly accepted idea that one should try to keep a piece of software simple stupid so that it easy to work on it later. But can the KISS principle be applied also to programming language design? Do you know of any programming languages that have been designed specifically with this principle in mind, i.e. to "allow an average programmer under average working conditions to write and maintain as much code as possible with the least cognitive effort"? If you cite any specific language it would be great if you could add a link to some document in which this intent is clearly expressed by the language designers. In any case, I would be interested to learn about the designers' (documented) intentions rather than your personal opinion about a particular programming language.

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• Jenkins Paramerized Trigger + Copy Artifact

  - by Josh Kelley

  I'm working on setting up Jenkins to handle our release builds. A release build consists of a Windows installer that includes some binaries that must be built on Linux. Here's what I have so far: The Windows portion and Linux portion are set up as separate Jenkins projects. The Windows project is parameterized, taking the Subversion tag to build and release. As part of its build, the Windows project triggers a build of that same Subversion tag for the Linux project (using the Parameterized Trigger plugin) then copies the artifacts from the Linux project (using the Copy Artifact plugin) to the Windows project's workspace so that they can be included in the Windows installer. Where I'm stuck: Right now, Copy Artifact is set up to copy the last successful build. It seems more robust to configure Copy Artifact to copy from the exact build that Parameterized Trigger triggered, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to make that work. There's an option for a "build selector" parameter that I think is intended to help with this, but I can't figure out how it's supposed to be set up (and blindly experimenting with different possibilities is somewhat painful when the build takes an hour or two to find success or failure). How should I set this up? How does build selector work?

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• How do you handle increasingly long compile times when working with templates?

  - by Ghita

  I use Visual Studio 2012 and he have cases where we added templates parameters to a class "just" in order to introduce a "seam point" so that in unit-test we can replace those parts with mock objects. How do you usually introduce seam points in C++: using interfaces and/or mixing based on some criteria with implicit interfaces by using templates parameters also ? One reason to ask this is also because when compiling sometimes a single C++ file (that includes templates files, that could also include other templates) results in an object file being generated that takes in the order of around 5-10 seconds on a developer machine. VS compiler is also not particularly fast on compiling templates as far as I understand, and because of the templates inclusion model (you practically include the definition of the template in every file that uses it indirectly and possibly re-instantiate that template every time you modify something that has nothing to do with that template) you could have problems with compile times (when doing incremental compiling). What are your ways of handling incremental(and not only) compile time when working with templates (besides a better/faster compiler :-)).

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• Book about tcp, http, named pipe, shared memory, wcf and other inter-process communication protocol

  - by Samuel

  Recently, I had to create a program to send messages between two winforms executable. I used a tool with simple built-in functionalities to prevent having to figure out all the ins and outs of this vast quantity of protocols that exist. But now, I'm ready to learn more about the internals difference between each of theses protocols. I googled a couple of them but it would be greatly appreciate to have a good reference book that gives me a clean idea of how each protocol works and what are the pros and cons in a couple of context. Here is a list of nice protocols that I found: Shared memory TCP List item Named Pipe File Mapping Mailslots MSMQ (Microsoft Queue Solution) WCF I know that all of these protocols are not specific to a language, it would be nice if example could be in .net. Thank you very much.

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• Independent projects as a student to show off abilities

  - by tufcat

  I'm an inexperienced student (having learned up to data structures and algorithms through various online resources) of computer science, and I'm hoping to get a job as a developer some time after I've gotten a few independent projects done. My question is, how should I choose which projects to work on? I've been looking around stackoverflow-- people usually say to pick whatever you're interested in, but I don't have enough experience to even know what specifically I'm interested in, and possibly more importantly, I don't know what some common beginner project types are. Essentially, I'm at the gap between course work (and the projects entailed in those classes) and real programming, and I don't quite know how to start. If any of you have any ideas, I'd really appreciate it.

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• Multithreading synchronization interview question: Find n words given m threads

  - by rplusg

  I came across this question: You are given a paragraph , which contain n number of words, you are given m threads. What you need to do is , each thread should print one word and give the control to next thread, this way each thread will keep on printing one word , in case last thread come, it should invoke the first thread. Printing will repeat until all the words are printed in paragraph. Finally all threads should exit gracefully. What kind of synchronization will use? I strongly feel we cannot take any advantage of threads here but interviewer is trying to understand my synchronization skills? No need of code, just put some thoughts. I will implement by myself.

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• How to improve testing your own code

  - by Peter

  Today I checked in a change on some code which turned out to be not working at all due to something rather stupid yet very crucial. I feel really bad about it and I hope I finally learn something from it. The stupid thing is, I've done these things before and I always tell myself, next time I won't be so stupid... Then it happens again and I feel even worse about it. I know you should keep your chin up and learn from your mistakes but here's the thing: I try to improve myself, I just don't see how I can prevent these things from happening. So, now I'm asking you guys: Do you have certain groundrules when testing your code?

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• DDD and validation of aggregate root

  - by Mik378

  Suppose an aggregate root : MailConfiguration (wrapping an AddressPart object). The AddressPart object is a simple immutable value object with some fields like senderAdress, recipentAddress (to make example simple). As being an invariant object, AddressPart should logically wrap its own Validator (by the way of external a kind of AddressValidator for respecting Single Responsibility Principle) I read some articles that claimed an aggregateRoot must validate its 'children'. However, if we follow this principle, one could create an AddressPart with an uncohesive/invalid state. What are your opinion? Should I move the collaborator AddressValidator(used in constructor so in order to validate immediately the cohesion of an AddressPart) from AddressPart and assign it to aggregateRoot (MailConfiguration) ?

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• Questions about identifying the components in MVC

  - by luiscubal

  I'm currently developing an client-server application in node.js, Express, mustache and MySQL. However, I believe this question should be mostly language and framework agnostic. This is the first time I'm doing a real MVC application and I'm having trouble deciding exactly what means each component. (I've done web applications that could perhaps be called MVC before, but I wouldn't confidently refer to them as such) I have a server.js that ties the whole application together. It does initialization of all other components (including the database connection, and what I think are the "models" and the "views"), receiving HTTP requests and deciding which "views" to use. Does this mean that my server.js file is the controller? Or am I mixing code that doesn't belong there? What components should I break the server.js file into? Some examples of code that's in the server.js file: var connection = mysql.createConnection({ host : 'localhost', user : 'root', password : 'sqlrevenge', database : 'blog' }); //... app.get("/login", function (req, res) { //Function handles a GET request for login forms if (process.env.NODE_ENV == 'DEVELOPMENT') { mu.clearCache(); } session.session_from_request(connection, req, function (err, session) { if (err) { console.log('index.js session error', err); session = null; } login_view.html(res, user_model, post_model, session, mu); //I named my view functions "html" for the case I might want to add other output types (such as a JSON API), or should I opt for completely separate views then? }); }); I have another file that belongs named session.js. It receives a cookies object, reads the stored data to decide if it's a valid user session or not. It also includes a function named login that does change the value of cookies. First, I thought it would be part of the controller, since it kind of dealt with user input and supplied data to the models. Then, I thought that maybe it was a model since it dealt with the application data/database and the data it supplies is used by views. Now, I'm even wondering if it could be considered a View, since it outputs data (cookies are part of HTTP headers, which are output)

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• Real performance of node.js

  - by uther.lightbringer

  I've got a question concerning node.js performance. There is quite lot of "benchmarks" and a lot of fuss about great performance of node.js. But how does it stand in real world? Not just process empty request at high speed. If someone could try to compare this scenario: Java (or equivalent) server running an application with complex business logic between receiving request and sending response. How would node.js deal with it? If there was need for a lot of JavaScript processing on server side, is node.js really so fast that it can execute JavaScript, and stand a chance against more heavyveight competitors?

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• Alternative way of developing for ASP.NET to WebForms - Any problems with this?

  - by John

  So I have been developing in ASP.NET WebForms for some time now but often get annoyed with all the overhead (like ViewState and all the JavaScript it generates), and the way WebForms takes over a lot of the HTML generation. Sometimes I just want full control over the markup and produce efficient HTML of my own so I have been experimenting with what I like to call HtmlForms. Essentially this is using ASP.NET WebForms but without the form runat="server" tag. Without this tag, ASP.NET does not seem to add anything to the page at all. From some basic tests it seems that it runs well and you still have the ability to use code-behind pages, and many ASP.NET controls such as repeaters. Of course without the form runat="server" many controls won't work. A post at Enterprise Software Development lists the controls that do require the tag. From that list you will see that all of the form elements like TextBoxes, DropDownLists, RadioButtons, etc cannot be used. Instead you use normal HTML form controls. But how do you access these HTML controls from the code behind? Retrieving values on post back is easy, you just use Request.QueryString or Request.Form. But passing data to the control could be a little messy. Do you use a ASP.NET Literal control in the value field or do you use <%= value % in the markup page? I found it best to add runat="server" to my HTML controls and then you can access the control in your code-behind like this: ((HtmlInputText)txtName).Value = "blah"; Here's a example that shows what you can do with a textbox and drop down list: Default.aspx <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="NoForm.Default" %> <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="NoForm.Default" %> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN""http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head runat="server"> <title></title> </head> <body> <form action="" method="post"> <label for="txtName">Name:</label> <input id="txtName" name="txtName" runat="server" /><br /> <label for="ddlState">State:</label> <select id="ddlState" name="ddlState" runat="server"> <option value=""></option> </select><br /> <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> </form> </body> </html> Default.aspx.cs using System; using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; namespace NoForm { public partial class Default : System.Web.UI.Page { protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { //Default values string name = string.Empty; string state = string.Empty; if (Request.RequestType == "POST") { //If form submitted (post back) name = Request.Form["txtName"]; state = Request.Form["ddlState"]; //Server side form validation would go here //and actions to process form and redirect } ((HtmlInputText)txtName).Value = name; ((HtmlSelect)ddlState).Items.Add(new ListItem("ACT")); ((HtmlSelect)ddlState).Items.Add(new ListItem("NSW")); ((HtmlSelect)ddlState).Items.Add(new ListItem("NT")); ((HtmlSelect)ddlState).Items.Add(new ListItem("QLD")); ((HtmlSelect)ddlState).Items.Add(new ListItem("SA")); ((HtmlSelect)ddlState).Items.Add(new ListItem("TAS")); ((HtmlSelect)ddlState).Items.Add(new ListItem("VIC")); ((HtmlSelect)ddlState).Items.Add(new ListItem("WA")); if (((HtmlSelect)ddlState).Items.FindByValue(state) != null) ((HtmlSelect)ddlState).Value = state; } } } As you can see, you have similar functionality to ASP.NET server controls but more control over the final markup, and less overhead like ViewState and all the JavaScript ASP.NET adds. Interestingly you can also use HttpPostedFile to handle file uploads using your own input type="file" control (and necessary form enctype="multipart/form-data"). So my question is can you see any problems with this method, and any thoughts on it's usefulness? I have further details and tests on my blog.

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• Interview question: How would you implement Google Search?

  - by ripper234

  Supposed you were asked in an interview "How would you implement Google Search?" How would you answer such a question? There might be resources out there that explain how some pieces in Google are implemented (BigTable, MapReduce, PageRank, ...), but that doesn't exactly fit in an interview. What overall architecture would you use, and how would you explain this in a 15-30 minute time span? I would start with explaining how to build a search engine that handles ~ 100k documents, then expand this via sharding to around 50M docs, then perhaps another architectural/technical leap. This is the 20,000 feet view. What I'd like is the details - how you would actually answer that in an interview. Which data structures would you use. What services/machines is your architecture composed of. What would a typical query latency be? What about failover / split brain issues? Etc...

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• Alternative to "inheritance v composition??"

  - by Frank

  I have colleagues at work who claim that "Inheritance is an anti-pattern" and want to use composition systematically instead, except in (rare, according to them) cases where inheritance is really the best way to go. I want to suggest an alternative where we continue using inheritance, but it is strictly forbidden (enforced by code reviews) to use anything but public members of base classes in derived classes. For a case where we don't need to swap components of a class at runtime (static inheritance), would that be equivalent enough to composition? Or am I forgetting some other important aspect of composition?

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• Getting into C# and MVC4 coming from Javascript

  - by Stefan V.

  Let me know if this is the wrong place to ask this but, I am trying to get into a backend/server language coming from a front-end javascript background (vanilla, angular, jQuery and a bit of node and mongodb, also some experience with PHP and MySQL). Why C#? My company's entire server-side is MVC4. Occasionally, I am going through commits of the backend guys and have asked them all sorts of questions. A lot of what I have heard and seen just seems appealing. Anyway, I'd rather start with C# first and gradually adopt .NET MVC. Does anybody advice, tips, recommended books, etc for somebody trying to learn C# coming from a JS background?

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• Does heavy JavaScript use adversely impact Googleability?

  - by A T

  I've been developing the client-side for my web-app in JavaScript. The JavaScript can communicate with my server over REST (HTTP)[JSON, XML, CSV] or RPC (XML, JSON). I'm writing writing this decoupled client in order to use the same code for both my main website and my PhoneGap mobile apps. However recently I've been worrying that writing the website with almost no static content would prevent search-engines (like Google) from indexing my web-page. I was taught about this restriction about 4 years ago, which is why I'm asking here, to see if this restriction is still in-place. Does heavy JavaScript use adversely impact Googleability?

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• Windows XP self-installing virus [closed]

  - by Oliver

  Do you remember. Some years ago, there was a huge virus attacking Windows XP in its first version. Once you had installed Windows XP, and on your first internet access, the virus installed itself on your computer, closing your internet connection and making the computer reboot after some seconds. I wonder... How can a virus install itslef this way from nowhere ? Without any user action. You install Windows XP... the computer just connects itself to the internet (assuming Microsoft don't connect to bad sites on its first connection)... and you have a virus. There is something magic I don't understand here. Can someone explain me how that virus could attack Windows that way, without any user action on a fresh installed system...

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• DB Schema for ACL involving 3 subdomains

  - by blacktie24

  Hi, I am trying to design a database schema for a web app which has 3 subdomains: a) internal employees b) clients c) contractors. The users will be able to communicate with each other to some degree, and there may be some resources that overlap between them. Any thoughts about this schema? Really appreciate your time and thoughts on this. Cheers! -- -- Table structure for table locations CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS locations ( id bigint(20) NOT NULL, name varchar(250) NOT NULL ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1; -- -- Table structure for table privileges CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS privileges ( id int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, name varchar(255) NOT NULL, resource_id int(11) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (id) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=10 ; -- -- Table structure for table resources CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS resources ( id int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, name varchar(255) NOT NULL, user_type enum('internal','client','expert') NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (id) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=3 ; -- -- Table structure for table roles CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS roles ( id int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, name varchar(255) NOT NULL, type enum('position','department') NOT NULL, parent_id int(11) DEFAULT NULL, user_type enum('internal','client','expert') NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (id) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=3 ; -- -- Table structure for table role_perms CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS role_perms ( id int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, role_id int(11) NOT NULL, privilege_id int(11) NOT NULL, mode varchar(250) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (id) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=2 ; -- -- Table structure for table users CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS users ( id int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, email varchar(255) NOT NULL, password varchar(255) NOT NULL, salt varchar(255) NOT NULL, type enum('internal','client','expert') NOT NULL, first_name varchar(255) NOT NULL, last_name varchar(255) NOT NULL, location_id int(11) NOT NULL, phone varchar(255) NOT NULL, status enum('active','inactive') NOT NULL DEFAULT 'active', PRIMARY KEY (id) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=4 ; -- -- Table structure for table user_perms CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS user_perms ( id int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, user_id int(11) NOT NULL, privilege_id int(11) NOT NULL, mode varchar(250) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (id) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=2 ; -- -- Table structure for table user_roles CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS user_roles ( id int(11) NOT NULL, user_id int(11) NOT NULL, role_id int(11) NOT NULL ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

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• Software license restricting commercial usage like CC BY-NC-SA

  - by Nick

  I want to distribute my software under license like Creative Commons Attribution - Non commercial - Share Alike license, i.e. Redistribution of source code and binaries is freely. Modified version of program have to be distributed under the same license. Attribution to original project should be supplied to. Restrict any kind of commercial usage. However CC does not recommend to use their licenses for software. Is there this kind of software license I could apply? Better if public license, but as far as I know US laws says that only EULA could restrict usage of received copy?

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• Getting solutions off the internet. Bad or Good? [closed]

  - by Prometheus87

  I was looking on the internet for common interview questions. I came upon one that was about finding the occurrences of certain characters in an array. The solution written right below it was in my opinion very elegant. But then another thought came to my mind that, this solution is way better than what came to my mind. So even though I know the solution (that most probably someone with a better IQ had provided) my IQ was still the same. So that means that even though i may know the answer, it still wasn't mine. hence if that question was asked and i was hired upon my answer to that question i couldn't reproduce that same elegance in my other ventures within the organization My question is what do you guys think about such "borrowed intelligence"? Is it good? Do you feel that if solutions are found off the internet, it makes you think in that same more elegant way?

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• Using Mock for event listeners in unit-testing

  - by phtrivier

  I keep getting to test this kind of code (language irrelevant) : public class Foo() { public Foo(Dependency1 dep1) { this.dep1 = dep1; } public void setUpListeners() { this.dep1.addSomeEventListener(.... some listener code ...); } } Typically, you want to test what when the dependency fires the event, the class under tests reacts appropriately (in some situation, the only purpose of such classes is to wire lots of other components, that can be independently tested. So far, to test this, I always end up doing something like : creating a 'stub' that implements both a addXXXXListener, that simply stores the callback, and a fireXXXX, that simply calls any registered listener. This is a bit tedious since you have to create the mock with the right interface, but that can do use an introspective framework that can 'spy' on a method, and inject the real dependency in tests Is there a cleaner way to do this kind of things ?

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• Adding complexity by generalising: how far should you go?

  - by marcog

  Reference question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4303813/help-with-interview-question The above question asked to solve a problem for an NxN matrix. While there was an easy solution, I gave a more general solution to solve the more general problem for an NxM matrix. A handful of people commented that this generalisation was bad because it made the solution more complex. One such comment is voted +8. Putting aside the hard-to-explain voting effects on SO, there are two types of complexity to be considered here: Runtime complexity, i.e. how fast does the code run Code complexity, i.e. how difficult is the code to read and understand The question of runtime complexity is something that requires a better understanding of the input data today and what it might look like in the future, taking the various growth factors into account where necessary. The question of code complexity is the one I'm interested in here. By generalising the solution, we avoid having to rewrite it in the event that the constraints change. However, at the same time it can often result in complicating the code. In the reference question, the code for NxN is easy to understand for any competent programmer, but the NxM case (unless documented well) could easily confuse someone coming across the code for the first time. So, my question is this: Where should you draw the line between generalising and keeping the code easy to understand?

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• RPC protocols comparison

  - by Ricardo

  I have to select a protocol/technology to use for communicating a client-server architecture, with support both for Python and C. The main requirements are: Symmetrical communication in between ends: clients establish a connection and servers can send data back to clients through the same connection. Avoid excessive overhead by using HTTP or a big stack (if possible, TCP direct communication). TLS/SSL support for secure communications. Ease of implementation. For that, I evaluated the following protocols/communications technologies. Is the information on this table accurate and correct? (*1) TLS support for RPyC is based in a no-longer supported Python library.

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• What .NET objects should I use to create a cookie based session in MVC?

  - by makerofthings7

  I'm writing a custom password reset application that uses a validation technique that doesn't fit cleanly with ASP.NET Membership Provider's challenge questions. Namely I need to invoke a workflow and collect information from the end user (backup phone number, email address) after the user logs in using a custom form. The only way I know to create a cookie-based session (without too much "innovation" on my part) is to use WIF. What other standard objects can I use with ASP.NET MVC to create an authenticated session that works with non-windows user stores? Ideally I can store "role" or claim information in the session object such as "admin", "departmentXadmin", "normalUser", or "restrictedUser" The workflow would look like this: User logs in with username and password If the username and pw are correct a (stateless) cookie based session is created The user gets redirected to a HTML form that allows them to enter their backup phone number (for SMS dual factor), or validate it if already set. The user can then change their password using the form provided The "forgot password" would look like this User requests OTP code to be sent to the phone User logs in using username and OTP If the OTP is valid and not expired then create a cookie based session and redirect to a form that allows password reset Show password reset form, and process results.

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• What triggered the popularity of lambda functions in modern programming languages?

  - by Giorgio

  In the last few years anonymous functions (AKA lambda functions) have become a very popular language construct and almost every major / mainstream programming language has introduced them or is planned to introduce them in an upcoming revision of the standard. Yet, anonymous functions are a very old and very well-known concept in Mathematics and Computer Science (invented by the mathematician Alonzo Church around 1936, and used by the Lisp programming language since 1958, see e.g. here). So why didn't today's mainstream programming languages (many of which originated 15 to 20 years ago) support lambda functions from the very beginning and only introduced them later? And what triggered the massive adoption of anonymous functions in the last few years? Is there some specific event, new requirement or programming technique that started this phenomenon?

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• Am I deluding myself? Business analyst transition to programmer

  - by Ryan

  Current job: Working as the lead business analyst for a Big 4 firm, leading a team of developers and testers working on a large scale re-platforming project (4 onshore dev, 4 offshore devs, several onshore/offshore testers). Also work in a similar capacity on other smaller scale projects. Extent of my role: Gathering/writing out requirements, creating functional specifications, designing the UI (basically mapping out all front-end aspects of the system), working closely with devs to communicate/clarify requirements and come up with solutions when we hit roadblocks, writing test cases (and doing much of the testing), working with senior management and key stakeholders, managing beta testers, creating user guides and leading training sessions, providing key technical support. I also write quite a few macros in Excel using VBA (several of my macros are now used across the entire firm, so there are maybe around 1000 people using them) and use SQL on a daily basis, both on the SQL compact files the program relies on, our SQL Server data and any Access databases I create. The developers feel that I am quite good in this role because I understand a lot about programming, inherent system limitations, structure of the databases, etc so it's easier for me to communicate ideas and come up with suggestions when we face problems. What really interests me is developing software. I do a fair amount of programming in VBA and have been wanting to learn C# for awhile (the dev team uses C# - I review code occasionally for my own sake but have not had any practical experience using it). I'm interested in not just the business process but also the technical side of things, so the traditional BA role doesn't really whet my appetite for the kind of stuff I want to do. Right now I have a few small projects that managers have given me and I'm finding new ways to do them (like building custom Access applications), so there's a bit here and there to keep me interested. My question is this: what I would like to do is create custom Excel or Access applications for small businesses as a freelance business (working as a one-man shop; maybe having an occasional contractor depending on a project's complexity). This would obviously start out as a part-time venture while I have a day job, but eventually become a full-time job. Am I deluding myself to thinking I can go from BA/part-time VBA programmer to making a full-time go of a freelance business (where I would be starting out just writing custom Excel/Access apps in VBA)? Or is this type of thing not usually attempted until someone gains years of full-time programming experience? And is there even a market for these types of applications amongst small businesses (and maybe medium-sized) businesses?

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