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  • How to design a scriptable communication emulator?

    - by Hawk
    Requirement: We need a tool that simulates a hardware device that communicates via RS232 or TCP/IP to allow us to test our main application which will communicate with the device. Current flow: User loads script Parse script into commands User runs script Execute commands Script / commands (simplified for discussion): Connect RS232 = RS232ConnectCommand Connect TCP/IP = TcpIpConnectCommand Send data = SendCommand Receive data = ReceiveCommand Disconnect = DisconnectCommand All commands implement the ICommand interface. The command runner simply executes a sequence of ICommand implementations sequentially thus ICommand must have an Execute exposure, pseudo code: void Execute(ICommunicator context) The Execute method takes a context argument which allows the command implementations to execute what they need to do. For instance SendCommand will call context.Send, etc. The problem RS232ConnectCommand and TcpIpConnectCommand needs to instantiate the context to be used by subsequent commands. How do you handle this elegantly? Solution 1: Change ICommand Execute method to: ICommunicator Execute(ICommunicator context) While it will work it seems like a code smell. All commands now need to return the context which for all commands except the connection ones will be the same context that is passed in. Solution 2: Create an ICommunicatorWrapper (ICommunicationBroker?) which follows the decorator pattern and decorates ICommunicator. It introduces a new exposure: void SetCommunicator(ICommunicator communicator) And ICommand is changed to use the wrapper: void Execute(ICommunicationWrapper context) Seems like a cleaner solution. Question Is this a good design? Am I on the right track?

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  • Relative encapsulation design

    - by taher1992
    Let's say I am doing a 2D application with the following design: There is the Level object that manages the world, and there are world objects which are entities inside the Level object. A world object has a location and velocity, as well as size and a texture. However, a world object only exposes get properties. The set properties are private (or protected) and are only available to inherited classes. But of course, Level is responsible for these world objects, and must somehow be able to manipulate at least some of its private setters. But as of now, Level has no access, meaning world objects must change its private setters to public (violating encapsulation). How to tackle this problem? Should I just make everything public? Currently what I'm doing is having a inner class inside game object that does the set work. So when Level needs to update an objects location it goes something like this: void ChangeObject(GameObject targetObject, int newX, int newY){ // targetObject.SetX and targetObject.SetY cannot be set directly var setter = new GameObject.Setter(targetObject); setter.SetX(newX); setter.SetY(newY); } This code feels like overkill, but it doesn't feel right to have everything public so that anything can change an objects location for example.

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  • design for supporting entities with images

    - by brainydexter
    I have multiple entities like Hotels, Destination Cities etc which can contain images. The way I have my system setup right now is, I think of all the images belonging to this universal set (a table in the DB contains filePaths to all the images). When I have to add an image to an entity, I see if the entity exists in this universal set of images. If it exists, attach the reference to this image, else create a new image. E.g.: class ImageEntityHibernateDAO { public void addImageToEntity(IContainImage entity, String filePath, String title, String altText) { ImageEntity image = this.getImage(filePath); if (image == null) image = new ImageEntity(filePath, title, altText); getSession().beginTransaction(); entity.getImages().add(image); getSession().getTransaction().commit(); } } My question is: Earlier I had to write this code for each entity (and each entity would have a Set collection). So, instead of re-writing the same code, I created the following interface: public interface IContainImage { Set<ImageEntity> getImages(); } Entities which have image collections also implements IContainImage interface. Now, for any entity that needs to support adding Image functionality, all I have to invoke from the DAO looks something like this: // in DestinationDAO::addImageToDestination { imageDao.addImageToEntity(destination, imageFileName, imageTitle, imageAltText); // in HotelDAO::addImageToHotel { imageDao.addImageToEntity(hotel, imageFileName, imageTitle, imageAltText); It'd be great help if someone can provide me some critique on this design ? Are there any serious flaws that I'm not seeing right away ?

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  • Teacher demands excessive/unjustified use of Design Patterns

    - by SoboLAN
    I study computer science and I have a class called "Programming Techniques". Its purpose is to teach (us) good object oriented design principles. During the semester we have homeworks, programs that we must write to demonstrate what we've learned. The lab assistant demands for each of these homeworks that specific design patterns should be used. For example, the current homework is an application used for processing customer orders. We are demanded to use either "Factory Method" or "Abstract Factory" design patterns for this. It gets even worse: at the end of the semester we must write a program (something more complex) that must use at least one creational pattern, at least one structural pattern and at least one behavioural pattern. Is it normal to demand this ? I mean, forcing us to design our programs in such a way that a specific design pattern makes sense is just beyond what I consider ok. If I'm a car mechanic and have a huge tool box, then I will use a certain tool from that box if and when the situation demands it. Not more, not less. If my design of the application doesn't demand at all the use of "Abstract Factory" (for example), then why should I implement it ? I'm not sure yet if the senior lecturer agrees with what the lab assistant is demanding, but I want to talk to him about it and I need solid arguments to do so. How should I approach this problem with him ? PS: I'm sure there must be a better way to teach us these things. Maybe making us each week read about 3 design patterns and the next week giving us a test with small but specific programming or architectural situations/problems. The goal in that test would be to identify what design patterns would make sense and how they could be implemented. This way, he can see if we understand them. EDIT: These homeworks are not just 100-line programs, they have quite a lot of requirements and are fairly complicated. This is the reason we have about 2 - 3 weeks of deadline for each of them. I agree that practicing this is the best way to learn. But shouldn't smaller programs/applications be used for this ? Something just for demonstrating purposes. Not big programs with lots of requirements/classes/etc.

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  • How To Deal With Terrible Design Decisions

    - by splatto
    I'm a consultant at one company. There is another consultant who is a year older than me and has been here 3 months longer than I have, and a full time developer. The full-time developer is great. My concern is that I see the consultant making absolutely terrible design decisions. For example, M:M relationships are being stored in the database as a comma-delimited string rather than using a conjunction table to hold the relationships. For example, consider two tables, Car and Property: Car records: Camry Volvo Mercedes Property records: Spare Tire Satellite Radio Ipod Support Standard Rather than making a table CarProperties to represent this, he has made a "Property" attribute on the Car table whose data looks like "1,3,7,13,19,25," I hate how this decision and others are affecting the quality of my code. We have butted heads over this design three times in the past two months since I've been here. He asked me why my suggestion was better, and I responded that our database would be eliminating redundant data by converting to a higher normal form. I explained that this design flaw in particular is discussed and discouraged in entry level college programs, and he responded with a shot at me saying that these comma-separated-value database properties are taught when you do your masters (which neither of us have). Needless to say, he became very upset and demanded I apologize for criticizing his work, which I did in the interest of not wanting to be the consultant to create office drama. Our project manager is focused on delivering a product ASAP and is a very strong personality - Suggesting to him at this point that we spend some time to do this right will set him off. There is a strong likelihood that both of our contracts will be extended to work on a second project coming up. How will I be able to exert dominant influence over the design of the system and the data model to ensure that such terrible mistakes are not repeated in the next project? A glimpse at the dynamics: I can be a strong personality if I don't measure myself. The other consultant is not a strong personality, is a poor communicator, is quite stubborn and thinks he is better than everyone else. The project manager is an extremely strong personality who is focused on releasing tomorrow's product yesterday. The full-time developer is very laid back and easy going, a very effective communicator, but is someone who will accept bad design if it means not rocking the boat. Code reviews or anything else that takes "time" will be out of the question - there is no way our PM will be sold on such a thing by anybody.

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  • SSIS Design Patterns Training in London 8-11 Sep!

    - by andyleonard
    A few seats remain for my course SQL Server Integration Services 2012 Design Patterns to be delivered in London 8-11 Sep 2014. Register today to learn more about: New features in SSIS 2012 and 2014 Advanced patterns for loading data warehouses Error handling The (new) Project Deployment Model Scripting in SSIS The (new) SSIS Catalog Designing custom SSIS tasks Executing, managing, monitoring, and administering SSIS in the enterprise Business Intelligence Markup Language (Biml) BimlScript ETL Instrumentation...(read more)

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  • Design for a plugin based application

    - by Varun Naik
    I am working on application, details of which I cannot discuss here. We have core framework and the rest is designed as plug in. In the core framework we have a domain object. This domain object is updated by the plugins. I have defined an interface in which I have function as DomainObject doProcessing(DomainObject object) My intention here is I pass the domain object, the plug in will update it and return it. This updated object is then passed again to different plugin to be updated. I am not sure if this is a good approach. I don't like passing the DomainObject to plugin. Is there a better way I can achieve this? Should I just request data from plugin and update the domain object myself?

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  • How to design database having multiple interrelated entities

    - by Sharath Chandra
    I am designing a new system which is more of a help system for core applications in banks or healthcare sector. Given the nature of the system this is not a heavy transaction oriented system but more of read intensive. Now within this application I have multiple entities which are related to each other. For e.g. Assume the following entities in the system User Training Regulations Now each of these entities have M:N Relationship with each other. Assuming the usage of a standard RDBMS, the design may involve many relationship tables each containing the relationships one other entity ("User_Training", "User_Regulations", "Training_Regulations"). This design is limiting since I have more than 3 entities in the system and maintaining the relationship graph is difficult this way. The most frequently used operation is "given an entity get me all the related entities" . I need to design the database where this operation is relatively inexpensive. What are the different recommendations for modelling this kind of database.

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  • Class Design and Structure Online Web Store

    - by Phorce
    I hope I have asked this in the right forum. Basically, we're designing an Online Store and I am designing the class structure for ordering a product and want some clarification on what I have so far: So a customer comes, selects their product, chooses the quantity and selects 'Purchase' (I am using the Facade Pattern - So subsystems execute when this action is performed). My class structure: < Order > < Product > <Customer > There is no inheritance, more Association < Order has < Product , < Customer has < Order . Does this structure look ok? I've noticed that I don't handle the "Quantity" separately, I was just going to add this into the "Product" class, but, do you think it should be a class of it's own? Hope someone can help.

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  • Caching factory design

    - by max
    I have a factory class XFactory that creates objects of class X. Instances of X are very large, so the main purpose of the factory is to cache them, as transparently to the client code as possible. Objects of class X are immutable, so the following code seems reasonable: # module xfactory.py import x class XFactory: _registry = {} def get_x(self, arg1, arg2, use_cache = True): if use_cache: hash_id = hash((arg1, arg2)) if hash_id in _registry: return _registry[hash_id] obj = x.X(arg1, arg2) _registry[hash_id] = obj return obj # module x.py class X: # ... Is it a good pattern? (I know it's not the actual Factory Pattern.) Is there anything I should change? Now, I find that sometimes I want to cache X objects to disk. I'll use pickle for that purpose, and store as values in the _registry the filenames of the pickled objects instead of references to the objects. Of course, _registry itself would have to be stored persistently (perhaps in a pickle file of its own, in a text file, in a database, or simply by giving pickle files the filenames that contain hash_id). Except now the validity of the cached object depends not only on the parameters passed to get_x(), but also on the version of the code that created these objects. Strictly speaking, even a memory-cached object could become invalid if someone modifies x.py or any of its dependencies, and reloads it while the program is running. So far I ignored this danger since it seems unlikely for my application. But I certainly cannot ignore it when my objects are cached to persistent storage. What can I do? I suppose I could make the hash_id more robust by calculating hash of a tuple that contains arguments arg1 and arg2, as well as the filename and last modified date for x.py and every module and data file that it (recursively) depends on. To help delete cache files that won't ever be useful again, I'd add to the _registry the unhashed representation of the modified dates for each record. But even this solution isn't 100% safe since theoretically someone might load a module dynamically, and I wouldn't know about it from statically analyzing the source code. If I go all out and assume every file in the project is a dependency, the mechanism will still break if some module grabs data from an external website, etc.). In addition, the frequency of changes in x.py and its dependencies is quite high, leading to heavy cache invalidation. Thus, I figured I might as well give up some safety, and only invalidate the cache only when there is an obvious mismatch. This means that class X would have a class-level cache validation identifier that should be changed whenever the developer believes a change happened that should invalidate the cache. (With multiple developers, a separate invalidation identifier is required for each.) This identifier is hashed along with arg1 and arg2 and becomes part of the hash keys stored in _registry. Since developers may forget to update the validation identifier or not realize that they invalidated existing cache, it would seem better to add another validation mechanism: class X can have a method that returns all the known "traits" of X. For instance, if X is a table, I might add the names of all the columns. The hash calculation will include the traits as well. I can write this code, but I am afraid that I'm missing something important; and I'm also wondering if perhaps there's a framework or package that can do all of this stuff already. Ideally, I'd like to combine in-memory and disk-based caching.

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  • Design for object with optional and modifiable attributtes?

    - by Ikuzen
    I've been using the Builder pattern to create objects with a large number of attributes, where most of them are optional. But up until now, I've defined them as final, as recommended by Joshua Block and other authors, and haven't needed to change their values. I am wondering what should I do though if I need a class with a substantial number of optional but non-final (mutable) attributes? My Builder pattern code looks like this: public class Example { //All possible parameters (optional or not) private final int param1; private final int param2; //Builder class public static class Builder { private final int param1; //Required parameters private int param2 = 0; //Optional parameters - initialized to default //Builder constructor public Builder (int param1) { this.param1 = param1; } //Setter-like methods for optional parameters public Builder param2(int value) { param2 = value; return this; } //build() method public Example build() { return new Example(this); } } //Private constructor private Example(Builder builder) { param1 = builder.param1; param2 = builder.param2; } } Can I just remove the final keyword from the declaration to be able to access the attributes externally (through normal setters, for example)? Or is there a creational pattern that allows optional but non-final attributes that would be better suited in this case?

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  • Learning how to design knowledge and data flow [closed]

    - by max
    In designing software, I spend a lot of time deciding how the knowledge (algorithms / business logic) and data should be allocated between different entities; that is, which object should know what. I am asking for advice about books, articles, presentations, classes, or other resources that would help me learn how to do it better. I code primarily in Python, but my question is not really language-specific; even if some of the insights I learn don't work in Python, that's fine. I'll give a couple examples to clarify what I mean. Example 1 I want to perform some computation. As a user, I will need to provide parameters to do the computation. I can have all those parameters sent to the "main" object, which then uses them to create other objects as needed. Or I can create one "main" object, as well as several additional objects; the additional objects would then be sent to the "main" object as parameters. What factors should I consider to make this choice? Example 2 Let's say I have a few objects of type A that can perform a certain computation. The main computation often involves using an object of type B that performs some interim computation. I can either "teach" A instances what exact parameters to pass to B instances (i.e., make B "dumb"); or I can "teach" B instances to figure out what needs to be done when looking at an A instance (i.e., make B "smart"). What should I think about when I'm making this choice?

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  • High-Level Application Architecture Question

    - by Jesse Bunch
    So I'm really wanting to improve how I architect the software I code. I want to focus on maintainability and clean code. As you might guess, I've been reading a lot of resources on this topic and all it's doing is making it harder for me to settle on an architecture because I can never tell if my design is the one that the more experienced programmer would've chosen. So I have these requirements: I should connect to one vendor and download form submissions from their API. We'll call them the CompanyA. I should then map those submissions to a schema fit for submitting to another vendor for integration with the email service provider. We'll call them the CompanyB. I should then submit those responses to the ESP (CompanyB) and then instruct the ESP to send that submitter an email. So basically, I'm copying data from one web service to another and then performing an action at the latter web service. I've identified a couple high-level services: The service that downloads data from CompanyA. I called this the CompanyAIntegrator. The service that submits the data to CompanyB. I called this CompanyBIntegrator. So my questions are these: Is this a good design? I've tried to separate the concerns and am planning to use the facade pattern to make the integrators interchangeable if the vendors change in the future. Are my naming conventions accurate and meaningful to you (who knows nothing specific of the project)? Now that I have these services, where should I do the work of taking output from the CompanyAIntegrator and getting it in the format for input to the CompanyBIntegrator? Is this OK to be done in main()? Do you have any general pointers on how you'd code something like this? I imagine this scenario is common to us engineers---especially those working in agencies. Thanks for any help you can give. Learning how to architect well is really mind-cluttering.

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  • How bad is it to have two methods with the same name but different signatures in two classes?

    - by Super User
    I have a design problem related to a public interface, the names of methods, and the understanding of my API and code. I have two classes like this: class A: ... function collision(self): .... ... class B: .... function _collision(self, another_object, l, r, t, b): .... The first class has one public method named collision, and the second has one private method called _collision. The two methods differs in argument type and number. As an example let's say that _collision checks if the object is colliding with another object with certain conditions l, r, t, b (collide on the left side, right side, etc) and returns true or false. The public collision method, on the other hand, resolves all the collisions of the object with other objects. The two methods have the same name because I think it's better to avoid overloading the design with different names for methods that do almost the same thing, but in distinct contexts and classes. Is this clear enough to the reader or I should change the method's name?

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  • How bad it's have two methods with the same name but differents signatures in two classes?

    - by Super User
    I have a design problem relationated with the public interface, the names of methods and the understanding of my API and my code. I have two classes like this: class A: ... function collision(self): .... ... class B: .... function _collision(self, another_object, l, r, t, b): .... The first class have one public method named collision and the second have one private method called _collision. The two methods differs in arguments type and number. In the API _m method is private. For the example let's say that the _collision method checks if the object is colliding with another_ object with certain conditions l, r, t, b (for example, collide the left side, the right side, etc) and returns true or false according to the case. The collision method, on the other hand, resolves all the collisions of the object with other objects. The two methods have the same name because I think is better avoid overload the design with different names for methods who do almost the same think, but in distinct contexts and classes. This is clear enough to the reader or I should change the method's name?

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  • Requesting feedback on my OO design

    - by Prog
    I'm working on an application that creates music by itself. I'm seeking feedback for my OO design so far. This question will focus on one part of the program. The application produces Tune objects, that are the final musical products. Tune is an abstract class with an abstract method play. It has two subclasses: SimpleTune and StructuredTune. SimpleTune owns a Melody and a Progression (chord sequence). It's play implementation plays these two objects simultaneously. StructuredTune owns two Tune instances. It's own play plays the two Tunes one after the other according to a pattern (currently only ABAB). Melody is an abstract class with an abstract play method. It has two subclasses: SimpleMelody and StructuredMelody. SimpleMelody is composed of an array of notes. Invoking play on it plays these notes one after the other. StructuredMelody is composed of an array of Melody objects. Invoking play on it plays these Melodyies one after the other. I think you're starting to see the pattern. Progression is also an abstract class with a play method and two subclasses: SimpleProgression and StructuredProgression, each composed differently and played differently. SimpleProgression owns an array of chords and plays them sequentially. StructuredProgression owns an array of Progressions and it's play implementation plays them sequentially. Every class has a corresponding Generator class. Tune, Melody and Progression are matched with corresponding abstract TuneGenerator, MelodyGenerator and ProgressionGenerator classes, each with an abstract generate method. For example MelodyGenerator defines an abstract Melody generate method. Each of the generators has two subclasses, Simple and Structured. So for example MelodyGenerator has a subclasses SimpleMelodyGenerator, with an implementation of generate that returns a SimpleMelody. (It's important to note that the generate methods encapsulate complex algorithms. They are more than mere factory method. For example SimpleProgressionGenerator.generate() implements an algorithm to compose a series of Chord objects, which are used to instantiate the returned SimpleProgression). Every Structured generator uses another generator internally. It is a Simple generator be default, but in special cases may be a Structured generator. Parts of this design are meant to allow the end-user through the GUI to choose what kind of music is to be created. For example the user can choose between a "simple tune" (SimpleTuneGenerator) and a "full tune" (StructuredTuneGenerator). Other parts of the system aren't subject to direct user-control. What do you think of this design from an OOD perspective? What potential problems do you see with this design? Please share with me your criticism, I'm here to learn. Apart from this, a more specific question: the "every class has a corresponding Generator class" part feels very wrong. However I'm not sure how I could design this differently and achieve the same flexibility. Any ideas?

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  • Design Anti-Patterns - C# - Do you call this a God object?

    - by Reddy S R
    I am writing Portfolio module for my web site and it has 3 components. Gallery Category, Gallery, & Gallery Images. I am doing all the request handling, (creating, reading, updating, other), for the above 3 components in 1 class, Portfolio. DB handling jobs for Portfolio module is done in another file. My question is, even just for request handling purpose, can you do all the operations in 1 class? -Reddy

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  • Representing complex object dependencies

    - by max
    I have several classes with a reasonably complex (but acyclic) dependency graph. All the dependencies are of the form: class X instance contains an attribute of class Y. All such attributes are set during initialization and never changed again. Each class' constructor has just a couple parameters, and each object knows the proper parameters to pass to the constructors of the objects it contains. class Outer is at the top of the dependency hierarchy, i.e., no class depends on it. Currently, the UI layer only creates an Outer instance; the parameters for Outer constructor are derived from the user input. Of course, Outer in the process of initialization, creates the objects it needs, which in turn create the objects they need, and so on. The new development is that the a user who knows the dependency graph may want to reach deep into it, and set the values of some of the arguments passed to constructors of the inner classes (essentially overriding the values used currently). How should I change the design to support this? I could keep the current approach where all the inner classes are created by the classes that need them. In this case, the information about "user overrides" would need to be passed to Outer class' constructor in some complex user_overrides structure. Perhaps user_overrides could be the full logical representation of the dependency graph, with the overrides attached to the appropriate edges. Outer class would pass user_overrides to every object it creates, and they would do the same. Each object, before initializing lower level objects, will find its location in that graph and check if the user requested an override to any of the constructor arguments. Alternatively, I could rewrite all the objects' constructors to take as parameters the full objects they require. Thus, the creation of all the inner objects would be moved outside the whole hierarchy, into a new controller layer that lies between Outer and UI layer. The controller layer would essentially traverse the dependency graph from the bottom, creating all the objects as it goes. The controller layer would have to ask the higher-level objects for parameter values for the lower-level objects whenever the relevant parameter isn't provided by the user. Neither approach looks terribly simple. Is there any other approach? Has this problem come up enough in the past to have a pattern that I can read about? I'm using Python, but I don't think it matters much at the design level.

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  • Object oriented wrapper around a dll

    - by Tom Davies
    So, I'm writing a C# managed wrapper around a native dll. The dll contains several hundred functions. In most cases, the first argument to each function is an opaque handle to a type internal to the dll. So, an obvious starting point for defining some classes in the wrapper would be to define classes corresponding to each of these opaque types, with each instance holding and managing the opaque handle (passed to its constructor) Things are a little awkward when dealing with callbacks from the dll. Naturally, the callback handlers in my wrapper have to be static, but the callbacks arguments invariable contain an opaque handle. In order to get from the static callback back to an object instance, I've created a static dictionary in each class, associating handles with class instances. In the constructor of each class, an entry is put into the dictionary, and this entry is then removed in the Destructors. When I receive a callback, I can then consult the dictionary to retrieve the class instance corresponding to the opaque reference. Are there any obvious flaws to this? Something that seems to be a problem is that the existence static dictionary means that the garbage collector will not act on my class instances that are otherwise unreachable. As they are never garbage collected, they never get removed from the dictionary, so the dictionary grows. It seems I might have to manually dispose of my objects, which is something absolutely would like to avoid. Can anyone suggest a good design that allows me to avoid having to do this?

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  • Design Book–Dimensional or No Dimensional, that is..the question

    - by drsql
    So, it is right there in the title of the book “Relational Database Design” etc (the title is kinda long :)  But as I consider what to cover and, conversely, what not to cover, dimensional design inevitably pops up. So I am considering including it in the book. One thing I try to do is to cover topics to a level where you can start using it immediately, and I am not sure that I could get a deep enough coverage of the subject to do that. I don’t really feel like it has to be the definitive source...(read more)

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  • Recommendations for books and training resources covering for Design for Programmers

    - by Jon Hopkins
    Off the back of one of the answers to this question (currently the second highest scoring), it made me think, what's the best way to get developers up to speed on good basic design principals. I'm not talking about making them into graphic designers but some developers almost take pride in ugly UIs, seeing them as unimportant next to the functionality. What primarily interested in are the graphic design elements rather than the usability aspects which is pretty well covered by books such as Don't Make Me Think. Use of white space, emphasis, font selection and a million other things I'm probably not even aware of. I know people are often seen as artistic or not artistic but surely the basics can be taught and someone has written a book covering this?

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  • Is this proper OO design for C++?

    - by user121917
    I recently took a software processes course and this is my first time attempting OO design on my own. I am trying to follow OO design principles and C++ conventions. I attempted and gave up on MVC for this application, but I am trying to "decouple" my classes such that they can be easily unit-tested and so that I can easily change the GUI library used and/or the target OS. At this time, I have finished designing classes but have not yet started implementing methods. The function of the software is to log all packets sent and received, and display them on the screen (like WireShark, but for one local process only). The software accomplishes this by hooking the send() and recv() functions in winsock32.dll, or some other pair of analogous functions depending on what the intended Target is. The hooks add packets to SendPacketList/RecvPacketList. The GuiLogic class starts a thread which checks for new packets. When new packets are found, it utilizes the PacketFilter class to determine the formatting for the new packet, and then sends it to MainWindow, a native win32 window (with intent to later port to Qt).1 Full size image of UML class diagram Here are my classes in skeleton/header form (this is my actual code): class PacketModel { protected: std::vector<byte> data; int id; public: PacketModel(); PacketModel(byte* data, unsigned int size); PacketModel(int id, byte* data, unsigned int size); int GetLen(); bool IsValid(); //len >= sizeof(opcode_t) opcode_t GetOpcode(); byte* GetData(); //returns &(data[0]) bool GetData(byte* outdata, int maxlen); void SetData(byte* pdata, int len); int GetId(); void SetId(int id); bool ParseData(char* instr); bool StringRepr(char* outstr); byte& operator[] (const int index); }; class SendPacket : public PacketModel { protected: byte* returnAddy; public: byte* GetReturnAddy(); void SetReturnAddy(byte* addy); }; class RecvPacket : public PacketModel { protected: byte* callAddy; public: byte* GetCallAddy(); void SetCallAddy(byte* addy); }; //problem: packets may be added to list at any time by any number of threads //solution: critical section associated with each packet list class Synch { public: void Enter(); void Leave(); }; template<class PacketType> class PacketList { private: static const int MAX_STORED_PACKETS = 1000; public: static const int DEFAULT_SHOWN_PACKETS = 100; private: vector<PacketType> list; Synch synch; //wrapper for critical section public: void AddPacket(PacketType* packet); PacketType* GetPacket(int id); int TotalPackets(); }; class SendPacketList : PacketList<SendPacket> { }; class RecvPacketList : PacketList<RecvPacket> { }; class Target //one socket { bool Send(SendPacket* packet); bool Inject(RecvPacket* packet); bool InitSendHook(SendPacketList* sendList); bool InitRecvHook(RecvPacketList* recvList); }; class FilterModel { private: opcode_t opcode; int colorID; bool bFilter; char name[41]; }; class FilterFile { private: FilterModel filter; public: void Save(); void Load(); FilterModel* GetFilter(opcode_t opcode); }; class PacketFilter { private: FilterFile filters; public: bool IsFiltered(opcode_t opcode); bool GetName(opcode_t opcode, char* namestr); //return false if name does not exist COLORREF GetColor(opcode_t opcode); //return default color if no custom color }; class GuiLogic { private: SendPacketList sendList; RecvPacketList recvList; PacketFilter packetFilter; void GetPacketRepr(PacketModel* packet); void ReadNew(); void AddToWindow(); public: void Refresh(); //called from thread void GetPacketInfo(int id); //called from MainWindow }; I'm looking for a general review of my OO design, use of UML, and use of C++ features. I especially just want to know if I'm doing anything considerably wrong. From what I've read, design review is on-topic for this site (and off-topic for the Code Review site). Any sort of feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading this.

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  • Design Patterns: Should I learn them?

    - by prelic
    So it's kinda weird asking two questions back-to-back, but they aren't very related and I didn't want to combine them, but I'm not spamming questions, I promise! Anyway, I'm a recent college grad, and my education only touched on design patterns...we implemented a few simple ones, touched on the fact that there were more complicated ones, and were instructed to turn to the GoF book if we wanted to learn more. My question is, is it worth learning the patterns in the GoF book? To me, it's always seemed counter-intuitive to try and make a problem fit a classic pattern, but obviously the book, and the patterns, are famous for a reason. Do they show up enough that I should be learning them? Thanks again!

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  • How do we keep dependent data structures up to date?

    - by Geo
    Suppose you have a parse tree, an abstract syntax tree, and a control flow graph, each one logically derived from the one before. In principle it is easy to construct each graph given the parse tree, but how can we manage the complexity of updating the graphs when the parse tree is modified? We know exactly how the tree has been modified, but how can the change be propagated to the other trees in a way that doesn't become difficult to manage? Naturally the dependent graph can be updated by simply reconstructing it from scratch every time the first graph changes, but then there would be no way of knowing the details of the changes in the dependent graph. I currently have four ways to attempt to solve this problem, but each one has difficulties. Nodes of the dependent tree each observe the relevant nodes of the original tree, updating themselves and the observer lists of original tree nodes as necessary. The conceptual complexity of this can become daunting. Each node of the original tree has a list of the dependent tree nodes that specifically depend upon it, and when the node changes it sets a flag on the dependent nodes to mark them as dirty, including the parents of the dependent nodes all the way down to the root. After each change we run an algorithm that is much like the algorithm for constructing the dependent graph from scratch, but it skips over any clean node and reconstructs each dirty node, keeping track of whether the reconstructed node is actually different from the dirty node. This can also get tricky. We can represent the logical connection between the original graph and the dependent graph as a data structure, like a list of constraints, perhaps designed using a declarative language. When the original graph changes we need only scan the list to discover which constraints are violated and how the dependent tree needs to change to correct the violation, all encoded as data. We can reconstruct the dependent graph from scratch as though there were no existing dependent graph, and then compare the existing graph and the new graph to discover how it has changed. I'm sure this is the easiest way because I know there are algorithms available for detecting differences, but they are all quite computationally expensive and in principle it seems unnecessary so I'm deliberately avoiding this option. What is the right way to deal with these sorts of problems? Surely there must be a design pattern that makes this whole thing almost easy. It would be nice to have a good solution for every problem of this general description. Does this class of problem have a name?

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