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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 22, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 22, 2010New Projects[Tool] Vczh Non-public DLL Classes Caller: Generate C# code for you to call non-public classes in DLLs very easily.Artefact Animator: Artefact Animator provides an easy to use framework for procedural time-based animations in Silverlight and WPF.cacheroo: Cacheroo is a social networking community that will make it easier for people who love geocaching to get connected.Data Processing Toolkit: An utility app to collected data from different sources (i.e. bugzilla bug reports) in a structured way. We are currently setting up the site. Mo...eXternal SQL Bridge (PHP): The eXternal SQL Bridge (XSB) allows you to bridge two websites together in a secure manner through pre-shared keys. XSB is resilient against repla...'G' - Language to Define Gestures for Touch Based Applications: A cross plat form multi-touch application framework with a language to define gestures. The application is build on Silverlight 4.0 and the languag...IIS Network Diagnostic Tools: Web implementation of "looking glass" like services (ping, traceroute) as HTTP modules for Internet Information Services.Interop Router: This project establishes a communication framework and job dispatcher for a mixed operating system cluster environment.L2 Commander: L2Commander makes it easier for both new and old l2j users to manage your server.You no longer have to waste time on finding the files you need and...MediaHelper: A utility to help clean up empty/unwanted files and folders in your filesystem.mhinze: matt hinze stuffOneMan: Focus on Silverlight and WCF technology.Rss Photo Frame Android Widget: RSS Photo Frame Android Widget permits showing pictures from any RSS feed on your Android device's desktopSingle Web Session: Web Tool Kits Current project provide developer with different tools that help to enhance web site performance, security, and other common functio...Work Item Visualization: Use DGML to visualize and analyze your TFS Work Items. Included is the ability to perform basic risk/impact analysis. It helps answer the question,...New Releases[Tool] Vczh Non-public DLL Classes Caller: Wrapper Coder (beta): Click "<Click Me To Open Assembly File>", WrapperCoder will load the assembly and referenced assembly. Check the non-public classes that you want...APS - Automatic Print Screen: APS 1.0: APS automatizes the tasks of paste the image in Paint and save it after print screen or alt+print screen. Choose directory, name and file extension...BTP Tools: e-Sword generator build 20100321: 1. Modify the indent after subtitle. 2. Add 2 spaces after subtitle.Combres - WebForm & MVC Client-side Resource Combine Library: Combres 2.0: Changes since last version (1.2) Support ignore Combres pipeline in debug mode - see issue #6088 Debug mode generates comment helping identify in...Desafio Office 2010 Brasil: DesafioOutlook: Controlando um robo com o Outlook 2010dylan.NET: dylan.NET v. 9.4: Adding Platform Invocation Services Support, full Managed Pointer Support, Charset,Dllimport,Callconv setting for P/Invoke, MarshalAs for parametersFamily Tree Analyzer: Version 1.3.2.0: Version 1.3.2.0 Add open folder button to IGI Search Form Fixes to Fact Location processing - IGIName renamed to RegionID Fix if Region ID not fou...Fasterflect - A Fast and Simple Reflection API: Fasterflect 2.0: We are pleased to release version 2.0 of Fasterflect, which contains a lot of additions and improvements from the previous version. Please refer t...IIS Network Diagnostic Tools: 1.0: Initial public release.Informant: Informant (Desktop) v0.1: This release allows users to send sms messages to 1-Many Groups or 1-Many contacts. It is a very basic release of the application. No styling has b...InfoService: InfoService v1.5 - MPE1 Package: InfoService Release v1.5.0.65 Please read Plugin installation for installation instructions.InfoService: InfoService v1.5 - RAR Package: InfoService Release v1.5.0.65 Please read Plugin installation for installation instructions.L2 Commander: Source Code Link: Where to find our source.ModularCMS: ModularCMS 1.2: Minor bug fixes.NMTools: NMTools-v40b0-20100321-0: The most noticeable aspect of this release is that NMTools is now an independent project. It will no longer tied to OpenSLIM. Nevertheless, OpenSLI...SharePoint LogViewer: SharePoint LogViewer 1.5.3: Log loading performance enhanced. Search text box now has auto complete feature.Single Web Session: Single Web Session: !Single Web Session! <httpModules> <add name="SingleSession" type="SingleWebSession.Model.WebSessionModule, SingleWebSession"/> </httpModules>Sprite Sheet Packer: 2.1 Release: Made a few crucial fixes from 2.0: - Fixed error with paths having spaces. - Fixed error with UI not unlocking. - Fixed NullReferenceException on ...uManage - AD Self-Service Portal: uManage v1.1 (.NET 4.0 RC): Updated Releasev1.1 Adds the primary ability to setup and configure the application through a setup wizard. The setup wizard will continue to evol...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30321.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVS ChessMania: VS ChessMania V2 March Beta: Second Beta Release with move correction and making application more safe for user. New features will be added soon.WatchersNET CKEditor™ Provider for DotNetNuke: CKEditor Provider 1.9.00: Whats New Added New Toolbar Plugin (By Kent Safransk) 'MediaEmbed' to Include Embed Media from Youtube, Vimeo, etc. Media Embed Plugin Added New ...WeatherBar: WeatherBar 1.0 [No Installation]: Extract the ZIP archive and run WeatherBar.exe. Current release contains some bugs that will be fixed in the next version. Check the Issue Tracker...Work Item Visualization: Release 1.0: This is the initial release of the Work Item Visualization tool. There are no known issues when it comes to the visualization aspects of the tool b...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 1.0.0.10: Version: 1.0.0.10 (Milestone 10): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requi...WPF AutoComplete TextBox Control: Version 1.2: What's Newadds AutoAppend feature adds a new provider: UrlHistoryDataProvider sample application is updated to reflect the new things Bug Fixe...ZoomBarPlus: V2 (Beta): - Fixed bug: if the active window changed while you were in the middle of a single tap delay, long tap delay, or swipe-repeat, it would continue re...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpSavvy DateTimeRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Most Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterRawrOData SDK for PHPjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDirectQPHPExcelFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• TOTD #166: Using NoSQL database in your Java EE 6 Applications on GlassFish - MongoDB for now!

  - by arungupta

  The Java EE 6 platform includes Java Persistence API to work with RDBMS. The JPA specification defines a comprehensive API that includes, but not restricted to, how a database table can be mapped to a POJO and vice versa, provides mechanisms how a PersistenceContext can be injected in a @Stateless bean and then be used for performing different operations on the database table and write typesafe queries. There are several well known advantages of RDBMS but the NoSQL movement has gained traction over past couple of years. The NoSQL databases are not intended to be a replacement for the mainstream RDBMS. As Philosophy of NoSQL explains, NoSQL database was designed for casual use where all the features typically provided by an RDBMS are not required. The name "NoSQL" is more of a category of databases that is more known for what it is not rather than what it is. The basic principles of NoSQL database are: No need to have a pre-defined schema and that makes them a schema-less database. Addition of new properties to existing objects is easy and does not require ALTER TABLE. The unstructured data gives flexibility to change the format of data any time without downtime or reduced service levels. Also there are no joins happening on the server because there is no structure and thus no relation between them. Scalability and performance is more important than the entire set of functionality typically provided by an RDBMS. This set of databases provide eventual consistency and/or transactions restricted to single items but more focus on CRUD. Not be restricted to SQL to access the information stored in the backing database. Designed to scale-out (horizontal) instead of scale-up (vertical). This is important knowing that databases, and everything else as well, is moving into the cloud. RBDMS can scale-out using sharding but requires complex management and not for the faint of heart. Unlike RBDMS which require a separate caching tier, most of the NoSQL databases comes with integrated caching. Designed for less management and simpler data models lead to lower administration as well. There are primarily three types of NoSQL databases: Key-Value stores (e.g. Cassandra and Riak) Document databases (MongoDB or CouchDB) Graph databases (Neo4J) You may think NoSQL is panacea but as I mentioned above they are not meant to replace the mainstream databases and here is why: RDBMS have been around for many years, very stable, and functionally rich. This is something CIOs and CTOs can bet their money on without much worry. There is a reason 98% of Fortune 100 companies run Oracle :-) NoSQL is cutting edge, brings excitement to developers, but enterprises are cautious about them. Commercial databases like Oracle are well supported by the backing enterprises in terms of providing support resources on a global scale. There is a full ecosystem built around these commercial databases providing training, performance tuning, architecture guidance, and everything else. NoSQL is fairly new and typically backed by a single company not able to meet the scale of these big enterprises. NoSQL databases are good for CRUDing operations but business intelligence is extremely important for enterprises to stay competitive. RDBMS provide extensive tooling to generate this data but that was not the original intention of NoSQL databases and is lacking in that area. Generating any meaningful information other than CRUDing require extensive programming. Not suited for complex transactions such as banking systems or other highly transactional applications requiring 2-phase commit. SQL cannot be used with NoSQL databases and writing simple queries can be involving. Enough talking, lets take a look at some code. This blog has published multiple blogs on how to access a RDBMS using JPA in a Java EE 6 application. This Tip Of The Day (TOTD) will show you can use MongoDB (a document-oriented database) with a typical 3-tier Java EE 6 application. Lets get started! The complete source code of this project can be downloaded here. Download MongoDB for your platform from here (1.8.2 as of this writing) and start the server as: arun@ArunUbuntu:~/tools/mongodb-linux-x86_64-1.8.2/bin$./mongod./mongod --help for help and startup optionsSun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] MongoDB starting : pid=11210port=27017 dbpath=/data/db/ 64-bit Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] db version v1.8.2, pdfile version4.5Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] git version:433bbaa14aaba6860da15bd4de8edf600f56501bSun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] build sys info: Linuxbs-linux64.10gen.cc 2.6.21.7-2.ec2.v1.2.fc8xen #1 SMP Fri Nov 2017:48:28 EST 2009 x86_64 BOOST_LIB_VERSION=1_41Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] waiting for connections on port 27017Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [websvr] web admin interface listening on port 28017 The default directory for the database is /data/db and needs to be created as: sudo mkdir -p /data/db/sudo chown `id -u` /data/db You can specify a different directory using "--dbpath" option. Refer to Quickstart for your specific platform. Using NetBeans, create a Java EE 6 project and make sure to enable CDI and add JavaServer Faces framework. Download MongoDB Java Driver (2.6.3 of this writing) and add it to the project library by selecting "Properties", "LIbraries", "Add Library...", creating a new library by specifying the location of the JAR file, and adding the library to the created project. Edit the generated "index.xhtml" such that it looks like: <h1>Add a new movie</h1><h:form> Name: <h:inputText value="#{movie.name}" size="20"/><br/> Year: <h:inputText value="#{movie.year}" size="6"/><br/> Language: <h:inputText value="#{movie.language}" size="20"/><br/> <h:commandButton actionListener="#{movieSessionBean.createMovie}" action="show" title="Add" value="submit"/></h:form> This page has a simple HTML form with three text boxes and a submit button. The text boxes take name, year, and language of a movie and the submit button invokes the "createMovie" method of "movieSessionBean" and then render "show.xhtml". Create "show.xhtml" ("New" -> "Other..." -> "Other" -> "XHTML File") such that it looks like: <head> <title><h1>List of movies</h1></title> </head> <body> <h:form> <h:dataTable value="#{movieSessionBean.movies}" var="m" > <h:column><f:facet name="header">Name</f:facet>#{m.name}</h:column> <h:column><f:facet name="header">Year</f:facet>#{m.year}</h:column> <h:column><f:facet name="header">Language</f:facet>#{m.language}</h:column> </h:dataTable> </h:form> This page shows the name, year, and language of all movies stored in the database so far. The list of movies is returned by "movieSessionBean.movies" property. Now create the "Movie" class such that it looks like: import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.DBObject;import javax.enterprise.inject.Model;import javax.validation.constraints.Size;/** * @author arun */@Modelpublic class Movie { @Size(min=1, max=20) private String name; @Size(min=1, max=20) private String language; private int year; // getters and setters for "name", "year", "language" public BasicDBObject toDBObject() { BasicDBObject doc = new BasicDBObject(); doc.put("name", name); doc.put("year", year); doc.put("language", language); return doc; } public static Movie fromDBObject(DBObject doc) { Movie m = new Movie(); m.name = (String)doc.get("name"); m.year = (int)doc.get("year"); m.language = (String)doc.get("language"); return m; } @Override public String toString() { return name + ", " + year + ", " + language; }} Other than the usual boilerplate code, the key methods here are "toDBObject" and "fromDBObject". These methods provide a conversion from "Movie" -> "DBObject" and vice versa. The "DBObject" is a MongoDB class that comes as part of the mongo-2.6.3.jar file and which we added to our project earlier.  The complete javadoc for 2.6.3 can be seen here. Notice, this class also uses Bean Validation constraints and will be honored by the JSF layer. Finally, create "MovieSessionBean" stateless EJB with all the business logic such that it looks like: package org.glassfish.samples;import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.DB;import com.mongodb.DBCollection;import com.mongodb.DBCursor;import com.mongodb.DBObject;import com.mongodb.Mongo;import java.net.UnknownHostException;import java.util.ArrayList;import java.util.List;import javax.annotation.PostConstruct;import javax.ejb.Stateless;import javax.inject.Inject;import javax.inject.Named;/** * @author arun */@Stateless@Namedpublic class MovieSessionBean { @Inject Movie movie; DBCollection movieColl; @PostConstruct private void initDB() throws UnknownHostException { Mongo m = new Mongo(); DB db = m.getDB("movieDB"); movieColl = db.getCollection("movies"); if (movieColl == null) { movieColl = db.createCollection("movies", null); } } public void createMovie() { BasicDBObject doc = movie.toDBObject(); movieColl.insert(doc); } public List<Movie> getMovies() { List<Movie> movies = new ArrayList(); DBCursor cur = movieColl.find(); System.out.println("getMovies: Found " + cur.size() + " movie(s)"); for (DBObject dbo : cur.toArray()) { movies.add(Movie.fromDBObject(dbo)); } return movies; }} The database is initialized in @PostConstruct. Instead of a working with a database table, NoSQL databases work with a schema-less document. The "Movie" class is the document in our case and stored in the collection "movies". The collection allows us to perform query functions on all movies. The "getMovies" method invokes "find" method on the collection which is equivalent to the SQL query "select * from movies" and then returns a List<Movie>. Also notice that there is no "persistence.xml" in the project. Right-click and run the project to see the output as: Enter some values in the text box and click on enter to see the result as: If you reached here then you've successfully used MongoDB in your Java EE 6 application, congratulations! Some food for thought and further play ... SQL to MongoDB mapping shows mapping between traditional SQL -> Mongo query language. Tutorial shows fun things you can do with MongoDB. Try the interactive online shell  The cookbook provides common ways of using MongoDB In terms of this project, here are some tasks that can be tried: Encapsulate database management in a JPA persistence provider. Is it even worth it because the capabilities are going to be very different ? MongoDB uses "BSonObject" class for JSON representation, add @XmlRootElement on a POJO and how a compatible JSON representation can be generated. This will make the fromXXX and toXXX methods redundant.

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• TOTD #166: Using NoSQL database in your Java EE 6 Applications on GlassFish - MongoDB for now!

  - by arungupta

  The Java EE 6 platform includes Java Persistence API to work with RDBMS. The JPA specification defines a comprehensive API that includes, but not restricted to, how a database table can be mapped to a POJO and vice versa, provides mechanisms how a PersistenceContext can be injected in a @Stateless bean and then be used for performing different operations on the database table and write typesafe queries. There are several well known advantages of RDBMS but the NoSQL movement has gained traction over past couple of years. The NoSQL databases are not intended to be a replacement for the mainstream RDBMS. As Philosophy of NoSQL explains, NoSQL database was designed for casual use where all the features typically provided by an RDBMS are not required. The name "NoSQL" is more of a category of databases that is more known for what it is not rather than what it is. The basic principles of NoSQL database are: No need to have a pre-defined schema and that makes them a schema-less database. Addition of new properties to existing objects is easy and does not require ALTER TABLE. The unstructured data gives flexibility to change the format of data any time without downtime or reduced service levels. Also there are no joins happening on the server because there is no structure and thus no relation between them. Scalability and performance is more important than the entire set of functionality typically provided by an RDBMS. This set of databases provide eventual consistency and/or transactions restricted to single items but more focus on CRUD. Not be restricted to SQL to access the information stored in the backing database. Designed to scale-out (horizontal) instead of scale-up (vertical). This is important knowing that databases, and everything else as well, is moving into the cloud. RBDMS can scale-out using sharding but requires complex management and not for the faint of heart. Unlike RBDMS which require a separate caching tier, most of the NoSQL databases comes with integrated caching. Designed for less management and simpler data models lead to lower administration as well. There are primarily three types of NoSQL databases: Key-Value stores (e.g. Cassandra and Riak) Document databases (MongoDB or CouchDB) Graph databases (Neo4J) You may think NoSQL is panacea but as I mentioned above they are not meant to replace the mainstream databases and here is why: RDBMS have been around for many years, very stable, and functionally rich. This is something CIOs and CTOs can bet their money on without much worry. There is a reason 98% of Fortune 100 companies run Oracle :-) NoSQL is cutting edge, brings excitement to developers, but enterprises are cautious about them. Commercial databases like Oracle are well supported by the backing enterprises in terms of providing support resources on a global scale. There is a full ecosystem built around these commercial databases providing training, performance tuning, architecture guidance, and everything else. NoSQL is fairly new and typically backed by a single company not able to meet the scale of these big enterprises. NoSQL databases are good for CRUDing operations but business intelligence is extremely important for enterprises to stay competitive. RDBMS provide extensive tooling to generate this data but that was not the original intention of NoSQL databases and is lacking in that area. Generating any meaningful information other than CRUDing require extensive programming. Not suited for complex transactions such as banking systems or other highly transactional applications requiring 2-phase commit. SQL cannot be used with NoSQL databases and writing simple queries can be involving. Enough talking, lets take a look at some code. This blog has published multiple blogs on how to access a RDBMS using JPA in a Java EE 6 application. This Tip Of The Day (TOTD) will show you can use MongoDB (a document-oriented database) with a typical 3-tier Java EE 6 application. Lets get started! The complete source code of this project can be downloaded here. Download MongoDB for your platform from here (1.8.2 as of this writing) and start the server as: arun@ArunUbuntu:~/tools/mongodb-linux-x86_64-1.8.2/bin$./mongod./mongod --help for help and startup optionsSun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] MongoDB starting : pid=11210port=27017 dbpath=/data/db/ 64-bit Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] db version v1.8.2, pdfile version4.5Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] git version:433bbaa14aaba6860da15bd4de8edf600f56501bSun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] build sys info: Linuxbs-linux64.10gen.cc 2.6.21.7-2.ec2.v1.2.fc8xen #1 SMP Fri Nov 2017:48:28 EST 2009 x86_64 BOOST_LIB_VERSION=1_41Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [initandlisten] waiting for connections on port 27017Sun Jun 26 20:41:11 [websvr] web admin interface listening on port 28017 The default directory for the database is /data/db and needs to be created as: sudo mkdir -p /data/db/sudo chown `id -u` /data/db You can specify a different directory using "--dbpath" option. Refer to Quickstart for your specific platform. Using NetBeans, create a Java EE 6 project and make sure to enable CDI and add JavaServer Faces framework. Download MongoDB Java Driver (2.6.3 of this writing) and add it to the project library by selecting "Properties", "LIbraries", "Add Library...", creating a new library by specifying the location of the JAR file, and adding the library to the created project. Edit the generated "index.xhtml" such that it looks like: <h1>Add a new movie</h1><h:form> Name: <h:inputText value="#{movie.name}" size="20"/><br/> Year: <h:inputText value="#{movie.year}" size="6"/><br/> Language: <h:inputText value="#{movie.language}" size="20"/><br/> <h:commandButton actionListener="#{movieSessionBean.createMovie}" action="show" title="Add" value="submit"/></h:form> This page has a simple HTML form with three text boxes and a submit button. The text boxes take name, year, and language of a movie and the submit button invokes the "createMovie" method of "movieSessionBean" and then render "show.xhtml". Create "show.xhtml" ("New" -> "Other..." -> "Other" -> "XHTML File") such that it looks like: <head> <title><h1>List of movies</h1></title> </head> <body> <h:form> <h:dataTable value="#{movieSessionBean.movies}" var="m" > <h:column><f:facet name="header">Name</f:facet>#{m.name}</h:column> <h:column><f:facet name="header">Year</f:facet>#{m.year}</h:column> <h:column><f:facet name="header">Language</f:facet>#{m.language}</h:column> </h:dataTable> </h:form> This page shows the name, year, and language of all movies stored in the database so far. The list of movies is returned by "movieSessionBean.movies" property. Now create the "Movie" class such that it looks like: import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.DBObject;import javax.enterprise.inject.Model;import javax.validation.constraints.Size;/** * @author arun */@Modelpublic class Movie { @Size(min=1, max=20) private String name; @Size(min=1, max=20) private String language; private int year; // getters and setters for "name", "year", "language" public BasicDBObject toDBObject() { BasicDBObject doc = new BasicDBObject(); doc.put("name", name); doc.put("year", year); doc.put("language", language); return doc; } public static Movie fromDBObject(DBObject doc) { Movie m = new Movie(); m.name = (String)doc.get("name"); m.year = (int)doc.get("year"); m.language = (String)doc.get("language"); return m; } @Override public String toString() { return name + ", " + year + ", " + language; }} Other than the usual boilerplate code, the key methods here are "toDBObject" and "fromDBObject". These methods provide a conversion from "Movie" -> "DBObject" and vice versa. The "DBObject" is a MongoDB class that comes as part of the mongo-2.6.3.jar file and which we added to our project earlier.  The complete javadoc for 2.6.3 can be seen here. Notice, this class also uses Bean Validation constraints and will be honored by the JSF layer. Finally, create "MovieSessionBean" stateless EJB with all the business logic such that it looks like: package org.glassfish.samples;import com.mongodb.BasicDBObject;import com.mongodb.DB;import com.mongodb.DBCollection;import com.mongodb.DBCursor;import com.mongodb.DBObject;import com.mongodb.Mongo;import java.net.UnknownHostException;import java.util.ArrayList;import java.util.List;import javax.annotation.PostConstruct;import javax.ejb.Stateless;import javax.inject.Inject;import javax.inject.Named;/** * @author arun */@Stateless@Namedpublic class MovieSessionBean { @Inject Movie movie; DBCollection movieColl; @PostConstruct private void initDB() throws UnknownHostException { Mongo m = new Mongo(); DB db = m.getDB("movieDB"); movieColl = db.getCollection("movies"); if (movieColl == null) { movieColl = db.createCollection("movies", null); } } public void createMovie() { BasicDBObject doc = movie.toDBObject(); movieColl.insert(doc); } public List<Movie> getMovies() { List<Movie> movies = new ArrayList(); DBCursor cur = movieColl.find(); System.out.println("getMovies: Found " + cur.size() + " movie(s)"); for (DBObject dbo : cur.toArray()) { movies.add(Movie.fromDBObject(dbo)); } return movies; }} The database is initialized in @PostConstruct. Instead of a working with a database table, NoSQL databases work with a schema-less document. The "Movie" class is the document in our case and stored in the collection "movies". The collection allows us to perform query functions on all movies. The "getMovies" method invokes "find" method on the collection which is equivalent to the SQL query "select * from movies" and then returns a List<Movie>. Also notice that there is no "persistence.xml" in the project. Right-click and run the project to see the output as: Enter some values in the text box and click on enter to see the result as: If you reached here then you've successfully used MongoDB in your Java EE 6 application, congratulations! Some food for thought and further play ... SQL to MongoDB mapping shows mapping between traditional SQL -> Mongo query language. Tutorial shows fun things you can do with MongoDB. Try the interactive online shell  The cookbook provides common ways of using MongoDB In terms of this project, here are some tasks that can be tried: Encapsulate database management in a JPA persistence provider. Is it even worth it because the capabilities are going to be very different ? MongoDB uses "BSonObject" class for JSON representation, add @XmlRootElement on a POJO and how a compatible JSON representation can be generated. This will make the fromXXX and toXXX methods redundant.

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• PASS Summit Feedback

  - by Rob Farley

  PASS Feedback came in last week. I also saw my dentist for some fillings... At the PASS Summit this year, I delivered a couple of regular sessions and a Lightning Talk. People told me they enjoyed it, but when the rankings came out, they showed that I didn’t score particularly well. Brent Ozar was keen to discuss it with me. Brent: PASS speaker feedback is out. You did two sessions and a Lightning Talk. How did you go? Rob: Not so well actually, thanks for asking. Brent: Ha! Sorry. Of course you know that's why I wanted to discuss this with you. I was in one of your sessions at SQLBits in the UK a month before PASS, and I thought you rocked. You've got a really good and distinctive delivery style.  Then I noticed your talks were ranked in the bottom quarter of the Summit ratings and wanted to discuss it. Rob: Yeah, I know. You did ask me if we could do this...  I should explain – my presentation style is not the stereotypical IT conference one. I throw in jokes, and try to engage the audience thoroughly. I find many talks amazingly dry, and I guess I try to buck that trend. I also run training courses, and find that I get a lot of feedback from people thanking me for keeping things interesting. That said, I also get feedback criticising me for my style, and that’s basically what’s happened here. For the rest of this discussion, let’s focus on my talk about the Incredible Shrinking Execution Plan, which I considered to be my main talk. Brent: I thought that session title was the very best one at the entire Summit, and I had it on my recommended sessions list.  In four words, you managed to sum up the topic and your sense of humor.  I read that and immediately thought, "People need to be in this session," and then it didn't score well.  Tell me about your scores. Rob: The questions on the feedback form covered the usefulness of the information, the speaker’s presentation skills, their knowledge of the subject, how well the session was described, the amount of time allocated, and the quality of the presentation materials. Brent: Presentation materials? But you don’t do slides.  Did they rate your thong? Rob: No-one saw my flip-flops in this talk, Brent. I created a script in Management Studio, and published that afterwards, but I think people will have scored that question based on the lack of slides. I wasn’t expecting to do particularly well on that one. That was the only section that didn’t have 5/5 as the most popular score. Brent: See, that sucks, because cookbook-style scripts are often some of my favorites.  Adam Machanic's Service Broker workbench series helped me immensely when I was prepping for the MCM.  As an attendee, I'd rather have a commented script than a slide deck.  So how did you rank so low? Rob: When I look at the scores that you got (based on your blog post), you got very few scores below 3 – people that felt strong enough about your talk to post a negative score. In my scores, between 5% and 10% were below 3 (except on the question about whether I knew my stuff – I guess I came as knowledgeable). Brent: Wow – so quite a few people really didn’t like your talk then? Rob: Yeah. Mind you, based on the comments, some people really loved it. I’d like to think that there would be a certain portion of the room who may have rated the talk as one of the best of the conference. Some of my comments included “amazing!”, “Best presentation so far!”, “Wow, best session yet”, “fantastic” and “Outstanding!”. I think lots of talks can be “Great”, but not so many talks can be “Outstanding” without the word losing its meaning. One wrote “Pretty amazing presentation, considering it was completely extemporaneous.” Brent: Extemporaneous, eh? Rob: Yeah. I guess they don’t realise how much preparation goes into coming across as unprepared. In many ways it’s much easier to give a written speech than to deliver a presentation without slides as a prompt. Brent: That delivery style, the really relaxed, casual, college-professor approach was one of the things I really liked about your presentation at SQLbits.  As somebody who presents a lot, I "get" it - I know how hard it is to come off as relaxed and comfortable with your own material.  It's like improv done by jazz players and comedians - if you've never tried it, you don't realize how hard it is.  People also don't realize how hard it is to make a tough subject fun. Rob: Yeah well... There will be people writing comments on this post that say I wasn't trying to make the subject fun, and that I was making it all about me. Sometimes the style works, sometimes it doesn't. Most of the comments mentioned the fact that I tell jokes, some in a nice way, but some not so much (and it wasn't just a PASS thing - that's the mix of feedback I generally get). One comment at PASS was: “great stand up comedian - not what I'm looking for at pass”, and there were certainly a few that said “too many jokes”. I’m not trying to do stand-up – jokes are my way of engaging with the audience while I demonstrate some of the amazing things that the Query Optimizer can do if you write your queries the right way. Some people didn’t think it was technical enough, but I’ve also had some people tell me that the concepts I’m explaining are deep and profound. Brent: To me, that's a hallmark of a great explanation - when someone says, "But of course it has to work that way - how could it work any other way?  It seems so simple and logical."  Well, sure it does when it's explained correctly, but now pick up any number of thick SQL Server books and try to understand the Redundant Joins concept.  I guarantee it'll take more than 45 minutes. Rob: Some people in my audiences realise that, but definitely not everyone. There's only so much you can tell someone that something is profound. Generally it's something that they either have an epiphany on or not. I like to lull my audience into knowing what's going on, and do something that surprises them. Gain their trust, build a rapport, and then show them the deeper truth of what just happened. Brent: So you've learned your lesson about presentation scores, right?  From here on out, you're going to be dry, humorless, and all your presentations will consist of you reading bullet points off the screen. Rob: No Brent, I’m not. I'm also not going to suggest that most presentations at PASS are like that. No-one tries to present like that. There's a big space to occupy between what "dry and humourless" and me. My difference is to focus on the relationship I have with the crowd, rather than focussing on delivering the perfect session. I want to see people smiling and know they're relaxed. I think most presenters focus on the material, which is completely reasonable and safe. I remember once hearing someone talking about product creation. They talked about mediocrity. They said that one of the worst things that people can ever say about your product is that it’s “good”. What you want is for 10% of the world to love it enough to want to buy it. If 10% the world gave me a dollar, I’d have more money than I could ever use (assuming it wasn’t the SAME dollar they were giving me I guess). Brent: It's the Raving Fans theory.  It's better to have a small number of raving customers than a large number of almost-but-not-really customers who don't care that much about your product or service.  I know exactly how you feel - when I got survey feedback from my Quest video presentation when I was dressed up in a Richard Simmons costume, some of the attendees said I was unprofessional and distracting.  Some of the attendees couldn't get enough and Photoshopped all kinds of stuff into the screen captures.  On a whole, I probably didn't score that well, and I'm fine with that.  It sucks to look at the scores though - do those lower scores bother you? Rob: Of course they do. It hurts deeply. I open myself up and give presentations in a very personal way. All presenters do that, and we all feel the pain of negative feedback. I hate coming 146th & 162nd out of 185, but have to acknowledge that many sessions did worse still. Plus, once I feel the wounds have healed, I’ll be able to remember that there are people in the world that rave about my presentation style, and figure that people will hopefully talk about me. One day maybe those people that don’t like my presentation style will stay away and I might be able to score better. You don’t pay to hear country music if you prefer western... Lots of people find chili too spicy, but it’s still a popular food. Brent: But don’t you want to appeal to everyone? Rob: I do, but I don’t want to be lukewarm as in Revelation 3:16. I’d rather disgust and be discussed. Well, maybe not ‘disgust’, but I don’t want to conform. Conformity just isn’t the same any more. I’m not sure I’ve ever been one to do that. I try not to offend, but definitely like to be different. Brent: Count me among your raving fans, sir.  Where can we see you next? Rob: Considering I live in Adelaide in Australia, I’m not about to appear at anyone’s local SQL Saturday. I’m still trying to plan which events I’ll get to in 2011. I’ve submitted abstracts for TechEd North America, but won’t hold my breath. I’m also considering the SQLBits conferences in the UK in April, PASS in October, and I’m sure I’ll do some LiveMeeting presentations for user groups. Online, people download some of my recent SQLBits presentations at http://bit.ly/RFSarg and http://bit.ly/Simplification though. And they can download a 5-minute MP3 of my Lightning Talk at http://www.lobsterpot.com.au/files/Collation.mp3, in which I try to explain the idea behind collation, using thongs as an example. Brent: I was in the audience for http://bit.ly/RFSarg. That was a great presentation. Rob: Thanks, Brent. Now where’s my dollar?

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• Too Many Kittens To Juggle At Once

  - by Bil Simser

  Ahh, the Internet. That crazy, mixed up place where one tweet turns into a conversation between dozens of people and spawns a blogpost. This is the direct result of such an event this morning. It started innocently enough, with this: Then followed up by a blog post by Joel here. In the post, Joel introduces us to the term Business Solutions Architect with mad skillz like InfoPath, Access Services, Excel Services, building Workflows, and SSRS report creation, all while meeting the business needs of users in a SharePoint environment. I somewhat disagreed with Joel that this really wasn’t a new role (at least IMHO) and that a good Architect or BA should really be doing this job. As Joel pointed out when you’re building a SharePoint team this kind of role is often overlooked. Engineers might be able to build workflows but is the right workflow for the right problem? Michael Pisarek wrote about a SharePoint Business Architect a few months ago and it’s a pretty solid assessment. Again, I argue you really shouldn’t be looking for roles that don’t exist and I don’t suggest anyone create roles to hire people to fill them. That’s basically creating a solution looking for problems. Michael’s article does have some great points if you’re lost in the quagmire of SharePoint duties though (and I especially like John Ross’ quote “The coolest shit is worthless if it doesn’t meet business needs”). SharePoinTony summed it up nicely with “SharePoint Solutions knowledge is both lacking and underrated in most environments. Roles help”. Having someone on the team who can dance between a business user and a coder can be difficult. Remember the idea of telling something to someone and them passing it on to the next person. By the time the story comes round the circle it’s a shadow of it’s former self with little resemblance to the original tale. This is very much business requirements as they’re told by the user to a business analyst, written down on paper, read by an architect, tuned into a solution plan, and implemented by a developer. Transformations between what was said, what was heard, what was written down, and what was developed can be distant cousins. Not everyone has the skill of communication and even less have negotiation skills to suit the SharePoint platform. Negotiation is important because not everything can be (or should be) done in SharePoint. Sometimes it’s just not appropriate to build it on the SharePoint platform but someone needs to know enough about the platform and what limitations it might have, then communicate that (and/or negotiate) with a customer or user so it’s not about “You can’t have this” to “Let’s try it this way”. Visualize the possible instead of denying the impossible. So what is the right SharePoint team? My cromag brain came with a fairly simpleton answer (and I’m sure people will just say this is a cop-out). The perfect SharePoint team is just enough people to do the job that know the technology and business problem they’re solving. Bridge the gap between business need and technology platform and you have an architect. Communicate the needs of the business effectively so the entire team understands it and you have a business analyst. Can you get this with full time workers? Maybe but don’t expect miracles out of the gate. Also don’t take a consultant’s word as gospel. Some consultants just don’t have the diversity of the SharePoint platform to be worth their value so be careful. You really need someone who knows enough about SharePoint to be able to validate a consultants knowledge level. This is basically try for any consultant, not just a SharePoint one. Specialization is good and needed. A good, well-balanced SharePoint team is one of people that can solve problems with work with the technology, not against it. Having a top developer is great, but don’t rely on them to solve world hunger if they can’t communicate very well with users. An expert business analyst might be great at gathering requirements so the entire team can understand them, but if it means building 100% custom solutions because they don’t fit inside the SharePoint boundaries isn’t of much value. Just repeat. There is no silver bullet. There is no silver bullet. There is no silver bullet. A few people pointed out Nick Inglis’ article Excluding The Information Professional In SharePoint. It’s a good read too and hits home that maybe some developers and IT pros need some extra help in the information space. If you’re in an organization that needs labels on people, come up with something everyone understands and go with it. If that’s Business Solutions Architect, SharePoint Advisor, or Guy Who Knows A Lot About Portals, make it work for you. We all wish that one person could master all that is SharePoint but we also know that doesn’t scale very well and you quickly get into the hit-by-a-bus syndrome (with the organization coming to a full crawl when the guy or girl goes on vacation, gets sick, or pops out a baby). There are too many gaps in SharePoint knowledge to have any one person know it all and too many kittens to juggle all at once. We like to consider ourselves experts in our field, but trying to tackle too many roles at once and we end up being mediocre jack of all trades, master of none. Don't fall into this pit. It's a deep, dark hole you don't want to try to claw your way out of. Trust me. Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt. In the end I don’t disagree with Joel. SharePoint is a beast and not something that should be taken on by newbies. If you just read “Teach Yourself SharePoint in 24 Hours” and want to go build your corporate intranet or the next killer business solution with all your new found knowledge plan to pony up consultant dollars a few months later when everything goes to Hell in a handbasket and falls over. I’m not saying don’t build solutions in SharePoint. I’m just saying that building effective ones takes skill like any craft and not something you can just cobble together with a little bit of cursory knowledge. Thanks to *everyone* who participated in this tweet rush. It was fun and educational.

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• Dotfuscator Deep Dive with WP7

  - by Bil Simser

  I thought I would share some experience with code obfuscation (specifically the Dotfuscator product) and Windows Phone 7 apps. These days twitter is a buzz with black hat and white operations coming out about how the marketplace is insecure and Microsoft failed, blah, blah, blah. So it’s that much more important to protect your intellectual property. You should protect it no matter what when releasing apps into the wild but more so when someone is paying for them. You want to protect the time and effort that went into your code and have some comfort that the casual hacker isn’t going to usurp your next best thing. Enter code obfuscation. Code obfuscation is one tool that can help protect your IP. Basically it goes into your compiled assemblies, rewrites things at an IL level (like renaming methods and classes and hiding logic flow) and rewrites it back so that the assembly or executable is still fully functional but prying eyes using a tool like ILDASM or Reflector can’t see what’s going on.  You can read more about code obfuscation here on Wikipedia. A word to the wise. Code obfuscation isn’t 100% secure. More so on the WP7 platform where the OS expects certain things to be as they were meant to be. So don’t expect 100% obfuscation of every class and every method and every property. It’s just not going to happen. What this does do is give you some level of protection but don’t put all your eggs in one basket and call it done. Like I said, this is just one step in the process. There are a few tools out there that provide code obfuscation and support the Windows Phone 7 platform (see links to other tools at the end of this post). One such tool is Dotfuscator from PreEmptive solutions. The thing about Dotfuscator is that they’ve struck a deal with Microsoft to provide a *free* copy of their commercial product for Windows Phone 7. The only drawback is that it only runs until March 31, 2010. However it’s a good place to start and the focus of this article. Getting Started When you fire up Dotfuscator you’re presented with a dialog to start a new project or load a previous one. We’ll start with a new project. You’re then looking at a somewhat blank screen that shows an Input tab (among others) and you’re probably wondering what to do? Click on the folder icon (first one) and browse to where your xap file is. At this point you can save the project and click on the arrow to start the process. Bam! You’re done. Right? Think again. The program did indeed run and create a new version of your xap (doing it’s thing and rewriting back your *obfuscated* assemblies) but let’s take a look at the assembly in Reflector to see the end result. Remember a xap file is really just a glorified zip file (or cab file if you prefer). When you ran Dotfuscator for the first time with the default settings you’ll see it created a new version of your xap in a folder under “My Documents” called “Dotfuscated” (you can configure the output directory in settings). Here’s the new xap file. Since a xap is just a zip, rename it to .cab or .zip or something and open it with your favorite unarchive program (I use WinRar but it doesn’t matter as long as it can unzip files). If you already have the xap file associated with your unarchive tool the rename isn’t needed. Once renamed extract the contents of the xap to your hard drive: Now you’ll have a folder with the contents of the xap file extracted: Double click or load up your assembly (WindowsPhoneDataBoundApplication1.dll in the example) in Reflector and let’s see the results: Hmm. That doesn’t look right. I can see all the methods and the code is all there for my LoadData method I wanted to protect. Product failure. Let’s return it for a refund. Hold your horses. We need to check out the settings in the program first. Remember when we loaded up our xap file. It started us on the Input tab but there was a settings tab before that. Wonder what it does? Here’s the default settings: Renaming Taking a closer look, all of the settings in Feature are disabled. WTF? Yeah, it leaves me scratching my head why an obfuscator by default doesn’t obfuscate. However it’s a simple fix to change these settings. Let’s enable Renaming as it sounds like a good start. Renaming obscures code by renaming methods and fields to names that are not understandable. Great. Run the tool again and go through the process of unzipping the updated xap and let’s take a look in Reflector again at our project. This looks a lot better. Lots of methods named a, b, c, d, etc. That’ll help slow hackers down a bit. What about our logic that we spent days weeks on? Let’s take a look at the LoadData method: What gives? We have renaming enabled but all of our code is still there. If you look through all your methods you’ll find it’s still sitting there out in the open. Control Flow Back to the settings page again. Let’s enable Control Flow now. Control Flow obfuscation synthesizes branching, conditional, and iterative constructs (such as if, for, and while) that produce valid executable logic, but yield non-deterministic semantic results when decompilation is attempted. In other words, the code runs as before, but decompilers cannot reproduce the original code. Do the dance again and let’s see the results in Reflector. Ahh, that’s better. Methods renamed *and* nobody can look at our LoadData method now. Life is good. More than Minimum This is the bare minimum to obfuscate your xap to at least a somewhat comfortable level. However I did find that while this worked in my Hello World demo, it didn’t work on one of my real world apps. I had to do some extra tweaking with that. Below are the screens that I used on one app that worked. I’m not sure what it was about the app that the approach above didn’t work with (maybe the extra assembly?) but it works and I’m happy with it. YMMV. Remember to test your obfuscated app on your device first before submitting to ensure you haven’t obfuscated the obfuscator. settings tab: rename tab: string encryption tab: premark tab: A few final notes Play with the settings and keep bumping up the bar to try to get as much obfuscation as you can. The more the better but remember you can overdo it. Always (always, always, always) deploy your obfuscated xap to your device and test it before submitting to the marketplace. I didn’t and got rejected because I had gone overboard with the obfuscation so the app wouldn’t launch at all. Not everything is going to be obfuscated. Specifically I don’t see a way to obfuscate auto properties and a few other language features. Again, if you crank the settings up you might hide these but I haven’t spent a lot of time optimizing the process. Some people might say to obfuscate your xaml using string encryption but again, test, test, test. Xaml is picky so too much obfuscation (or any) might disable your app or produce odd rendering effets. Remember, obfuscation is not 100% secure! Don’t rely on it as a sole way of protecting your assets. Other Tools Dotfuscator is one just product and isn’t the end-all be-all to obfuscation so check out others below. For example, Crypto can make it so Reflector doesn’t even recognize the app as a .NET one and won’t open it. Others can encrypt resources and Xaml markup files. Here are some other obfuscators that support the Windows Phone 7 platform. Feel free to give them a try and let people know your experience with them! Dotfuscator Windows Phone Edition Crypto Obfuscator for .NET DeepSea Obfuscation

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• How I understood monads, part 1/2: sleepless and self-loathing in Seattle

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  For some time now, I had been noticing some interest for monads, mostly in the form of unintelligible (to me) blog posts and comments saying “oh, yeah, that’s a monad” about random stuff as if it were absolutely obvious and if I didn’t know what they were talking about, I was probably an uneducated idiot, ignorant about the simplest and most fundamental concepts of functional programming. Fair enough, I am pretty much exactly that. Being the kind of guy who can spend eight years in college just to understand a few interesting concepts about the universe, I had to check it out and try to understand monads so that I too can say “oh, yeah, that’s a monad”. Man, was I hit hard in the face with the limitations of my own abstract thinking abilities. All the articles I could find about the subject seemed to be vaguely understandable at first but very quickly overloaded the very few concept slots I have available in my brain. They also seemed to be consistently using arcane notation that I was entirely unfamiliar with. It finally all clicked together one Friday afternoon during the team’s beer symposium when Louis was patient enough to break it down for me in a language I could understand (C#). I don’t know if being intoxicated helped. Feel free to read this with or without a drink in hand. So here it is in a nutshell: a monad allows you to manipulate stuff in interesting ways. Oh, OK, you might say. Yeah. Exactly. Let’s start with a trivial case: public static class Trivial { public static TResult Execute<T, TResult>( this T argument, Func<T, TResult> operation) { return operation(argument); } } This is not a monad. I removed most concepts here to start with something very simple. There is only one concept here: the idea of executing an operation on an object. This is of course trivial and it would actually be simpler to just apply that operation directly on the object. But please bear with me, this is our first baby step. Here’s how you use that thing: "some string" .Execute(s => s + " processed by trivial proto-monad.") .Execute(s => s + " And it's chainable!"); What we’re doing here is analogous to having an assembly chain in a factory: you can feed it raw material (the string here) and a number of machines that each implement a step in the manufacturing process and you can start building stuff. The Trivial class here represents the empty assembly chain, the conveyor belt if you will, but it doesn’t care what kind of raw material gets in, what gets out or what each machine is doing. It is pure process. A real monad will need a couple of additional concepts. Let’s say the conveyor belt needs the material to be processed to be contained in standardized boxes, just so that it can safely and efficiently be transported from machine to machine or so that tracking information can be attached to it. Each machine knows how to treat raw material or partly processed material, but it doesn’t know how to treat the boxes so the conveyor belt will have to extract the material from the box before feeding it into each machine, and it will have to box it back afterwards. This conveyor belt with boxes is essentially what a monad is. It has one method to box stuff, one to extract stuff from its box and one to feed stuff into a machine. So let’s reformulate the previous example but this time with the boxes, which will do nothing for the moment except containing stuff. public class Identity<T> { public Identity(T value) { Value = value; } public T Value { get; private set;} public static Identity<T> Unit(T value) { return new Identity<T>(value); } public static Identity<U> Bind<U>( Identity<T> argument, Func<T, Identity<U>> operation) { return operation(argument.Value); } } Now this is a true to the definition Monad, including the weird naming of the methods. It is the simplest monad, called the identity monad and of course it does nothing useful. Here’s how you use it: Identity<string>.Bind( Identity<string>.Unit("some string"), s => Identity<string>.Unit( s + " was processed by identity monad.")).Value That of course is seriously ugly. Note that the operation is responsible for re-boxing its result. That is a part of strict monads that I don’t quite get and I’ll take the liberty to lift that strange constraint in the next examples. To make this more readable and easier to use, let’s build a few extension methods: public static class IdentityExtensions { public static Identity<T> ToIdentity<T>(this T value) { return new Identity<T>(value); } public static Identity<U> Bind<T, U>( this Identity<T> argument, Func<T, U> operation) { return operation(argument.Value).ToIdentity(); } } With those, we can rewrite our code as follows: "some string".ToIdentity() .Bind(s => s + " was processed by monad extensions.") .Bind(s => s + " And it's chainable...") .Value; This is considerably simpler but still retains the qualities of a monad. But it is still pointless. Let’s look at a more useful example, the state monad, which is basically a monad where the boxes have a label. It’s useful to perform operations on arbitrary objects that have been enriched with an attached state object. public class Stateful<TValue, TState> { public Stateful(TValue value, TState state) { Value = value; State = state; } public TValue Value { get; private set; } public TState State { get; set; } } public static class StateExtensions { public static Stateful<TValue, TState> ToStateful<TValue, TState>( this TValue value, TState state) { return new Stateful<TValue, TState>(value, state); } public static Stateful<TResult, TState> Execute<TValue, TState, TResult>( this Stateful<TValue, TState> argument, Func<TValue, TResult> operation) { return operation(argument.Value) .ToStateful(argument.State); } } You can get a stateful version of any object by calling the ToStateful extension method, passing the state object in. You can then execute ordinary operations on the values while retaining the state: var statefulInt = 3.ToStateful("This is the state"); var processedStatefulInt = statefulInt .Execute(i => ++i) .Execute(i => i * 10) .Execute(i => i + 2); Console.WriteLine("Value: {0}; state: {1}", processedStatefulInt.Value, processedStatefulInt.State); This monad differs from the identity by enriching the boxes. There is another way to give value to the monad, which is to enrich the processing. An example of that is the writer monad, which can be typically used to log the operations that are being performed by the monad. Of course, the richest monads enrich both the boxes and the processing. That’s all for today. I hope with this you won’t have to go through the same process that I did to understand monads and that you haven’t gone into concept overload like I did. Next time, we’ll examine some examples that you already know but we will shine the monadic light, hopefully illuminating them in a whole new way. Realizing that this pattern is actually in many places but mostly unnoticed is what will enable the truly casual “oh, yes, that’s a monad” comments. Here’s the code for this article: http://weblogs.asp.net/blogs/bleroy/Samples/Monads.zip The Wikipedia article on monads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monads_in_functional_programming This article was invaluable for me in understanding how to express the canonical monads in C# (interesting Linq stuff in there): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/wesdyer/archive/2008/01/11/the-marvels-of-monads.aspx

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• A Good Developer is So Hard to Find

  - by James Michael Hare

  Let me start out by saying I want to damn the writers of the Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever – 2. It is eating every last shred of my free time! But as I've been churning through each puzzle and marvelling at the brain teasers and trivia within, I began to think about interviewing developers and why it seems to be so hard to find good ones.  The problem is, it seems like no matter how hard we try to find the perfect way to separate the chaff from the wheat, inevitably someone will get hired who falls far short of expectations or someone will get passed over for missing a piece of trivia or a tricky brain teaser that could have been an excellent team member.   In shops that are primarily software-producing businesses or other heavily IT-oriented businesses (Microsoft, Amazon, etc) there often exists a much tighter bond between HR and the hiring development staff because development is their life-blood. Unfortunately, many of us work in places where IT is viewed as a cost or just a means to an end. In these shops, too often, HR and development staff may work against each other due to differences in opinion as to what a good developer is or what one is worth.  It seems that if you ask two different people what makes a good developer, often you will get three different opinions.   With the exception of those shops that are purely development-centric (you guys have it much easier!), most other shops have management who have very little knowledge about the development process.  Their view can often be that development is simply a skill that one learns and then once aquired, that developer can produce widgets as good as the next like workers on an assembly-line floor.  On the other side, you have many developers that feel that software development is an art unto itself and that the ability to create the most pure design or know the most obscure of keywords or write the shortest-possible obfuscated piece of code is a good coder.  So is it a skill?  An Art?  Or something entirely in between?   Saying that software is merely a skill and one just needs to learn the syntax and tools would be akin to saying anyone who knows English and can use Word can write a 300 page book that is accurate, meaningful, and stays true to the point.  This just isn't so.  It takes more than mere skill to take words and form a sentence, join those sentences into paragraphs, and those paragraphs into a document.  I've interviewed candidates who could answer obscure syntax and keyword questions and once they were hired could not code effectively at all.  So development must be more than a skill.   But on the other end, we have art.  Is development an art?  Is our end result to produce art?  I can marvel at a piece of code -- see it as concise and beautiful -- and yet that code most perform some stated function with accuracy and efficiency and maintainability.  None of these three things have anything to do with art, per se.  Art is beauty for its own sake and is a wonderful thing.  But if you apply that same though to development it just doesn't hold.  I've had developers tell me that all that matters is the end result and how you code it is entirely part of the art and I couldn't disagree more.  Yes, the end result, the accuracy, is the prime criteria to be met.  But if code is not maintainable and efficient, it would be just as useless as a beautiful car that breaks down once a week or that gets 2 miles to the gallon.  Yes, it may work in that it moves you from point A to point B and is pretty as hell, but if it can't be maintained or is not efficient, it's not a good solution.  So development must be something less than art.   In the end, I think I feel like development is a matter of craftsmanship.  We use our tools and we use our skills and set about to construct something that satisfies a purpose and yet is also elegant and efficient.  There is skill involved, and there is an art, but really it boils down to being able to craft code.  Crafting code is far more than writing code.  Anyone can write code if they know the syntax, but so few people can actually craft code that solves a purpose and craft it well.  So this is what I want to find, I want to find code craftsman!  But how?   I used to ask coding-trivia questions a long time ago and many people still fall back on this.  The thought is that if you ask the candidate some piece of coding trivia and they know the answer it must follow that they can craft good code.  For example:   What C++ keyword can be applied to a class/struct field to allow it to be changed even from a const-instance of that class/struct?  (answer: mutable)   So what do we prove if a candidate can answer this?  Only that they know what mutable means.  One would hope that this would infer that they'd know how to use it, and more importantly when and if it should ever be used!  But it rarely does!  The problem with triva questions is that you will either: Approve a really good developer who knows what some obscure keyword is (good) Reject a really good developer who never needed to use that keyword or is too inexperienced to know how to use it (bad) Approve a really bad developer who googled "C++ Interview Questions" and studied like hell but can't craft (very bad) Many HR departments love these kind of tests because they are short and easy to defend if a legal issue arrises on hiring decisions.  After all it's easy to say a person wasn't hired because they scored 30 out of 100 on some trivia test.  But unfortunately, you've eliminated a large part of your potential developer pool and possibly hired a few duds.  There are times I've hired candidates who knew every trivia question I could throw out them and couldn't craft.  And then there are times I've interviewed candidates who failed all my trivia but who I took a chance on who were my best finds ever.    So if not trivia, then what?  Brain teasers?  The thought is, these type of questions measure the thinking power of a candidate.  The problem is, once again, you will either: Approve a good candidate who has never heard the problem and can solve it (good) Reject a good candidate who just happens not to see the "catch" because they're nervous or it may be really obscure (bad) Approve a candidate who has studied enough interview brain teasers (once again, you can google em) to recognize the "catch" or knows the answer already (bad). Once again, you're eliminating good candidates and possibly accepting bad candidates.  In these cases, I think testing someone with brain teasers only tests their ability to answer brain teasers, not the ability to craft code. So how do we measure someone's ability to craft code?  Here's a novel idea: have them code!  Give them a computer and a compiler, or a whiteboard and a pen, or paper and pencil and have them construct a piece of code.  It just makes sense that if we're going to hire someone to code we should actually watch them code.  When they're done, we can judge them on several criteria: Correctness - does the candidate's solution accurately solve the problem proposed? Accuracy - is the candidate's solution reasonably syntactically correct? Efficiency - did the candidate write or use the more efficient data structures or algorithms for the job? Maintainability - was the candidate's code free of obfuscation and clever tricks that diminish readability? Persona - are they eager and willing or aloof and egotistical?  Will they work well within your team? It may sound simple, or it may sound crazy, but when I'm looking to hire a developer, I want to see them actually develop well-crafted code.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, September 14, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, September 14, 2012Popular ReleasesSOAP Test Application (with EWS Tools): v0.60: Template modifications (to delete blank fields where they are not required). Bugfix for listener form where it wouldn't allow the program to be closed under certain conditions.BizTalk Zombie Management: BizTalkZombieManagement V0.1.0: First version Function supported : Listener on zombie event Dump the zombie message in folderTumblen3: tumblen3 Version14Sep2012: added 'proxy-getter' of tumblr's OAuth Access TokenIBR.StringResourceBuilder: V1.3 Release 2 Build 13: Fixed: "Making" a string resource left the table of string literals blank (due to "improvement" in Build 11). Improved: Sped up inserting resource call when "making" a string resource. from Build 12 New: Option to store all string resources in one resource file global to the project.Fruit Juice: Fruit Juice v1.0: First versionPDF Viewer Web part: PDF Viewer Web Part: PDF Viewer Web PartMicrosoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.67: Fix issue #18629 - incorrectly handling null characters in string literals and not throwing an error when outside string literals. update for Issue #18600 - forgot to make the ///#DEBUG= directive also set a known-global for the given debug namespace. removed the kill-switch for disregarding preprocessor define-comments (///#IF and the like) and created a separate CodeSettings.IgnorePreprocessorDefines property for those who really need to turn that off. Some people had been setting -kil...Active Forums for DotNetNuke CMS: Active Forums 05.00.00 RC3: Active Forums 05.00.00 RC3Lakana - WPF Framework: Lakana V2: Lakana V2 contains : - Lakana WPF Forms (with sample project) - Lakana WPF Navigation (with sample project)Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: OData QueryFeed workflow activity: The OData QueryFeed sample activity shows how to create a workflow activity that consumes an OData resource, and renders entity properties in a Microsoft Excel 2010 worksheet or Microsoft Word 2010 document. Using the sample QueryFeed activity, you can consume any OData resource. The sample activity uses LINQ to project OData metadata into activity designer expression items. By setting activity expressions, a fully qualified OData query string is constructed consisting of Resource, Filter, Or...Arduino for Visual Studio: Arduino 1.x for Visual Studio 2012, 2010 and 2008: Register for the visualmicro.com forum for more news and updates Version 1209.10 includes support for VS2012 and minor fixes for the Arduino debugger beta test team. Version 1208.19 is considered stable for visual studio 2010 and 2008. If you are upgrading from an older release of Visual Micro and encounter a problem then uninstall "Visual Micro for Arduino" using "Control Panel>Add and Remove Programs" and then run the install again. Key Features of 1209.10 Support for Visual Studio 2...Social Network Importer for NodeXL: SocialNetImporter(v.1.5): This new version includes: - Fixed the "resource limit" bug caused by Facebook - Bug fixes To use the new graph data provider, do the following: Unzip the Zip file into the "PlugIns" folder that can be found in the NodeXL installation folder (i.e "C:\Program Files\Social Media Research Foundation\NodeXL Excel Template\PlugIns") Open NodeXL template and you can access the new importer from the "Import" menuAcDown????? - AcDown Downloader Framework: AcDown????? v4.1: ??●AcDown??????????、??、??、???????。????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。 ●??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown??????????????????，????????????????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ???? 32??64? ???Linux ????(1)????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)，?????"?????????"??? (2)???????????Linux???，????????Mono?? ??...Move Mouse: Move Mouse 2.5.2: FIXED - Minor fixes and improvements.MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 2.3: Added The new release is compatible with Mvc4 RTM. Support for handling Time Zones in dates. Specifically added helper methods to convert to UTC or local time all DateTimes contained in a model received by a controller, and helper methods to handle date only fileds. This together with a detailed documentation on how TimeZones are handled in all situations by the Asp.net Mvc framework, will contribute to mitigate the nightmare of dates and timezones. Multiple Templates, and more options to...DNN Metro7 style Skin package: Metro7 style Skin for DotNetNuke 06.02.00: Maintenance Release Changes on Metro7 06.02.00 Fixed width and height on the jQuery popup for the Editor. Navigation Provider changed to DDR menu Added menu files and scripts Changed skins to Doctype HTML Changed manifest to dnn6 manifest file Changed License to HTML view Fixed issue on Metro7/PinkTitle.ascx with double registering of the Actions Changed source folder structure and start folder, so the project works with the default DNN structure on developing Added VS 20...Xenta Framework - extensible enterprise n-tier application framework: Xenta Framework 1.9.0: Release Notes Imporved framework architecture Improved the framework security More import/export formats and operations New WebPortal application which includes forum, new, blog, catalog, etc. UIs Improved WebAdmin app. Reports, navigation and search Perfomance optimization Improve Xenta.Catalog domain More plugin interfaces and plugin implementations Refactoring Windows Azure support and much more... Package Guide Source Code - package contains the source code Binaries...Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 9: New feature - Added JsonValueConverter New feature - Set a property's DefaultValueHandling to Ignore when EmitDefaultValue from DataMemberAttribute is false Fix - Fixed DefaultValueHandling.Ignore not igoring default values of non-nullable properties Fix - Fixed DefaultValueHandling.Populate error with non-nullable properties Fix - Fixed error when writing JSON for a JProperty with no value Fix - Fixed error when calling ToList on empty JObjects and JArrays Fix - Fixed losing deci...DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 07.00.00 CTP (Not for Production Use): NOTE: New Minimum Requirementshttp://www.dotnetnuke.com/Portals/25/Blog/Files/1/3418/Windows-Live-Writer-1426fd8a58ef_902C-MinimumVersionSupport_2.png Simplified InstallerThe first thing you will notice is that the installer has been updated. Not only have we updated the look and feel, but we also simplified the overall install process. You shouldn’t have to click through a series of screens in order to just get your website running. With the 7.0 installer we have taken an approach that a...WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.2.2: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features AsyncUI extensions Controls and control extensions Converters Debugging helpers Imaging IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE: Namespace changes DebugConsol...New Projects$linq - A Javascript LINQ library: $linq is a Javascript version of .NET's Linq to Objects, with some query operations inspired by MoreLinq (an extension to Linq to Objects).AIlin: Some math operations with sparse and full matrices, elliptic curves and big numbersCapMvcHospital: Proyecto Hospital MVC para ABM de consultas clínicas y DoctoresChris on SharePoint Solutions: A collection of handy SharePoint solutions to make life easier for Site and Farm administrators.COTFACIL: O projeto visa estudar a integração web, mysql e visual studio 2010, para o estudo e conhecimento geral.Custom People Picker: The custom control which inherits the property of the "People Picker" control to display the items from the list.Data Sampler: The library allows the developer to quickly create dummy data or it can also be used to save a set of data that was originally retrieved from the database.DevelopEnvironment: ????????DotNetNuke Search Engine Sitemaps Provider: The iFinity DotNetNuke Search Engine Sitemaps Provider project generates Search Engine Sitemaps for DotNetNuke installs.Gapper Game: This is a recreation of the GAPPER DOS game that was released in 1986. The original has been abandon, so the Eastern Idaho .Net Users Group is remaking it.GestAdh45: Logiciel de gestion d'une association sportive : - gestion des adhérents/inscriptions - gestion des équipements (inventaire/vérifications)HP Printer Display Hack: A simple application that periodically checks the current price of a selected stock and sends it to the display of networked HP (and compatible) printers.INTELSI SAC: INICIOKnowledge Board Race: FATEC-SP - Engenharia de Software III KBR - Knowledge Board Race Desenvolvimento de um jogo educativo de tabuleiro on-line baseado em perguntas e respostas.MEDICALD PROJ: En este proyecto que lo haremos en equipo cada quien aportara su parte y luego la publicará aca.MVVM for Windows 8: Simple MVVM library for Windows 8.MyProjects: myprojectsNibbleOilWeb: Web Projectntcms: htcms system codingPowerConverter: PowerConverter allows you to change the old PE format to the new Power format for your PowerExtension programs.Primer Proyecto: dfrProject91404: pappapruebacodeplex: FooQuizz: D? án này là m?t ph?n c?a d? án t?t nghi?p. Vui lòng không s? d?ng vào m?c dích thuong m?i khi chua du?c s? d?ng ý c?a tác gi?.Runtime Dynamic Data Model Builder: Runtime Dynamic Data Model Builder lets you to have a Data Access Layer without writing code. It creates the database context and POCO based on Entity FrameworkSchoolProjectShitXD: Just a bunch of crap I am creating in my School,Scripture Reference Parser: Scripture Reference Parser is a library to parse data, including book, chapter, verse, and index, from references from various scriptures.Shadow: Shadow?????WCF??Remoting?ORM??，????????????????????。SharePoint Archive Tweets: Using REST, JSON and OAuth, SharePoint Archive Tweets (SPAT) was born. SPAT is a Microsoft SharePoint 2010 timer application that downloads Twitter timelines.Softech Portal - Vietnamese Portal: Gi?i pháp c?ng thông tin di?n t? thu?n Vi?t cho co quan hành chính Nhà Nu?c testdd09132012git01: sdtestdd09132012git02: ntestdd09132012hg01: dtestdd09132012tfs01: dteste tfs: testeTestRepository: Project Testing repository onlinetesttfs09132012tfs02: nThesis: This is my thesis project. It is about EDAs and Kernel classifiers. The source code is in Matlab.Tiny Contact Manager: Tiny Contact Manager manages collecting customer birthday and registration details and also sending out birthday vouchers.User Group Labs: My Groups: This is one of a series of social modules in the DotNetNuke User Group Labs project. This module allows you to easily lists the groups that a user is a part ofVatConnect: This is a Microsoft Flight Simulator add-on to connect it to the Vatsim network.Web Minesweeper with MVVM and Knockout: This is a common minesweeper game, that is implemented with mvvm in the web, only with html and javascipts libraries...Windows 8 - Using Roaming Storage in a Casual Game: This application demonstrates a simple game written for Windows 8 that illustrates how to utilize the Roaming Data Store for game data synchronization.xamlShow: This project is a demonstration of how to accomplish common tasks using WinRT XAML on Windows 8. This project is, basically, sample code used by Jerry Nixon.YTNet: YT Net is a small library which provides features for searching and downloading YouTube videos.

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• DRY and SRP

  - by Timothy Klenke

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/06/11/dry-and-srp.aspxKent Beck’s XP Simplicity Rules (aka Four Rules of Simple Design) are a prioritized list of rules that when applied to your code generally yield a great design.  As you’ll see from the above link the list has slightly evolved over time.  I find today they are usually listed as: All Tests Pass Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) Express Intent Minimalistic These are prioritized.  If your code doesn’t work (rule 1) then everything else is forfeit.  Go back to rule one and get the code working before worrying about anything else. Over the years the community have debated whether the priority of rules 2 and 3 should be reversed.  Some say a little duplication in the code is OK as long as it helps express intent.  I’ve debated it myself.  This recent post got me thinking about this again, hence this post.   I don’t think it is fair to compare “Expressing Intent” against “DRY”.  This is a comparison of apples to oranges.  “Expressing Intent” is a principal of code quality.  “Repeating Yourself” is a code smell.  A code smell is merely an indicator that there might be something wrong with the code.  It takes further investigation to determine if a violation of an underlying principal of code quality has actually occurred. For example “using nouns for method names”, “using verbs for property names”, or “using Booleans for parameters” are all code smells that indicate that code probably isn’t doing a good job at expressing intent.  They are usually very good indicators.  But what principle is the code smell of Duplication pointing to and how good of an indicator is it? Duplication in the code base is bad for a couple reasons.  If you need to make a change and that needs to be made in a number of locations it is difficult to know if you have caught all of them.  This can lead to bugs if/when one of those locations is overlooked.  By refactoring the code to remove all duplication there will be left with only one place to change, thereby eliminating this problem. With most projects the code becomes the single source of truth for a project.  If a production code base is inconsistent with a five year old requirements or design document the production code that people are currently living with is usually declared as the current reality (or truth).  Requirement or design documents at this age in a project life cycle are usually of little value. Although comparing production code to external documentation is usually straight forward, duplication within the code base muddles this declaration of truth.  When code is duplicated small discrepancies will creep in between the two copies over time.  The question then becomes which copy is correct?  As different factions debate how the software should work, trust in the software and the team behind it erodes. The code smell of Duplication points to a violation of the “Single Source of Truth” principle.  Let me define that as: A stakeholder’s requirement for a software change should never cause more than one class to change. Violation of the Single Source of Truth principle will always result in duplication in the code.  However, the inverse is not always true.  Duplication in the code does not necessarily indicate that there is a violation of the Single Source of Truth principle. To illustrate this, let’s look at a retail system where the system will (1) send a transaction to a bank and (2) print a receipt for the customer.  Although these are two separate features of the system, they are closely related.  The reason for printing the receipt is usually to provide an audit trail back to the bank transaction.  Both features use the same data:  amount charged, account number, transaction date, customer name, retail store name, and etcetera.  Because both features use much of the same data, there is likely to be a lot of duplication between them.  This duplication can be removed by making both features use the same data access layer. Then start coming the divergent requirements.  The receipt stakeholder wants a change so that the account number has the last few digits masked out to protect the customer’s privacy.  That can be solve with a small IF statement whilst still eliminating all duplication in the system.  Then the bank wants to take a picture of the customer as well as capture their signature and/or PIN number for enhanced security.  Then the receipt owner wants to pull data from a completely different system to report the customer’s loyalty program point total. After a while you realize that the two stakeholders have somewhat similar, but ultimately different responsibilities.  They have their own reasons for pulling the data access layer in different directions.  Then it dawns on you, the Single Responsibility Principle: There should never be more than one reason for a class to change. In this example we have two stakeholders giving two separate reasons for the data access class to change.  It is clear violation of the Single Responsibility Principle.  That’s a problem because it can often lead the project owner pitting the two stakeholders against each other in a vein attempt to get them to work out a mutual single source of truth.  But that doesn’t exist.  There are two completely valid truths that the developers need to support.  How is this to be supported and honour the Single Responsibility Principle?  The solution is to duplicate the data access layer and let each stakeholder control their own copy. The Single Source of Truth and Single Responsibility Principles are very closely related.  SST tells you when to remove duplication; SRP tells you when to introduce it.  They may seem to be fighting each other, but really they are not.  The key is to clearly identify the different responsibilities (or sources of truth) over a system.  Sometimes there is a single person with that responsibility, other times there are many.  This can be especially difficult if the same person has dual responsibilities.  They might not even realize they are wearing multiple hats. In my opinion Single Source of Truth should be listed as the second rule of simple design with Express Intent at number three.  Investigation of the DRY code smell should yield to the proper application SST, without violating SRP.  When necessary leave duplication in the system and let the class names express the different people that are responsible for controlling them.  Knowing all the people with responsibilities over a system is the higher priority because you’ll need to know this before you can express it.  Although it may be a code smell when there is duplication in the code, it does not necessarily mean that the coder has chosen to be expressive over DRY or that the code is bad.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 25, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 25, 2012Popular ReleasesUmbraco CMS: Umbraco CMS 5.2: Development on Umbraco v5 discontinued After much discussion and consultation with leaders from the Umbraco community it was decided that work on the v5 branch would be discontinued with efforts being refocused on the stable and feature rich v4 branch. For full details as to why this decision was made please watch the CodeGarden 12 Keynote. What about all that hard work?!?? We are not binning everything and it does not mean that all work done on 5 is lost! we are taking all of the best and m...IIS Express Manager: IIS Express 0.31 B: V0.1B - 04 May, 2012 Initiated Project. V0.2B - 05May, 2012 1. Fixed small bug. Threw error when stop button was pressed in an already stopped application. 2. Removed start and stop button. Double clicking on list items will now stop / start the websites. 3. Improved code readability. 4. Changed Orientation of Buttons in UI. V0.3B - 06May, 2012 1. Complete modification of IISEM and process ID handling 2. IISEM is now capable of reflecting the existing IISExpress processes right from startup...SPMegaMenu 0.2.0.a: SPMegaMenu 0.2.0.a: SPMegaMenu 0.2.0.a - *Refined the menu to allow for sub category additions. *Release 0.1.0.a did not allow for sub categories. *Also added a Javascript Array Prototype to facilitate removal of duplicates in the sub category return. (the prototype is added as a workaround as I am not able to get the CAML GroupBy function to work correctly against a lookup column)CodeGenerate: CodeGenerate Alpha: The Project can auto generate C# code. Include BLL Layer、Domain Layer、IDAL Layer、DAL Layer. Support SqlServer And Oracle This is a alpha program,but which can run and generate code. Generate database table info into MS WordXDA ROM HUB: XDA ROM HUB v0.9: Kernel listing added -- Thanks to iONEx Added scripts installer button. Added "Nandroid On The Go" -- Perform a Nandroid backup without a PC! Added official Android app!ExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.8.1: +2012-06-24 v3.1.8 +????Grid???????（???????ExpandUnusedSpace????????）（??）。 -????MinColumnWidth（??????）。 -????AutoExpandColumn，???????????????（ColumnID）（?????ForceFitFirstTime??ForceFitAllTime，??????）。 -????AutoExpandColumnMax?AutoExpandColumnMin。 -????ForceFitFirstTime，????????????，??????????（????????????）。 -????ForceFitAllTime，????????????，??????????（??????????????????）。 -????VerticalScrollWidth，????????（??????????，0?????????????）。 -????grid/grid_forcefit.aspx。 -???????????En...AJAX Control Toolkit: June 2012 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - June 2012 Release Version 60623June 2012 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 3.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 3.5 and sample site (Recommended). Notes: - The current version of the AJAX Control Toolkit is not compatible with ASP.NET 2.0. The latest version that is compatible with ASP.NET 2.0 can be found here: 11121. - Pages using ...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.5.0.5: Version: 2.5.0.5 (Milestone 5): 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: Add IsInDesignMode property to the WafConfiguration class. WAF: Introduce the IModuleController interface. WAF: Add ...Windows 8 Metro RSS Reader: Metro RSS Reader.v7: Updated for Windows 8 Release Preview Changed background and foreground colors Used VariableSizeGrid layout to wrap blog posts with images Sort items with Images first, text-only last Enabled Caching to improve navigation between framesConfuser: Confuser 1.9: Change log: * Stable output (i.e. given the same seed & input assemblies, you'll get the same output assemblies) + Generate debug symbols, now it is possible to debug the output under a debugger! (Of course without enabling anti debug) + Generating obfuscation database, most of the obfuscation data in stored in it. + Two tools utilizing the obfuscation database (Database viewer & Stack trace decoder) * Change the protection scheme -----Please read Bug Report before you report a bug-----...XDesigner.Development: First release: First releaseBlackJumboDog: Ver5.6.5: 2012.06.22 Ver5.6.5 　(1) FTP??????? EPSV ??　EPRT　???????DotNetNuke® Form and List: 06.00.01: DotNetNuke Form and List 06.00.01 Changes in 06.00.01 Icons are shown in module action buttons (workaraound to core issue with IconAPI) Fix to Token2XSL Editor, changing List type raised exception MakeTumbnail and ShowXml handlers had been missing in install package Updated help texts for better understanding of filter statement, token support in email subject and css style Major changes for fnL 6.0: DNN 6 Form Patterns including modal PopUps and Tabs http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Po...MVVM Light Toolkit: V4RTM (binaries only) including Windows 8 RP: This package contains all the latest DLLs for MVVM Light V4 RTM. It includes the DLLs for Windows 8 Release Preview. An updated Nuget package is also available at http://nuget.org/packages/MvvmLightLibs An installer with binaries, snippets and templates will follow ASAP.Weapsy - ASP.NET MVC CMS: 1.0.0: - Some changes to Layout and CSS - Changed version number to 1.0.0.0 - Solved Cache and Session items handler error in IIS 7 - Created the Modules, Plugins and Widgets Areas - Replaced CKEditor with TinyMCE - Created the System Info page - Minor changesAcDown????? - AcDown Downloader Framework: AcDown????? v3.11.7: ?? ●AcDown??????????、??、??????。????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。 ●??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown??????????????????，????????????????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDown?????"????????? ...NShader - HLSL - GLSL - CG - Shader Syntax Highlighter AddIn for Visual Studio: NShader 1.3 - VS2010 + VS2012: This is a small maintenance release to support new VS2012 as well as VS2010. This release is also fixing the issue The "Comment Selection" include the first line after the selection If the new NShader version doesn't highlight your shader, you can try to: Remove the registry entry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\FontAndColors\Cache Remove all lines using "fx" or "hlsl" in file C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Micr...3D Landmark Recognition: Landmark3D Dataset V1.0 (7z 1 of 3): Landmark3D Dataset Version 1.0Xenta Framework - extensible enterprise n-tier application framework: Xenta Framework 1.8.0: System Requirements OS Windows 7 Windows Vista Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 R2 Web Server Internet Information Service 7.0 or above .NET Framework .NET Framework 4.0 WCF Activation feature HTTP Activation Non-HTTP Activation for net.pipe/net.tcp WCF bindings ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET MVC 3.0 Database Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Additional Deployment Configuration Started Windows Process Activation service Start...MFCMAPI: June 2012 Release: Build: 15.0.0.1034 Full release notes at SGriffin's blog. If you just want to run the MFCMAPI or MrMAPI, get the executables. If you want to debug them, get the symbol files and the source. The 64 bit builds will only work on a machine with Outlook 2010 64 bit installed. All other machines should use the 32 bit builds, regardless of the operating system. Facebook BadgeNew ProjectsAudio-Gallery-Suite: Audio-Gallery-Suite is a complete audio gallery solution that includes a web audio gallery and a windows application for its complete management.caoliu_????????-????: ????????????Decanini: Teste de SummaryDevToolkit: placeholderdotCommand: dotCommand project explores various .NET implementations of Command design pattern, by providing and measuring those implementations.Engine Wars Chess Manager Service: EngineWars is Client/Server framework to host chess matches of humans vs humans, humans vs Chess Engines, and engines vs engines in casual play and tournaments.FsHtml: A tiny HTML parser in F#JAVALINKDotHandler: BÁSICO Sistema para avaliação de A5LP1 - IFSP - Campi SÃO PAULOKylinORM ????: KylinORM???????，??AOP?DDD???????????。LegendJS 2D: A 2D engine written in Javascript and Canvas. Aims to be easy learn and flexible enough to develop complex 2D game or other 2D application. LegendJS manages youMetroToolbox: A library of useful tools for developer metro apps on windows rt.M-i-c-r-o-S-o-f-t-W-M-S: M8i8c8r8o8S8o8f8t M8i8c8r8o8S8o8f8t M8i8c8r8o8S8o8f8tMineSweeping: 1234567890Multiplatform GTK Docking Panel in MONO: This is an open source project to develop a multiplatform dock-panel library in Gtk for Mono.MyAbcdefg_abcdefg: MyAbcdefg_abcdefgPlugin PagSeguro for NopCommerce 2.5: PagSeguro paymento module for nopcommerce 2.5 This is a brazilian payment method.Reckoning: Reckoning is a word counter that reports the frequencies of words in a piece of text. Seo Proxy: Seo Proxy is a proxy fetcher and checker. Project is intended to create ultimate tool to get proxies from websites and build quality lists.SharePoint Auriga blog: -SharpToolkit: placeholderShift2D: Shift2D????XNA?? Shift2D??????WPF、Silverlight????，????????，???????，?????????。Simple TFTP loader for Windows Embedded Compact EBOOT: Utility to download NK.BIN files to EBOOT without using PLatform Builder'SUMC Reader: SUMC reader - read info from http://m.sumc.bg I named SUMC, because that's the official nickname of Sofia public transport. t: tVertical Shooter RPG: Vertical Shooter RPG is an XNA open source game that will be an update to the vertical shooter genre by adding a world map and upgradable options.w___m___s___uupiwqewrqewypouyupqurpe: sdfasdfadsfafadsfsadfworkmanagesystem: This is the Course Project for School of E&M NCEPU owned by OLDBIG12. Now OLDBIG12 and Silent are develeoping it. It's just my first project on CodePlex.

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• The HTML5 doctype is not triggering standards mode in IE8

  - by El Guapo

  i work for a company where all our sites currently use the XHTML 1.0 transitional doctype (yes i know it is very old school). I want to change them all to use the HTML5 doctype seeing as it is backwards compatible. One of the reasons why i want to make the switch is because in IE8 if someone has the developer tools installed then the old XHTML doctype switches the browser into compatibility mode and renders the page as IE7. From reading up on it i was led to believe that the HTML5 doctype will set any page to render in standards mode, but this is not happening when i test it on our staging server it still flips into IE7 rendering mode. The weird thing is if i save the page with HTML5 doctype locally and open it, it is rendering in IE8 standards mode. There must be something else causing it to drop into compatibility IE7 rendering. Any ideas what this could be? Below is the head of the test page i have been looking at: <!DOCTYPE html > <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/" xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml"> <head> <title>Burton - Mens Clothing - Mens Fashion - Burton Menswear</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <meta name="description" content="Burton is one of the UK's leading men's clothing &amp; fashion retailers, with a range of men's clothing designed to make you look &amp; feel good. Find formal &amp; casual clothes &amp; accessories for men online at Burton menswear"/> <meta name="keywords" content="menswear, clothes for men, clothing for men, men clothes, men's fashion, men's wear, men's clothing online, men's clothes online, men's clothes shop, burton men's, burton menswear, burton uk, burton"/> <script type="text/javascript">document.getElementsByTagName('html')[0].className = 'js';</script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://eu.burton-menswear.com/wcsstore/ConsumerDirectStorefrontAssetStore/images/colors/color2/v3/css/screen.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://eu.burton-menswear.com/wcsstore/ConsumerDirectStorefrontAssetStore/images/colors/color2/v3/css/print.css" media="print"/> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://eu.burton-menswear.com/wcsstore/ConsumerDirectStorefrontAssetStore/images/colors/color2/v3/css/brand.css" /> <!--[if lt IE 8]> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://eu.burton-menswear.com/wcsstore/ConsumerDirectStorefrontAssetStore/images/colors/color2/v3/css/ie.css" type="text/css" media="screen, projection"> <![endif]--> <meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en-gb" /> <link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="http://eu.burton-menswear.com/favicon.ico" /> <link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" title="burton.co.uk Search" href="http://eu.burton-menswear.com/burton-search.xml"/> <!-- Start Summit Tag --> <script type="text/javascript"> var __stormJs = "t1.stormiq.com/dcv4/jslib/3286_D92B7532_4A18_46A8_864A_5FDF1DF25844.js"; </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://eu.burton-menswear.com/javascript/track.js"></script> <!-- End Summit Tag --> <!-- Start QuBit Tag --> <script src=//d3c3cq33003psk.cloudfront.net/opentag-31935-42109.js async defer></script> <!-- End QuBit Tag --> <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://reviews.br.wcstage.arcadiagroup.ltd.uk/bvstaging/static/6028-en_gb/bazaarvoice.css" ></link> </head>

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• Why might a System.String object not cache its hash code?

  - by Dan Tao

  A glance at the source code for string.GetHashCode using Reflector reveals the following (for mscorlib.dll version 4.0): public override unsafe int GetHashCode() { fixed (char* str = ((char*) this)) { char* chPtr = str; int num = 0x15051505; int num2 = num; int* numPtr = (int*) chPtr; for (int i = this.Length; i > 0; i -= 4) { num = (((num << 5) + num) + (num >> 0x1b)) ^ numPtr[0]; if (i <= 2) { break; } num2 = (((num2 << 5) + num2) + (num2 >> 0x1b)) ^ numPtr[1]; numPtr += 2; } return (num + (num2 * 0x5d588b65)); } } Now, I realize that the implementation of GetHashCode is not specified and is implementation-dependent, so the question "is GetHashCode implemented in the form of X or Y?" is not really answerable. I'm just curious about a few things: If Reflector has disassembled the DLL correctly and this is the implementation of GetHashCode (in my environment), am I correct in interpreting this code to indicate that a string object, based on this particular implementation, would not cache its hash code? Assuming the answer is yes, why would this be? It seems to me that the memory cost would be minimal (one more 32-bit integer, a drop in the pond compared to the size of the string itself) whereas the savings would be significant, especially in cases where, e.g., strings are used as keys in a hashtable-based collection like a Dictionary<string, [...]>. And since the string class is immutable, it isn't like the value returned by GetHashCode will ever even change. What could I be missing? UPDATE: In response to Andras Zoltan's closing remark: There's also the point made in Tim's answer(+1 there). If he's right, and I think he is, then there's no guarantee that a string is actually immutable after construction, therefore to cache the result would be wrong. Whoa, whoa there! This is an interesting point to make (and yes it's very true), but I really doubt that this was taken into consideration in the implementation of GetHashCode. The statement "therefore to cache the result would be wrong" implies to me that the framework's attitude regarding strings is "Well, they're supposed to be immutable, but really if developers want to get sneaky they're mutable so we'll treat them as such." This is definitely not how the framework views strings. It fully relies on their immutability in so many ways (interning of string literals, assignment of all zero-length strings to string.Empty, etc.) that, basically, if you mutate a string, you're writing code whose behavior is entirely undefined and unpredictable. I guess my point is that for the author(s) of this implementation to worry, "What if this string instance is modified between calls, even though the class as it is publicly exposed is immutable?" would be like for someone planning a casual outdoor BBQ to think to him-/herself, "What if someone brings an atomic bomb to the party?" Look, if someone brings an atom bomb, party's over.

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• Unable to set nginx to serve my staging website

  - by user100778

  I'm having some troubles setting up nginx to serve my staging website. What I did is change the server_name but for some reasons it just doesn't work. The url scheme is "domain.foo" is production, "staging.domain.foo" is staging, "foobar.domain.foo" is a web service, "foobar.staging.domain.foo" is the staging version of the same webserver, ".domain.foo" is routed to serve some s3 static HTML, ".staging.domain.foo" is routed to serve some s3 static HTML in another bucket. All production urls work and are correctly configured, all staging urls doesn't work. Here is my conf file. You will see some duplication, I will gladly accept any correction/optimization, I'm a coder and configuring servers is definitely not my thing (but I'm eager to learn and improve...). server { listen 80; ## listen for ipv4 server_name "domain.foo" "www.domain.foo" default_server; access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log; client_max_body_size 5M; location / { proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_redirect off; location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|css|bmp|js|html)$ { access_log off; expires max; root /home/foo/Foo/current/public; break; } if ($host ~ 'www.domain.foo') { rewrite ^/(.*)$ http://domain/foo/$1 permanent; } proxy_pass http://production; break; } } server { listen 80; server_name "staging.domain.foo"; access_log /var/log/nginx/access.staging.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/error.staging.log; client_max_body_size 5M; location / { proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_redirect off; proxy_pass http://staging; break; } } server { listen 80; ## listen for ipv4 server_name "foobar.domain.foo"; access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log; location / { proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_redirect off; if ($host = 'foobar.domain.foo') { proxy_pass http://foobar; break; } } } server { listen 80; ## listen for ipv4 server_name foobar.staging.domain.foo; location / { proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_redirect off; proxy_pass http://foobar_staging; break; } } server { listen 80; server_name "~^(.+)\.domain\.foo$"; location / { proxy_intercept_errors on; error_page 404 = http://domain.foo/404; set $subdomain $1; rewrite /$ "/$subdomain/index.html" break; rewrite ^ /$subdomain$request_uri? break; proxy_pass http://bucket.domain.foo.s3.amazonaws.com; } } server { listen 80; server_name "~^(.+)\.staging\.domain\.foo$"; location / { proxy_intercept_errors on; set $subdomain $1; rewrite /$ "/$subdomain/index.html" break; rewrite ^ /$subdomain$request_uri? break; proxy_pass http://bucket.staging.domain.foo.s3.amazonaws.com; } } upstream production { server 111.255.111.110:8000; server 111.255.111.110:8001; server 111.255.111.110:8002; server 111.255.111.110:8003; } upstream staging { server 222.255.222.222:8000; server 222.255.222.222:8001; } upstream foobar { server 111.255.222.165:9000; server 111.255.222.165:9001; server 111.255.222.165:9002; } upstream foobar_staging { server 222.255.222.222:9000; } What happens now when I point my browser to staging.domain.foo is that it hangs. Can't find anything in the logs, but for example the access.staging.log and errors.staging.log are created. Anybody has an idea? :)

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• ASP.net FFMPEG video conversion receiving error: "Error number -2 occurred"

  - by Pete

  Hello, I am attempting to integrate FFMPEG into my asp.net website. The process I am trying to complete is to upload a video, check if it is .avi, .mov, or .wmv and then convert this video into an mp4 using x264 so my flash player can play it. I am using an http handler (ashx) file to handle my upload. This is where I am also putting my conversion code. I am not sure if this is the best place to put it, but I wanted to see if i could at least get it working. Additionally, I was able to complete the conversion manually through cmd line. The error -2 comes up when i output the standard error from the process I executed. This is the error i receive: FFmpeg version SVN-r23001, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers built on May 1 2010 06:06:15 with gcc 4.4.2 configuration: --enable-memalign-hack --cross-prefix=i686-mingw32- --cc=ccache-i686-mingw32-gcc --arch=i686 --target-os=mingw32 --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-avisynth --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-bzlib --enable-libgsm --enable-libfaad --enable-pthreads --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-libspeex --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libxvid --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libx264 --enable-libopencore_amrwb --enable-libopencore_amrnb libavutil 50.15. 0 / 50.15. 0 libavcodec 52.66. 0 / 52.66. 0 libavformat 52.61. 0 / 52.61. 0 libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0 libswscale 0.10. 0 / 0.10. 0 532010_Robotica_720.wmv: Error number -2 occurred here is the code below: <%@ WebHandler Language="VB" Class="upload" %> Imports System Imports System.Web Imports System.IO Imports System.Diagnostics Imports System.Threading Public Class upload : Implements IHttpHandler Public currentTime As System.DateTime Public Sub ProcessRequest(ByVal context As HttpContext) Implements IHttpHandler.ProcessRequest currentTime = System.DateTime.Now If (Not context.Request.Files("Filedata") Is Nothing) Then Dim file As HttpPostedFile : file = context.Request.Files("Filedata") Dim targetDirectory As String : targetDirectory = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(context.Request("folder")) Dim targetFilePath As String : targetFilePath = Path.Combine(targetDirectory, currentTime.Month & currentTime.Day & currentTime.Year & "_" & file.FileName) Dim fileNameArray As String() fileNameArray = Split(file.FileName, ".") If (System.IO.File.Exists(targetFilePath)) Then System.IO.File.Delete(targetFilePath) End If file.SaveAs(targetFilePath) Select Case fileNameArray(UBound(fileNameArray)) Case "avi", "mov", "wmv" Dim fileargs As String = fileargs = "-y -i " & currentTime.Month & currentTime.Day & currentTime.Year & "_" & file.FileName & " -ab 96k -vcodec libx264 -vpre normal -level 41 " fileargs += "-crf 25 -bufsize 20000k -maxrate 25000k -g 250 -r 20 -s 900x506 -coder 1 -flags +loop " fileargs += "-cmp +chroma -partitions +parti4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 -subq 7 -me_range 16 -keyint_min 25 " fileargs += "-sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -rc_eq 'blurCplx^(1-qComp)' -bf 16 -b_strategy 1 -bidir_refine 1 " fileargs += "-refs 6 -deblockalpha 0 -deblockbeta 0 -f mp4 " & currentTime.Month & currentTime.Day & currentTime.Year & "_" & file.FileName & ".mp4" Dim proc As New Diagnostics.Process() proc.StartInfo.FileName "ffmpeg.exe" proc.StartInfo.Arguments = fileargs proc.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = False proc.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = True proc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = True proc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = True AddHandler proc.OutputDataReceived, AddressOf SaveTextToFile proc.Start() SaveTextToFile2(proc.StandardError.ReadToEnd()) proc.WaitForExit() proc.Close() End Select Catch ex As System.IO.IOException Thread.Sleep(2000) GoTo Conversion Finally context.Response.Write("1") End Try End If End Sub Public ReadOnly Property IsReusable() As Boolean Implements IHttpHandler.IsReusable Get Return False End Get End Property Private Shared Sub SaveTextToFile(ByVal sendingProcess As Object, ByVal strData As DataReceivedEventArgs) Dim FullPath As String = "text.txt" Dim Contents As String = "" Dim objReader As StreamWriter objReader = New StreamWriter(FullPath) If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(strData.Data) Then objReader.Write(Environment.NewLine + strData.Data) End If objReader.Close() End Sub Private Sub SaveTextToFile2(ByVal strData As String) Dim FullPath As String = "texterror.txt" Dim Contents As String = "" Dim objReader As StreamWriter objReader = New StreamWriter(FullPath) objReader.Write(Environment.NewLine + strData) objReader.Close() End Sub End Class

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• How to make a tree view from MySQL and PHP and jquery

  - by Mac Taylor

  hey guys i need to show a treeview of my categories , saved in my mysql database . Database table : table : cats : columns: id,name,parent Here is a sample of what I want the markup to be like: <ul id="browser" class="filetree"> <li><span class="folder">Folder 1</span> <ul> <li><span class="file">Item 1.1</span></li> </ul> </li> <li><span class="folder">Folder 2</span> <ul> <li><span class="folder">Subfolder 2.1</span> <ul id="folder21"> <li><span class="file">File 2.1.1</span></li> <li><span class="file">File 2.1.2</span></li> </ul> </li> <li><span class="file">File 2.2</span></li> </ul> </li> <li><span class="file">File 4</span></li> </ul> i used this script to show treeview : http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/treeview now problem is in php part : //function to build tree menu from db table test1 function tree_set($index) { global $menu; $q=mysql_query("select * from cats where parent='$index'"); if(!mysql_num_rows($q)) return; $menu .= '<ul>'."\n"; while($arr=mysql_fetch_assoc($q)) { $menu .= '<li>'; $menu .= '<span class="file">'.$arr['name'].'</span>';//you can add another output there $menu .=tree_set("".$arr['id'].""); $menu .= '</li>'."\n"; } $menu.= '</ul>'."\n"; return $menu; } //variable $menu must be defined before the function call $menu = ' <link rel="stylesheet" href="modules/Topics/includes/jquery.treeview.css" /> <script src="modules/Topics/includes/lib/jquery.cookie.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="modules/Topics/includes/jquery.treeview.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="modules/Topics/includes/demo/demo.js"></script> <ul id="browser" class="filetree">'."\n"; $menu .= tree_set(0); $menu .= '</ul>'; echo $menu; i even asked in this forum : http://forums.tizag.com/showthread.php?p=60649 problem is in php part of my codes that i mentioned . i cant show sub menus , i mean , really i dont know how to show sub menus is there any chance of a pro php coder helping me here ?

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• Should we hire someone who writes C in Perl?

  - by paxdiablo

  One of my colleagues recently interviewed some candidates for a job and one said they had very good Perl experience. Since my colleague didn't know Perl, he asked me for a critique of some code written (off-site) by that potential hire, so I had a look and told him my concerns (the main one was that it originally had no comments and it's not like we gave them enough time). However, the code works so I'm loathe to say no-go without some more input. Another concern is that this code basically looks exactly how I'd code it in C. It's been a while since I did Perl (and I didn't do a lot, I'm more a Python bod for quick scripts) but I seem to recall that it was a much more expressive language than what this guy used. I'm looking for input from real Perl coders, and suggestions for how it could be improved (and why a Perl coder should know that method of improvement). You can also wax lyrical about whether people who write one language in a totally different language should (or shouldn't be hired). I'm interested in your arguments but this question is primarily for a critique of the code. The spec was to successfully process a CSV file as follows and output the individual fields: User ID,Name , Level,Numeric ID pax, Pax Morgan ,admin,0 gt," Turner, George" rubbish,user,1 ms,"Mark \"X-Men\" Spencer","guest user",2 ab,, "user","3" The output was to be something like this (the potential hire's code actually output this): User ID,Name , Level,Numeric ID: [User ID] [Name] [Level] [Numeric ID] pax, Pax Morgan ,admin,0: [pax] [Pax Morgan] [admin] [0] gt," Turner, George " rubbish,user,1: [gt] [ Turner, George ] [user] [1] ms,"Mark \"X-Men\" Spencer","guest user",2: [ms] [Mark "X-Men" Spencer] [guest user] [2] ab,, "user","3": [ab] [] [user] [3] Here is the code they submitted: #!/usr/bin/perl # Open file. open (IN, "qq.in") || die "Cannot open qq.in"; # Process every line. while (<IN>) { chomp; $line = $_; print "$line:\n"; # Process every field in line. while ($line ne "") { # Skip spaces and start with empty field. if (substr ($line,0,1) eq " ") { $line = substr ($line,1); next; } $field = ""; $minlen = 0; # Detect quoted field or otherwise. if (substr ($line,0,1) eq "\"") { $line = substr ($line,1); $pastquote = 0; while ($line ne "") { # Special handling for quotes (\\ and \"). if (length ($line) >= 2) { if (substr ($line,0,2) eq "\\\"") { $field = $field . "\""; $line = substr ($line,2); next; } if (substr ($line,0,2) eq "\\\\") { $field = $field . "\\"; $line = substr ($line,2); next; } } # Detect closing quote. if (($pastquote == 0) && (substr ($line,0,1) eq "\"")) { $pastquote = 1; $line = substr ($line,1); $minlen = length ($field); next; } # Only worry about comma if past closing quote. if (($pastquote == 1) && (substr ($line,0,1) eq ",")) { $line = substr ($line,1); last; } $field = $field . substr ($line,0,1); $line = substr ($line,1); } } else { while ($line ne "") { if (substr ($line,0,1) eq ",") { $line = substr ($line,1); last; } if ($pastquote == 0) { $field = $field . substr ($line,0,1); } $line = substr ($line,1); } } # Strip trailing space. while ($field ne "") { if (length ($field) == $minlen) { last; } if (substr ($field,length ($field)-1,1) eq " ") { $field = substr ($field,0, length ($field)-1); next; } last; } print " [$field]\n"; } } close (IN);

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• JS: using 'var me = this' to reference an object instead of using a global array

  - by Marco Demaio

  The example below, is just an example, I know that I don't need an object to show an alert box when user clicks on div blocks, but it's just a simple example to explain a situation that frequently happens when writing JS code. In the example below I use a globally visible array of objects to keep a reference to each new created HelloObject, in this way events called when clicking on a div block can use the reference in the arry to call the HelloObject's public function hello(). 1st have a look at the code: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> <title>Test </title> <script type="text/javascript"> /***************************************************** Just a cross browser append event function, don't need to understand this one to answer my question *****************************************************/ function AppendEvent(html_element, event_name, event_function) {if(html_element) {if(html_element.attachEvent) html_element.attachEvent("on" + event_name, event_function); else if(html_element.addEventListener) html_element.addEventListener(event_name, event_function, false); }} /****************************************************** Just a test object ******************************************************/ var helloobjs = []; var HelloObject = function HelloObject(div_container) { //Adding this object in helloobjs array var id = helloobjs.length; helloobjs[id] = this; //Appending click event to show the hello window AppendEvent(div_container, 'click', function() { helloobjs[id].hello(); //THIS WORKS! }); /***************************************************/ this.hello = function() { alert('hello'); } } </script> </head><body> <div id="one">click me</div> <div id="two">click me</div> <script type="text/javascript"> var t = new HelloObject(document.getElementById('one')); var t = new HelloObject(document.getElementById('two')); </script> </body></html> In order to achive the same result I could simply replace the code //Appending click event to show the hello window AppendEvent(div_container, 'click', function() { helloobjs[id].hello(); //THIS WORKS! }); with this code: //Appending click event to show the hello window var me = this; AppendEvent(div_container, 'click', function() { me.hello(); //THIS WORKS TOO AND THE GLOBAL helloobjs ARRAY BECOMES SUPEFLOUS! }); thus would make the helloobjs array superflous. My question is: does this 2nd option in your opinion create memoy leaks on IE or strange cicular references that might lead to browsers going slow or to break??? I don't know how to explain, but coming from a background as a C/C++ coder, doing in this 2nd way sounds like a some sort of circular reference that might break memory at some point. I also read on internet about the IE closures memory leak issue http://jibbering.com/faq/faq_notes/closures.html (I don't know if it was fixed in IE7 and if yes, I hope it does not come out again in IE8). Thanks

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• Chaining CSS classes in IE6 - Trying to find a jQuery solution?

  - by Mike Baxter

  Right, perhaps I ask the impossible? I consider myself fairly new to Javscript and jQuery, but that being said, I have written some fairly complex code recently so I am definitely getting there... however I am now possed with a rather interesting issue at my current freelance contract. The previous web coder has taken a Grid-960 approach to the HTML and as a result has used chained classes to style many of the elements. The example below is typical of what can be found in the code: <div class='blocks four-col-1 orange highlight'>Some content</div> And in the css there will be different declarations for: (not actual css... but close enough) .blocks {margin-right:10px;} .orange {background-image:url(someimage.jpg);} .highlight {font-weight:bold;} .four-col-1 {width:300px;} and to make matters worse... this is in the CSS: .blocks.orange.highlight {background-colour:#dd00ff;} Anyone not familiar with this particular bug can read more on it here: http://www.ryanbrill.com/archives/multiple-classes-in-ie/ it is very real and very annoying. Without wanting to go into the merrits of not chaining classes (I told them this, but it is no longer feasible to change their approach... 100 hand coded pages into a 150 page website, no CMS... sigh) and without the luxury of being able to change the way these blocks are styled... can anyone advise me on the complexity and benefits between any of my below proposed approaches or possible other options that would adequately solve this problem. Potential Solution 1 Using conditional comments I am considering loading a jquery script only for IE6 that: Reads the class of all divs in a certain section of the page and pushes to an array creates empty boxes off screen with only one of the classes applied at a time Reads the applied CSS values for each box Re-applies these styles to the individual box, somehow bearing in mind the order in which they are called and overwriting conflicting instructions as required Potential Solution 2 read the class of all divs in a certain section of the page and push to an array Scan the document for links to style sheets Ajax grab the stylesheets and traverse looking for matching names to those in class array Apply styles as needed Potential Solution 3 Create an IE6 only stylesheet containing the exact style to be applied as a unique name (ie: class='blocks orange highlight' becomes class='blocks-orange-highlight') Traverse the document in IE6 and convert all spaces in class declarations to hyphens and reapply classes based on new style name Summary: Solution 1 allows the people at this company to apply any styles in the future and the script will adjust as needed. However it does not allow for the chained style to be added, only the individual style... it is also processor intensive and time consuming, but also the most likely to be converted into a plugin that could be used the world over Solution 2 is a potential nightmare to code. But again will allow for an endless number of updates without breaking Solution 3 will require someone at the companty to hardcode the new styles every time they make a change, and if they don't, IE6 will break. Ironically the site, whilst needing to conform to IE6 in a limited manner, does not need to run wihtout javascript (they've made the call... have JS or go away), so consider all jQuery and JS solutions to be 'game on'. Did I mention how much i hate IE6? Anyway... any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. I will continue to develop my own solution and if I discover one that can be turned into a jQuery plugin I will post it here in the comments. Regards, Mike.

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• If 'Architect' is a dirty word - what's the alternative; when not everyone can actually design a goo

  - by Andras Zoltan

  Now - I'm a developer first and foremost; but whenever I sit down to work on a big project with lots of interlinking components and areas, I will forward-plan my interfaces, base classes etc as best I can - putting on my Architect hat. For a few weeks I've been doing this for a huge project - designing whole swathes of interfaces etc for a business-wide platform that we're developing. The basic structure is a couple of big projects that consists of service and data interfaces, with some basic implementations of all of these. On their own, these assemblies are useless though, as they are simply intended intended as a scaffold on which to build a business-specific implementation (we have a lot of businesses). Therefore, the design of the core platform is absolutely crucial, since consumers of the system are not intended to know which implementation they are actually using. In the past it's not worked so well, but after a few proof-of-concepts and R&D projects this new platform is now growing nicely and is already proving itself. Then somebody else gets involved in the project - he's a TDD man who sees code-level architecture as an irrelevance and is definitely from the camp that 'architect' is a dirty word - I should add that our working relationship is very good despite this :) He's open about the fact that he can't architect in advance and obviously TDD really helps him because it allows him to evolve his systems over time. That I get, and totally understand; but it means that his coding style, basically, doesn't seem to be able to honour the architecture that I've been putting in place. Now don't get me wrong - he's an awesome coder; but the other day he needed to extend one of his components (an implementation of a core interface) to bring in an extra implementation-specific dependency; and in doing so he extended the core interface as well as his implementation (he uses ReSharper), thus breaking the independence of the whole interface. When I pointed out his error to him, he was dismayed. Being test-first, all that mattered to him was that he'd made his tests pass, and just said 'well, I need that dependency, so can't we put it in?'. Of course we could put it in, but I was frustrated that he couldn't see that refactoring the generic interface to incorporate an implementation-specific feature was just wrong! But it is all very Charlie Brown to him (you know the sound the adults make when they're talking to the children) - as far as he's concerned we don't need to worry about it because we can always refactor. The problem is, the culture of test-write-refactor is all very well and good - but not when you're dealing with a platform that is going to be shared out among so many projects that you could never get them all in one place to make the refactorings work. In my opinion, sometimes you actually have to think about what you're doing, and not just let nature take its course. Am I simply fulfilling the role of Architect as a dirty word here? I believe that architecture is important and should be thought about before code gets written; unless it's a particularly small project. But when you're working in a team of people who don't think that way, or even can't think that way how can you actually get this across? Is it a case of simply making the architecture off-limits to changes by other people? I don't want to start having bloody committees just to be able to grow the system; but equally I don't want to be the only one responsible for it all. Do you think the architect role is a waste of time? Is it at odds with TDD and other practises? Can this mix of different practises be made to work, or should I just be a lot less precious (and in so doing allow a generic platform become useless!)? Or do I just lay down the law? Any ideas/experiences/views gratefully received.

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• CustomListAdapter Problem in Android? Getting ClassCast Exception? How???

  - by Praveen Chandrasekaran

  i want to improve the list view's performance. this is the code for my getView method in my Adapter? public View getView(int arg0, View text_view_name, ViewGroup parent) { try { if (text_view_name == null) { text_view_name = mInflater.inflate( R.layout.bs_content_list_item1, null); text_view_name.setTag(R.id.text1_detail1, text_view_name .findViewById(R.id.text1_detail1)); text_view_name.setTag(R.id.text3_detail1, text_view_name .findViewById(R.id.text3_detail1)); text_view_name.setTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1, text_view_name .findViewById(R.id.eve_img_detail1)); } text1 = (TextView) text_view_name.getTag(R.id.text1_detail1); // text2 = (TextView) text_view_name.getTag(R.id.text2); text3 = (TextView) text_view_name.getTag(R.id.text3_detail1); img = (ImageView) text_view_name.getTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1); text1.setText(VAL1[arg0]); text3.setText(VAL3[arg0]); if (!mBusy) { img_value = new URL(VAL4[arg0]); mIcon11 = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(img_value.openConnection() .getInputStream()); img.setImageBitmap(mIcon11); text_view_name.setTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1, null); } else { img.setImageResource(R.drawable.icon); text_view_name.setTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1, text_view_name .findViewById(R.id.eve_img_detail1)); } } catch (Exception e) { name = "Exception in MultiLine_bar_details1 getView"; Log.v(TAG, name + e); } return text_view_name; } this is the code for scrollstatechanged method: public void onScrollStateChanged(AbsListView view, int scrollState) { switch (scrollState) { case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_IDLE: try { MultiLine_bar_details1.mBusy = false; int first = view.getFirstVisiblePosition(); int count = view.getCount(); for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) { ImageView t = (ImageView) view.getChildAt(i);// here getting the ClassCastException if (t.getTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1) != null) { MultiLine_bar_details1.img_value = new URL( MultiLine_bar_details1.VAL4[first + i]); MultiLine_bar_details1.mIcon11 = BitmapFactory .decodeStream(MultiLine_bar_details1.img_value .openConnection().getInputStream()); MultiLine_bar_details1.img.setImageBitmap(MultiLine_bar_details1.mIcon11); t.setTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1, null); } } } catch (Exception e) { Log.v(TAG, "Idle" + e); } // mStatus.setText("Idle"); break; case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_TOUCH_SCROLL: MultiLine_bar_details1.mBusy = true; break; case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_FLING: MultiLine_bar_details1.mBusy = true; break; } } getting the Exception in Idle state: 05-03 16:47:15.201: VERBOSE/BS_Bars(258): Idlejava.lang.ClassCastException: android.widget.LinearLayout this is very complicated for me to get the output properly. actually i have the listview with custom adapter. that icons makes the listview scroll very slow.i am getting the images for icons from the image urls. upto this(above code) i can improve the scroll performance of my list view. but the image icons are not proper in the corresponding order. its dynamically changing when i scroll the listview.. i refered the commonsware busy coder guide and this blog. My very Big question is "How can we access the single view in scrollstatechanged parameter AbsListView? " what is the problem in it? how to do it better? Any Idea?

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• CustomListAdapter Problem in Android? How???

  - by Praveen Chandrasekaran

  i want to improve the list view's performance. this is the code for my getView method in my Adapter? public View getView(int arg0, View text_view_name, ViewGroup parent) { try { if (text_view_name == null) { text_view_name = mInflater.inflate( R.layout.bs_content_list_item1, null); text_view_name.setTag(R.id.text1_detail1, text_view_name .findViewById(R.id.text1_detail1)); text_view_name.setTag(R.id.text3_detail1, text_view_name .findViewById(R.id.text3_detail1)); text_view_name.setTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1, text_view_name .findViewById(R.id.eve_img_detail1)); } text1 = (TextView) text_view_name.getTag(R.id.text1_detail1); // text2 = (TextView) text_view_name.getTag(R.id.text2); text3 = (TextView) text_view_name.getTag(R.id.text3_detail1); img = (ImageView) text_view_name.getTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1); text1.setText(VAL1[arg0]); text3.setText(VAL3[arg0]); if (!mBusy) { img_value = new URL(VAL4[arg0]); mIcon11 = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(img_value.openConnection() .getInputStream()); img.setImageBitmap(mIcon11); text_view_name.setTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1, null); } else { img.setImageResource(R.drawable.icon); text_view_name.setTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1, text_view_name .findViewById(R.id.eve_img_detail1)); } } catch (Exception e) { name = "Exception in MultiLine_bar_details1 getView"; Log.v(TAG, name + e); } return text_view_name; } this is the code for scrollstatechanged method: public void onScrollStateChanged(AbsListView view, int scrollState) { switch (scrollState) { case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_IDLE: try { MultiLine_bar_details1.mBusy = false; int first = view.getFirstVisiblePosition(); int count = view.getCount(); for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) { ImageView t = (ImageView) view.getChildAt(i); if (t.getTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1) != null) { MultiLine_bar_details1.img_value = new URL( MultiLine_bar_details1.VAL4[first + i]); MultiLine_bar_details1.mIcon11 = BitmapFactory .decodeStream(MultiLine_bar_details1.img_value .openConnection().getInputStream()); MultiLine_bar_details1.img.setImageBitmap(MultiLine_bar_details1.mIcon11); t.setTag(R.id.eve_img_detail1, null); } } } catch (Exception e) { Log.v(TAG, "Idle" + e); } // mStatus.setText("Idle"); break; case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_TOUCH_SCROLL: MultiLine_bar_details1.mBusy = true; break; case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_FLING: MultiLine_bar_details1.mBusy = true; break; } } this is very complicated for me to get the output properly. actually i have the listview with custom adapter. that icons makes the listview scroll very slow.i am getting the images for icons from the image urls. upto this(above code) i can improve the scroll performance of my list view. but the image icons are not proper in the corresponding order. its dynamically changing when i scroll the listview.. i refered the commonsware busy coder guide and this blog. My very Big question is "How can we access the single view in scrollstatechanged parameter AbsListView? " what is the problem in it? how to do it better? Any Idea?

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• Is the Unix Philosophy still relevant in the Web 2.0 world?

  - by David Titarenco

  Introduction Hello, let me give you some background before I begin. I started programming when I was 5 or 6 on my dad's PSION II (some primitive BASIC-like language), then I learned more and more, eventually inching my way up to C, C++, Java, PHP, JS, etc. I think I'm a pretty decent coder. I think most people would agree. I'm not a complete social recluse, but I do stuff like write a virtual machine for fun. I've never taken a computer course in college because I've been in and out for the past couple of years and have only been taking core classes; never having been particularly amazing at school, perhaps I'm missing some basic tenet that most learn in CS101. I'm currently reading Coders at Work and this question is based on some ideas I read in there. A Brief (Fictionalized) Example So a certain sunny day I get an idea. I hire a designer and hammer away at some C/C++ code for a couple of months, soon thereafter releasing silvr.com, a website that transmutes lead into silver. Yep, I started my very own start-up and even gave it a clever web 2.0 name with a vowel missing. Mom and dad are proud. I come up with some numbers I should be seeing after 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12 months and set sail. Obviously, my transmuting server isn't perfect, sometimes it segfaults, sometimes it leaks memory. I fix it and keep truckin'. After all, gdb is my best friend. Eventually, I'm at a position where a very small community of people are happily transmuting lead into silver on a semi-regular basis, but they want to let their friends on MySpace know how many grams of lead they transmuted today. And they want to post images of their lead and silver nuggets on flickr. I'm losing out on potential traffic unless I let them log in with their Yahoo, Google, and Facebook accounts. They want webcam support and live cock fighting, merry-go-rounds and Jabberwockies. All these things seem necessary. The Aftermath Of course, I have to re-write the transmuting server! After all, I've been losing money all these months. I need OAuth libraries and OpenID libraries, JSON support, and the only stable Jabberwocky API is for Java. C++ isn't even an option anymore. I'm just one guy! The Java binary just grows and grows since I need some legacy Apache include for the JSON library, and some antiquated Sun dependency for OAuth support. Then I pick up a book like Coders at Work and read what people like jwz say about complexity... I think to myself.. Keep it simple, stupid. I like simple things. I've always loved the Unix Philosophy but even after trying to keep the new server source modular and sleek, I loathe having to write one more line of code. It feels that I'm just piling crap on top of other crap. Maybe I'm naive thinking every piece of software can be simple and clever. Maybe it's just a phase.. or is the Unix Philosophy basically dead when it comes to the current state of (web) development? I'm just kind of disheartened :(

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• Encoding GBK2312 Condundrum

  - by user792271

  I am an amateur coder and I have a small problem. My goal is to have one text input with two buttons. The first button uses a bit of Javascript called SundayMorning to translate the text (to Chinese) The second button submits the text to a URL. The URl requires that Chinese text be encoded it in GBK2312 character set. I have duct taped together various found code to the result I have now. Due to the finicky behavior of the SundayMorning Javascript, my solution is to have two input boxes, the second of which I will hide. Right now, this doesn't work: I am unable to encode the Chinese in GBK2312, no matter what I try. BONUS CONUNDRUM: The second box copies my input letter by letter as I type, but does not copy the Chinese translation that the Javascript returns. Sorry for my janky amateur code. I defer to those more clever, if you have any kind suggestions. <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=GB2312" /> <script type='text/javascript' Src='https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.1/jquery.min.js'> </script> ///THIS JS TRANSLATES THE TEXT INLINE <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.sundaymorning.js"> </script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(function() { $('#example3').sundayMorningReset(); $('#example3 input[type=image]').click(function(evt) { $.sundayMorning( $('#example3 input[type=text]').val(),{source:'en', destination:'ZH', menuLeft:evt.pageX, menuTop:evt.pageY},function(response) {$('#example3 input[type=text]').val(response.translation);});});}); </script> /// ///THIS PUTS THE CONTENT OF THE TRANSLATION BOX INTO THE SUBMISSION BOX <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function(){ var $url = $("#url"); $("#track").keyup(function() { $url.val(this.value);}); $("#track").blur(function() { $url.val(this.value);});}); </script> ///THIS PUTS THE CONTENT OF THE SUBMISSION INSIDE A URL <SCRIPT type="text/javascript"> function goToPage(url) { var initial = "http://example.com/"; var extension = ".html"; document.something.action=initial+url+extension; } </SCRIPT> </head> <body> <div id="featured"> <div id="example3"> <input type="text" name="track" id="track" value="" class="box"onkeydown="javascript:if (event.which || event.keyCode){if ((event.which == 13) || (event.keyCode == 13)) {document.getElementById('mama').click();}};"/> <input type="image" src="http://taobaofieldguide.com/images/orange-translate-button.png" id="searchsubmit" value="Translate" class="btn" /> </div> <FORM name="something" method="post" onsubmit="goToPage(this.url.value);"> <input type="text" id="url";> <INPUT type="submit" id="mama" value="GO" > </FORM> </div> </body>

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• Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community

  There we go! I finally managed to push myself forward and pick up an old, actually too old, idea since I ever arrived here in Mauritius more than six years ago. I'm talking about a community for all kind of ICT connected people. In the past (back in Germany), I used to be involved in various community activities. For example, I was part of the Microsoft Community Leader/Influencer Program (CLIP) in Germany due to an FAQ on Visual FoxPro, actually Active FoxPro Pages (AFP) to be more precise. Then in 2003/2004 I addressed the responsible person of the dFPUG user group in Speyer in order to assist him in organising monthly user group meetings. Well, he handed over management completely, and attended our meetings regularly. Why did it take you so long? Well, I don't want to bother you with the details but short version is that I was too busy on either job (building up new companies) or private life (got married and we have two lovely children, eh 'monsters') or even both. But now is the time where I was starting to look for new fields given the fact that I gained some spare time. My businesses are up and running, the kids are in school, and I am finally in a position where I can commit myself again to community activities. And I love to do that! Why a new user group? Good question... And 'easy' to answer. Since back in 2007 I did my usual research, eh Google searches, to see whether there existing user groups in Mauritius and in which field of interest. And yes, there are! If I recall this correctly, then there are communities for PHP, Drupal, Python (just recently), Oracle, and Linux (which used to be even two). But... either they do not exist anymore, they are dormant, or there is only a low heart-beat, frankly speaking. And yes, I went to meetings of the Linux User Group Meta (Mauritius) back in 2010/2011 and just recently. I really like the setup and the way the LUGM is organised. It's just that I have a slightly different point of view on how a user group or community should organise itself and how to approach future members. Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing others doing a very good job, I'm only saying that I'd like to do it differently. The last meeting of the LUGM was awesome; read my feedback about it. Ok, so what's up with 'Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community' or short: MSCC? As I've already written in my article on 'Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion' I think it is essential in a world of IT to stay 'connected' with a good number of other people in the same field. There is so much dynamic and every day's news that it is almost impossible to keep on track with all of them. The MSCC is going to provide a common platform to exchange experience and share knowledge between each other. You might be a newbie and want to know what to expect working as a software developer, or as a database administrator, or maybe as an IT systems administrator, or you're an experienced geek that loves to share your ideas or solutions that you implemented to solve a specific problem, or you're the business (or HR) guy that is looking for 'fresh' blood to enforce your existing team. Or... you're just interested and you'd like to communicate with like-minded people. Meetup of 26.06.2013 @ L'arabica: Of course there are laptops around. Free WiFi, power outlet, coffee, code and Linux in one go. The MSCC is technology-agnostic and spans an umbrella over any kind of technology. Simply because you can't ignore other technologies anymore in a connected IT world as we have. A front-end developer for iOS applications should have the chance to connect with a Python back-end coder and eventually with a DBA for MySQL or PostgreSQL and exchange their experience. Furthermore, I'm a huge fan of cross-platform development, and it is very pleasant to have pure Web developers - with all that HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and JS libraries stuff - and passionate C# or Java coders at the same table. This diversity of knowledge can assist and boost your personal situation. And last but not least, there are projects and open positions 'flying' around... People might like to hear others opinion about an employer or get new impulses on how to tackle down an issue at their workspace, etc. This is about community. And that's how I see the MSCC in general - free of any limitations be it by programming language or technology. Having the chance to exchange experience and to discuss certain aspects of technology saves you time and money, and it's a pleasure to enjoy. Compared to dusty books and remote online resources. It's human! Organising meetups (meetings, get-together, gatherings - you name it!) As of writing this article, the MSCC is currently meeting every Wednesday for the weekly 'Code & Coffee' session at various locations (suggestions are welcome!) in Mauritius. This might change in the future eventually but especially at the beginning I think it is very important to create awareness in the Mauritian IT world. Yes, we are here! Come and join us! ;-) The MSCC's main online presence is located at Meetup.com because it allows me to handle the organisation of events and meeting appointments very easily, and any member can have a look who else is involved so that an exchange of contacts is given at any time. In combination with the other entities (G+ Communities, FB Pages or in Groups) I advertise and manage all future activities here: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough. I know, there are not many 'craftsmen' yet but it's a start... Let's see how it looks like by the end of the year. There are free smartphone apps for Android and iOS from Meetup.com that allow you to keep track of meetings and to stay informed on latest updates. And last but not least, there is a Trello workspace to collect and share ideas and provide downloads of slides, etc. Trello is also available as free smartphone app. Sharing is caring! As mentioned, the #MSCC is present in various social media networks in order to cover as many people as possible here in Mauritius. Following is an overview of the current networks: Twitter - Latest updates and quickies Google+ - Community channel Facebook - Community Page LinkedIn - Community Group Trello - Collaboration workspace to share and develop ideas Hopefully, this covers the majority of computer-related people in Mauritius. Please spread the word about the #MSCC between your colleagues, your friends and other interested 'geeks'. Your future looks bright Running and participating in a user group or any kind of community usually provides quite a number of advantages for anyone. On the one side it is very joyful for me to organise appointments and get in touch with people that might be interested to present a little demo of their projects or their recent problems they had to tackle down, and on the other side there are lots of companies that have various support programs or sponsorships especially tailored for user groups. At the moment, I already have a couple of gimmicks that I would like to hand out in small contests or raffles during one of the upcoming meetings, and as said, companies provide all kind of goodies, books free of charge, or sometimes even licenses for communities. Meeting other software developers or IT guys also opens up your point of view on the local market and there might be interesting projects or job offers available, too. A community like the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is great for freelancers, self-employed, students and of course employees. Meetings will be organised on a regular basis, and I'm open to all kind of suggestions from you. Please leave a comment here in blog or join the conversations in the above mentioned social networks. Let's get this community up and running, my fellow Mauritians! Recent updates The MSCC is now officially participating in the O'Reilly UK User Group programm and we are allowed to request review or recension copies of recent titles. Additionally, we have a discount code for any books or ebooks that you might like to order on shop.oreilly.com. More applications for user group sponsorship programms are pending and I'm looking forward to a couple of announcement very soon. And... we need some kind of 'corporate identity' - Over at the MSCC website there is a call for action (or better said a contest with prizes) to create a unique design for the MSCC. This would include a decent colour palette, a logo, graphical banners for Meetup, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and of course badges for our craftsmen to add to their personal blogs and websites. Please spread the word and contribute. Thanks!

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