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• Do you count a Masters in CS as a negative?

  - by Pete Hodgson

  In my experience interviewing developers I feel like candidates who've achieved a Masters in Comp Sci tend to be worse programmers on average that those who don't have a Masters. Is that just me, or have others noticed this phenomenon? If so, why would that be the case? UPDATE I appreciate the thoughtful comments. I think I should have been clearer in the comparison I'm making. Given two candidates who graduated from college around the same time, someone who went on to gain a Masters seems on average to be a worse programmer than someone who spent all their time in industry.

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• Cannot change brightness on an Acer Aspire 5745-dg

  - by pete-maister

  I have an acer aspire 5745dg laptop and i have also a very serious problem!! My brightness is always at maximun and I cannot change it with the fn keys or from the power management and my battery discharging fast:/. Thats my problem and i need your help guys!!!!In my windows partition brightness works perfectly only in ubuntu I have this serious and annoying problem!!!!Please reply to my message i'd appreciate that!

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• Using Sql Server Change Data Capture with a frequently changing schema

  - by Pete

  We are looking into enabling Sql Server Change Data Capture for a new subsystem we are building. It's not really because we need it, but we are being pushed for having a complete history traceability, and CDC would nicely solve this requirement with minimum effort on our parts. We are following an agile development process, which in this case means that we frequently make changes to the database schema, e.g. adding new columns, moving data to other columns, etc. We did a small test where we created a table, enabled CDC for that table, and then added a new column to the table. Changes to the new column is not registered in the CDC table. Is there a mechanism to update the CDC table to the new schema, and are there any best practices to how you deal with captured data when migrating the database schema?

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• At which architecture level are you running BDD tests (e.g. Cucumber)

  - by Pete

  I have in the last year gotten quite fond of using SpecFlow (which is a .NET port of Cucumber) I have used it both to test a ASP.NET MVC application at the web layer, i.e. using browser automation, but also at the controller layer. The first gives me a higher confidence in the correctness of the application, because JavaScript is tested, and improper controller configuration is also caught. But those tests are slower to execute, and more complex to implement, than those just testing on the controller layer. My tests are full functional tests, i.e. they exercise all layers of the application, all the way down to the database. So the first thing before any scenario is that the database is cleared of data, allowing the test to assume that only data specified in the "Given" block exists. Then I see example on how to use it, where they test just exercise the model layer. So what are your experiences with these tools? Which layer of the application do you test?

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• virtual install from ISO not getting virtual kernel

  - by Pete

  I have a KVM host (12.04.5) that I have been installing guests on in variety of ways. I just noticed recently one of my guests was running a generic kernel when I'm fairly certain I specified minimum virtual machine during install from a 12.04.2 server iso. From what I understand it should be running a stripped down kernel "optimized" for VMs. I set up another server to test, this time using a 14.04.1, and sure enough I ended up with uname -r returning 3.13.0-32-generic. It seems that if I use an .iso to install, I end up with generic regardless. However building with the vmbuilder ... --flavour virtual --suite precise ... (I don't have trusty available yet) script gives me an ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS system running kernel 3.2.0-67-virtual. The server FAQ mentions I should be getting the virtual kernel. What are practical advantages of using linux-image-virtual kernel? gives me the impression that it doesn't really matter functionally (in my case I only have a couple VMs running). I first thought was maybe I was somehow not applying the correct options because the installer F4 menu doesn't really give great feedback if the mode has been selected or not. Looking in the log /var/log/installers/syslog I see Command line: file=/cdrom/preceed/ubuntu-server-minimalvm.seed ... I know that I can install the virtual kernel package down the road, but why am I not, or should I be getting the virtual flavor of kernel from an ISO install when doing an minimum VM install?

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• Is SOAP Http POST more complicated than I thought

  - by Pete Petersen

  I'm currently writing a bit of code to send some xml data to a web service via HTTP POST. I thought this would be really simple and have written the following example code (C#) Console.WriteLine("Press enter to send data..."); while (Console.ReadLine() != "q") { HttpWebRequest httpWReq = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(@"http://localhost:8888/"); Foo fooItem = new Foo { Member1 = "05", Member2 = "74455604", Member3 = "15101051", Member4 = 1, Member5 = "fsf", Member6 = 6.52, }; ASCIIEncoding encoding = new ASCIIEncoding(); string postData = fooItem.ToXml(); byte[] data = encoding.GetBytes(postData); httpWReq.Method = "POST"; httpWReq.ContentType = "application/xml"; httpWReq.ContentLength = data.Length; using (Stream stream = httpWReq.GetRequestStream()) { stream.Write(data, 0, data.Length); } HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)httpWReq.GetResponse(); string responseString = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()).ReadToEnd(); Console.WriteLine("Received " + responseString); Console.WriteLine("Press enter to send data..."); } This is all I thought would be necessary, however I have now been given the details for the web service. This included some information which is unfarmiliar to me and I'm unsure whether I need to include it. The information I was sent was <url>http://sometext/soap/rpc</url> <namespace>http://sometext/a.services</namespace> <method>receiveInfo</method> <parm-id>xmldata</parm-id> (Input data) (Actual XML data as string) <parm-id>status</parm-id> (Output data) <userid>user</userid> <password>pass</password> <secure>false</secure> I guess this means I need to include a username and password somehow, but I'm not sure what the namespace or method fields are used for. Could anyone give me a hint? Sorry I've never used webservices before.

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• Do Not Track feature of IE10

  - by Pete Herbert Penito

  One of our clients is getting a bit worried about the new "Do Not Track" feature of Internet Explorer 10. Her site is heavily dependent on php sessions (as I imagine many other sites are). This was what she was reading: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18288710 I need some clarification, will this affect how sessions (or cookies) work on normal web sites that use the PHP $_SESSION array? Or is it regarding only how advertising works (engadget's article seems to insinuate this)? Can anyone provide a more technical overview (and the ramifications) of PHP-powered websites?

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• Do you count a Masters in CS as a negative? [closed]

  - by Pete Hodgson

  In my experience interviewing developers I feel like candidates who've achieved a Masters in Comp Sci tend to be worse programmers on average that those who don't have a Masters. Is that just me, or have others noticed this phenomenon? If so, why would that be the case? UPDATE I appreciate the thoughtful comments. I think I should have been clearer in the comparison I'm making. Given two candidates who graduated from college around the same time, someone who went on to gain a Masters seems on average to be a worse programmer than someone who spent all their time in industry.

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• Toshiba Tecra A8 display resizes to 4:3 when an External display is used

  - by Pete

  I am very new to this so please excuse me if the solution is simple. I am running an old Toshiba Tecra A8 laptop and the screen is fine until I attach an external monitor via VGA then the laptops monitor resizes itself and changes ratios to 3:4 is there a fix for this or am I out of luck? As additional information: I have tried 3 or 4 different monitors and it happens with all of them, except that the external monitors hold the 3:4 display ration but get stretched out. Feel free to add comments requesting more information if needed for a fix.

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• When module calling gets ugly

  - by Pete

  Has this ever happened to you? You've got a suite of well designed, single-responsibility modules, covered by unit tests. In any higher-level function you code, you are (95% of the code) simply taking output from one module and passing it as input to the next. Then, you notice this higher-level function has turned into a 100+ line script with multiple responsibilities. Here is the problem. It is difficult (impossible) to test that script. At least, it seems so. Do you agree? In my current project, all of the bugs came from this script. Further detail: each script represents a unique solution, or algorithm, formed by using different modules in different ways. Question: how can you remedy this situation? Knee-jerk answer: break the script up into single-responsibility modules. Comment on knee-jerk answer: it already is! Best answer I can come up with so far: create higher-level connector objects which "wire" modules together in particular ways (take output from one module, feed it as input to another module). Thus if our script was: FooInput fooIn = new FooInput(1, 2); FooOutput fooOutput = fooModule(fooIn); Double runtimevalue = getsomething(fooOutput.whatever); BarInput barIn = new BarInput( runtimevalue, fooOutput.someOtherValue); BarOutput barOut = barModule(BarIn); It would become with a connector: FooBarConnectionAlgo fooBarConnector = new fooBarConnector(fooModule, barModule); FooInput fooIn = new FooInput(1, 2); BarOutput barOut = fooBarConnector(fooIn); So the advantage is, besides hiding some code and making things clearer, we can test FooBarConnectionAlgo. I'm sure this situation comes up a lot. What do you do?

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• ORACLE UNIVERSITY

  - by mseika

  Expert Seminar in Dubai: Oracle Database Security Audit with Pete Finnigan Oracle University's Expert Seminars are delivered by the best Oracle Gurus in the industry from all over the world. These unique and informative seminars are designed to provide you with expert insight in your area of interest. Pete Finnigan is delivering the Expert Seminar ‘Oracle Database Security Audit’ on 16-17 January 2013 in Dubai. You can find more information here. Please note: Your OPN discount is applied to the standard price shown on the website. For assistance with bookings contact Oracle University: eMail: [email protected] Telephone: +971 4 39 09 050

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• Transferring local site to shared hosting

  - by Pete

  I'm looking to setup a simple online text processing tool similar to the Clang demo. The processing program itself is a C++ program which I can modify to provide the desired output I need. Since I use Linux+Perl daily and have used Apache in the past, I'd like to get this working locally first. My two questions are: Is it possible to do this with only Apache and Perl? I've looked into frameworks for doing this and quickly ran into The Paradox Of Choice. Will I be able to easily transfer a working local site to a shared hosting service? I want to administer as little as possible. My understanding is since this needs to run a C++ program that CGI is a requirement and thus I need to administer the httpd server. Hopefully this doesn't mean a VPS. Thanks

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• Is there a library that handles hexagon tiled 2D maps?

  - by Pete Mancini

  It would represent a map that is semi-square of arbitrary size. It would have a simple system for representation of the map coordinates such as 0101 (first column, 1st hex). I'd want the map to be able to tell me the distance between two points, and what other hexes lay between those two points as a list or array. I don't care as much about the language but c# or python would be ideal. Does one exist?

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• Numbers on the launcher

  - by pete of ebor

  Using 12.04 LTS - few days ago, I left my machine on while I went out. On my return, the launcher was showing (it is set to be hidden) and there were small numbers 1-9 on the icons and letters s on the bottom-most icon and t on the rubbish bin. System still worked fine, although the launcher remained visible, and would not hide. After about 20 mins work, they suddenly vanished and the launcher hid itself.. is this a normal action ? It hasn't happened since..

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• Ensuring ethernet is configured before continuing init scripts.

  - by Pete Ashdown

  Is there a better way to ensure that an ethernet port is configured before continuing through startup init scripts? When 802.3ad bonded ethernet is configured on Ubuntu, it takes some time before it finishes protocol negotiation and starts passing packets, because the networking script just configures, but does not verify that traffic is being passed. As a result, this can throw off some of the other network dependent scripts, like the init for drbd. Right now, I just have a loop that pings the gateway in a startup script, but this seems less than optimal: GATEWAYIP=10.0.0.1 while ( ! ping -c 1 $GATEWAYIP ); do echo gateway not up done

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• Is it OK to repeat code for unit tests?

  - by Pete

  I wrote some sorting algorithms for a class assignment and I also wrote a few tests to make sure the algorithms were implemented correctly. My tests are only like 10 lines long and there are 3 of them but only 1 line changes between the 3 so there is a lot of repeated code. Is it better to refactor this code into another method that is then called from each test? Wouldn't I then need to write another test to test the refactoring? Some of the variables can even be moved up to the class level. Should testing classes and methods follow the same rules as regular classes/methods? Here's an example: [TestMethod] public void MergeSortAssertArrayIsSorted() { int[] a = new int[1000]; Random rand = new Random(DateTime.Now.Millisecond); for(int i = 0; i < a.Length; i++) { a[i] = rand.Next(Int16.MaxValue); } int[] b = new int[1000]; a.CopyTo(b, 0); List<int> temp = b.ToList(); temp.Sort(); b = temp.ToArray(); MergeSort merge = new MergeSort(); merge.mergeSort(a, 0, a.Length - 1); CollectionAssert.AreEqual(a, b); } [TestMethod] public void InsertionSortAssertArrayIsSorted() { int[] a = new int[1000]; Random rand = new Random(DateTime.Now.Millisecond); for (int i = 0; i < a.Length; i++) { a[i] = rand.Next(Int16.MaxValue); } int[] b = new int[1000]; a.CopyTo(b, 0); List<int> temp = b.ToList(); temp.Sort(); b = temp.ToArray(); InsertionSort merge = new InsertionSort(); merge.insertionSort(a); CollectionAssert.AreEqual(a, b); }

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• No wifi using Ubuntu on laptops

  - by Pete G

  I have loaded Ubuntu onto two different laptops and both had the same result...no WiFi. I could access the internet if I plugged into Ethernet port but try as I might, I just could not access WiFi. I even tried Wine to install a Windows based external usb WiFi device but again...nothing. It functioned normally in Windows but with Ubuntu installed....nothing and this was the same whether it installed just Ubuntu or dual booted with Windows. Any suggestions? Thx!

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• How do I reduce package content on a custom install CD?

  - by Pete Ashdown

  I normally do all my installs via PXE server, but I'm building a custom CD for kvm installs that are not on the same vlan as my PXE server. I would prefer this CD was as small as possible and it fetched packages from the network like netinstall mini.iso CD does, but netinstall doesn't mount /cdrom like the server install CD does. I need the cdrom for preseed. I've got my custom server install CD working, but it is still ~700MB. Trying to modify "dists/lucid/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz" gives me no love as it complains that I've got a corrupt Packages.gz no matter what I do. I'd rather the preseeded mirror was used rather than CD once it gets the cdrom setup. Any ideas?

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• Implementing unit testing at a company that doesn't do it

  - by Pete

  My company's head of software development just "resigned" (i.e. fired) and we are now looking into improving the development practices at our company. We want to implement unit testing in all software created from here on out. Feedback from the developers is this: We know testing is valuable But, you are always changing the specs so it'd be a waste of time And, your deadlines are so tight we don't have enough time to test anyway Feedback from the CEO is this: I would like our company to have automated testing, but I don't know how to make it happen We don't have time to write large specification documents How do developers get the specs now? Word of mouth or PowerPoint slide. Obviously, that's a big problem. My suggestion is this: Let's also give the developers a set of test data and unit tests That's the spec. It's up to management to be clear and quantitative about what it wants. The developers can put it whatever other functionality they feel is needed and it need not be covered by tests Well, if you've ever been in a company that was in this situation, how did you solve the problem? Does this approach seem reasonable?

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• iPhone Keyboard hiding fields in UIWebView

  - by Pete

  Hi, I am a beginner at iPhone development and am hoping someone can help me with my question. I have a UIWebView displaying a web page. If the user taps inside a textbox on the web page then the keyboard pops up. This is great, but it hides the field that the user tapped on. I have looked around and found code samples to deal with this, but none that specifically deal with the UIWebView. I have implemented UIKeyboardDidShowNotification and UIKeyboardDidHideNotification but am not sure how to resize the UIWebView properly. I have tried putting the UIWebView in a UIScrollView but not had any success with that. The code below seems to adjust the UIWebView but won't let it scroll to the field. -(void) keyboardDidShow: (NSNotification *)notif{ if (keyboardShown) return; NSLog(@"Keyboard Show"); NSDictionary *info = [notif userInfo]; NSValue *aValue = [info objectForKey:UIKeyboardBoundsUserInfoKey]; CGSize keyboardSize = [aValue CGRectValue].size; CGRect viewFrame = webBrowser.frame; viewFrame.size.height -= keyboardSize.height; webBrowser.frame = viewFrame; keyboardShown = YES; } -(void) keyboardDidHide: (NSNotification *)notif{ NSLog(@"Keyboard hide"); keyboardShown = NO; } Hopefully someone can help me or point me in the right direction. Thanks! Pete

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• Need Help with SQL Subquery

  - by Pete Augello

  Hey: I am trying to write a query that will return all orders that only have a Subscription included. It is easy enough to write a query that includes all Orders with Subscriptions, another that includes all orders without a Subscription and then compare them with an unmatched query. But I don't want to have to store Queries in my Access database, I prefer to have it all in my ASP code, and I can't get this to work with just one complex query. Here are samples of what works if I store them: Query1 SELECT tblOrders.OrderID, tblOrderItems.ProductID FROM tblOrders INNER JOIN tblOrderItems ON tblOrders.OrderID = tblOrderItems.OrderID WHERE ((Not ((tblOrderItems.ProductID)=12 And (tblOrderItems.ProductID)<=15))); Query2 SELECT tblOrders.OrderID, tblOrderItems.ProductID FROM tblOrders INNER JOIN tblOrderItems ON tblOrders.OrderID = tblOrderItems.OrderID WHERE ((((tblOrderItems.ProductID)=12 And (tblOrderItems.ProductID)<=15))); Query3 SELECT Query2.OrderID, Query2.ProductID FROM Query2 LEFT JOIN Query1 ON Query2.OrderID = Query1.OrderID WHERE (((Query1.OrderID) Is Null)); So, my question is 'how do I write Query3 so that it doesn't refer to Query1 or Query2?' or, am I missing some other way do do this? Thanks, Pete [email protected]

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• How can I coordinate code review tool and RCS (specifically git)

  - by Chris Nelson

  We're committed to git for code management. We're trying to find a tool that will help us systematize code reviews. We're considering Gerrit and Code Collaborator but would welcome other suggestions. We're having a problem answering the question, "How do we know every commit was reviewed?" (Or "What commits have yet to be reviewed?") One answer would be to submit every commit or every push for review and track incomplete reviews in the review tool. I'm not entirely happy with relying on a another tool -- especially if it's not open source -- to tell us this. What seems to be a better answer is to rely on sign offs in git (e.g., "Signed-off-by: Chris Nelson") and use a hook in the review tool to sign off commits on behalf of the reviewer. And advantage of this is if we use some other review mechanism for some commits, we have just one place to look for results. One problem with this is that we can't require review before push because the review tool is unlikely to have access to the developer's private repository clone to add the sign-off. Any ideas on integrating code review with code management to achieve ease of use and high visibility of unreviewed changes?

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• Q&amp;A: Can you develop for the Windows Azure Platform using Windows XP?

  - by Eric Nelson

  This question has come up several times recently as we take several hundred UK developers through 6 Weeks of Windows Azure training (sorry – we are full). Short answer: In the main, yes Longer answer: The question is sparked by the requirements as stated on the Windows Azure SDK download page. Namely: Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7; Windows Vista; Windows Vista 64-bit Editions Service Pack 1; Windows Vista Business; Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Enterprise; Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Home Premium; Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Service Pack 1; Windows Vista Service Pack 2; Windows Vista Ultimate; Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition Notice there is no mention of Windows XP. However things are not quite that simple. The Windows Azure Platform consists of three released technologies Windows Azure SQL Azure Windows Azure platform AppFabric The Windows Azure SDK is only for one of the three technologies, Windows Azure. What about SQL Azure and AppFabric? Well it turns out that you can develop for both of these technologies just fine with Windows XP: SQL Azure development is really just SQL Server development with a few gotchas – and for local development you can simply use SQL Server 2008 R2 Express (other versions will also work). AppFabric also has no local simulation environment and the SDK will install fine on Windows XP (SDK download) Actually it is also possible to do Windows Azure development on Windows XP if you are willing to always work directly against the real Azure cloud running in Microsoft datacentres. However in practice this would be painful and time consuming, hence why the Windows Azure SDK installs a local simulation environment. Therefore if you want to develop for Windows Azure I would recommend you either upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 or… you use a virtual machine running Windows 7. If this is a temporary requirement, then you could consider building a virtual machine using the Windows 7 Enterprise 90 day eval. Or you could download a pre-configured VHD – but I can’t quite find the link for a Windows 7 VHD. Pointers welcomed. Thanks.

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• 5 Steps to getting started with IronRuby

  - by Eric Nelson

  IronRuby is a Open Source implementation of the Ruby programming language for .NET, heavily relying on Microsoft's Dynamic Language Runtime. The project's #1 goal is to be a true Ruby implementation, meaning it runs existing Ruby code. Check out this summary of using the Ruby standard library and 3rd party libraries in IronRuby. IronRuby has tight integration with .NET, so any .NET types can be used from IronRuby and the IronRuby runtime can be embedded into any .NET application. These 5 steps should get you nicely up and running on IronRuby – OR … you could just watch a video session from the lead developer which took place earlier this month (March 2010 - 60mins). But the 5 steps will be quicker :-) Step 1 – Install IronRuby :-) You can install IronRuby automatically using an MSI or manually. For simplicity I would recommend the MSI install. TIP: As of the 25th of March IronRuby has not quite shipped. The download above is a Release Candidate (RC) which means it is still undergoing final testing by the team. You will need to uninstall this version (RC3) once the final release is available. The good news is that uninstalling IronRuby RC3 will work without a hitch as the MSI does relatively little. Step 2 – Install an IronRuby friendly editor You will need to Install an editor to work with IronRuby as there is no designer support for IronRuby inside Visual Studio. There are many editors to choose from but I would recommend you either went with: SciTE (Download the MSI): This is a lightweight text editor which is simple to get up and running. SciTE understands Ruby syntax and allows you to easily run IronRuby code within the editor with a small change to the config file. SharpDevelop 3.2 (Download the MSI): This is an open source development environment for C#, VB, Boo and now IronRuby. IronRuby support is new but it does include integrated debugging. You might also want to check out the main site for SharpDevelop. TIP: There are commercial tools for Ruby development which offer richer support such as intellisense.. They can be coerced into working with IronRuby. A good one to start with is RubyMine which needs some small changes to make it work with IronRuby. Step 3 – Run the IronRuby Tutorial Run through the IronRuby tutorial which is included in the IronRuby download. It covers off the basics of the Ruby languages and how IronRuby integrates with .NET. In a typical install it will end up at C:\Program Files\IronRuby 0.9.4.0\Samples\Tutorial. Which will give you the tutorial implemented in .NET and Ruby. TIP: You might also want to check out these two introductory posts Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the ‘Hello World of WPF’ and What's IronRuby, and how do I put it on Rails? Step 4 – Get some good books to read Get a great book on Ruby and IronRuby. There are several free ebooks on Ruby which will help you learn the language. The little book of Ruby is a good place to start. I would also recommend you purchase IronRuby Unleashed (Buy on Amazon UK | Buy on Amazon USA). You might also want to check out this mini-review. Other books are due out soon including IronRuby in Action. TIP: Also check out the official documentation for using .NET from IronRuby. Step 5 – Keep an eye on the team blogs Keep an eye on the IronRuby team blogs including Jimmy Schementi, Jim Deville and Tomas Matousek (full list) TIP: And keep a watch out for the final release of IronRuby – due anytime soon!

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• GuestPost: Unit Testing Entity Framework (v1) Dependent Code using TypeMock Isolator

  - by Eric Nelson

  Time for another guest post (check out others in the series), this time bringing together the world of mocking with the world of Entity Framework. A big thanks to Moses for agreeing to do this. Unit Testing Entity Framework Dependent Code using TypeMock Isolator by Muhammad Mosa Introduction Unit testing data access code in my opinion is a challenging thing. Let us consider unit tests and integration tests. In integration tests you are allowed to have environmental dependencies such as a physical database connection to insert, update, delete or retrieve your data. However when performing unit tests it is often much more efficient and productive to remove environmental dependencies. Instead you will need to fake these dependencies. Faking a database (also known as mocking) can be relatively straight forward but the version of Entity Framework released with .Net 3.5 SP1 has a number of implementation specifics which actually makes faking the existence of a database quite difficult. Faking Entity Framework As mentioned earlier, to effectively unit test you will need to fake/simulate Entity Framework calls to the database. There are many free open source mocking frameworks that can help you achieve this but it will require additional effort to overcome & workaround a number of limitations in those frameworks. Examples of these limitations include: Not able to fake calls to non virtual methods Not able to fake sealed classes Not able to fake LINQ to Entities queries (replace database calls with in-memory collection calls) There is a mocking framework which is flexible enough to handle limitations such as those above. The commercially available TypeMock Isolator can do the job for you with less code and ultimately more readable unit tests. I’m going to demonstrate tackling one of those limitations using MoQ as my mocking framework. Then I will tackle the same issue using TypeMock Isolator. Mocking Entity Framework with MoQ One basic need when faking Entity Framework is to fake the ObjectContext. This cannot be done by passing any connection string. You have to pass a correct Entity Framework connection string that specifies CSDL, SSDL and MSL locations along with a provider connection string. Assuming we are going to do that, we’ll explore another limitation. The limitation we are going to face now is related to not being able to fake calls to non-virtual/overridable members with MoQ. I have the following repository method that adds an EntityObject (instance of a Blog entity) to Blogs entity set in an ObjectContext. public override void Add(Blog blog) { if(BlogContext.Blogs.Any(b=>b.Name == blog.Name)) { throw new InvalidOperationException("Blog with same name already exists!"); } BlogContext.AddToBlogs(blog); } The method does a very simple check that the name of the new Blog entity instance doesn’t exist. This is done through the simple LINQ query above. If the blog doesn’t already exist it simply adds it to the current context to be saved when SaveChanges of the ObjectContext instance (e.g. BlogContext) is called. However, if a blog with the same name exits, and exception (InvalideOperationException) will be thrown. Let us now create a unit test for the Add method using MoQ. [TestMethod] [ExpectedException(typeof(InvalidOperationException))] public void Add_Should_Throw_InvalidOperationException_When_Blog_With_Same_Name_Already_Exits() { //(1) We shouldn't depend on configuration when doing unit tests! But, //its a workaround to fake the ObjectContext string connectionString = ConfigurationManager .ConnectionStrings["MyBlogConnString"] .ConnectionString; //(2) Arrange: Fake ObjectContext var fakeContext = new Mock<MyBlogContext>(connectionString); //(3) Next Line will pass, as ObjectContext now can be faked with proper connection string var repo = new BlogRepository(fakeContext.Object); //(4) Create fake ObjectQuery<Blog>. Will be used to substitute MyBlogContext.Blogs property var fakeObjectQuery = new Mock<ObjectQuery<Blog>>("[Blogs]", fakeContext.Object); //(5) Arrange: Set Expectations //Next line will throw an exception by MoQ: //System.ArgumentException: Invalid setup on a non-overridable member fakeContext.SetupGet(c=>c.Blogs).Returns(fakeObjectQuery.Object); fakeObjectQuery.Setup(q => q.Any(b => b.Name == "NewBlog")).Returns(true); //Act repo.Add(new Blog { Name = "NewBlog" }); } This test method is checking to see if the correct exception ([ExpectedException(typeof(InvalidOperationException))]) is thrown when a developer attempts to Add a blog with a name that’s already exists. On (1) a connection string is initialized from configuration file. To retrieve the full connection string. On (2) a fake ObjectContext is being created. The ObjectContext here is MyBlogContext and its being created using this var fakeContext = new Mock<MyBlogContext>(connectionString); This way a fake context is being created using MoQ. On (3) a BlogRepository instance is created. BlogRepository has dependency on generate Entity Framework ObjectContext, MyObjectContext. And so the fake context is passed to the constructor. var repo = new BlogRepository(fakeContext.Object); On (4) a fake instance of ObjectQuery<Blog> is being created to use as a substitute to MyObjectContext.Blogs property as we will see in (5). On (5) setup an expectation for calling Blogs property of MyBlogContext and substitute the return result with the fake ObjectQuery<Blog> instance created on (4). When you run this test it will fail with MoQ throwing an exception because of this line: fakeContext.SetupGet(c=>c.Blogs).Returns(fakeObjectQuery.Object); This happens because the generate property MyBlogContext.Blogs is not virtual/overridable. And assuming it is virtual or you managed to make it virtual it will fail at the following line throwing the same exception: fakeObjectQuery.Setup(q => q.Any(b => b.Name == "NewBlog")).Returns(true); This time the test will fail because the Any extension method is not virtual/overridable. You won’t be able to replace ObjectQuery<Blog> with fake in memory collection to test your LINQ to Entities queries. Now lets see how replacing MoQ with TypeMock Isolator can help. Mocking Entity Framework with TypeMock Isolator The following is the same test method we had above for MoQ but this time implemented using TypeMock Isolator: [TestMethod] [ExpectedException(typeof(InvalidOperationException))] public void Add_New_Blog_That_Already_Exists_Should_Throw_InvalidOperationException() { //(1) Create fake in memory collection of blogs var fakeInMemoryBlogs = new List<Blog> {new Blog {Name = "FakeBlog"}}; //(2) create fake context var fakeContext = Isolate.Fake.Instance<MyBlogContext>(); //(3) Setup expected call to MyBlogContext.Blogs property through the fake context Isolate.WhenCalled(() => fakeContext.Blogs) .WillReturnCollectionValuesOf(fakeInMemoryBlogs.AsQueryable()); //(4) Create new blog with a name that already exits in the fake in memory collection in (1) var blog = new Blog {Name = "FakeBlog"}; //(5) Instantiate instance of BlogRepository (Class under test) var repo = new BlogRepository(fakeContext); //(6) Acting by adding the newly created blog () repo.Add(blog); } When running the above test method it will pass as the Add method of BlogRepository is going to throw an InvalidOperationException which is the expected behaviour. Nothing prevents us from faking out the database interaction! Even faking ObjectContext  at (2) didn’t require a connection string. On (3) Isolator sets up a faking result for MyBlogContext.Blogs when its being called through the fake instance fakeContext created on (2). The faking result is just an in-memory collection declared an initialized on (1). Finally at (6) action we call the Add method of BlogRepository passing a new Blog instance that has a name that’s already exists in the fake in-memory collection which we set up at (1). As expected the test will pass because it will throw the expected exception defined on top of the test method - InvalidOperationException. TypeMock Isolator succeeded in faking Entity Framework with ease. Conclusion We explored how to write a simple unit test using TypeMock Isolator for code which is using Entity Framework. We also explored a few of the limitations of other mocking frameworks which TypeMock is successfully able to handle. There are workarounds that you can use to overcome limitations when using MoQ or Rhino Mock, however the workarounds will require you to write more code and your tests will likely be more complex. For a comparison between different mocking frameworks take a look at this document produced by TypeMock. You might also want to check out this open source project to compare mocking frameworks. I hope you enjoyed this post Muhammad Mosa http://mosesofegypt.net/ http://twitter.com/mosessaur Screencast of unit testing Entity Framework Related Links GuestPost: Introduction to Mocking GuesPost: Typemock Isolator – Much more than an Isolation framework

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