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Replication - between pools in the same system

- by Steve Tunstall

OK, I fully understand that's it's been a LONG time since I've blogged with any tips or tricks on the ZFSSA, and I'm way behind. Hey, I just wrote TWO BLOGS ON THE SAME DAY!!! Make sure you keep scrolling down to see the next one too, or you may have missed it. To celebrate, for the one or two of you out there who are still reading this, I got something for you. The first TWO people who make any comment below, with your real name and email so I can contact you, will get some cool Oracle SWAG that I have to give away. Don't get excited, it's not an iPad, but it pretty good stuff. Only the first two, so if you already see two below, then settle down. Now, let's talk about Replication and Migration. I have talked before about Shadow Migration here: https://blogs.oracle.com/7000tips/entry/shadow_migrationShadow Migration lets one take a NFS or CIFS share in one pool on a system and migrate that data over to another pool in the same system. That's handy, but right now it's only for file systems like NFS and CIFS. It will not work for LUNs. LUN shadow migration is a roadmap item, however. So.... What if you have a ZFSSA cluster with multiple pools, and you have a LUN in one pool but later you decide it's best if it was in the other pool? No problem. Replication to the rescue. What's that? Replication is only for replicating data between two different systems? Who told you that? We've been able to replicate to the same system now for a few code updates back. These instructions below will also work just fine if you're setting up replication between two different systems. After replication is complete, you can easily break replication, change the new LUN into a primary LUN and then delete the source LUN. Bam. Step 1- setup a target system. In our case, the target system is ourself, but you still have to set it up like it's far away. Go to Configuration-->Services-->Remote Replication. Click the plus sign and setup the target, which is the ZFSSA you're on now. Step 2. Now you can go to the LUN you want to replicate. Take note which Pool and Project you're in. In my case, I have a LUN in Pool2 called LUNp2 that I wish to replicate to Pool1. Step 3. In my case, I made a Project called "Luns" and it has LUNp2 inside of it. I am going to replicate the Project, which will automatically replicate all of the LUNs and/or Filesystems inside of it. Now, you can also replicate from the Share level instead of the Project. That will only replicate the share, and not all the other shares of a project. If someone tells you that if you replicate a share, it always replicates all the other shares also in that Project, don't listen to them.Note below how I can choose not only the Target (which is myself), but I can also choose which Pool to replicate it to. So I choose Pool1. Step 4. I did not choose a schedule or pick the "Continuous" button, which means my replication will be manual only. I can now push the Manual Replicate button on my Actions list and you will see it start. You will see both a barber pole animation and also an update in the status bar on the top of the screen that a replication event has begun. This also goes into the event log. Step 5. The status bar will also log an event when it's done. Step 6. If you go back to Configuration-->Services-->Remote Replication, you will see your event. Step 7. Done. To see your new replica, go to the other Pool (Pool1 for me), and click the "Replica" area below the words "Filesystems | LUNs" Here, you will see any replicas that have come in from any of your sources. It's a simple matter from here to break the replication, which will change this to a "Local" LUN, and then delete the original LUN back in Pool2. Ok, that's all for now, but I promise to give out more tricks sometime in November !!! There's very exciting stuff coming down the pipe for the ZFSSA. Both new hardware and new software features that I'm just drooling over. That's all I can say, but contact your local sales SC to get a NDA roadmap talk if you want to hear more. Happy Halloween,Steve

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Profit's COLLABORATE 10 Session Selections

- by Aaron Lazenby

COLLABORATE 2010 is a mere 11 days away (thanks for the reminder @ocp_advisor). Every year I publish my a list of the sessions I think reflect some of the more interesting people/trends in enterprise IT. I should be at all of these sessions, so drop by for a chat--I'll be the guy tapping out emails on my iPad... Monday, April 19 9:15 a.m. - Keynote: Transforming Customer Value, Delivering Highest Customer Service Location: Keynote Hall I never miss Charles Phillips when he speaks--it's one of the best opportunities to get an update on Oracle product developments and strategy. And there's certainly occasion for an update: this will be Phillips' first big presentation since the Oracle + Sun Strategy Update in late January. Phillips is appearing with Oracle Executive Vice President of Development Thomas Kurian which means there should be some excellent information about how customers are using Oracle's complete software and hardware stack to address enterprise IT challenges. The session should provide some excellent context for the rest of the week's session...don't miss it. 10:45 a.m. - Oracle Fusion Applications: Functional Overview Location: South Seas FI met Basheer Khan at COLLABORATE 08 in Denver and have followed his work ever since. He's a former member of the OAUG Board of Directors, an Oracle ACE, and a charismatic enterprise IT expert. Having worked with the Oracle Usability Advisory Board, Basheer should have some fascinating insights to share about the features and interface of Oracle's Fusine Applications. This session, along with Nadia Bendjedou's "10 Things You Can Do Today to Prepare for the Next Generation Applications" (on Tuesday, April 20 8:00 a.m. in room 3662) should give attendees the update they need about Oracle's next-generation applications. 1:15p.m. - E-Business Suite in the Amazon Cloud Location: South Seas HI did my first full-fledged cloud computing coverage at last year's COLLABORATE show (check out my interview with Oracle's Bill Hodak), where I first learned about Amazon's EC2 offering. I've since talked with several people who have provisioned server space on Amazon's cloud with great results. So I'm looking forward to watching the audience configure an instance of the Oracle E-Business Suite release 12 on the cloud while Chuck Edwards from Blue Gecko drives. This session should take some of the mist and vapor out of the cloud conversation.2:30 p.m. - "Zero Sign-on" to EBS - Enabling 96000 Users to Login to EBS Without User Maintenance Location: South Seas HI'll be sitting tight in South Seas H for the next session on Monday where Doug Pepka, a ten-year veteran of communications giant Comcast, will be walking attendees through a massive single sign-on (SSO) project across the enterprise. I'm working on a story about SSO for the August issue of Profit, so this session has real practical value to me. Plus the proliferation of user account logins--both personal and professional--makes this a critical usability/change management issue for IT leaders planning for successful long-term IT implementations. Tuesday 8:00 am - Information Architecture for Men in Kilts Location: SURF AGetting to a 8:00 a.m. presentation is a tall order in Las Vegas, but presenter Billy Cripe will make it worth your effort. Not only is the title of this session great, but the content should appeal to any IT strategist looking to push the limits of Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise. Cripe is a product management director of Enterprise 2.0 and Enterprise Content Management at Oracle, author of Reshaping Your Business with Web 2.0, and a prolific blogger--he knows how information architecture is critical to and enterprise 2.0 implementation. 10:30a.m. - Oracle Virtualization: From Desktop to Data Center Location: REEF FData center virtualization is still one of the best ways to reduce the cost of running enterprise IT. With the addition of Sun products, Oracle has the industry's most comprehensive virtualization portfolio. I must admit, I'm no expert in this subject. So I'm looking forward to Monica Kumar's presentation so I can get up to speed. Wednesday 8:00 a.m. - The Art of the Steal Location: Mandalay Bay Ballroom JMany will know Frank Abagnale from Steven Spielberg's 2002 film "Catch Me if You Can." The one-time con man and international fugitive who swindled $2.5 million in forged checks went on to help U.S. federal officials investigate fraud cases. Now the CEO of Abagnale and Associates, he has become an invaluable source to the business world on the subject of fraud and fraud protection. With identity theft and digital fraud still on the rise, this session should be an entertaining, and sobering, education on the threats facing businesses and customers around the world. A great way to start Wednesday.1:00 p.m. - Google Wave: Will it replace e-mail as we know it today? Location: SURF EBy many assessments (my own included), Google Wave is a bit of an open collaboration failure. It may seem like an odd reason for me to be excited about this session, but I'm looking forward to the chance to revisit the technology. Also, this is a great case study in connecting free, available Internet tools to existing enterprise computing environments--an issue that IT strategists must contend with as workers spreads out and choose their own productivity tools.

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Towards an F# .NET Reflector add-in

- by CliveT

When I had the opportunity to spent some time during Red Gate's recent "down tools" week on a project of my choice, the obvious project was an F# add-in for Reflector . To be honest, this was a bit of a misnomer as the amount of time in the designated week for coding was really less than three days, so it was always unlikely that very much progress would be made in such a small amount of time (and that certainly proved to be the case), but I did learn some things from the experiment. Like lots of problems, one useful technique is to take examples, get them to work, and then generalise to get something that works across the board. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to do the last stage. The obvious first step is to take a few function definitions, starting with the obvious hello world, moving on to a non-recursive function and finishing with the ubiquitous recursive Fibonacci function. let rec printMessage message = printfn message let foo x = (x + 1) let rec fib x = if (x >= 2) then (fib (x - 1) + fib (x - 2)) else 1 The major problem in decompiling these simple functions is that Reflector has an in-memory object model that is designed to support object-oriented languages. In particular it has a return statement that allows function bodies to finish early. I used some of the in-built functionality to take the IL and produce an in-memory object model for the language, but then needed to write a transformer to push the return statements to the top of the tree to make it easy to render the code into a functional language. This tree transform works in some scenarios, but not in others where we simply regenerate code that looks more like CPS style. The next thing to get working was library level bindings of values where these values are calculated at runtime. let x = [1 ; 2 ; 3 ; 4] let y = List.map (fun x -> foo x) x The way that this is translated into a set of classes for the underlying platform means that the code needs to follow references around, from the property exposing the calculated value to the class in which the code for generating the value is embedded. One of the strongest selling points of functional languages is the algebraic datatypes, which allow definitions via standard mathematical-style inductive definitions across the union cases. type Foo = | Something of int | Nothing type 'a Foo2 = | Something2 of 'a | Nothing2 Such a definition is compiled into a number of classes for the cases of the union, which all inherit from a class representing the type itself. It wasn't too hard to get such a de-compilation happening in the cases I tried. What did I learn from this? Firstly, that there are various bits of functionality inside Reflector that it would be useful for us to allow add-in writers to access. In particular, there are various implementations of the Visitor pattern which implement algorithms such as calculating the number of references for particular variables, and which perform various substitutions which could be more generally useful to add-in writers. I hope to do something about this at some point in the future. Secondly, when you transform a functional language into something that runs on top of an object-based platform, you lose some fidelity in the representation. The F# compiler leaves attributes in place so that tools can tell which classes represent classes from the source program and which are there for purposes of the implementation, allowing the decompiler to regenerate these constructs again. However, decompilation technology is a long way from being able to take unannotated IL and transform it into a program in a different language. For a simple function definition, like Fibonacci, I could write a simple static function and have it come out in F# as the same function, but it would be practically impossible to take a mass of class definitions and have a decompiler translate it automatically into an F# algebraic data type. What have we got out of this? Some data on the feasibility of implementing an F# decompiler inside Reflector, though it's hard at the moment to say how long this would take to do. The work we did is included the 6.5 EAP for Reflector that you can get from the EAP forum. All things considered though, it was a useful way to gain more familiarity with the process of writing an add-in and understand difficulties other add-in authors might experience. If you'd like to check out a video of Down Tools Week, click here.

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Switching the layout in Orchard CMS

- by Bertrand Le Roy

The UI composition in Orchard is extremely flexible, thanks in no small part to the usage of dynamic Clay shapes. Every notable UI construct in Orchard is built as a shape that other parts of the system can then party on and modify any way they want. Case in point today: modifying the layout (which is a shape) on the fly to provide custom page structures for different parts of the site. This might actually end up being built-in Orchard 1.0 but for the moment it’s not in there. Plus, it’s quite interesting to see how it’s done. We are going to build a little extension that allows for specialized layouts in addition to the default layout.cshtml that Orchard understands out of the box. The extension will add the possibility to add the module name (or, in MVC terms, area name) to the template name, or module and controller names, or module, controller and action names. For example, the home page is served by the HomePage module, so with this extension you’ll be able to add an optional layout-homepage.cshtml file to your theme to specialize the look of the home page while leaving all other pages using the regular layout.cshtml. I decided to implement this sample as a theme with code. This way, the new overrides are only enabled as the theme is activated, which makes a lot of sense as this is going to be where you’ll be creating those additional layouts. The first thing I did was to create my own theme, derived from the default TheThemeMachine with this command: codegen theme CustomLayoutMachine /CreateProject:true /IncludeInSolution:true /BasedOn:TheThemeMachine .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: 12px; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Once that was done, I worked around a known bug and moved the new project from the Modules solution folder into Themes (the code was already physically in the right place, this is just about Visual Studio editing). The CreateProject flag in the command-line created a project file for us in the theme’s folder. This is only necessary if you want to run code outside of views from that theme. The code that we want to add is the following LayoutFilter.cs: using System.Linq; using System.Web.Mvc; using System.Web.Routing; using Orchard; using Orchard.Mvc.Filters; namespace CustomLayoutMachine.Filters { public class LayoutFilter : FilterProvider, IResultFilter { private readonly IWorkContextAccessor _wca; public LayoutFilter(IWorkContextAccessor wca) { _wca = wca; } public void OnResultExecuting(ResultExecutingContext filterContext) { var workContext = _wca.GetContext(); var routeValues = filterContext.RouteData.Values; workContext.Layout.Metadata.Alternates.Add( BuildShapeName(routeValues, "area")); workContext.Layout.Metadata.Alternates.Add( BuildShapeName(routeValues, "area", "controller")); workContext.Layout.Metadata.Alternates.Add( BuildShapeName(routeValues, "area", "controller", "action")); } public void OnResultExecuted(ResultExecutedContext filterContext) { } private static string BuildShapeName( RouteValueDictionary values, params string[] names) { return "Layout__" + string.Join("__", names.Select(s => ((string)values[s] ?? "").Replace(".", "_"))); } } } This filter is intercepting ResultExecuting, which is going to provide a context object out of which we can extract the route data. We are also injecting an IWorkContextAccessor dependency that will give us access to the current Layout object, so that we can add alternate shape names to its metadata. We are adding three possible shape names to the default, with different combinations of area, controller and action names. For example, a request to a blog post is going to be routed to the “Orchard.Blogs” module’s “BlogPost” controller’s “Item” action. Our filters will then add the following shape names to the default “Layout”: Layout__Orchard_Blogs Layout__Orchard_Blogs__BlogPost Layout__Orchard_Blogs__BlogPost__Item Those template names get mapped into the following file names by the system (assuming the Razor view engine): Layout-Orchard_Blogs.cshtml Layout-Orchard_Blogs-BlogPost.cshtml Layout-Orchard_Blogs-BlogPost-Item.cshtml This works for any module/controller/action of course, but in the sample I created Layout-HomePage.cshtml (a specific layout for the home page), Layout-Orchard_Blogs.cshtml (a layout for all the blog views) and Layout-Orchard_Blogs-BlogPost-Item.cshtml (a layout that is specific to blog posts). Of course, this is just an example, and this kind of dynamic extension of shapes that you didn’t even create in the first place is highly encouraged in Orchard. You don’t have to do it from a filter, we only did it this way because that was a good place where we could get the context that we needed. And of course, you can base your alternate shape names on something completely different from route values if you want. For example, you might want to create your own part that modifies the layout for a specific content item, or you might want to do it based on the raw URL (like it’s done in widget rules) or who knows what crazy custom rule. The point of all this is to show that extending or modifying shapes is easy, and the layout just happens to be a shape. In other words, you can do whatever you want. Ain’t that nice? The custom theme can be found here: Orchard.Theme.CustomLayoutMachine.1.0.nupkg Many thanks to Louis, who showed me how to do this.

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Oracle Delivers Latest Release of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c

- by Scott McNeil

Richer Service Catalog for Database and Middleware as a Service; Enhanced Database and Middleware Management Help Drive Enterprise-Scale Private Cloud Adoption News Summary IT organizations are adopting private clouds as a stepping-stone to business-driven, self-service IT. Successful implementations hinge on the ability to efficiently deploy and manage cloud services at enterprise scale. Having a complete cloud management solution integrated with an enterprise-class technology stack is a fundamental requirement for IT. Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 4 meets that requirement by helping businesses become more agile and responsive, while reducing cost, complexity, and risk. News Facts Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 4, available today, lets organizations rapidly adopt Oracle-based, enterprise-scale private clouds. New capabilities provide advanced technology stack management, secure database administration, and enterprise service governance, enabling Oracle customers and partners to maximize database and application performance and drive innovation using self-service IT platforms. The enhancements have been driven by customers and the growing Oracle Enterprise Manager Ecosystem, comprised of more than 750 Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized partners. Oracle and its partners and customers have built over 140 plug-ins and connectors for Oracle Enterprise Manager. Watch the video highlights. Automation for Broader Cloud Services Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 4 allows for a rapid enterprise-wide adoption of database, middleware and infrastructure services in the private cloud, driven by an enhanced API-enabled service catalog. The release features “push button” style provisioning of complete environments such as SOA and Oracle Active Data Guard, and fast data cloning that enables rapid deployment and testing of enterprise applications. Out-of-the-box capabilities to detect data and configuration vulnerabilities provide enhanced cloud service governance along with greater operational control through a flexible and extensible showback mechanism. Enhanced Database Management A new performance warehouse enables predictive database diagnostics and trend analysis and helps identify database problems before they occur. New enterprise data-governance capabilities enhance security by helping systematically discover and protect sensitive data. Step-by-step orchestration of upgrades with the ability to rollback changes enables faster adoption of Oracle Database 12c. Expanded Fusion Middleware Management A new consolidated view of Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c deployments with a guided management capability lets administrators apply best management practices to diverse middleware environments and identify performance issues quickly. A Java VM Diagnostics as a Service feature allows governed access to diagnostics data for IT workers across multiple disciplines for accelerated DevOps resolutions of defects and performance optimization. New automated provisioning for SOA lets middleware administrators perform mass SOA provisioning with ease. Superior Enterprise-Grade Management Private roles and preferred credentials have been added to Oracle Enterprise Manager to provide additional fine-grained security for organizations with complex access control requirements. A new security console provides a single point of control for managing the security of Oracle Enterprise Manager environments. Support for the latest industry standard SNMP v3 protocol, including encryption, enables more secure heterogeneous management. “Smart monitoring” adapts to observed environmental changes and adds self-management capabilities to help Oracle Enterprise Manager run at peak performance, while demanding less IT supervision. Supporting Quotes “Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a strong tradition of technology breakthroughs and leadership. As a member of Oracle’s Customer Advisory Board for Oracle Enterprise Manager, we have consistently provided feedback and guidance in the areas of enterprise-scale cloud, self-diagnosability, and secure administration for the product,” said Tim Frazier, CIO, NIF and Photon Sciences, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “We intend to take advantage of the Release 4 features that support enterprise-scale availability and fine-grained security capabilities for private cloud deployments.” “IDC's most recent CloudTrack survey shows that most enterprises plan to adopt hybrid cloud architectures over the next three years,” said Mary Johnston Turner, Research Vice President, Enterprise System Management Software, IDC. “These organizations plan to deploy a wide range of workloads into cloud environments including mission critical database and middleware services that require high levels of fault tolerance and disaster recovery. Such capabilities were traditionally custom configured for each application but cloud offers the possibility to incorporate such properties within the service definition, enabling organizations to adopt cloud without compromise. With the latest release of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c, Oracle is providing customers with an out-of-the-box experience for delivering highly-resilient cloud services for databases and applications.” “Since its inception, Oracle has been leading the way in innovative, scalable and high performance solutions for the enterprise. With this release of Oracle Enterprise Manager, we are extending this leadership by providing enterprise-scale capabilities for planning, delivering, and managing private clouds. We call this ‘zero-to-cloud – accelerated.’ These enhancements help our customers to expedite their adoption of cloud computing and prepares them for the next generation of self-service IT,” said Prakash Ramamurthy, senior vice president of Systems and Cloud Management at Oracle. Supporting Resources Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Video: Cerner Delivers High Performance Private Cloud Video: BIAS Achieves Outstanding Results with Private Cloud Press Release Stay Connected: Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Linkedin | Newsletter Download the Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Mobile app

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Answers to “What source control system do you use?” (and some winners)

- by jamiet

About a month ago I posed a question here on my blog SQL Server devs–what source control system do you use, if any? (answer and maybe win free stuff) in which I asked SQL Server developers to answer the following questions: Are you putting your SQL Server code into a source control system? If so, what source control server software (e.g. TFS, Git, SVN, Mercurial, SourceSafe, Perforce) are you using? What source control client software are you using (e.g. TFS Team Explorer, Tortoise, Red Gate SQL Source Control, Red Gate SQL Connect, Git Bash, etc…)? Why did you make those particular software choices? Any interesting anecdotes to share in regard to your use of source control and SQL Server? I had some really great responses (I highly recommend going and reading them). I promised that the five best, most thought-provoking, responses (as determined by me) would win one of five pairs of licenses for Red Gate SQL Source Control and Red Gate SQL Connect; here are the five that I chose (note that if you responded but did not leave a means of getting in touch then you weren’t considered for one of the prizes – sorry): In general, I don't think the management overhead and licensing cost associated with TFS is worthwhile if all you're doing is using source control. To get value from TFS, at a minimum you need to be using team build, and possibly other stuff as well, such as the sharepoint integration. If that's all you need, then svn with Tortoise would be my first choice. If you want to add build automation later, you can do this with cruisecontrol (is it still called that?), JetBrains, etc. For a long time I thought that Redgate's claims about "bridging the SSMS-VS divide" were a load of hot air, since in my experience anyone who knew what they were doing was using Visual Studio, in particular SSDT and its predecessors. However, on a recent client I was putting in source control for the first time, and I discovered that the "divide" really does exist. That client has ended up using svn with Redgate SQL Source Control, with no build automation, but with scope to add it in the future. Gavin Campbell I think putting the DB under source control is a great idea. I have issues with the earlier versions of SQL Source Control in that it provides little help in versioning the DB. I think the latest version merges SQL Compare and SQL Source Control together. Which is how it should have been all along. Sure I have the DB scripts in SVN, but I can't automate DB builds and changes without more tools. Frankly I'm surprised databases don't have some sort of versioning built into them. Nick Portelli Source control has been immensely useful and saved me from a lot of rework on more than one occasion. I have learned that you have to be extremely careful checking in data. Our system is internal only so during the system production run once a week, if there is a problem that I can fix easily(for example, a control table points to a file in the wrong environment), I'll do it directly in production so the run can continue as soon as possible since we have a specified time window. We do full test runs to minimize this but it has come up once or twice. We use Red-Gate source control to "push" from the test environment to the production environment. There have been a couple of occasions where the test environment with the wrong setting was pushed back over the production environment because the change was made only in production. Gotta keep an eye on that. Alan Dykes Goodness is it manual. And can be extremely painful at times. Not only are we running thin, we are constrained on the tools we can get ($$ must mean free). Certainly no excuse, and a great opportunity to improve my skills by learning new things. But... Getting buy in a on a proven process or methodology is hard, takes time, and diverts us from development. If SQL Source Control is easy to use and proven oh boy could you get some serious fans around here! Seriously though, as the "accidental dba" of this shop any new ideas / easy to implement tools can make a world of difference in productivity and most importantly accuracy. Manual = bad. :) John Hennesey (who left his email address) The one thing I would love to know more about is the unique challenges of working with databases as source code - you can store scripts, but are they written as deployment scripts with all the logic about how to apply them to an existing DB? Where is that baseline DB? Where's the data? How does a team share the data and the code? It's a real challenge. Merrill Aldrich Congratulations to the five of you. Red Gate will be in touch with you soon about your free licenses. Thank you to all those that responded. And again, go and check out all the responses – those above are only small proportion from what is a very interesting comment thread. @Jamiet

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Yet another blog about IValueConverter

- by codingbloke

After my previous blog on a Generic Boolean Value Converter I thought I might as well blog up another IValueConverter implementation that I use. The Generic Boolean Value Converter effectively converters an input which only has two possible values to one of two corresponding objects. The next logical step would be to create a similar converter that can take an input which has multiple (but finite and discrete) values to one of multiple corresponding objects. To put it more simply a Generic Enum Value Converter. Now we already have a tool that can help us in this area, the ResourceDictionary. A simple IValueConverter implementation around it would create a StringToObjectConverter like so:- StringToObjectConverter using System; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Data; using System.Linq; using System.Windows.Markup; namespace SilverlightApplication1 { [ContentProperty("Items")] public class StringToObjectConverter : IValueConverter { public ResourceDictionary Items { get; set; } public string DefaultKey { get; set; } public StringToObjectConverter() { DefaultKey = "__default__"; } public virtual object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) { if (value != null && Items.Contains(value.ToString())) return Items[value.ToString()]; else return Items[DefaultKey]; } public virtual object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) { return Items.FirstOrDefault(kvp => value.Equals(kvp.Value)).Key; } } } There are some things to note here. The bulk of managing the relationship between an object instance and the related string key is handled by the Items property being an ResourceDictionary. Also there is a catch all “__default__” key value which allows for only a subset of the possible input values to mapped to an object with the rest falling through to the default. We can then set one of these up in Xaml:- <local:StringToObjectConverter x:Key="StatusToBrush"> <ResourceDictionary> <SolidColorBrush Color="Red" x:Key="Overdue" /> <SolidColorBrush Color="Orange" x:Key="Urgent" /> <SolidColorBrush Color="Silver" x:Key="__default__" /> </ResourceDictionary> </local:StringToObjectConverter> You could well imagine that in the model being bound these key names would actually be members of an enum. This still works due to the use of ToString in the Convert method. Hence the only requirement for the incoming object is that it has a ToString implementation which generates a sensible string instead of simply the type name. I can’t imagine right now a scenario where this converter would be used in a TwoWay binding but there is no reason why it can’t. I prefer to avoid leaving the ConvertBack throwing an exception if that can be be avoided. Hence it just enumerates the KeyValuePair entries to find a value that matches and returns the key its mapped to. Ah but now my sense of balance is assaulted again. Whilst StringToObjectConverter is quite happy to accept an enum type via the Convert method it returns a string from the ConvertBack method not the original input enum type that arrived in the Convert. Now I could address this by complicating the ConvertBack method and examining the targetType parameter etc. However I prefer to a different approach, deriving a new EnumToObjectConverter class instead. EnumToObjectConverter using System; namespace SilverlightApplication1 { public class EnumToObjectConverter : StringToObjectConverter { public override object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) { string key = Enum.GetName(value.GetType(), value); return base.Convert(key, targetType, parameter, culture); } public override object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) { string key = (string)base.ConvertBack(value, typeof(String), parameter, culture); return Enum.Parse(targetType, key, false); } } } This is a more belts and braces solution with specific use of Enum.GetName and Enum.Parse. Whilst its more explicit in that the a developer has to choose to use it, it is only really necessary when using TwoWay binding, in OneWay binding the base StringToObjectConverter would serve just as well. The observant might note that there is actually no “Generic” aspect to this solution in the end. The use of a ResourceDictionary eliminates the need for that.

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Calculated Columns in Entity Framework Code First Migrations

- by David Paquette

I had a couple people ask me about calculated properties / columns in Entity Framework this week. The question was, is there a way to specify a property in my C# class that is the result of some calculation involving 2 properties of the same class. For example, in my database, I store a FirstName and a LastName column and I would like a FullName property that is computed from the FirstName and LastName columns. My initial answer was: 1: public string FullName 2: { 3: get { return string.Format("{0} {1}", FirstName, LastName); } 4: } Of course, this works fine, but this does not give us the ability to write queries using the FullName property. For example, this query: 1: var users = context.Users.Where(u => u.FullName.Contains("anan")); Would result in the following NotSupportedException: The specified type member 'FullName' is not supported in LINQ to Entities. Only initializers, entity members, and entity navigation properties are supported. It turns out there is a way to support this type of behavior with Entity Framework Code First Migrations by making use of Computed Columns in SQL Server. While there is no native support for computed columns in Code First Migrations, we can manually configure our migration to use computed columns. Let’s start by defining our C# classes and DbContext: 1: public class UserProfile 2: { 3: public int Id { get; set; } 4: 5: public string FirstName { get; set; } 6: public string LastName { get; set; } 7: 8: [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Computed)] 9: public string FullName { get; private set; } 10: } 11: 12: public class UserContext : DbContext 13: { 14: public DbSet<UserProfile> Users { get; set; } 15: } The DatabaseGenerated attribute is needed on our FullName property. This is a hint to let Entity Framework Code First know that the database will be computing this property for us. Next, we need to run 2 commands in the Package Manager Console. First, run Enable-Migrations to enable Code First Migrations for the UserContext. Next, run Add-Migration Initial to create an initial migration. This will create a migration that creates the UserProfile table with 3 columns: FirstName, LastName, and FullName. This is where we need to make a small change. Instead of allowing Code First Migrations to create the FullName property, we will manually add that column as a computed column. 1: public partial class Initial : DbMigration 2: { 3: public override void Up() 4: { 5: CreateTable( 6: "dbo.UserProfiles", 7: c => new 8: { 9: Id = c.Int(nullable: false, identity: true), 10: FirstName = c.String(), 11: LastName = c.String(), 12: //FullName = c.String(), 13: }) 14: .PrimaryKey(t => t.Id); 15: Sql("ALTER TABLE dbo.UserProfiles ADD FullName AS FirstName + ' ' + LastName"); 16: } 17: 18: 19: public override void Down() 20: { 21: DropTable("dbo.UserProfiles"); 22: } 23: } Finally, run the Update-Database command. Now we can query for Users using the FullName property and that query will be executed on the database server. However, we encounter another potential problem. Since the FullName property is calculated by the database, it will get out of sync on the object side as soon as we make a change to the FirstName or LastName property. Luckily, we can have the best of both worlds here by also adding the calculation back to the getter on the FullName property: 1: [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Computed)] 2: public string FullName 3: { 4: get { return FirstName + " " + LastName; } 5: private set 6: { 7: //Just need this here to trick EF 8: } 9: } Now we can both query for Users using the FullName property and we also won’t need to worry about the FullName property being out of sync with the FirstName and LastName properties. When we run this code: 1: using(UserContext context = new UserContext()) 2: { 3: UserProfile userProfile = new UserProfile {FirstName = "Chanandler", LastName = "Bong"}; 4: 5: Console.WriteLine("Before saving: " + userProfile.FullName); 6: 7: context.Users.Add(userProfile); 8: context.SaveChanges(); 9: 10: Console.WriteLine("After saving: " + userProfile.FullName); 11: 12: UserProfile chanandler = context.Users.First(u => u.FullName == "Chanandler Bong"); 13: Console.WriteLine("After reading: " + chanandler.FullName); 14: 15: chanandler.FirstName = "Chandler"; 16: chanandler.LastName = "Bing"; 17: 18: Console.WriteLine("After changing: " + chanandler.FullName); 19: 20: } We get this output: It took a bit of work, but finally Chandler’s TV Guide can be delivered to the right person. The obvious downside to this implementation is that the FullName calculation is duplicated in the database and in the UserProfile class. This sample was written using Visual Studio 2012 and Entity Framework 5. Download the source code here.

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TFS 2010 SDK: Integrating Twitter with TFS Programmatically

- by Tarun Arora

Technorati Tags: Team Foundation Server 2010,TFS API,Integrate Twitter TFS,TFS Programming,ALM,TwitterSharp Friends at ‘Twitter Sharp’ have created a wonderful .net API for twitter. With this blog post i will try to show you a basic TFS – Twitter integration scenario where i will retrieve the Team Project details programmatically and then publish these details on my twitter page. In future blogs i will be demonstrating how to create a windows service to capture the events raised by TFS and then publishing them in your social eco-system. Download Working Demo: Integrate Twitter - Tfs Programmatically 1. Setting up Twitter API Download Tweet Sharp from => https://github.com/danielcrenna/tweetsharp Before you can start playing around with this, you will need to register an application on twitter. This is because Twitter uses the OAuth authentication protocol and will not issue an Access token unless your application is registered with them. Go to https://dev.twitter.com/ and register your application Once you have registered your application, you will need ‘Customer Key’, ‘Customer Secret’, ‘Access Token’, ‘Access Token Secret’ 2. Connecting to Twitter using the Tweet Sharp API Create a new C# windows forms project and add reference to ‘Hammock.ClientProfile’, ‘Newtonsoft.Json’, ‘TweetSharp’ Add the following keys to the App.config (Note – The values for the keys below are in correct and if you try and connect using them then you will get an authorization failure error). Add a new class ‘TwitterProxy’ and use the following code to connect to the TwitterService (Read more about OAuthentication - http://dev.twitter.com/pages/auth) using System;using System.Collections.Generic;using System.Linq;using System.Text;using System.Configuration;using TweetSharp; namespace WindowsFormsApplication2{ public class TwitterProxy { private static string _hero; private static string _consumerKey; private static string _consumerSecret; private static string _accessToken; private static string _accessTokenSecret; public static TwitterService ConnectToTwitter() { _consumerKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ConsumerKey"]; _consumerSecret = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ConsumerSecret"]; _accessToken = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["AccessToken"]; _accessTokenSecret = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["AccessTokenSecret"]; return new TwitterService(_consumerKey, _consumerSecret, _accessToken, _accessTokenSecret); } }} Time to Tweet! _twitterService = Proxy.TwitterProxy.ConnectToTwitter(); _twitterService.SendTweet("Hello World"); SendTweet will return the TweetStatus, If you do not get a 200 OK status that means you have failed authentication, please revisit the Access tokens. --RESPONSE: https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json HTTP/1.1 200 OK X-Transaction: 1308476106-69292-41752 X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN X-Runtime: 0.03040 X-Transaction-Mask: a6183ffa5f44ef11425211f25 Pragma: no-cache X-Access-Level: read-write X-Revision: DEV X-MID: bd8aa0abeccb6efba38bc0a391a73fab98e983ea Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-check=0 Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2011 09:35:06 GMT Expires: Tue, 31 Mar 1981 05:00:00 GMT Last-Modified: Sun, 19 Jun 2011 09:35:06 GMT Server: hi Vary: Accept-Encoding Content-Encoding: Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100 Connection: Keep-Alive Transfer-Encoding: chunked 3. Integrate with TFS In my blog post Connect to TFS Programmatically i have in depth demonstrated how to connect to TFS using the TFS API. 1: // Update the AppConfig with the URI of the Team Foundation Server you want to connect to, Make sure you have View Team Project Collection Details permissions on the server 2: private static string _myUri = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TfsUri"]; 3: private static TwitterService _twitterService = null; 4: 5: private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) 6: { 7: lblNotes.Text = string.Empty; 8: 9: try 10: { 11: StringBuilder notes = new StringBuilder(); 12: 13: _twitterService = Proxy.TwitterProxy.ConnectToTwitter(); 14: 15: _twitterService.SendTweet("Hello World"); 16: 17: TfsConfigurationServer configurationServer = 18: TfsConfigurationServerFactory.GetConfigurationServer(new Uri(_myUri)); 19: 20: CatalogNode catalogNode = configurationServer.CatalogNode; 21: 22: ReadOnlyCollection<CatalogNode> tpcNodes = catalogNode.QueryChildren( 23: new Guid[] { CatalogResourceTypes.ProjectCollection }, 24: false, CatalogQueryOptions.None); 25: 26: // tpc = Team Project Collection 27: foreach (CatalogNode tpcNode in tpcNodes) 28: { 29: Guid tpcId = new Guid(tpcNode.Resource.Properties["InstanceId"]); 30: TfsTeamProjectCollection tpc = configurationServer.GetTeamProjectCollection(tpcId); 31: 32: notes.AppendFormat("{0} Team Project Collection : {1}{0}", Environment.NewLine, tpc.Name); 33: _twitterService.SendTweet(String.Format("http://Lunartech.codeplex.com - Connecting to Team Project Collection : {0} ", tpc.Name)); 34: 35: // Get catalog of tp = 'Team Projects' for the tpc = 'Team Project Collection' 36: var tpNodes = tpcNode.QueryChildren( 37: new Guid[] { CatalogResourceTypes.TeamProject }, 38: false, CatalogQueryOptions.None); 39: 40: foreach (var p in tpNodes) 41: { 42: notes.AppendFormat("{0} Team Project : {1} - {2}{0}", Environment.NewLine, p.Resource.DisplayName, "This is an open source project hosted on codeplex"); 43: _twitterService.SendTweet(String.Format(" Connected to Team Project: '{0}' – '{1}' ", p.Resource.DisplayName, "This is an open source project hosted on codeplex")); 44: } 45: } 46: notes.AppendFormat("{0} Updates posted on Twitter : {1} {0}", Environment.NewLine, @"http://twitter.com/lunartech1"); 47: lblNotes.Text = notes.ToString(); 48: } 49: catch (Exception ex) 50: { 51: lblError.Text = " Message : " + ex.Message + (ex.InnerException != null ? " Inner Exception : " + ex.InnerException : string.Empty); 52: } 53: } The extensions you can build integrating TFS and Twitter are incredible! Share this post :

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NDepend 4 – First Steps

- by Ricardo Peres

Introduction Thanks to Patrick Smacchia I had the chance to test NDepend 4. I can only say: awesome! This will be the first of a series of posts on NDepend, where I will talk about my discoveries. Keep in mind that I am just starting to use it, so more experienced users may find these too basic, I just hope I don’t say anything foolish! I must say that I am in no way affiliated with NDepend and I never actually met Patrick. Installation No installation program – a curious decision, I’m not against it -, just unzip the files to a folder and run the executable. It will optionally register itself with Visual Studio 2008, 2010 and 11 as well as RedGate’s Reflector; also, it automatically looks for updates. NDepend can either be used as a stand-alone program (with or without a GUI) or from within Visual Studio or Reflector. Getting Started One thing that really pleases me is the Getting Started section of the stand-alone, with links to pages on NDepend’s web site, featuring detailed explanations, which usually include screenshots and small videos (<5 minutes). There’s also an How do I with hierarchical navigation that guides us to through the major features so that we can easily find what we want. Usage There are two basic ways to use NDepend: Analyze .NET solutions, projects or assemblies; Compare two versions of the same assembly. I have so far not used NDepend to compare assemblies, so I will first talk about the first option. After selecting a solution and some of its projects, it generates a single HTML page with an highly detailed report of the analysis it produced. This includes some metrics such as number of lines of code, IL instructions, comments, types, methods and properties, the calculation of the cyclomatic complexity, coupling and lots of others indicators, typically grouped by type, namespace and assembly. The HTML also includes some nice diagrams depicting assembly dependencies, type and method relative proportions (according to the number of IL instructions, I guess) and assembly analysis relating to abstractness and stability. Useful, I would say. Then there’s the rules; NDepend tests the target assemblies against a set of more than 120 rules, grouped in categories Code Quality, Object Oriented Design, Design, Architecture and Layering, Dead Code, Visibility, Naming Conventions, Source Files Organization and .NET Framework Usage. The full list can be configured on the application, and an explanation of each rule can be found on the web site. Rules can be validated, violated and violated in a critical manner, and the HTML will contain the violated rules, their queries – more on this later - and results. The HTML uses some nice JavaScript effects, which allow paging and sorting of tables, so its nice to use. Similar to the rules, there are some queries that display results for a number (about 200) questions grouped as Object Oriented Design, API Breaking Changes (for assembly version comparison), Code Diff Summary (also for version comparison) and Dead Code. The difference between queries and rules is that queries are not classified as passes, violated or critically violated, just present results. The queries and rules are expressed through CQLinq, which is a very powerful LINQ derivative specific to code analysis. All of the included rules and queries can be enabled or disabled and new ones can be added, with intellisense to help. Besides the HTML report file, the NDepend application can be used to explore all analysis results, compare different versions of analysis reports and to run custom queries. Comparison to Other Analysis Tools Unlike StyleCop, NDepend only works with assemblies, not source code, so you can’t expect it to be able to enforce brackets placement, for example. It is more similar to FxCop, but you don’t have the option to analyze at the IL level, that is, other that the number of IL instructions and the complexity. What’s Next In the next days I’ll continue my exploration with a real-life test case. References The NDepend web site is http://www.ndepend.com/. Patrick keeps an updated blog on http://codebetter.com/patricksmacchia/ and he regularly monitors StackOverflow for questions tagged NDepend, which you can find on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/ndepend. The default list of CQLinq rules, queries and statistics can be found at http://www.ndepend.com/DefaultRules/webframe.html. The syntax itself is described at http://www.ndepend.com/Doc_CQLinq_Syntax.aspx and its features at http://www.ndepend.com/Doc_CQLinq_Features.aspx.

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EU Digital Agenda scores 85/100

- by trond-arne.undheim

If the Digital Agenda was a bottle of wine and I were wine critic Robert Parker, I would say the Digital Agenda has "a great bouquet, many good elements, with astringent, dry and puckering mouth feel that will not please everyone, but still displaying some finesse. A somewhat controlled effort with no surprises and a few noticeable flaws in the delivery. Noticeably shorter aftertaste than advertised by the producers. Score: 85/100. Enjoy now". The EU Digital Agenda states that "standards are vital for interoperability" and has a whole chapter on interoperability and standards. With this strong emphasis, there is hope the EU's outdated standardization system finally is headed for reform. It has been 23 years since the legal framework of standardisation was completed by Council Decision 87/95/EEC8 in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. Standardization is market driven. For several decades the IT industry has been developing standards and specifications in global open standards development organisations (fora/consortia), many of which have transparency procedures and practices far superior to the European Standards Organizations. The Digital Agenda rightly states: "reflecting the rise and growing importance of ICT standards developed by certain global fora and consortia". Some fora/consortia, of course, are distorted, influenced by single vendors, have poor track record, and need constant vigilance, but they are the minority. Therefore, the recognition needs to be accompanied by eligibility criteria focused on openness. Will the EU reform its ICT standardization by the end of 2010? Possibly, and only if DG Enterprise takes on board that Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have driven half of the productivity growth in Europe over the past 15 years, a prominent fact in the EU's excellent Digital Competitiveness report 2010 published on Monday 17 May. It is ok to single out the ICT sector. It simply is the most important sector right now as it fuels growth in all other sectors. Let's not wait for the entire standardization package which may take another few years. Europe does not have time. The Digital Agenda is an umbrella strategy with deliveries from a host of actors across the Commission. For instance, the EU promises to issue "guidance on transparent ex-ante disclosure rules for essential intellectual property rights and licensing terms and conditions in the context of standard setting", by 2011 in the Horisontal Guidelines now out for public consultation by DG COMP and to some extent by DG ENTR's standardization policy reform. This is important. The EU will issue procurement guidance as interoperability frameworks are put into practice. This is a joint responsibility of several DGs, and is likely to suffer coordination problems, controversy and delays. We have seen plenty of the latter already and I have commented on the Commission's own interoperability elsewhere, with mixed luck. :( Yesterday, I watched the cartoonesque Korean western film The Good, the Bad and the Weird. In the movie (and I meant in the movie only), a bandit, a thief, and a bounty hunter, all excellent at whatever they do, fight for a treasure map. Whether that is a good analogy for the situation within the Commission, others are better judges of than I. However, as a movie fanatic, I still await the final shoot-out, and, as in the film, the only certainty is that "life is about chasing and being chased". The missed opportunity (in this case not following up the push from Member States to better define open standards based interoperability) is a casualty of the chaos ensued in the European Wild West (and I mean that in the most endearing sense, and my excuses beforehand to actors who possibly justifiably cannot bear being compared to fictional movie characters). Instead of exposing the ongoing fight, the EU opted for the legalistic use of the term "standards" throughout the document. This is a term that--to the EU-- excludes most standards used by the IT industry world wide. So, while it, for a moment, meant "weapon down", it will not lead to lasting peace. The Digital Agenda calls for the Member States to "Implement commitments on interoperability and standards in the Malmö and Granada Declarations by 2013". This is a far cry from the actual Ministerial Declarations which called upon the Commission to help them with this implementation by recognizing and further defining open standards based interoperability. Unless there is more forthcoming from the Commission, the market's judgement will be: you simply fall short. Generally, I think the EU focus now should be "from policy to practice" and the Digital Agenda does indeed stop short of tackling some highly practical issues. There is need for progress beyond the Digital Agenda. Here are some suggestions that would help Europe re-take global leadership on openness, public sector reform, and economic growth: A strong European software strategy centred around open standards based interoperability by 2011. An ambitious new eCommission strategy for 2011-15 focused on migration to open standards by 2015. Aligning the IT portfolio across the Commission into one Digital Agenda DG by 2012. Focusing all best practice exchange in eGovernment on one social networking site, epractice.eu (full disclosure: I had a role in getting that site up and running) Prioritizing public sector needs in global standardization over European standardization by 2014.

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What should you bring to the table as a Software Architect?

- by Ahmad Mageed

There have been many questions with good answers about the role of a Software Architect (SA) on StackOverflow and Programmers SE. I am trying to ask a slightly more focused question than those. The very definition of a SA is broad so for the sake of this question let's define a SA as follows: A Software Architect guides the overall design of a project, gets involved with coding efforts, conducts code reviews, and selects the technologies to be used. In other words, I am not talking about managerial rest and vest at the crest (further rhyming words elided) types of SAs. If I were to pursue any type of SA position I don't want to be away from coding. I might sacrifice some time to interface with clients and Business Analysts etc., but I am still technically involved and I'm not just aware of what's going on through meetings. With these points in mind, what should a SA bring to the table? Should they come in with a mentality of "laying down the law" (so to speak) and enforcing the usage of certain tools to fit "their way," i.e., coding guidelines, source control, patterns, UML documentation, etc.? Or should they specify initial direction and strategy then be laid back and jump in as needed to correct the ship's direction? Depending on the organization this might not work. An SA who relies on TFS to enforce everything may struggle to implement their plan at an employer that only uses StarTeam. Similarly, an SA needs to be flexible depending on the stage of the project. If it's a fresh project they have more choices, whereas they might have less for existing projects. Here are some SA stories I have experienced as a way of sharing some background in hopes that answers to my questions might also shed some light on these issues: I've worked with an SA who code reviewed literally every single line of code of the team. The SA would do this for not just our project but other projects in the organization (imagine the time spent on this). At first it was useful to enforce certain standards, but later it became crippling. FxCop was how the SA would find issues. Don't get me wrong, it was a good way to teach junior developers and force them to think of the consequences of their chosen approach, but for senior developers it was seen as somewhat draconian. One particular SA was against the use of a certain library, claiming it was slow. This forced us to write tons of code to achieve things differently while the other library would've saved us a lot of time. Fast forward to the last month of the project and the clients were complaining about performance. The only solution was to change certain functionality to use the originally ignored approach despite early warnings from the devs. By that point a lot of code was thrown out and not reusable, leading to overtime and stress. Sadly the estimates used for the project were based on the old approach which my project was forbidden from using so it wasn't an appropriate indicator for estimation. I would hear the PM say "we've done this before," when in reality they had not since we were using a new library and the devs working on it were not the same devs used on the old project. The SA who would enforce the usage of DTOs, DOs, BOs, Service layers and so on for all projects. New devs had to learn this architecture and the SA adamantly enforced usage guidelines. Exceptions to usage guidelines were made when it was absolutely difficult to follow the guidelines. The SA was grounded in their approach. Classes for DTOs and all CRUD operations were generated via CodeSmith and database schemas were another similar ball of wax. However, having used this setup everywhere, the SA was not open to new technologies such as LINQ to SQL or Entity Framework. I am not using this post as a platform for venting. There were positive and negative aspects to my experiences with the SA stories mentioned above. My questions boil down to: What should an SA bring to the table? How can they strike a balance in their decision making? Should one approach an SA job (as defined earlier) with the mentality that they must enforce certain ground rules? Anything else to consider? Thanks! I'm sure these job tasks are easily extended to people who are senior devs or technical leads, so feel free to answer at that capacity as well.

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How do I prove or disprove "god" objects are wrong?

- by honestduane

Problem Summary: Long story short, I inherited a code base and an development team I am not allowed to replace and the use of God Objects is a big issue. Going forward, I want to have us re-factor things but I am getting push-back from the teams who want to do everything with God Objects "because its easier" and this means I would not be allowed to re-factor. I pushed back citing my years of dev experience, that I'm the new boss who was hired to know these things, etc, and so did the third party offshore companies account sales rep, and this is now at the executive level and my meeting is tomorrow and I want to go in with a lot of technical ammo to advocate best practices because I feel it will be cheaper in the long run (And I personally feel that is what the third party is worried about) for the company. My issue is from a technical level, I know its good long term but I'm having trouble with the ultra short term and 6 months term, and while its something I "know" I cant prove it with references and cited resources outside of one person (Robert C. Martin, aka Uncle Bob), as that is what I am being asked to do as I have been told having data from one person and only one person (Robert C Martin) is not good enough of an argument. Question: What are some resources I can cite directly (Title, year published, page number, quote) by well known experts in the field that explicitly say this use of "God" Objects/Classes/Systems is bad (or good, since we are looking for the most technically valid solution)? Research I have already done: I have a number of books here and I have searched their indexes for the use of the words "god object" and "god class". I found that oddly its almost never used and the copy of the GoF book I have for example, never uses it (At least according to the index in front of me) but I have found it in 2 books per the below, but I want more I can use. I checked the Wikipedia page for "God Object" and its currently a stub with little reference links so although I personally agree with that it says, It doesn't have much I can use in an environment where personal experience is not considered valid. The book cited is also considered too old to be valid by the people I am debating these technical points with as the argument they are making is that "it was once thought to be bad but nobody could prove it, and now modern software says "god" objects are good to use". I personally believe that this statement is incorrect, but I want to prove the truth, whatever it is. In Robert C Martin's "Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#" (ISBN: 0-13-185725-8, hardcover) where on page 266 it states "Everybody knows that god classes are a bad idea. We don't want to concentrate all the intelligence of a system into a single object or a single function. One of the goals of OOD is the partitioning and distribution of behavior into many classes and many function." -- And then goes on to say sometimes its better to use God Classes anyway sometimes (Citing micro-controllers as an example). In Robert C Martin's "Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship" page 136 (And only this page) talks about the "God class" and calls it out as a prime example of a violation of the "classes should be small" rule he uses to promote the Single Responsibility Principle" starting on on page 138. The problem I have is all my references and citations come from the same person (Robert C. Martin), and am from the same single person/source. I am being told that because he is just one guy, my desire to not use "God Classes" is invalid and not accepted as a standard best practice in the software industry. Is this true? Am I doing things wrong from a technical perspective by trying to keep to the teaching of Uncle Bob? God Objects and Object Oriented Programming and Design: The more I think of this the more I think this is more something you learn when you study OOP and its never explicitly called out; Its implicit to good design is my thinking (Feel free to correct me, please, as I want to learn), The problem is I "know" this, but but not everybody does, so in this case its not considered a valid argument because I am effectively calling it out as universal truth when in fact most people are statistically ignorant of it since statistically most people are not programmers. Conclusion: I am at a loss on what to search for to get the best additional results to cite, since they are making a technical claim and I want to know the truth and be able to prove it with citations like a real engineer/scientist, even if I am biased against god objects due to my personal experience with code that used them. Any assistance or citations would be deeply appreciated.

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strange sqares like hints in Silverlight application?

- by lina

Good day! Strange square appears on mouse hover on text boxes, buttons, etc (something like hint) in a silverlight navigation application - how can I remove it? a scrin shot an example .xaml page: <Code:BasePage x:Class="CAP.Views.Main" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" mc:Ignorable="d" xmlns:navigation="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Navigation" xmlns:Code="clr-namespace:CAP.Code" d:DesignWidth="640" d:DesignHeight="480" Title="?????? ??????? ???????? ??? ?????"> <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot"> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="103*" /> <RowDefinition Height="377*" /> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width="120*" /> <ColumnDefinition Width="520*" /> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <Image Height="85" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Name="image1" Stretch="Fill" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="84" Margin="12,0,0,0" ImageFailed="image1_ImageFailed" Source="/CAP;component/Images/My-Computer.png" /> <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Height="Auto" TextWrapping="Wrap" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="0,12,0,0" Name="textBlock1" Text="Good day!" VerticalAlignment="Top" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="16" Width="345" FontWeight="Bold" /> <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" TextWrapping="Wrap" Height="299" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Name="textBlock2" VerticalAlignment="Top" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="14" Width="441" > <Run Text="Some text "/><LineBreak/><LineBreak/><Run Text="and so on"/> <LineBreak/> </TextBlock> </Grid> xaml.cs: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Net; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Controls; using System.Windows.Documents; using System.Windows.Input; using System.Windows.Media; using System.Windows.Media.Animation; using System.Windows.Shapes; using System.Windows.Navigation; using CAP.Code; namespace CAP.Views { public partial class Main : BasePage { public Main() : base() { InitializeComponent(); MapBuilder.AddToMap(new SiteMapUnit() { Caption = "???????", RelativeUrl = "Main" },true); ((App)Application.Current).Mainpage.tvMainMenu.SelectedItems.Clear(); } // Executes when the user navigates to this page. protected override void OnNavigatedTo(NavigationEventArgs e) { } private void image1_ImageFailed(object sender, ExceptionRoutedEventArgs e) { } protected override string[] NeededPermission() { return new string[0]; } } } MainPage.xaml <UserControl x:Class="CAP.MainPage" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:Code="clr-namespace:CAP.Code" xmlns:navigation="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Navigation" xmlns:uriMapper="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Navigation;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Navigation" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" xmlns:telerik="clr-namespace:Telerik.Windows.Controls;assembly=Telerik.Windows.Controls" xmlns:telerikNavigation="clr-namespace:Telerik.Windows.Controls;assembly=Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation" mc:Ignorable="d" Margin="0,0,0,0" Width="auto" Height="auto" xmlns:dataInput="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data.Input"> <ScrollViewer Width="auto" Height="auto" BorderBrush="White" BorderThickness="0" Margin="0,0,0,0" x:Name="sV" HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" > <ScrollViewer.Content> <Grid Width="auto" Height="auto" x:Name="LayoutRoot" Style="{StaticResource LayoutRootGridStyle}" Margin="0,0,0,0"> <StackPanel Width="auto" Height="auto" Orientation="Vertical" Margin="250,0,0,50"> <Border x:Name="ContentBorder2" Margin="0,0,0,0" >  <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical" Height="82" Width="Auto" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Margin="0,0,0,0" DataContext="{Binding}"> <TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Right" Foreground="White" x:Name="ApplicationNameTextBlock4" Style="{StaticResource ApplicationNameStyle}" FontSize="20" Text="?????? ???????" Margin="20,16,20,0"/> <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalAlignment="Right"> <Image x:Name="imDoor" Visibility="Collapsed" MouseEnter="imDoor_MouseEnter" MouseLeave="imDoor_MouseLeave" Height="24" Stretch="Fill" Width="25" Margin="10,0,10,0" Source="/CAP;component/Images/sm_white_doors.png" MouseLeftButtonDown="bTest_Click" /> <TextBlock x:Name="bLogout" MouseEnter="bLogout_MouseEnter" MouseLeave="bLogout_MouseLeave" TextDecorations="Underline" Margin="0,6,20,4" Height="23" Text="?????" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Visibility="Collapsed" MouseLeftButtonDown="bTest_Click" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="13" FontWeight="Normal" Foreground="#FF1C1C92" /> </StackPanel> </StackPanel> </Border> <Border x:Name="bSiteMap" Margin="0,0,0,0" > <StackPanel x:Name="spSiteMap" Orientation="Horizontal" Height="20" Width="Auto" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="0,0,0,0" DataContext="{Binding}">  </StackPanel> </Border> <Border Width="auto" Height="auto" x:Name="ContentBorder" Margin="0,0,0,0" > <navigation:Frame x:Name="ContentFrame" Style="{StaticResource ContentFrameStyle}" Source="Main" Navigated="ContentFrame_Navigated" NavigationFailed="ContentFrame_NavigationFailed" ToolTipService.ToolTip=" " Margin="0,0,0,0"> <navigation:Frame.UriMapper> <uriMapper:UriMapper>  <uriMapper:UriMapping Uri="RegistrateClient" MappedUri="/Views/Client/RegistrateClient.xaml"/>  </uriMapper:UriMapper> </navigation:Frame.UriMapper> </navigation:Frame> </Border> </StackPanel> <Grid x:Name="NavigationGrid" Style="{StaticResource NavigationGridStyle}" Margin="0,0,0,0" Background="{x:Null}" > <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical" Height="Auto" Width="250" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Margin="0,0,0,50" DataContext="{Binding}"> <Image Width="150" Height="90" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Top" Source="/CAP;component/Images/logo__au.png" Margin="0,20,0,70"/> <Border x:Name="BrandingBorder" MinHeight="222" Width="250" Style="{StaticResource BrandingBorderStyle3}" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Opacity="60" Margin="0,0,0,0"> <Border.Background> <ImageBrush ImageSource="/CAP;component/Images/papka.png"/> </Border.Background> <Grid Width="250" x:Name="LichniyCabinet" Margin="0,10,0,0" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Height="211"> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width="19*" /> <ColumnDefinition Width="62*" /> <ColumnDefinition Width="151*" /> <ColumnDefinition Width="18*" /> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="13" /> <RowDefinition Height="24" /> <RowDefinition Height="35" /> <RowDefinition Height="35" /> <RowDefinition Height="43" /> <RowDefinition Height="28" /> <RowDefinition Height="32*" /> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <TextBlock Visibility="Visible" Grid.Row="2" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" x:Name="tLogin" Text="?????" VerticalAlignment="Top" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="13" Foreground="White" Margin="1,0,0,0" Grid.Column="1" /> <TextBlock Visibility="Visible" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="13" Foreground="White" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" x:Name="tPassw" Text="??????" VerticalAlignment="Top" Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="1" /> <TextBox Visibility="Visible" Grid.Column="2" Grid.Row="2" Height="24" HorizontalAlignment="Left" x:Name="logLogin" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="150" /> <PasswordBox Visibility="Visible" Code:DefaultButtonService.DefaultButton="{Binding ElementName=bLogin}" PasswordChar="*" Height="24" HorizontalAlignment="Left" x:Name="logPassword" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="150" Grid.Column="2" Grid.Row="3" /> <Button x:Name="bLogin" MouseEnter="bLogin_MouseEnter" MouseLeave="bLogin_MouseLeave" Visibility="Visible" Content="?????" Grid.Column="2" Grid.Row="4" Click="Button_Click" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="81,0,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="70" /> <TextBlock MouseLeftButtonDown="ForgotPassword_MouseLeftButtonDown" MouseEnter="ForgotPassword_MouseEnter" MouseLeave="ForgotPassword_MouseLeave" Visibility="Visible" TextDecorations="Underline" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Grid.Row="4" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" x:Name="ForgotPassword" Text="?????? ???????" VerticalAlignment="Top" Foreground="White" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="13" Grid.Column="1" /> <TextBlock MouseEnter="tbRegistration_MouseEnter" MouseLeave="tbRegistration_MouseLeave" MouseLeftButtonDown="tbRegistration_MouseLeftButtonDown" Grid.Column="2" Grid.Row="6" Height="23" x:Name="tbRegistration" TextDecorations="Underline" Text="???????????" VerticalAlignment="Top" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="13" TextAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Foreground="#FF1C1C92" FontWeight="Normal" Margin="0,0,57,0" /> <TextBlock Cursor="Arrow" Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="11,-3,0,0" Text="?????? ???????" VerticalAlignment="Top" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" Grid.RowSpan="2" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="13" FontWeight="Bold" Foreground="White" /> <Image Visibility="Collapsed" Height="70" x:Name="imUser" Stretch="Fill" Width="70" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Margin="11,0,0,0" Grid.Row="2" Grid.RowSpan="2" Source="/CAP;component/Images/user2.png" /> <TextBlock x:Name="tbHello" Grid.Column="2" Visibility="Collapsed" Grid.Row="2" Height="auto" TextWrapping="Wrap" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="6,0,0,0" Text="" VerticalAlignment="Top" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="13" Foreground="White" Width="145" /> </Grid> </Border> <Border x:Name="MenuBorder" Margin="0,0,0,50" Width="250" Visibility="Collapsed"> <StackPanel x:Name="spMenu" Width="240" HorizontalAlignment="Left"> <telerikNavigation:RadTreeView x:Name="tvMainMenu" Width="240" Selected="TreeView1_Selected" SelectedValuePath="Text" telerik:Theming.Theme="Windows7" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="12"/> </StackPanel> </Border> </StackPanel> </Grid> <Border x:Name="FooterBorder" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Width="auto" Height="76"> <Border.Background> <ImageBrush ImageSource="/CAP;component/Images/footer2.png" /> </Border.Background> <TextBlock x:Name="tbFooter" Height="24" Width="auto" Margin="0,20,0,0" TextAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Center" Foreground="White" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="11"> </TextBlock> </Border> </Grid> </ScrollViewer.Content> </ScrollViewer> </UserControl> MainPage.xaml.cs using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Controls; using System.Windows.Documents; using System.Windows.Navigation; using CAP.Code; using CAP.Registrator; using System.Windows.Input; using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations; using System.Windows.Browser; using Telerik.Windows.Controls; using System.Net; using System.Windows.Media; using System.Windows.Media.Animation; using System.Windows.Navigation; using System.Windows.Shapes; namespace CAP { public partial class MainPage { public App Appvars = Application.Current as App; private readonly RegistratorClient registrator; public SiteMapBuilder builder; public MainPage() { InitializeComponent(); sV.SetIsMouseWheelScrollingEnabled(true); builder = new SiteMapBuilder(spSiteMap); try { //working with service } catch { this.ContentFrame.Navigate(new Uri(String.Format("ErrorPage"), UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute)); } } /// Recursive method to update the correct scrollviewer (if exists) private ScrollViewer CheckParent(FrameworkElement element) { ScrollViewer _result = element as ScrollViewer; if (element != null && _result == null) { FrameworkElement _temp = element.Parent as FrameworkElement; _result = CheckParent(_temp); } return _result; } // If an error occurs during navigation, show an error window private void ContentFrame_NavigationFailed(object sender, NavigationFailedEventArgs e) { e.Handled = true; ChildWindow errorWin = new ErrorWindow(e.Uri); errorWin.Show(); } } }

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Amanda Todd–What Parents Can Learn From Her Story

- by D'Arcy Lussier

Amanda Todd was a bullied teenager who committed suicide this week. Her story has become headline news due in part to her You Tube video she posted telling her story: The story is heartbreaking for so many reasons, but I wanted to talk about what we as parents can learn from this. Being the dad to two girls, one that’s 10, I’m very aware of the dangers that the internet holds. When I saw her story, one thing jumped out at me – unmonitored internet access at an early age. My daughter (then 9) came home from a friends place once and asked if she could be in a YouTube video with her friend. Apparently this friend was allowed to do whatever she wanted on the internet, including posting goofy videos. This set off warning bells and we ensured our daughter realized the dangers and that she was not to ever post videos of herself. In looking at Amanda’s story, the access to unmonitored internet time along with just being a young girl and being flattered by an online predator were the key events that ultimately led to her suicide. Yes, the reaction of her classmates and “friends” was horrible as well, I’m not diluting that. But our youth don’t fully understand yet that what they do on the internet today will follow them potentially forever. And the people they meet online aren’t necessarily who they claim to be. So what can we as parents learn from Amanda’s story? Parents Shouldn’t Feel Bad About Being Internet Police Our job as parents is in part to protect our kids and keep them safe, even if they don’t like our measures. This includes monitoring, supervising, and restricting their internet activities. In our house we have a family computer in the living room that the kids can watch videos and surf the web. It’s in plain view of everyone, so you can’t hide what you’re looking at. If our daughter goes to a friend’s place, we ask about what they did and what they played. If the computer comes up, we ask about what they did on it. Luckily our daughter is very up front and honest in telling us things, so we have very open discussions. Parents Need to Be Honest About the Dangers of the Internet I’m sure every generation says that “kids grow up so fast these days”, but in our case the internet really does push our kids to be exposed to things they otherwise wouldn’t experience. One wrong word in a Google search, a click of a link in a spam email, or just general curiosity can expose a child to things they aren’t ready for or should never be exposed to (and I’m not just talking about adult material – have you seen some of the graphic pictures from war zones posted on news sites recently?). Our stance as parents has been to be open about discussing the dangers with our kids before they encounter any content – be proactive instead of reactionary. Part of this is alerting them to the monsters that lurk on the internet as well. As kids explore the world wide web, they’re eventually going to encounter some chat room or some Facebook friend invite or other personal connection with someone. More than ever kids need to be educated on the dangers of engaging with people online and sharing personal information. You can think of it as an evolved discussion that our parents had with us about using the phone: “Don’t say ‘I’m home alone’, don’t say when mom or dad get home, don’t tell them any information, etc.” Parents Need to Talk Self Worth at Home Katie makes the point better than I ever could (one bad word towards the end): Our children need to understand their value beyond what the latest issue of TigerBeat says, or the media who continues flaunting physical attributes over intelligence and character, or a society that puts focus on status and wealth. They also have to realize that just because someone pays you a compliment, that doesn’t mean you should ignore personal boundaries and limits. What does this have to do with the internet? Well, in days past if you wanted to be social you had to go out somewhere. Now you can video chat with any number of people from the comfort of wherever your laptop happens to be – and not just text but full HD video with sound! While innocent children head online in the hopes of meeting cool people, predators with bad intentions are heading online too. As much as we try to monitor their online activity and be honest about the dangers of the internet, the human side of our kids isn’t something we can control. But we can try to influence them to see themselves as not needing to search out the acceptance of complete strangers online. Way easier said than done, but ensuring self-worth is something discussed, encouraged, and celebrated is a step in the right direction. Parental Wake Up Call This post is not a critique of Amanda’s parents. The reality is that cyber bullying/abuse is happening every day, and there are millions of parents that have no clue its happening to their children. Amanda’s story is a wake up call that our children’s online activities may be putting them in danger. My heart goes out to the parents of this girl. As a father of daughters, I can’t imagine what I would do if I found my daughter having to hide in a ditch to avoid a mob or call 911 to report my daughter had attempted suicide by drinking bleach or deal with a child turning to drugs/alcohol/cutting to cope. It would be horrendous if we as parents didn’t re-evaluate our family internet policies in light of this event. And in the end, Amanda’s video was meant to bring attention to her plight and encourage others going through the same thing. We may not be kids, but we can still honour her memory by helping safeguard our children.

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Passing variables to shopping cart with Javascript

- by albatross

This question is an extension of this one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2359238/calculate-order-price-by-date-selection-value I'm trying to make a conference registration page based off the previous page, which passes the variables(name, email, price) to my organization's outdated shopping cart using javascript. I'm also using Seminar Registration by CSSTricks (http://css-tricks.com/examples/SeminarRegTutorial/) Currently, my proceed to payment button produces an 'element is undefined' error on line 298(same thing on unresolved previous question, linked above^): switch (document.Information.amount.value) { Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm at my wits end with this. Here is the page: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> <title>Seminar Registration Form with jQuery</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/style.css" media="screen" /> <script src="js/jquery-1.2.6.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="js/form-fun.jquery.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>  </head> <body> <div id="page-wrap"> <h1>Conference <span>Registration</span></h1> <form action="#" method="post"> <fieldset id="step_1"> <legend>Step 1</legend> <label for="num_attendees"> How cool are you? </label> <select id="amount"> <option id="0" value="0">Please Choose</option> <option id="prof" value="90.00">Professional</option> <option id="grad" value="55.00">Graduate Student</option> </select> <br /> <div id="attendee_1_wrap" class="name_wrap push"> <h3>Who are you?</h3> <p> <label for="FirstName"> First Name: </label> <input type="text" id="FirstName" class="name_input"></input> </p> <p> <label for="LastName"> Last Name: </label> <input type="text" id="LastName" class="name_input"></input> </p> <p> <label for="OfficialTitle"> Official Title: </label> <input type="text" id="OfficialTitle" class="name_input"></input> </p> <h3>How do we find you?</h3> <label for="email">Email: </label> <input id="email" name="email" class="required email" /> </p> <p> <label for="Address">Street Address: </label><input name="Address" id="Address" type="text" size="20" maxlength="75" /> </p> <p> <label for="City">City: </label><input name="City" id="City" /> </p> <p> <label for="State">State: </label><select name="State" id="State"> <option selected value="IL">IL</option> <option value="AL">AL</option> <option value="AK">AK</option> <option value="AZ">AZ</option> <option value="AR">AR</option> <option value="CA">CA</option> <option value="CO">CO</option> <option value="CT">CT</option> <option value="DE">DE</option> <option value="DC">DC</option> <option value="FL">FL</option> <option value="GA">GA</option> <option value="HI">HI</option> <option value="ID">ID</option> <option value="IN">IN</option> <option value="IA">IA</option> <option value="KS">KS</option> <option value="KY">KY</option> <option value="LA">LA</option> <option value="ME">ME</option> <option value="MD">MD</option> <option value="MA">MA</option> <option value="MI">MI</option> <option value="MN">MN</option> <option value="MS">MS</option> <option value="MO">MO</option> <option value="MT">MT</option> <option value="NE">NE</option> <option value="NV">NV</option> <option value="NH">NH</option> <option value="NJ">NJ</option> <option value="NM">NM</option> <option value="NY">NY</option> <option value="NC">NC</option> <option value="ND">ND</option> <option value="OH">OH</option> <option value="OK">OK</option> <option value="OR">OR</option> <option value="PA">PA</option> <option value="RI">RI</option> <option value="SC">SC</option> <option value="SD">SD</option> <option value="TN">TN</option> <option value="TX">TX</option> <option value="UT">UT</option> <option value="VT">VT</option> <option value="VA">VA</option> <option value="WA">WA</option> <option value="WV">WV</option> <option value="WI">WI</option> <option value="WY">WY</option> </select> </p> <p> <label for="Zip">Zip Code: </label><input name="Zip" id="Zip" type="text" value="" size="5" maxlength="10" /> </p> <p> <label for="Phone">Telephone: </label><input name="Phone" id="Phone" type="text" value="" size="10" maxlength="13" /> </p> </div> </fieldset> <fieldset id="step_2"> <legend>Step 2</legend> <p> Do you work in Higher Education? </p> <input type="radio" id="company_name_toggle_on" name="company_name_toggle_group"></input> <label for="company_name_toggle_on">Yes</label> &emsp; <input type="radio" id="company_name_toggle_off" name="company_name_toggle_group"></input> <label for="company_name_toggle_off">No</label> <div id="company_name_wrap"> <label for="company_name"> Which School? </label> <input type="text" id="company_name"></input> </div> <div class="push"> <p> Will anyone in your group require special accommodations? </p> <input type="radio" id="special_accommodations_toggle_on" name="special_accommodations_toggle"></input> <label for="special_accommodations_toggle_on">Yes</label> &emsp; <input type="radio" id="special_accommodations_toggle_off" name="special_accommodations_toggle"></input> <label for="special_accommodations_toggle_off">No</label> </div> <div id="special_accommodations_wrap"> <label for="special_accomodations_text"> Please explain below: </label> <textarea rows="10" cols="10" id="special_accomodations_text"></textarea> </div> </fieldset> <fieldset id="step_3"> <legend>Step 3</legend> <label for="rock"> Are you ready to rock? </label> <input type="checkbox" id="rock"></input> <p> <INPUT onclick="javascript:PaymentButtonClick()" type=button value="Proceed to payment" name=PaymentButton> <img src="images/visa1.gif" /> <img src="images/mastercard1.gif" /> </p> </fieldset> </form> </div> <FORM name="emailForm" action="mailform.asp" method=post"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="Conference Registration" name="mf_subject"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="Yes" name="mf_email_results"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="20" name="num_attendees"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="FirstName"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="22" name="LastName"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" size="64" name="OfficialTitle"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" size="40" name="email"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" size="48" name="Address"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="City"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="State"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="Zip"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="Phone"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffa0" size="17" name="company_name"> <INPUT type="hidden" title="" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" size="20" name="special_accomodations_text"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="[email protected]" name="mf_from"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="[email protected]" name="mf_to"> </FORM> <FORM name="addform" action="https://webcluster.niu.edu/CreditCard/servlet/Shopping_Cart_Add_Item_Servlet" method="post"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="orient" name="Dept_ID"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="Orientation" name="Product_Name"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="z000000" name="Product_Code"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="" name="amount"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="/orientation/index.shtml" name="return_link"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="http://www.niu.edu" name="return_server"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="1" name="quantity"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="0" name="tax"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="0" name="ship"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="DQ83225" name="sale_id"> <INPUT type="hidden" value="XXXXXX" name="sale_acct"> </FORM> <SCRIPT language="Javascript"> function PaymentButtonClick() { switch (document.Information.amount.value) { case 'prof': document.Information.amount.value = 90.00; break; case 'grad': document.Information.amount.value = 55.00; break; } document.addform.Product_Name.value = document.Information.FirstName.value + ","+ document.Information.LastName.value+","+ document.Information.OfficialTitle.value+","+ document.Information.email.name+","+","+ document.Information.Address.value+ "," + document.Information.City.value+ "," + document.Information.State.value+ "," + document.Information.Zip.value+ "," + document.Information.Phone.value+ "," + document.Information.company_name.value+ "," + document.Information.special_accomodations_text.value; document.addform.Product_Code.value = document.Information.LastName.value; if ((document.Information.UCheck.checked==true) && (document.Information.altDate1.value != "") && (document.Information.altDate1.value != "x")) { if (document.Information.StudentLastName.value != "" || document.Information.StudentFirstName.value != "" || document.Information.StudentID.value != "" ) { document.addform.submit(); } else { alert("Please enter missing information"); } } } </SCRIPT> </body> </html>

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Is it Hard to Write a Blog?

- by Joe Mayo

Responding to a tweet I received, asking if I found it hard to write a blog and keep it interesting. This is one of the situations where a 140 character response doesn’t do a question justice. There’s a lot to think about between the subjects of writing, subject matter, and entertainment. Here’s my take on each of these three topics: There’s all types of writing you can do with various degrees of difficulty. If you’re writing a book and you have a gazillion editors bleeding over your every utterance, then the task becomes harder because you’re second-guessing yourself, not knowing whose opinion will be violated. However, if you’re communicating in a public forum, not too many people care about the grammar as much as whether what you have to say is correct. For a blog, I would say it’s somewhere in-between. Right now, I’m using Windows Live Writer, which gives me a few advantages to just typing into the blog editor, such as spelling correction and the ability to save my work and resume later. Overall, writing is one of those things that you just need to get used to. It’s an essential skill for developers because you need to document your work, depending on what your definition of proper documentation is, and communicate with other developers via various communications mediums. Not begin good (or not thinking that you’re good) shouldn’t hold you back. Like most things in life, practice will improve your skill. So, push away that inner voice that keeps you from moving forward and just do it. A good grasp on the subject matter you’re writing about helps. However, don’t let a lack of knowledge stop you from writing about something. I recall reading something a while back by a developer who didn’t know a technology but wrote about their experience in learning it. They ended up learning more by expressing their thoughts in writing. If you look around out many blogs today, there are many items written by developers learning what they’re writing about. So, whether you are sure or unsure, you can still write – just be honest with yourself and your readers about what you’re writing. Also, don’t be afraid to have a different opinion or worry if someone will disagree. I’ll freely admit that it took a while for me to become accustomed to being criticized. Take the good with the bad and use the bad to make yourself better. Guaranteed, someone will disagree with one or more parts of what I’ve written here or think they have a better approach. No problem, more power to them, and whatever constructive comments they have will be a benefit to me in the future; Otherwise, to h*ll with them. :) Every time you get knocked down, get right back up, dust the dirt off your backside, and keep moving forward. You’ll learn in time how to align a subject with your own presentation of the material. Entertainment could be hard or could be natural, depending on the personality of yourself and your target audience. It’s even more challenging because you can say something you think is funny and someone will be offended. In fact, there are a lot of things that you shouldn’t say in the name of a joke, but I won’t mention any of them here for want of not offending anyone. Of course, I probably offended someone by saying that and there is probably an organization somewhere in the world out to get me now. I’m probably not the best person to be giving you advice on entertaining an audience. I mean, every time I try to tell a joke on Twitter 10 people unfriend me. Okay, maybe 15, but you get my point. One thing you might be interested in knowing is that it’s not too hard for one technical person to entertain other technical people, especially when the subject is of interest. It’s the excitement in each sentence and passion in each paragraph that will keep another developer entertained and interested in what you have to say. Not everyone will like what you’ve written, but the important part is to find your own voice and it’s likely that there is one person in some corner of the world that likes what you have to say, even if it’s your mom and she doesn’t understand a single word you write. :) If I could leave you with one final thought; Just do it and don’t let anyone or anything hold you back. Joe

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EPM and Business Analytics Talking-head Videos from Oracle OpenWorld 2013

- by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE Here is a selection of 2 to 3 minute video interviews at this year’s Oracle OpenWorld: 1. George Somogyi, Solutions Architect, New Edge Group, talks about the importance of having their integrated Oracle Hyperion Platform consisting of Oracle Hyperion Financial Management, Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management, Oracle E-Business Suite R12 and Oracle Business Intelligence Extended Edition plus their use of Oracle Managed Cloud Services. Speaker: George Somogyi @ http://youtu.be/kWn0dQxCUy8 2. Gregg Thompson, Director of Financial Systems for ADT, talks about using Oracle Data Relationship Management prior to implementing an Enterprise Performance Management solution. Gregg confirmed that there are big benefits to bringing the full Oracle Hyperion Financial Close suite online with Oracle DRM as the metadata source. Reduced maintenance time and use of external consultants translates into significant time and cost savings and faster implementation times. Speaker: Gregg Thompson @ http://youtu.be/XnFrR9Uk4xk 3. Jeff Spangler, Director Financial Planning and Analysis for Speedy Cash Holdings Corp, talked to us about the benefits achieved through implementing Oracle Hyperion Planning and financial reporting solutions. He also describes how the use of Data Relationship Management will keep the process running smoothly now and in the future. Speaker: Jeff Spangler @ http://youtu.be/kkkuMkgJ22U 4. Marc Seewald, Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle Hyperion Tax Provision at Oracle, talks about Oracle Hyperion Tax Provision, how it is an integral part of the financial close process and that it provides better internal controls and automation of this task. Marc talks about Oracle Partners and customers alike who are seeing great value. Speaker: Marc Seewald @ http://youtu.be/lM_nfvACGuA 5. Matt Bradley, SVP of Product Development for Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Applications at Oracle, talked to us about different deployment options for Oracle EPM. Cloud services (SaaS), managed services, on-premise, off-premise all have their merits, and organizations need flexibility to easily move between them as their companies evolve. Speaker: Matt Bradley @ http://youtu.be/ATO7Z9dbE-o 6. Neil Sellers, Partner, Qubix International talks about their experience with previewing Oracle’s new Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service. He describes the benefits of the step-by-step task lists, the speed of getting the application up and running, and the huge benefits of not having to manage the software and hardware side of the planning process. Speaker: Neil Sellers @ http://youtu.be/xmosO28e4_I 7. Praveen Pasupuleti, Senior Business Intelligence Development Manager of Citrix Systems Inc., talks about their Oracle Hyperion Planning upgrade and the huge performance improvement now experienced in forecasting. He also talked about the benefits of Oracle Hyperion Workforce Planning achieved by Citrix. Speaker: Praveen Pasupuleti @ http://youtu.be/d1e_4hLqw8c 8. CheckPoint Consulting, talked to us about how Enterprise Performance Management should be viewed as an entire solution, rather than as a bunch of applications in silos, to provide significant benefits; and how Data Relationship Management can tie it all together effectively. Speaker: Ron Dimon @ http://youtu.be/sRwbdbbXvUE 9. Sonal Kulkarni, Enterprise Performance Management Leader, Cummins Inc., talks about their use of Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Management (Account Reconciliation Manager), Oracle Hyperion Financial Management and Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management and how this is providing efficiency, visibility and compliance benefits. Speaker: Sonal Kulkarni @ http://youtu.be/OEgup5dKyVc 10. Todd Renard, Manager Financial Planning and Business Analytics for B/E Aerospace Inc., talks about the huge benefits that B/E Aerospace is experiencing from Oracle Financial Close Suite. He was extremely excited about Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management and how this helps them integrate a new business in as little as three weeks. Speaker: Todd Renard @ http://youtu.be/nIfqK46uVI8 11. Peter Smolianski, Chief Technology Officer for the District of Columbia Courts, talked to us about how D.C. Courts is using Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management to push their 5 year plan forward, to report results to their constituents, and take accountability for process changes to become more efficient. Speaker: Peter Smolianski @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-DtB5pl-uk 12. Rich Wilkie, Senior Director of Product Management for Financial Close Suite at Oracle, talked to us about Oracle Financial Management Analytics. He told us how the prebuilt dashboards on top of Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Suite make it easy for everyone to see the numbers and understand where they are in the close process, and if there is an issue, they can see where it is. Executives are excited to get this information on mobile devices too. Speaker: Rich Wilkie @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UHuHgx74Yg 13. Dinesh Balebail, Senior Director of Software Development for Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management, talked to us about the power and speed of Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management and how it is being used to do deep costing for Telecoms, Hospitals, Banks and other high transaction volume organizations effectively. Speaker: Dinesh Balebail @ http://youtu.be/ivx5AZCXAfs /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

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Imaging: Paper Paper Everywhere, but None Should be in Sight

- by Kellsey Ruppel

Author: Vikrant Korde, Technical Architect, Aurionpro's Oracle Implementation Services team My wedding photos are stored in several empty shoeboxes. Yes...I got married before digital photography was mainstream...which means I'm old. But my parents are really old. They have shoeboxes filled with vacation photos on slides (I doubt many of you have even seen a home slide projector...and I hope you never do!). Neither me nor my parents should have shoeboxes filled with any form of photographs whatsoever. They should obviously live in the digital world...with no physical versions in sight (other than a few framed on our walls). Businesses grapple with similar challenges. But instead of shoeboxes, they have file cabinets and warehouses jam packed with paper invoices, legal documents, human resource files, material safety data sheets, incident reports, and the list goes on and on. In fact, regulatory and compliance rules govern many industries, requiring that this paperwork is available for any number of years. It's a real challenge...especially trying to find archived documents quickly and many times with no backup. Which brings us to a set of technologies called Image Process Management (or simply Imaging or Image Processing) that are transforming these antiquated, paper-based processes. Oracle's WebCenter Content Imaging solution is a combination of their WebCenter suite, which offers a robust set of content and document management features, and their Business Process Management (BPM) suite, which helps to automate business processes through the definition of workflows and business rules. Overall, the solution provides an enterprise-class platform for end-to-end management of document images within transactional business processes. It's a solution that provides all of the capabilities needed - from document capture and recognition, to imaging and workflow - to effectively transform your ‘shoeboxes’ of files into digitally managed assets that comply with strict industry regulations. The terminology can be quite overwhelming if you're new to the space, so we've provided a summary of the primary components of the solution below, along with a short description of the two paths that can be executed to load images of scanned documents into Oracle's WebCenter suite. WebCenter Imaging (WCI): the electronic document repository that provides security, annotations, and search capabilities, and is the primary user interface for managing work items in the imaging solution SOA & BPM Suites (workflow): provide business process management capabilities, including human tasks, workflow management, service integration, and all other standard SOA features. It's interesting to note that there a number of 'jumpstart' processes available to help accelerate the integration of business applications, such as the accounts payable invoice processing solution for E-Business Suite that facilitates the processing of large volumes of invoices WebCenter Enterprise Capture (WEC): expedites the capture process of paper documents to digital images, offering high volume scanning and importing from email, and allows for flexible indexing options WebCenter Forms Recognition (WFR): automatically recognizes, categorizes, and extracts information from paper documents with greatly reduced human intervention WebCenter Content: the backend content server that provides versioning, security, and content storage There are two paths that can be executed to send data from WebCenter Capture to WebCenter Imaging, both of which are described below: 1. Direct Flow - This is the simplest and quickest way to push an image scanned from WebCenter Enterprise Capture (WEC) to WebCenter Imaging (WCI), using the bare minimum metadata. The WEC activities are defined below: The paper document is scanned (or imported from email). The scanned image is indexed using a predefined indexing profile. The image is committed directly into the process flow 2. WFR (WebCenter Forms Recognition) Flow - This is the more complex process, during which data is extracted from the image using a series of operations including Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Classification, Extraction, and Export. This process creates three files (Tiff, XML, and TXT), which are fed to the WCI Input Agent (the high speed import/filing module). The WCI Input Agent directory is a standard ingestion method for adding content to WebCenter Imaging, the process for doing so is described below: WEC commits the batch using the respective commit profile. A TIFF file is created, passing data through the file name by including values separated by "_" (underscores). WFR completes OCR, classification, extraction, export, and pulls the data from the image. In addition to the TIFF file, which contains the document image, an XML file containing the extracted data, and a TXT file containing the metadata that will be filled in WCI, are also created. All three files are exported to WCI's Input agent directory. Based on previously defined "input masks", the WCI Input Agent will pick up the seeding file (often the TXT file). Finally, the TIFF file is pushed in UCM and a unique web-viewable URL is created. Based on the mapping data read from the TXT file, a new record is created in the WCI application. Although these processes may seem complex, each Oracle component works seamlessly together to achieve a high performing and scalable platform. The solution has been field tested at some of the largest enterprises in the world and has transformed millions and millions of paper-based documents to more easily manageable digital assets. For more information on how an Imaging solution can help your business, please contact [email protected] (for U.S. West inquiries) or [email protected] (for U.S. East inquiries). About the Author: Vikrant is a Technical Architect in Aurionpro's Oracle Implementation Services team, where he delivers WebCenter-based Content and Imaging solutions to Fortune 1000 clients. With more than twelve years of experience designing, developing, and implementing Java-based software solutions, Vikrant was one of the founding members of Aurionpro's WebCenter-based offshore delivery team. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Using a Predicate as a key to a Dictionary

- by Tom Hines

I really love Linq and Lambda Expressions in C#. I also love certain community forums and programming websites like DaniWeb. A user on DaniWeb posted a question about comparing the results of a game that is like poker (5-card stud), but is played with dice. The question stemmed around determining what was the winning hand. I looked at the question and issued some comments and suggestions toward a potential answer, but I thought it was a neat homework exercise. [A little explanation] I eventually realized not only could I compare the results of the hands (by name) with a certain construct – I could also compare the values of the individual dice with the same construct. That piece of code eventually became a Dictionary with the KEY as a Predicate<int> and the Value a Func<T> that returns a string from the another structure that contains the mapping of an ENUM to a string. In one instance, that string is the name of the hand and in another instance, it is a string (CSV) representation of of the digits in the hand. An added benefit is that the digits re returned in the order they would be for a proper poker hand. For instance the hand 1,2,5,3,1 would be returned as ONE_PAIR (1,1,5,3,2). [Getting to the point] 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3: 4: namespace DicePoker 5: { 6: using KVP_E2S = KeyValuePair<CDicePoker.E_DICE_POKER_HAND_VAL, string>; 7: public partial class CDicePoker 8: { 9: /// <summary> 10: /// Magical construction to determine the winner of given hand Key/Value. 11: /// </summary> 12: private static Dictionary<Predicate<int>, Func<List<KVP_E2S>, string>> 13: map_prd2fn = new Dictionary<Predicate<int>, Func<List<KVP_E2S>, string>> 14: { 15: {new Predicate<int>(i => i.Equals(0)), PlayerTie},//first tie 16: 17: {new Predicate<int>(i => i > 0), 18: (m => string.Format("Player One wins\n1={0}({1})\n2={2}({3})", 19: m[0].Key, m[0].Value, m[1].Key, m[1].Value))}, 20: 21: {new Predicate<int>(i => i < 0), 22: (m => string.Format("Player Two wins\n2={2}({3})\n1={0}({1})", 23: m[0].Key, m[0].Value, m[1].Key, m[1].Value))}, 24: 25: {new Predicate<int>(i => i.Equals(0)), 26: (m => string.Format("Tie({0}) \n1={1}\n2={2}", 27: m[0].Key, m[0].Value, m[1].Value))} 28: }; 29: } 30: } When this is called, the code calls the Invoke method of the predicate to return a bool. The first on matching true will have its value invoked. 1: private static Func<DICE_HAND, E_DICE_POKER_HAND_VAL> GetHandEval = dh => 2: map_dph2fn[map_dph2fn.Keys.Where(enm2fn => enm2fn(dh)).First()]; After coming up with this process, I realized (with a little modification) it could be called to evaluate the individual values in the dice hand in the event of a tie. 1: private static Func<List<KVP_E2S>, string> PlayerTie = lst_kvp => 2: map_prd2fn.Skip(1) 3: .Where(x => x.Key.Invoke(RenderDigits(dhPlayerOne).CompareTo(RenderDigits(dhPlayerTwo)))) 4: .Select(s => s.Value) 5: .First().Invoke(lst_kvp); After that, I realized I could now create a program completely without “if” statements or “for” loops! 1: static void Main(string[] args) 2: { 3: Dictionary<Predicate<int>, Action<Action<string>>> main = new Dictionary<Predicate<int>, Action<Action<string>>> 4: { 5: {(i => i.Equals(0)), PlayGame}, 6: {(i => true), Usage} 7: }; 8: 9: main[main.Keys.Where(m => m.Invoke(args.Length)).First()].Invoke(Display); 10: } …and there you have it. :) ZIPPED Project

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The first day of JavaOne is already over!

- by delabassee

In the past Sunday used to be a more relaxing day with ‘just’ some JavaOne activities going on. Sunday used to be a soft day to prepare yourself for an exhausting week. This is now over as JavaOne is expanding; Sunday is now an integral part of the conference. One of the side effect of this extra day is that some activities related to JavaOne and OpenWorld such as MySQL Connect are being push to start a day earlier on Saturday (can you spot the pattern here?). On the GlassFish front, Sunday was a very busy day! It started at the Moscone Center with the annual GlassFish Community Event where the Java EE 7 and GF 4 roadmaps were presented and discussed. During the event, different GlassFish users such as ZeroTurnaround (the JRebel guys), Grupo RBS and IDR Solutions shared their views on GF, why they like GF but also what could be improved. The event was also a forum for the GF community to exchange with some of the key Java EE / GlassFish Oracle Executives and the different GF team members. The Strategy keynote and the Technical keynote were held in the Masonic Auditorium later in the after-noon. Oracle executives have presented the plans for Java SE, Java FX and Java EE. As on-demand replays will be available soon, I will not summarize several hours of content but here are some personal takeaways from those keynotes. Modularity Modularity is a big deal. We know by now that Project Jigsaw will not be ready for Java SE 8 but in any case, it is already possible (and encouraged) to test Jigsaw today. In the future, Java EE plan to rely on the modularity features provided by Java SE, so Project Jigsaw is also relevant for Java EE developers. Shorter term, to cover some of the modular requirements, Java SE will adopt the approach that was used for Java EE 6 and the notion of Profiles. This approach does not define a module system per say; Profiles is a way to clearly define different subsets of Java SE to fulfill different needs (e.g. the full JRE is not required for a headless application). The introduction of different Profiles, from the Base profile (10mb) to the Full Profile (+50mb), has been proposed for Java SE 8. Embedded Embedded is a strong theme going forward for the Java Plaform. There is now a dedicated program : Java Embedded @ JavaOne Java by nature (e.g. platform independence, built-in security, ability easily talks to any back-end systems, large set of skills available on the market, etc.) is probably the most suited platform for the Internet of Things. You can quickly be up-to-speed and develop services and applications for that space just by using your current Java skills. All you need to start developing on ARM is a 35$ Raspberry Pi ARM board (25$ if you are cheap and can live without an ethernet connection) and the recently released JDK for Linux/ARM. Obviously, GlassFish runs on Raspberry Pi. If you wan to go further in the embedded space, you should take a look Java SE Embedded, an optimized, low footprint, Java environment that support the major embedded architectures (ARM, PPC and x86). Finally, Oracle has recently introduced Java Embedded Suite, a new solution that brings modern middleware capabilities to the embedded space. Java Embedded Suite is an optimized solution that leverage Java SE Embedded but also GlassFish, Jersey and JavaDB to deploy advanced value added capabilities (eg. sensor data filtering and) deeper in the network, closer to the devices. JavaFX JavaFX is going strong! Starting from Java SE 7u6, JavaFX is bundled with the JDK. JavaFX is now available for all the major desktop platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X). JavaFX is now also available, in developer preview, for low end device running Linux/ARM. During the keynote, JavaFX was shown running on a Raspberry Pi! And as announced during the keynote, JavaFX should be fully open-sourced by the end of the year; contributions are welcome!. There is a strong momentum around JavaFX, it’s the ideal client solution for the Java platform. A client layer that works perfectly with GlassFish on the back-end. If you were not convince by JavaFX, it’s time to reconsider it! As an old Chinese proverb say “One tweet is worth a thousand words!” HTML5, Project Avatar and Java EE 7 HTML5 got a lot of airtime too, it was covered during the Java EE 7 section of the keynote. Some details about Project Avatar, Oracle’s incubator project for a TSA (Thin Server Architecture) solution, were diluted and shown during the keynote. On the tooling side, Project Easel running on NetBeans 7.3 beta was demo’ed, including a cool NetBeans debugging session running in Chrome! HTML 5, Project Avatar and Java EE 7 deserve separate posts... Feedback We need your feedback! There are many projects, JSRs and products cooking : GlassFish 4, Project Jigsaw, Concurrency Utilities for Java EE (JSR 236), OpenJFX, OpenJDK to name just a few. Those projects, those specifications will have a profound impact on the Java platform for the years to come! So if you have the opportunity, download, install, learn, tests them and give feedback! Remember, you can "Make the Future Java!" Finally, the traditional GlassFish Party at the Thirsty Bear concluded the first JavaOne day. This party is another place where the community can freely exchange with the GlassFish team in a more relaxed, more friendly (but sometime more noisy) atmosphere. Arun has posted a set of pictures to reflect the atmosphere of the keynotes and the GlassFish party. You can find more details on the others Java EE and GlassFish activities here.

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Sort Data in Windows Phone using Collection View Source

- by psheriff

When you write a Windows Phone application you will most likely consume data from a web service somewhere. If that service returns data to you in a sort order that you do not want, you have an easy alternative to sort the data without writing any C# or VB code. You use the built-in CollectionViewSource object in XAML to perform the sorting for you. This assumes that you can get the data into a collection that implements the IEnumerable or IList interfaces.For this example, I will be using a simple Product class with two properties, and a list of Product objects using the Generic List class. Try this out by creating a Product class as shown in the following code:public class Product { public Product(int id, string name) { ProductId = id; ProductName = name; } public int ProductId { get; set; } public string ProductName { get; set; }}Create a collection class that initializes a property called DataCollection with some sample data as shown in the code below:public class Products : List<Product>{ public Products() { InitCollection(); } public List<Product> DataCollection { get; set; } List<Product> InitCollection() { DataCollection = new List<Product>(); DataCollection.Add(new Product(3, "PDSA .NET Productivity Framework")); DataCollection.Add(new Product(1, "Haystack Code Generator for .NET")); DataCollection.Add(new Product(2, "Fundamentals of .NET eBook")); return DataCollection; }}Notice that the data added to the collection is not in any particular order. Create a Windows Phone page and add two XML namespaces to the Page.xmlns:scm="clr-namespace:System.ComponentModel;assembly=System.Windows"xmlns:local="clr-namespace:WPSortData"The 'local' namespace is an alias to the name of the project that you created (in this case WPSortData). The 'scm' namespace references the System.Windows.dll and is needed for the SortDescription class that you will use for sorting the data. Create a phone:PhoneApplicationPage.Resources section in your Windows Phone page that looks like the following:<phone:PhoneApplicationPage.Resources> <local:Products x:Key="products" /> <CollectionViewSource x:Key="prodCollection" Source="{Binding Source={StaticResource products}, Path=DataCollection}"> <CollectionViewSource.SortDescriptions> <scm:SortDescription PropertyName="ProductName" Direction="Ascending" /> </CollectionViewSource.SortDescriptions> </CollectionViewSource></phone:PhoneApplicationPage.Resources>The first line of code in the resources section creates an instance of your Products class. The constructor of the Products class calls the InitCollection method which creates three Product objects and adds them to the DataCollection property of the Products class. Once the Products object is instantiated you now add a CollectionViewSource object in XAML using the Products object as the source of the data to this collection. A CollectionViewSource has a SortDescriptions collection that allows you to specify a set of SortDescription objects. Each object can set a PropertyName and a Direction property. As you see in the above code you set the PropertyName equal to the ProductName property of the Product object and tell it to sort in an Ascending direction.All you have to do now is to create a ListBox control and set its ItemsSource property to the CollectionViewSource object. The ListBox displays the data in sorted order by ProductName and you did not have to write any LINQ queries or write other code to sort the data!<ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource prodCollection}}" DisplayMemberPath="ProductName" />SummaryIn this blog post you learned that you can sort any data without having to change the source code of where the data comes from. Simply feed the data into a CollectionViewSource in XAML and set some sort descriptions in XAML and the rest is done for you! This comes in very handy when you are consuming data from a source where the data is given to you and you do not have control over the sorting.NOTE: You can download this article and many samples like the one shown in this blog entry at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Select “Tips and Tricks”, then “Sort Data in Windows Phone using Collection View Source” from the drop down list.Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **We frequently offer a FREE gift for readers of my blog. Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for your FREE gift!

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How to attach turrets to tiles in a tile based game

- by Joseph St. Pierre

I am a flash developer, and I am building a Tower Defense game. The world is being built through tiles, and I have gotten that accomplished easily. I have also gotten level changes and enemy spawning down as well. However, I wish the player to be able to spawn turrets, and have those turrets be on specific tiles, based upon where the player placed it. Here is my code: stop(); colOffset = 50; rowOffset = 50; guns = []; placed = true; dead = 0; spawned = 0; level = 1; interval = 350 / level; amount = level * 20; counter = 0; numCol = 14; numRow = 10; tiles = []; k = 0; create = false; tileName = new Array("road","grass","end", "start"); board = new Array( new Array(1,1,1,1,3,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1), new Array(1,1,1,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,1,1,1), new Array(1,1,1,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,1,1), new Array(1,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,1,1), new Array(1,1,1,0,1,0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,1), new Array(1,1,1,0,1,1,1,0,0,1,1,1,0,1), new Array(1,1,0,0,1,1,1,1,0,1,1,0,0,1), new Array(1,1,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,1,0,0,1,1), new Array(1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,1,1), new Array(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,1) ); buildBoard(); function buildBoard(){ for ( col = 0; col < numCol; col++){ for ( row = 0; row < numRow; row++){ _root.attachMovie("tile", "tile_" + col + "_" + row, _root.getNextHighestDepth()); theTile = eval("tile_" + col + "_" + row); theTile._x = (col * 50); theTile._y = (row * 50); theTile.row = row; theTile.col = col; tileType = board[row][col]; theTile.gotoAndStop(tileName[tileType]); tiles.push(theTile); } } } init(); function init(){ onEnterFrame = function(){ counter += 1; if ( spawned < amount && counter > 50){ min= _root.attachMovie("minion","minion",_root.getNextHighestDepth()); min._x = tile_4_0._x + 25; min._y = tile_4_0._y + 25; min.health = 100; choose = Math.round(Math.random()); if ( choose == 0 ){ min.waypointX = [ tile_4_1._x +25, tile_3_1._x + 25, tile_3_2._x + 25, tile_3_6._x + 25, tile_2_6._x + 25, tile_2_8._x + 25, tile_8_8._x + 25, tile_8_9._x + 25, tile_10_9._x + 25, tile_10_7._x + 25, tile_11_7._x + 25, tile_11_6._x + 25, tile_12_6._x + 25, tile_12_4._x + 25, tile_11_4._x + 25, tile_11_2._x + 25, tile_10_2._x + 25, tile_10_0._x + 25]; min.waypointY = [ tile_4_1._y +25, tile_3_1._y + 25, tile_3_2._y + 25, tile_3_6._y + 25, tile_2_6._y + 25, tile_2_8._y + 25, tile_8_8._y + 25, tile_8_9._y + 25, tile_10_9._y + 25, tile_10_7._y + 25, tile_11_7._y + 25, tile_11_6._y + 25, tile_12_6._y + 25, tile_12_4._y + 25, tile_11_4._y + 25, tile_11_2._y + 25, tile_10_2._y + 25, tile_10_0._y + 25]; } else if ( choose == 1 ){ min.waypointX = [ tile_4_1._x +25, tile_3_1._x + 25, tile_3_2._x + 25, tile_3_3._x + 25, tile_5_3._x + 25, tile_5_4._x + 25, tile_7_4._x + 25, tile_7_5._x + 25, tile_8_5._x + 25, tile_8_8._x + 25, tile_8_9._x + 25, tile_10_9._x + 25, tile_10_7._x + 25, tile_11_7._x + 25, tile_11_6._x + 25, tile_12_6._x + 25, tile_12_4._x + 25, tile_11_4._x + 25, tile_11_2._x + 25, tile_10_2._x + 25, tile_10_0._x + 25 ]; min.waypointY = [ tile_4_1._y +25, tile_3_1._y + 25, tile_3_2._y + 25, tile_3_3._y + 25, tile_5_3._y + 25, tile_5_4._y + 25, tile_7_4._y + 25, tile_7_5._y + 25, tile_8_5._y + 25, tile_8_8._y + 25, tile_8_9._y + 25, tile_10_9._y + 25, tile_10_7._y + 25, tile_11_7._y + 25, tile_11_6._y + 25, tile_12_6._y + 25, tile_12_4._y + 25, tile_11_4._y + 25, tile_11_2._y + 25, tile_10_2._y + 25, tile_10_0._y + 25 ]; } min.i = 0; counter = 0; spawned += 1; min.onEnterFrame = function(){ dx = this.waypointX[this.i] - this._x; dy = this.waypointY[this.i] - this._y; radians = Math.atan2(dy,dx); degrees = radians * 180 / Math.PI; xspeed = Math.cos(radians); yspeed = Math.sin(radians); this._x += xspeed; this._y += yspeed; if( this._x == this.waypointX[this.i] && this._y == this.waypointY[this.i]){ this.i++; } if ( this._x == tile_10_0._x + 25 && this._y == tile_10_0._y + 25){ this.removeMovieClip(); dead += 1; } } } if ( dead >= amount ){ dead = 0; level += 1; amount = level * 20; spawned = 0; } } btnM.onRelease = function(){ create = true; } } game.onEnterFrame = function(){ } It is possible for me however to complete this task, but only once. I am able to make the turret, drag it over to a tile, and have it attach itself to the tile. No problem. The issue is, I cannot do these multiple times. Please Help.

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Using Delegates in C# (Part 1)

- by rajbk

This post provides a very basic introduction of delegates in C#. Part 2 of this post can be read here. A delegate is a class that is derived from System.Delegate. It contains a list of one or more methods called an invocation list. When a delegate instance is “invoked” with the arguments as defined in the signature of the delegate, each of the methods in the invocation list gets invoked with the arguments. The code below shows example with static and instance methods respectively: Static Methods 1: using System; 2: using System.Linq; 3: using System.Collections.Generic; 4: 5: public delegate void SayName(string name); 6: 7: public class Program 8: { 9: [STAThread] 10: static void Main(string[] args) 11: { 12: SayName englishDelegate = new SayName(SayNameInEnglish); 13: SayName frenchDelegate = new SayName(SayNameInFrench); 14: SayName combinedDelegate =(SayName)Delegate.Combine(englishDelegate, frenchDelegate); 15: 16: combinedDelegate.Invoke("Tom"); 17: Console.ReadLine(); 18: } 19: 20: static void SayNameInFrench(string name) { 21: Console.WriteLine("J'ai m'appelle " + name); 22: } 23: 24: static void SayNameInEnglish(string name) { 25: Console.WriteLine("My name is " + name); 26: } 27: } We have declared a delegate of type SayName with return type of void and taking an input parameter of name of type string. On line 12, we create a new instance of this delegate which refers to a static method - SayNameInEnglish. SayNameInEnglish has the same return type and parameter list as the delegate declaration. Once a delegate is instantiated, the instance will always refer to the same target. Delegates are immutable. On line 13, we create a new instance of the delegate but point to a different static method. As you may recall, a delegate instance encapsulates an invocation list. You create an invocation list by combining delegates using the Delegate.Combine method (there is an easier syntax as you will see later). When two non null delegate instances are combined, their invocation lists get combined to form a new invocation list. This is done in line 14. On line 16, we invoke the delegate with the Invoke method and pass in the required string parameter. Since the delegate has an invocation list with two entries, each of the method in the invocation list is invoked. If an unhandled exception occurs during the invocation of one of these methods, the exception gets bubbled up to the line where the invocation was made (line 16). If a delegate is null and you try to invoke it, you will get a System.NullReferenceException. We see the following output when the method is run: My name is TomJ'ai m'apelle Tom Instance Methods The code below outputs the same results as before. The only difference here is we are creating delegates that point to a target object (an instance of Translator) and instance methods which have the same signature as the delegate type. The target object can never be null. We also use the short cut syntax += to combine the delegates instead of Delegate.Combine. 1: public delegate void SayName(string name); 2: 3: public class Program 4: { 5: [STAThread] 6: static void Main(string[] args) 7: { 8: Translator translator = new Translator(); 9: SayName combinedDelegate = new SayName(translator.SayNameInEnglish); 10: combinedDelegate += new SayName(translator.SayNameInFrench); 11: 12: combinedDelegate.Invoke("Tom"); 13: Console.ReadLine(); 14: } 15: } 16: 17: public class Translator { 18: public void SayNameInFrench(string name) { 19: Console.WriteLine("J'ai m'appelle " + name); 20: } 21: 22: public void SayNameInEnglish(string name) { 23: Console.WriteLine("My name is " + name); 24: } 25: } A delegate can be removed from a combination of delegates by using the –= operator. Removing a delegate from an empty list or removing a delegate that does not exist in a non empty list will not result in an exception. Delegates are invoked synchronously using the Invoke method. We can also invoke them asynchronously using the BeginInvoke and EndInvoke methods which are compiler generated.

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Functional Adaptation

- by Charles Courchaine

In real life and OO programming we’re often faced with using adapters, DVI to VGA, 1/4” to 1/8” audio connections, 110V to 220V, wrapping an incompatible interface with a new one, and so on. Where the adapter pattern is generally considered for interfaces and classes a similar technique can be applied to method signatures. To be fair, this adaptation is generally used to reduce the number of parameters but I’m sure there are other clever possibilities to be had. As Jan questioned in the last post, how can we use a common method to execute an action if the action has a differing number of parameters, going back to the greeting example it was suggested having an AddName method that takes a first and last name as parameters. This is exactly what we’ll address in this post. Let’s set the stage with some review and some code changes. First, our method that handles the setup/tear-down infrastructure for our WCF service: 1: private static TResult ExecuteGreetingFunc<TResult>(Func<IGreeting, TResult> theGreetingFunc) 2: { 3: IGreeting aGreetingService = null; 4: try 5: { 6: aGreetingService = GetGreetingChannel(); 7: return theGreetingFunc(aGreetingService); 8: } 9: finally 10: { 11: CloseWCFChannel((IChannel)aGreetingService); 12: } 13: } Our original AddName method: 1: private static string AddName(string theName) 2: { 3: return ExecuteGreetingFunc<string>(theGreetingService => theGreetingService.AddName(theName)); 4: } Our new AddName method: 1: private static int AddName(string firstName, string lastName) 2: { 3: return ExecuteGreetingFunc<int>(theGreetingService => theGreetingService.AddName(firstName, lastName)); 4: } Let’s change the AddName method, just a little bit more for this example and have it take the greeting service as a parameter. 1: private static int AddName(IGreeting greetingService, string firstName, string lastName) 2: { 3: return greetingService.AddName(firstName, lastName); 4: } The new signature of AddName using the Func delegate is now Func<IGreeting, string, string, int>, which can’t be used with ExecuteGreetingFunc as is because it expects Func<IGreeting, TResult>. Somehow we have to eliminate the two string parameters before we can use this with our existing method. This is where we need to adapt AddName to match what ExecuteGreetingFunc expects, and we’ll do so in the following progression. 1: Func<IGreeting, string, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, string, int> 2: Func<IGreeting, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, int> For the first step, we’ll create a method using the lambda syntax that will “eliminate” the last name parameter: 1: string lastNameToAdd = "Smith"; 2: //Func<IGreeting, string, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, string, int> 3: Func<IGreeting, string, int> addName = (greetingService, firstName) => AddName(greetingService, firstName, lastNameToAdd); The new addName method gets us one step close to the signature we need. Let’s say we’re going to call this in a loop to add several names, we’ll take the final step from Func<IGreeting, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, int> in line as a lambda passed to ExecuteGreetingFunc like so: 1: List<string> firstNames = new List<string>() { "Bob", "John" }; 2: int aID; 3: foreach (string firstName in firstNames) 4: { 5: //Func<IGreeting, string, int> -> Func<IGreeting, int> 6: aID = ExecuteGreetingFunc<int>(greetingService => addName(greetingService, firstName)); 7: Console.WriteLine(GetGreeting(aID)); 8: } If for some reason you needed to break out the lambda on line 6 you could replace it with 1: aID = ExecuteGreetingFunc<int>(ApplyAddName(addName, firstName)); and use this method: 1: private static Func<IGreeting, int> ApplyAddName(Func<IGreeting, string, int> addName, string lastName) 2: { 3: return greetingService => addName(greetingService, lastName); 4: } Splitting out a lambda into its own method is useful both in this style of coding as well as LINQ queries to improve the debugging experience. It is not strictly necessary to break apart the steps & functions as was shown above; the lambda in line 6 (of the foreach example) could include both the last name and first name instead of being composed of two functions. The process demonstrated above is one of partially applying functions, this could have also been done with Currying (also see Dustin Campbell’s excellent post on Currying for the canonical curried add example). Matthew Podwysocki also has some good posts explaining both Currying and partial application and a follow up post that further clarifies the difference between Currying and partial application. In either technique the ultimate goal is to reduce the number of parameters passed to a function. Currying makes it a single parameter passed at each step, where partial application allows one to use multiple parameters at a time as we’ve done here. This technique isn’t for everyone or every problem, but can be extremely handy when you need to adapt a call to something you don’t control.

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