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• The Birth of a Method - Where did OUM come from?

  - by user702549

  It seemed fitting to start this blog entry with the OUM vision statement. The vision for the Oracle® Unified Method (OUM) is to support the entire Enterprise IT lifecycle, including support for the successful implementation of every Oracle product.  Well, it’s that time of year again; we just finished testing and packaging OUM 5.6.  It will be released for general availability to qualifying customers and partners this month.  Because of this, I’ve been reflecting back on how the birth of Oracle’s Unified method - OUM came about. As the Release Director of OUM, I’ve been honored to package every method release.  No, maybe you’d say it’s not so special.  Of course, anyone can use packaging software to create an .exe file.  But to me, it is pretty special, because so many people work together to make each release come about.  The rich content that results is what makes OUM’s history worth talking about.   To me, professionally speaking, working on OUM, well it’s been “a labor of love”.  My youngest child was just 8 years old when OUM was born, and she’s now in High School!  Watching her grow and change has been fascinating, if you ask her, she’s grown up hearing about OUM.  My son would often walk into my home office and ask “How is OUM today, Mom?”  I am one of many people that take care of OUM, and have watched the method “mature” over these last 6 years.  Maybe that makes me a "Method Mom" (someone in one of my classes last year actually said this outloud) but there are so many others who collaborate and care about OUM Development. I’ve thought about writing this blog entry for a long time just to reflect on how far the Method has come. Each release, as I prepare the OUM Contributors list, I see how many people’s experience and ideas it has taken to create this wealth of knowledge, process and task guidance as well as templates and examples.  If you’re wondering how many people, just go into OUM select the resources button on the top of most pages of the method, and on that resources page click the ABOUT link. So now back to my nostalgic moment as I finished release 5.6 packaging.  I reflected back, on all the things that happened that cause OUM to become not just a dream but to actually come to fruition.  Here are some key conditions that make it possible for each release of the method: A vision to have one method instead of many methods, thereby focusing on deeper, richer content People within Oracle’s consulting Organization  willing to contribute to OUM providing Subject Matter Experts who are willing to write down and share what they know. Oracle’s continued acquisition of software companies, the need to assimilate high quality existing materials from these companies The need to bring together people from very different backgrounds and provide a common language to support Oracle Product implementations that often involve multiple product families What came first, and then what was the strategy? Initially OUM 4.0 was based on Oracle’s J2EE Custom Development Method (JCDM), it was a good “backbone”  (work breakdown structure) it was Unified Process based, and had good content around UML as well as custom software development.  But it needed to be extended in order to achieve the OUM Vision. What happened after that was to take in the “best of the best”, the legacy and acquired methods were scheduled for assimilation into OUM, one release after another.  We incrementally built OUM.  We didn’t want to lose any of the expertise that was reflected in AIM (Oracle’s legacy Application Implementation Method), Compass (People Soft’s Application implementation method) and so many more. When was OUM born? OUM 4.1 published April 30, 2006.  This release allowed Oracles Advanced Technology groups to begin the very first implementations of Fusion Middleware.  In the early days of the Method we would prepare several releases a year.  Our iterative release development cycle began and continues to be refined with each Method release.  Now we typically see one major release each year. The OUM release development cycle is not unlike many Oracle Implementation projects in that we need to gather requirements, prioritize, prepare the content, test package and then go production.  Typically we develop an OUM release MoSCoW (must have, should have, could have, and won’t have) right after the prior release goes out.   These are the high level requirements.  We break the timeframe into increments, frequent checkpoints that help us assess the content and progress is measured through frequent checkpoints.  We work as a team to prioritize what should be done in each increment. Yes, the team provides the estimates for what can be done within a particular increment.  We sometimes have Method Development workshops (physically or virtually) to accelerate content development on a particular subject area, that is where the best content results. As the written content nears the final stages, it goes through edit and evaluation through peer reviews, and then moves into the release staging environment.  Then content freeze and testing of the method pack take place.  This iterative cycle is run using the OUM artifacts that make sense “fit for purpose”, project plans, MoSCoW lists, Test plans are just a few of the OUM work products we use on a Method Release project. In 2007 OUM 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5 were published.  With the release of 4.5 our Custom BI Method (Data Warehouse Method FastTrack) was assimilated into OUM.  These early releases helped us align Oracle’s Unified method with other industry standards Then in 2008 we made significant changes to the OUM “Backbone” to support Applications Implementation projects with that went to the OUM 5.0 release.  Now things started to get really interesting.  Next we had some major developments in the Envision focus area in the area of Enterprise Architecture.  We acquired some really great content from the former BEA, Liquid Enterprise Method (LEM) along with some SMEs who were willing to work at bringing this content into OUM.  The Service Oriented Architecture content in OUM is extensive and can help support the successful implementation of Fusion Middleware, as well as Fusion Applications. Of course we’ve developed a wealth of OUM training materials that work also helps to improve the method content.  It is one thing to write “how to”, and quite another to be able to teach people how to use the materials to improve the success of their projects.  I’ve learned so much by teaching people how to use OUM. What's next? So here toward the end of 2012, what’s in store in OUM 5.6, well, I’m sure you won’t be surprised the answer is Cloud Computing.   More details to come in the next couple of weeks!  The best part of being involved in the development of OUM is to see how many people have “adopted” OUM over these six years, Clients, Partners, and Oracle Consultants.  The content just gets better with each release.   I’d love to hear your comments on how OUM has evolved, and ideas for new content you’d like to see in the upcoming releases.

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• Alcatel-Lucent: Enterprise 2.0: The Top 5 Things I would Do Over

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Happy Monday! Does anyone else feel as if the weekend went entirely too quickly? At least for those of us in the United States, we have the 4th of July Holiday next week to look forward to This week on the blog, we are going to focus on "WebCenter by Example" and highlight best practices from customers and partners. I recently came across this article and I think this is a great example of how we can learn from one another when it comes to social collaboration adoption. Do you agree with Jem? What things or best practices have you learned in your organizations?  By Jem Janik, Enterprise community manager, Alcatel-Lucent  Not so long ago, Engage, the Alcatel-Lucent employee social network and collaboration platform, celebrated its third birthday. With more than 25,000 members actively interacting each month, Engage has been a big enough success that it’s been the subject of external articles, and often those of us who helped launch it will go out and speak about what aspects contributed to that success. Hindsight is still 20/20 and what it takes to successfully launch an enterprise 2.0 community is fairly well-known now.  Today I want to tell you what I suspect you really want to know about.  As the enterprise community manager for Engage, after three years in, what are the top 5 things I wish we (and I mostly mean me) could do over? #5 Define your analytics solution from the start There is so much to do when you launch a community and initially growing it without complete chaos is quite a task.  It doesn’t take too long to get to a point where you want to focus your continued efforts in growing company collaboration.  Do people truly talk across regional boundaries or have we shifted siloed conversations to a new platform.  Is there one organization that doesn’t interact with another? If you are lucky you’ll have someone in your community team well versed in the world of databases and SQL queries, but it takes time to figure out what backend analytics data actually means. Professional support can be expensive and it may be hard to justify later as it typically has the community manager as the only main customer.  Figure out what you think you’ll want to know and how to get it early on. The sooner the better even if it doesn’t seem that critical at the time. #4 Lobbies guide you to the right places One piece of feedback that comes up more and more as we keep growing Engage is it’s hard to find stuff, or new people are not sure where to start. Something we’re doing now is defining some general topic areas of interest to be like “lobbies” into the platform and some common hashtags to go with them. I liken this to walking into a large medical or professional building for the first time.  There are hundreds of offices, and you look to a sign in the lobby to get guided to the right place for you.  We’re building that sign for members now, but again we missed the boat as the majority of the company has had their initial Engage experience. #3 Clean up, clean up, clean up Knowledge work and folksonomies are messy! The day we opened the doors to Engage I would have said we should keep everything ever created in Engage with an argument that it was a window into our collective knowledge so nothing should go.  Well, 6000+ groups and 200,000+ pieces of content later, I’ve changed my mind.  As previously mentioned, with too much “stuff” the system can be overwhelming to new members and it makes it harder to get what you’re looking for.   Do we need that help document about a tool we no longer have? NO!  Do we need that group that had 1 document and 2 discussions in the last two years? NO! Should we only have one group about a given topic instead of 4?  YES! Last fall, Engage defined a cleanup process for groups not used for a long time.  We also formed a volunteer cleaning army who are extra eyes on the hunt for “stuff” that should be updated, merged, or deleted.  It’s better late than never, but in line with what’s becoming a theme I wish these efforts had started earlier. #2 Communications & local community management One of the most important aspects of my job is to make sure people who should be talking to each other are actually doing it.  Connecting people to the other people they should know, the groups they should join, a piece of content that shouldn’t be missed.   I have worked both inside and outside of communications teams, and they are the best informed people in your company.  They know when something big is coming, how it impacts employees, how it fits with strategy, who else knows more, etc.  Having communications professionals who are power users can help scale up community management because they are already so well connected.  They also need to have the platform skills to pay attention without suffering email overload, how to grab someone’s attention, etc.  I wish I’d had figured this out much earlier.  If I had I would have groomed more communications colleagues into advocates and power members right at the start. #1 Grooming advocates vs. natural advocates I’ve just alluded to this above already. The very best advocates are those who naturally embrace your platform and automatically start to see new ways to work within it.  Those advocates seem to come out of the woodwork naturally since some of them are early adopters.  Not surprisingly, our best advocates today are those same people who were willing to come kick the tires when the community was completely empty.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get a global spread of those natural advocates.  I did ask around when we first launched for other people who might be good candidates, but didn’t push too hard as there were so many other things to get ready.  That was a mistake.  If I could get a redo I would have formally asked for people to be assigned where there were gaps and groomed them into an advocate.  Today as we find new advocates to fill the gaps, people are hesitant as the initial set has three years of practice are ahead of the curve power members; it definitely would have been easier earlier on. As fairly early adopters to corporate scale enterprise collaboration, there hasn’t been a roadmap to follow as we’ve grown Engage, which is part of the fun! It’s clear a lot of issues are more easily tackled the earlier you identify and begin to correct them, and I’ve identified the main five I wish I could redo.  In the spirit of collaboration, I hope someone else learns from my mistakes! View the original article by Jem here. 

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• Designing for the future

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  User interfaces and user experience design is a fast moving field. It’s something that changes pretty quick: what feels fresh today will look outdated tomorrow. I remember the day I first got a beta version of Windows 95 and I felt swept away by the user interface of the OS. It felt so modern! If I look back now, it feels old. Well, it should: the design is 17 years old which is an eternity in our field. Of course, this is not limited to UI. Same goes for many industries. I want you to think back of the cars that amazed you when you were in your teens (if you are in your teens then this may not apply to you). Didn’t they feel like part of the future? Didn’t you think that this was the ultimate in designs? And aren’t those designs hopelessly outdated today (again, depending on your age, it may just be me)? Let’s review the Win95 design: And let’s compare that to Windows 7: There are so many differences here, I wouldn’t even know where to start explaining them. The general feeling however is one of more usability: studies have shown Windows 7 is much easier to understand for new users than the older versions of Windows did. Of course, experienced Windows users didn’t like it: people are usually afraid of changes and like to stick to what they know. But for new users this was a huge improvement. And that is what UX design is all about: make a product easier to use, with less training required and make users feel more productive. Still, there are areas where this doesn’t hold up. There are plenty examples of designs from the past that are still fresh today. But if you look closely at them, you’ll notice some subtle differences. This differences are what keep the designs fresh. A good example is the signs you’ll find on the road. They haven’t changed much over the years (otherwise people wouldn’t recognize them anymore) but they have been changing gradually to reflect changes in traffic. The same goes for computer interfaces. With each new product or version of a product, the UI and UX is changed gradually. Every now and then however, a bigger change is needed. Just think about the introduction of the Ribbon in Microsoft Office 2007: the whole UI was redesigned. A lot of old users (not in age, but in times of using older versions) didn’t like it a bit, but new users or casual users seem to be more efficient using the product. Which, of course, is exactly the reason behind the changes. I believe that a big engine behind the changes in User Experience design has been the web. In the old days (i.e. before the explosion of the internet) user interface design in Windows applications was limited to choosing the margins between your battleship gray buttons. When the web came along, and especially the web 2.0 where the browsers started to act more and more as application platforms, designers stepped in and made a huge impact. In the browser, they could do whatever they wanted. In the beginning this was limited to the darn blink tag but gradually people really started to think about UX. Even more so: the design of the UI and the whole experience was taken away from the developers and put into the hands of people who knew what they were doing: UX designers. This caused some problems. Everyone who has done a web project in the early 2000’s must have had the same experience: the designers give you a set of Photoshop files and tell you to translate it to HTML. Which, of course, is very hard to do. However, with new tooling and new standards this became much easier. The latest version of HTML and CSS has taken the responsibility for the design away from the developers and placed them in the capable hands of the designers. And that’s where that responsibility belongs, after all, I don’t want a designer to muck around in my c# code just as much as he or she doesn’t want me to poke in the sites style definitions. This change in responsibilities resulted in good looking but more important: better thought out user interfaces in websites. And when websites became more and more interactive, people started to expect the same sort of look and feel from their desktop applications. But that didn’t really happen. Most business applications still have that battleship gray look and feel. Ok, they may use a different color but we’re not talking colors here but usability. Now, you may not be able to read the Dutch captions, but even if you did you wouldn’t understand what was going on. At least, not when you first see it. You have to scan the screen, read all the labels, see how they are related to the other elements on the screen and then figure out what they do. If you’re an experienced user of this application however, this might be a good thing: you know what to do and you get all the information you need in one single screen. But for most applications this isn’t the case. A lot of people only use their computer for a limited time a day (a weird concept for me, but it happens) and need it to get something done and then get on with their lives. For them, a user interface experience like the above isn’t working. (disclaimer: I just picked a screenshot, I am not saying this is bad software but it is an example of about 95% of the Windows applications out there). For the knowledge worker, this isn’t a problem. They use one or two systems and they know exactly what they need to do to achieve their goal. They don’t want any clutter on their screen that distracts them from their task, they just want to be as efficient as possible. When they know the systems they are very productive. The point is, how long does it take to become productive? And: could they be even more productive if the UX was better? Are there things missing that they don’t know about? Are there better ways to achieve what they want to achieve? Also: could a system be designed in such a way that it is not only much more easy to work with but also less tiring? in the example above you need to switch between the keyboard and mouse a lot, something that we now know can be very tiring. The goal of most applications (being client apps or websites on any kind of device) is to provide information. Information is data that when given to the right people, on the right time, in the right place and when it is correct adds value for that person (please, remember that definition: I still hear the statement “the information was wrong” which doesn’t make sense: data can be wrong, information cannot be). So if a system provides data, how can we make sure the chances of becoming information is as high as possible? A good example of a well thought-out system that attempts this is the Zune client. It is a very good application, and I think the UX is much better than it’s main competitor iTunes. Have a look at both: On the left you see the iTunes screenshot, on the right the Zune. As you notice, the Zune screen has more images but less chrome (chrome being visuals not part of the data you want to show, i.e. edges around buttons). The whole thing is text oriented or image oriented, where that text or image is part of the information you need. What is important is big, what’s less important is smaller. Yet, everything you need to know at that point is present and your attention is drawn immediately to what you’re trying to achieve: information about music. You can easily switch between the content on your machine and content on your Zune player but clicking on the image of the player. But if you didn’t know that, you’d find out soon enough: the whole UX is designed in such a way that it invites you to play around. So sooner or later (probably sooner) you’d click on that image and you would see what it does. In the iTunes version it’s harder to find: the discoverability is a lot lower. For inexperienced people the Zune player feels much more natural than the iTunes player, and they get up to speed a lot faster. How does this all work? Why is this UX better? The answer lies in a project from Microsoft with the codename (it seems to be becoming the official name though) “Metro”. Metro is a design language, based on certain principles. When they thought about UX they took a good long look around them and went out in search of metaphors. And they found them. The team noticed that signage in streets, airports, roads, buildings and so on are usually very clear and very precise. These signs give you the information you need and nothing more. It’s simple, clearly understood and fast to understand. A good example are airport signs. Airports can be intimidating places, especially for the non-experienced traveler. In the early 1990’s Amsterdam Airport Schiphol decided to redesign all the signage to make the traveller feel less disoriented. They developed a set of guidelines for signs and implemented those. Soon, most airports around the world adopted these ideas and you see variations of the Dutch signs everywhere on the globe. The signs are text-oriented. Yes, there are icons explaining what it all means for the people who can’t read or don’t understand the language, but the basic sign language is text. It’s clear, it’s high-contrast and it’s easy to understand. One look at the sign and you know where to go. The only thing I don’t like is the green sign pointing to the emergency exit, but since this is the default style for emergency exits I understand why they did this. If you look at the Zune UI again, you’ll notice the similarities. Text oriented, little or no icons, clear usage of fonts and all the information you need. This design language has a set of principles: Clean, light, open and fast Content, not chrome Soulful and alive These are just a couple of the principles, you can read the whole philosophy behind Metro for Windows Phone 7 here. These ideas seem to work. I love my Windows Phone 7. It’s easy to use, it’s clear, there’s no clutter that I do not need. It works for me. And I noticed it works for a lot of other people as well, especially people who aren’t as proficient with computers as I am. You see these ideas in a lot other places. Corning, a manufacturer of glass, has made a video of possible usages of their products. It’s their glimpse into the future. You’ll notice that a lot of the UI in the screens look a lot like what Microsoft is doing with Metro (not coincidentally Corning is the supplier for the Gorilla glass display surface on the new SUR40 device (or Surface v2.0 as a lot of people call it)). The idea behind this vision is that data should be available everywhere where you it. Systems should be available at all times and data is presented in a clear and light manner so that you can turn that data into information. You don’t need a lot of fancy animations that only distract from the data. You want the data and you want it fast. Have a look at this truly inspiring video that made: This is what I believe the future will look like. Of course, not everything is possible, or even desirable. But it is a nice way to think about the future . I feel very strongly about designing applications in such a way that they add value to the user. Designing applications that turn data into information. Applications that make the user feel happy to use them. So… when are you going to drop the battleship-gray designs? Tags van Technorati: surface,design,windows phone 7,wp7,metro

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• Best Books of C

  - by Patrick

  Hi, I realy want to get high skills in C programming and I know that the best and only way is hard work and lots of practice. though I found so many tutorials and books available on the net about learning the C language. I'm just looking for one or two good books in C that I can learn from and get high skills in C. Anyone knows such a great book/books for C programming pls? (sorry for replication if the question exists already in the forum) Regards!

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• How does someone with a business degree become a software consultant?

  - by gambit14

  I'm a 4th year computer engineering student from a reputable university in Toronto and i'm curious as to how some of these software consulting positions with the large firms (Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, etc.) accept business grads as well as comp-sci and computer engineers? How does a business grad consult on software without having a background in software? Besides communication skills and other soft skills, what separates me from a business grad for these positions? Thanks.

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• what should a developer know/address to build commercial Android Apps ?

  - by giulio

  Android and mobile development is an exciting area of development. As it is a new discipline, what would be expected of an android developer to build commercially robust applications in terms of skills ? The problem that I and, i think, many other "noobs" into the technology would like to know are the areas of technical skills and the progression to the required advanced topics that goes beyond the the very basics provided by Google. There is a lot of information that's quite useful but its not organised into categories of discipline nor order.

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• Does learning a functional language make a better OOP programmer?

  - by GavinH

  As a Java/C#/C++ programmer I hear a lot of talk about functional languages, but have never found a need to learn one. I've also heard that the higher level of thinking introduced in functional languages makes you a better OOP/procedural language programmer. Can anyone confirm this? In what ways does it improve your programming skills? What is a good choice of language to learn with the goal of improving skills in a less sophisticated language?

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• Rails vs. Drupal [closed]

  - by joker13

  I was querying indeed.com/salary to investigate general market trends. When comparing ruby on rails with drupal, you would observe a substantial difference between these two. I'm not sure if the data on indeed.com is reliable or not but I'd appreciate your comments if you have ever tried both rails and drupal. Actually I am a .net developer considering an alternative to my asp.net mvc skills and I like to learn some non-microsoft web programming skills as well.

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• Vermont IT Jobs: C# Developer in Burlington

  Senior C# Engineer Qualifications: 5+ years of programming experience Strong C# development skills Thorough grounding in Object-Oriented design principles and design patterns Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field Strong message-oriented development skills (JMS, MSMQ, TCP/IP, Web Services, etc.) Agile development background (understanding of methodology, terms, and process) Demonstrated teamwork and flexibility in previous work assignments Experience working...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Overview: Unique offerings for OPN members

  - by michaela.seika(at)oracle.com

  You need knowledge and skills to pass the exams to get specialised. We have mapped the Bootcamps and Courses that will enable you to do this. Oracle University knows that you need knowledge and skills quickly and recognises that you learn fast. Accelerate your learning curve by taking one of our OPN Only Bootcamps . They have highly attractive prices and your OPN discount is applied on top of this. View the schedule for each country at the following webpage:http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=400&p_name=OPNOFFERS

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• What it Takes to Create a Website

  It takes many skills to create a website. In this article we discuss some of those skills and the importance of them. Know HTML. Creating a website is so easy. This tutorial is very easy to follow.

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• Ready to Build? Own Website Construction Ramping Up

  Organisations around the world are becoming increasingly aware that the ability to Build their own website is critical for future growth. The onset of extremely effective "build my own website" programs and software is causing businesses to question the value of paying top dollar to have their online presence outsourced. Employees who develop the skills of website creation and internet marketing will become invaluable to their companies. Without employees who have developed these skills, businesses will find themselves falling way behind.

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• Agile team with no dedicated Tester members. Insane or efficient?

  - by MetaFight

  I'm a software developer. I've been thinking a lot about the efficiency of the Software Testers I've worked with so far in my career. In fact, I've been thinking a lot about the Software Testers role in general and have reached a potentially contentious conclusion: Non-developer Software Testers staff are less efficient at software testing than developers. Now, before everyone gets upset, hear me out. This isn't mere opinion: Software Testing and Software Development both require a lot of skills in common: Problem solving Thinking about corner cases Analytical skills The ability to define clear and concise step-by-step scenarios What developers have in addition to this is the ability to automate their tests. Yes, I know non-dev testers can automate their tests too, but that often then becomes a test maintenance issue. Because automating UI tests is essentially programming, non-dev members encounter all the same difficulties software developers encounter: Copy-pasta, lack of code reusibility/maintainability, etc. So, I was wondering. Why not replace all non-dev roles with developer roles? Developers have the skills required to perform Software Testing tasks, and they have the skills to automate tests and keep them maintainable. Would the following work: Hire a bunch of developers and split them into 2 roles: Software developers Software developers doing testing (some manual, mostly automated by writing integration tests, unit tests, etc) Software developers doing application support. (I've removed this as it is probably a separate question altogether) And, in our case since we're doing Agile development, rotate the roles every sprint or two. Also, if at all possible, try to have people spend their Developer stints and Testing stints on different projects. Ideally you would want to reduce the turnover rate per rotation. So maybe you could have 2 groups and make sure the rotation cycles of the groups are elided. So, for example, if each rotation was two sprints long, the two groups would have their rotations 1 sprint apart. That way there's only a 50% turn-over rate per sprint. Am I crazy, or could this work? (Obviously a key component to this working is that all devs want to be in the 3 roles. Let's assume I'm starting a new company and I can hire these ideal people) Edit I've removed the phrase "QA", as apparently we are using it incorrectly where I work.

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• Need help with fixing Genetic Algorithm that's not evolving correctly

  - by EnderMB

  I am working on a maze solving application that uses a Genetic Algorithm to evolve a set of genes (within Individuals) to evolve a Population of Individuals that power an Agent through a maze. The majority of the code used appears to be working fine but when the code runs it's not selecting the best Individual's to be in the new Population correctly. When I run the application it outputs the following: Total Fitness: 380.0 - Best Fitness: 11.0 Total Fitness: 406.0 - Best Fitness: 15.0 Total Fitness: 344.0 - Best Fitness: 12.0 Total Fitness: 373.0 - Best Fitness: 11.0 Total Fitness: 415.0 - Best Fitness: 12.0 Total Fitness: 359.0 - Best Fitness: 11.0 Total Fitness: 436.0 - Best Fitness: 13.0 Total Fitness: 390.0 - Best Fitness: 12.0 Total Fitness: 379.0 - Best Fitness: 15.0 Total Fitness: 370.0 - Best Fitness: 11.0 Total Fitness: 361.0 - Best Fitness: 11.0 Total Fitness: 413.0 - Best Fitness: 16.0 As you can clearly see the fitnesses are not improving and neither are the best fitnesses. The main code responsible for this problem is here, and I believe the problem to be within the main method, most likely where the selection methods are called: package GeneticAlgorithm; import GeneticAlgorithm.Individual.Action; import Robot.Robot.Direction; import Maze.Maze; import Robot.Robot; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.Random; public class RunGA { protected static ArrayList tmp1, tmp2 = new ArrayList(); // Implementation of Elitism protected static int ELITISM_K = 5; // Population size protected static int POPULATION_SIZE = 50 + ELITISM_K; // Max number of Iterations protected static int MAX_ITERATIONS = 200; // Probability of Mutation protected static double MUTATION_PROB = 0.05; // Probability of Crossover protected static double CROSSOVER_PROB = 0.7; // Instantiate Random object private static Random rand = new Random(); // Instantiate Population of Individuals private Individual[] startPopulation; // Total Fitness of Population private double totalFitness; Robot robot = new Robot(); Maze maze; public void setElitism(int result) { ELITISM_K = result; } public void setPopSize(int result) { POPULATION_SIZE = result + ELITISM_K; } public void setMaxIt(int result) { MAX_ITERATIONS = result; } public void setMutProb(double result) { MUTATION_PROB = result; } public void setCrossoverProb(double result) { CROSSOVER_PROB = result; } /** * Constructor for Population */ public RunGA(Maze maze) { // Create a population of population plus elitism startPopulation = new Individual[POPULATION_SIZE]; // For every individual in population fill with x genes from 0 to 1 for (int i = 0; i < POPULATION_SIZE; i++) { startPopulation[i] = new Individual(); startPopulation[i].randGenes(); } // Evaluate the current population's fitness this.evaluate(maze, startPopulation); } /** * Set Population * @param newPop */ public void setPopulation(Individual[] newPop) { System.arraycopy(newPop, 0, this.startPopulation, 0, POPULATION_SIZE); } /** * Get Population * @return */ public Individual[] getPopulation() { return this.startPopulation; } /** * Evaluate fitness * @return */ public double evaluate(Maze maze, Individual[] newPop) { this.totalFitness = 0.0; ArrayList<Double> fitnesses = new ArrayList<Double>(); for (int i = 0; i < POPULATION_SIZE; i++) { maze = new Maze(8, 8); maze.fillMaze(); fitnesses.add(startPopulation[i].evaluate(maze, newPop)); //this.totalFitness += startPopulation[i].evaluate(maze, newPop); } //totalFitness = (Math.round(totalFitness / POPULATION_SIZE)); StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); for(Double tmp : fitnesses) { sb.append(tmp + ", "); totalFitness += tmp; } // Progress of each Individual //System.out.println(sb.toString()); return this.totalFitness; } /** * Roulette Wheel Selection * @return */ public Individual rouletteWheelSelection() { // Calculate sum of all chromosome fitnesses in population - sum S. double randNum = rand.nextDouble() * this.totalFitness; int i; for (i = 0; i < POPULATION_SIZE && randNum > 0; ++i) { randNum -= startPopulation[i].getFitnessValue(); } return startPopulation[i-1]; } /** * Tournament Selection * @return */ public Individual tournamentSelection() { double randNum = rand.nextDouble() * this.totalFitness; // Get random number of population (add 1 to stop nullpointerexception) int k = rand.nextInt(POPULATION_SIZE) + 1; int i; for (i = 1; i < POPULATION_SIZE && i < k && randNum > 0; ++i) { randNum -= startPopulation[i].getFitnessValue(); } return startPopulation[i-1]; } /** * Finds the best individual * @return */ public Individual findBestIndividual() { int idxMax = 0; double currentMax = 0.0; double currentMin = 1.0; double currentVal; for (int idx = 0; idx < POPULATION_SIZE; ++idx) { currentVal = startPopulation[idx].getFitnessValue(); if (currentMax < currentMin) { currentMax = currentMin = currentVal; idxMax = idx; } if (currentVal > currentMax) { currentMax = currentVal; idxMax = idx; } } // Double check to see if this has the right one //System.out.println(startPopulation[idxMax].getFitnessValue()); // Maximisation return startPopulation[idxMax]; } /** * One Point Crossover * @param firstPerson * @param secondPerson * @return */ public static Individual[] onePointCrossover(Individual firstPerson, Individual secondPerson) { Individual[] newPerson = new Individual[2]; newPerson[0] = new Individual(); newPerson[1] = new Individual(); int size = Individual.SIZE; int randPoint = rand.nextInt(size); int i; for (i = 0; i < randPoint; ++i) { newPerson[0].setGene(i, firstPerson.getGene(i)); newPerson[1].setGene(i, secondPerson.getGene(i)); } for (; i < Individual.SIZE; ++i) { newPerson[0].setGene(i, secondPerson.getGene(i)); newPerson[1].setGene(i, firstPerson.getGene(i)); } return newPerson; } /** * Uniform Crossover * @param firstPerson * @param secondPerson * @return */ public static Individual[] uniformCrossover(Individual firstPerson, Individual secondPerson) { Individual[] newPerson = new Individual[2]; newPerson[0] = new Individual(); newPerson[1] = new Individual(); for(int i = 0; i < Individual.SIZE; ++i) { double r = rand.nextDouble(); if (r > 0.5) { newPerson[0].setGene(i, firstPerson.getGene(i)); newPerson[1].setGene(i, secondPerson.getGene(i)); } else { newPerson[0].setGene(i, secondPerson.getGene(i)); newPerson[1].setGene(i, firstPerson.getGene(i)); } } return newPerson; } public double getTotalFitness() { return totalFitness; } public static void main(String[] args) { // Initialise Environment Maze maze = new Maze(8, 8); maze.fillMaze(); // Instantiate Population //Population pop = new Population(); RunGA pop = new RunGA(maze); // Instantiate Individuals for Population Individual[] newPop = new Individual[POPULATION_SIZE]; // Instantiate two individuals to use for selection Individual[] people = new Individual[2]; Action action = null; Direction direction = null; String result = ""; /*result += "Total Fitness: " + pop.getTotalFitness() + " - Best Fitness: " + pop.findBestIndividual().getFitnessValue();*/ // Print Current Population System.out.println("Total Fitness: " + pop.getTotalFitness() + " - Best Fitness: " + pop.findBestIndividual().getFitnessValue()); // Instantiate counter for selection int count; for (int i = 0; i < MAX_ITERATIONS; i++) { count = 0; // Elitism for (int j = 0; j < ELITISM_K; ++j) { // This one has the best fitness newPop[count] = pop.findBestIndividual(); count++; } // Build New Population (Population size = Steps (28)) while (count < POPULATION_SIZE) { // Roulette Wheel Selection people[0] = pop.rouletteWheelSelection(); people[1] = pop.rouletteWheelSelection(); // Tournament Selection //people[0] = pop.tournamentSelection(); //people[1] = pop.tournamentSelection(); // Crossover if (rand.nextDouble() < CROSSOVER_PROB) { // One Point Crossover //people = onePointCrossover(people[0], people[1]); // Uniform Crossover people = uniformCrossover(people[0], people[1]); } // Mutation if (rand.nextDouble() < MUTATION_PROB) { people[0].mutate(); } if (rand.nextDouble() < MUTATION_PROB) { people[1].mutate(); } // Add to New Population newPop[count] = people[0]; newPop[count+1] = people[1]; count += 2; } // Make new population the current population pop.setPopulation(newPop); // Re-evaluate the current population //pop.evaluate(); pop.evaluate(maze, newPop); // Print results to screen System.out.println("Total Fitness: " + pop.totalFitness + " - Best Fitness: " + pop.findBestIndividual().getFitnessValue()); //result += "\nTotal Fitness: " + pop.totalFitness + " - Best Fitness: " + pop.findBestIndividual().getFitnessValue(); } // Best Individual Individual bestIndiv = pop.findBestIndividual(); //return result; } } I have uploaded the full project to RapidShare if you require the extra files, although if needed I can add the code to them here. This problem has been depressing me for days now and if you guys can help me I will forever be in your debt.

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• Join one row to multiple rows in another table

  - by Ghostrider

  I have a table to entities (lets call them people) and properties (one person can have an arbitrary number of properties). Ex: People Name Age -------- Jane 27 Joe 36 Jim 16 Properties Name Property ----------------- Jane Smart Jane Funny Jane Good-looking Joe Smart Joe Workaholic Jim Funny Jim Young I would like to write an efficient select that would select people based on age and return all or some of their properties. Ex: People older than 26 Name Properties Jane Smart, Funny, Good-looking Joe Smart, Workaholic It's also acceptable to return one of the properties and total property count. The query should be efficient: there are millions of rows in people table, hundreds of thousands of rows in properties table (so most people have no properties). There are hundreds of rows selected at a time. Is there any way to do it?

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• how can i get proper Uri of a particular contact in android 2.1

  - by Rishabh

  I have written an application and added 2 contacts on emulator, but i am not able to update their names on android 2.1, code is working on android 1.6 platform with the following code. ContentValues contactValues = new ContentValues(); contactValues.put(Contacts.People.NAME, firstName+" "+lastName); getContentResolver().update(UpdateContactUri, contactValues, null, null); In android 1.6 i am getting Uri for those two contacts are "content:// contacts/people/1" and "content://contacts/people/2". but in 2.1 I am getting these values are "content://contacts/people/8" and "content://contacts/people/9" and while updating its giving "java.IllegalArgumentException, Empty values" exception. When i tried to put a static Uri like "content://contacts/people/1", code was debugged sucessfully but contact was not updated. How can i resolve it, why i am not getting uri like 1.6 platform ? Thanks in advance...

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• SUM of column with Left Outer Join

  - by Matt

  I am trying to get the Count of all records that have at least on person who is authorized on the record. Basically, a Record can have more than one person associated with it. I want to return the count of Total Records, a count of total Authorized Records where at least 1 person is authorized, and a count of total NotAuthorized records where no person associated with record is authorized. It doesn't matter if one person is authorized per Record or if 3 people are authorized for that record, that should add 1 to the Authorized counter. The current query is incrementing Auth and Non auth for each person added per record rather, than one per record. If no people are assigned to the record that should also count towards Not Auth. SELECT Count(DISTINCT Record.RecordID) AS TotalRecords, SUM(CASE WHEN People.PersonLevel = 1 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS Authorized, SUM(CASE WHEN People.PersonLevel <> 1 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS NotAuthorized FROM Record LEFT OUTER JOIN RecordPeople ON Record.RecordID = RecordPeople.RecordID LEFT OUTER JOIN People ON RecordPeople.PersonID = People.PersonID

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• Is "for(;;)" faster than "while (TRUE)"? If not, why do people use it?

  - by Chris Cooper

  for (;;) { //Something to be done repeatedly } I have seen this sort of thing used a lot, but I think it is rather strange... Wouldn't it be much clearer to say while (TRUE), or something along those lines? I'm guessing that (as is the reason for many-a-programmer to resort to cryptic code) this is a tiny margin faster? Why, and is it REALLY worth it? If so, why not just define it this way: #DEFINE while(TRUE) for(;;)

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• Ask the Readers: Do You Use the Command Line?

  - by Asian Angel

  Most people have heard of it but not everyone is familiar or comfortable with how to use this bastion of geekdom. This week we would like to know if you use the command line or not. The command line…the bastion of ultimate geekery in many peoples’ eyes. You often hear people referring to doing things using the command line, so there must be something to it, right? For some people using the command line is the best, most efficient, and easiest way to do things on their systems. These are the people that many of us wish we were like. Next you have those who are proficient at using the command line but do not rely on it for everything they do on their systems. Then there are people who know how to perform some tasks or hacks using the command line but may not be as comfortable or knowledgeable as they wish to be using it. Moving on you find those who are interested in learning how to use the command line and just need a small push to get started.  Perhaps you feel too intimidated to learn it and just need the right opportunity to come along. And maybe you do not care one way or the other so long as you get done what you want to do on your system. Or you may prefer to simply use a graphical interface since that is quicker and easier for you (along with being familiar). You can find the whole range of people when it comes to using the command line… This week we would like to know if you use the command line or not. What command line category do you fit into? Power user? Casual usage? Totally lost? Let us know in the comments! How-To Geek Polls require Javascript. Please Click Here to View the Poll. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography Fun and Colorful Firefox Theme for Windows 7 Happy Snow Bears Theme for Chrome and Iron [Holiday] Download Full Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun Game for Free Scorched Cometary Planet Wallpaper Quick Fix: Add the RSS Button Back to the Firefox Awesome Bar Dropbox Desktop Client 1.0.0 RC for Windows, Linux, and Mac Released

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• Pluralsight Meet the Author Podcast on Structuring JavaScript Code

  - by dwahlin

  I had the opportunity to talk with Fritz Onion from Pluralsight about one of my recent courses titled Structuring JavaScript Code for one of their Meet the Author podcasts. We talked about why JavaScript patterns are important for building more re-useable and maintainable apps, pros and cons of different patterns, and how to go about picking a pattern as a project is started. The course provides a solid walk-through of converting what I call “Function Spaghetti Code” into more modular code that’s easier to maintain, more re-useable, and less susceptible to naming conflicts. Patterns covered in the course include the Prototype Pattern, Revealing Module Pattern, and Revealing Prototype Pattern along with several other tips and techniques that can be used. Meet the Author:  Dan Wahlin on Structuring JavaScript Code   The transcript from the podcast is shown below: [Fritz]  Hello, this is Fritz Onion with another Pluralsight author interview. Today we’re talking with Dan Wahlin about his new course, Structuring JavaScript Code. Hi, Dan, it’s good to have you with us today. [Dan]  Thanks for having me, Fritz. [Fritz]  So, Dan, your new course, which came out in December of 2011 called Structuring JavaScript Code, goes into several patterns of usage in JavaScript as well as ways of organizing your code and what struck me about it was all the different techniques you described for encapsulating your code. I was wondering if you could give us just a little insight into what your motivation was for creating this course and sort of why you decided to write it and record it. [Dan]  Sure. So, I got started with JavaScript back in the mid 90s. In fact, back in the days when browsers that most people haven’t heard of were out and we had JavaScript but it wasn’t great. I was on a project in the late 90s that was heavy, heavy JavaScript and we pretty much did what I call in the course function spaghetti code where you just have function after function, there’s no rhyme or reason to how those functions are structured, they just kind of flow and it’s a little bit hard to do maintenance on it, you really don’t get a lot of reuse as far as from an object perspective. And so coming from an object-oriented background in JAVA and C#, I wanted to put something together that highlighted kind of the new way if you will of writing JavaScript because most people start out just writing functions and there’s nothing with that, it works, but it’s definitely not a real reusable solution. So the course is really all about how to move from just kind of function after function after function to the world of more encapsulated code and more reusable and hopefully better maintenance in the process. [Fritz]  So I am sure a lot of people have had similar experiences with their JavaScript code and will be looking forward to seeing what types of patterns you’ve put forth. Now, a couple I noticed in your course one is you start off with the prototype pattern. Do you want to describe sort of what problem that solves and how you go about using it within JavaScript? [Dan]  Sure. So, the patterns that are covered such as the prototype pattern and the revealing module pattern just as two examples, you know, show these kind of three things that I harp on throughout the course of encapsulation, better maintenance, reuse, those types of things. The prototype pattern specifically though has a couple kind of pros over some of the other patterns and that is the ability to extend your code without touching source code and what I mean by that is let’s say you’re writing a library that you know either other teammates or other people just out there on the Internet in general are going to be using. With the prototype pattern, you can actually write your code in such a way that we’re leveraging the JavaScript property and by doing that now you can extend my code that I wrote without touching my source code script or you can even override my code and perform some new functionality. Again, without touching my code.  And so you get kind of the benefit of the almost like inheritance or overriding in object oriented languages with this prototype pattern and it makes it kind of attractive that way definitely from a maintenance standpoint because, you know, you don’t want to modify a script I wrote because I might roll out version 2 and now you’d have to track where you change things and it gets a little tricky. So with this you just override those pieces or extend them and get that functionality and that’s kind of some of the benefits that that pattern offers out of the box. [Fritz]  And then the revealing module pattern, how does that differ from the prototype pattern and what problem does that solve differently? [Dan]  Yeah, so the prototype pattern and there’s another one that’s kind of really closely lined with revealing module pattern called the revealing prototype pattern and it also uses the prototype key word but it’s very similar to the one you just asked about the revealing module pattern. [Fritz]  Okay. [Dan]  This is a really popular one out there. In fact, we did a project for Microsoft that was very, very heavy JavaScript. It was an HMTL5 jQuery type app and we use this pattern for most of the structure if you will for the JavaScript code and what it does in a nutshell is allows you to get that encapsulation so you have really a single function wrapper that wraps all your other child functions but it gives you the ability to do public versus private members and this is kind of a sort of debate out there on the web. Some people feel that all JavaScript code should just be directly accessible and others kind of like to be able to hide their, truly their private stuff and a lot of people do that. You just put an underscore in front of your field or your variable name or your function name and that kind of is the defacto way to say hey, this is private. With the revealing module pattern you can do the equivalent of what objective oriented languages do and actually have private members that you literally can’t get to as an external consumer of the JavaScript code and then you can expose only those members that you want to be public. Now, you don’t get the benefit though of the prototype feature, which is I can’t easily extend the revealing module pattern type code if you don’t like something I’m doing, chances are you’re probably going to have to tweak my code to fix that because we’re not leveraging prototyping but in situations where you’re writing apps that are very specific to a given target app, you know, it’s not a library, it’s not going to be used in other apps all over the place, it’s a pattern I actually like a lot, it’s very simple to get going and then if you do like that public/private feature, it’s available to you. [Fritz]  Yeah, that’s interesting. So it’s almost, you can either go private by convention just by using a standard naming convention or you can actually enforce it by using the prototype pattern. [Dan]  Yeah, that’s exactly right. [Fritz]  So one of the things that I know I run across in JavaScript and I’m curious to get your take on is we do have all these different techniques of encapsulation and each one is really quite different when you’re using closures versus simply, you know, referencing member variables and adding them to your objects that the syntax changes with each pattern and the usage changes. So what would you recommend for people starting out in a brand new JavaScript project? Should they all sort of decide beforehand on what patterns they’re going to stick to or do you change it based on what part of the library you’re working on? I know that’s one of the points of confusion in this space. [Dan]  Yeah, it’s a great question. In fact, I just had a company ask me about that. So which one do I pick and, of course, there’s not one answer fits all. [Fritz]  Right. [Dan]  So it really depends what you just said is absolutely in my opinion correct, which is I think as a, especially if you’re on a team or even if you’re just an individual a team of one, you should go through and pick out which pattern for this particular project you think is best. Now if it were me, here’s kind of the way I think of it. If I were writing a let’s say base library that several web apps are going to use or even one, but I know that there’s going to be some pieces that I’m not really sure on right now as I’m writing I and I know people might want to hook in that and have some better extension points, then I would look at either the prototype pattern or the revealing prototype. Now, really just a real quick summation between the two the revealing prototype also gives you that public/private stuff like the revealing module pattern does whereas the prototype pattern does not but both of the prototype patterns do give you the benefit of that extension or that hook capability. So, if I were writing a library that I need people to override things or I’m not even sure what I need them to override, I want them to have that option, I’d probably pick a prototype, one of the prototype patterns. If I’m writing some code that is very unique to the app and it’s kind of a one off for this app which is what I think a lot of people are kind of in that mode as writing custom apps for customers, then my personal preference is the revealing module pattern you could always go with the module pattern as well which is very close but I think the revealing module patterns a little bit cleaner and we go through that in the course and explain kind of the syntax there and the differences. [Fritz]  Great, that makes a lot of sense. [Fritz]  I appreciate you taking the time, Dan, and I hope everyone takes a chance to look at your course and sort of make these decisions for themselves in their next JavaScript project. Dan’s course is, Structuring JavaScript Code and it’s available now in the Pluralsight Library. So, thank you very much, Dan. [Dan]  Thanks for having me again.

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• Looking for Your Next Challenge...Don't Stretch Too Far

  - by david.talamelli

  In my role as a Recruiter at Oracle I receive a large number of resumes of people who are interested in working with us. People contact me for a number of reasons, it can be about a specific role that we may be hiring for or they may send me an email asking if there are any suitable roles for them. Sometimes when I speak to people we have similar roles available to the roles that they may actually be in now. Sometimes people are interested in making this type of sideways move if their motivation to change jobs is not necessarily that they are looking for increased responsibility or career advancement (example: money, redundancy, work environment). However there are times when after walking through a specific role with a candidate that they may say to me - "You know that is very similar to the role that I am doing now. I would not want to move unless my next role presents me with the next challenge in my career". This is a far statement - if a person is looking to change jobs for the next step in their career they should be looking at suitable opportunities that will address their need. In this instance a sideways step will not really present any new challenges or responsibilities. The main change would be the company they are working for. Candidates looking for a new role because they are looking to move up the ladder should be looking for a role that offers them the next level of responsibility. I think the best job changes for people who are looking for career advancement are the roles that stretch someone outside of their comfort zone but do not stretch them so much that they can't cope with the added responsibilities and pressure. In my head I often think of this example in the same context of an elastic band - you can stretch it, but only so much before it snaps. That is what you should be looking for - to be stretched but not so much that you snap. If you are for example in an individual contributor role and would like to move into a management role - you may not be quite ready to take on a role that is managing a large workforce or requires significant people management experience. While your intentions may be right, your lack of management experience may fit you outside of the scope of search to be successful this type of role. In this example you can move from an individual contributor role to a management role but it may need to be managing a smaller team rather than a larger team. While you are trying to make this transition you can try to pick up some responsibilities in your current role that would give you the skills and experience you need for your next role. Never be afraid to put your hand up to help on a new project or piece of work. You never know when that newly gained experience may come in handy in your career. This article was originally posted on David Talamelli's Blog - David's Journal on Tap

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• My Optimized Adam &amp; Eve

  - by MarkPearl

  Today I had a few minutes in the evening to go over my original Adam and Eve code… what I wanted to see tonight was if I could optimize the code any further… which I was pretty sure could be done. Ultimately what I wanted to find from the experiment was a balance between optimized code an reusable code. On the one hand I can put everything into a single function and end up with a totally unusable function that is extremely compressed, which would have big comebacks when making modifications at a later stage. Alternatively I could have many single line functions that are extremely loosely coupled but sparsely spaced and so would almost be to fragmented to grok. Ultimately I found with my current iteration something that I consider readable, yet compressed. Code below… // Learn more about F# at http://fsharp.net open System let people = [ ("Adam", None); ("Eve", None); ("Cain", Some("Adam", "Eve")); ("Abel", Some("Adam", "Eve")) ] // // Prints the details // let showDetails(person : string * (string * string) option) = let ParentsName = let parents = snd(person) match parents with | Some(dad, mum) -> "Father " + dad + " and Mother " + mum | None -> "Has no parents!" let result = fst(person) + Environment.NewLine + ParentsName result // // Searches an array of people and looks for a match of names // let findPerson(name : string, people : (string * (string * string) option) list) = // Try and find a match of the name let o = Seq.tryFind(fun person -> match name with | firstName when firstName = fst(person) -> true | _ -> false) people // Show the details based on the match result match o with | Option.Some(x) -> showDetails(Option.get(o)) | _ -> "Not Found" Console.WriteLine(findPerson("Cains", people)) Console.ReadLine()

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• SQL SERVER – SQL in Sixty Seconds – Last Three Episodes – Need Your Opinion

  - by Pinal Dave

  I have been blogging for almost 7 years and building video content for around 2 years. After spending so much time on blogging and creating video, I have got the quite a good idea what people would like to read and what people like to watch. However, there is one thing, which I am constantly struggling after almost a year and I would like to get your opinion about it. Though, this may look very simple to you but it is very crucial to me and I would like to know your opinion about it. I have been building video almost every week for my SQL in Sixty Seconds series and it has been quite popular. So far on my YouTube Channel there are over 2600 subscribers and over 250K views. Here is my problem – there are about 50+ videos on SQL in Sixty Seconds Series but the not every video is popular. There are a few videos which are extremely popular and there are videos which are absolutely struggling to get even single view. I have yet not figured out what people would love to watch on this channel. I noticed lots of people watching various videos but hardly anyone leaving comments or suggestions. At the end of the blog posts associated with the SQL in Sixty Seconds, I always ask which video people would love to watch, but I get a very low response over there too. What I wonder is that why such a low engagement of viewers/readers on the video blog posts where as the channel is success and lots of people are watching the video? What do you think I should change in my video to increase the engagement? Here are my last three videos from SQL in Sixty Seconds channel and I would like to know your feedback. Remove Cached Login from SSMS Connect Dialog – SQL in Sixty Seconds #049 RESEED Identity Column in Database Table – SQL in Sixty Seconds #051 Puzzle SET ANSI_NULLS and Resultset – SQL in Sixty Seconds #052  The feedback which I will like the most will for sure get a special surprise gift for me. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• On Turning 30&hellip;

  - by MOSSLover

  I know I am not a wise old sage like some people in the community.  I just turned 30 however I feel like all my years looking back have changed me.  My collective experiences and thoughts have given me a different perspective on life recently.  Seven months ago my head was in a gutter and since then a lot of things have happened.  I was always the weird kid in the corner reading Star Trek books.  When I was in elementary school I thought that kids would throw me birthday parties out of pity because I was the poor kid who everyone hated.  I am no longer that person.  I realized that during the worst possible period between my 29th and 30th year when I hit rock bottom.  You all know the insane story as I’ve told it two billion times over.  Honestly it was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life time, because many things would not have happened.  My friends came through for me at every given moment people from all over were checking up on me all over the world.  I fell and I landed on a bunch of people it was awesome.  I landed on family and friends who I thought I was never close enough to talk about these things.  They helped me realize I had a ton of unfulfilled dreams.  I got to move to New York City one of the greatest cities in the universe.  I got to do whatever I wanted without judgment from anyone.  I got to meet some great people at a few meetup groups in the past few months.  I got to meet an awesome person that I have been dating for 3 months.  I am trying to run for the 8 billionth time and keep up with it.  I got to go to Europe and next week for the first time New Orleans.  I got renewed for MVP for 2012.  I am grateful for all the people and things in my life.  I understand that sometimes when things seem bad you can always seek friends and family.  They will always help me.  I have to learn to lean on people sometimes just how they occasionally lean on me.  That is the biggest thing I have learned from the decade of 20 to 30.  I hope that 30 to 40 will be the best decade.  I hope that I can continue to grow.  I will catch you all later. Technorati Tags: Turning 30,Wisdom

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• Leaving Microsoft

  - by Stephen Walther

  After two and a half years working with the ASP.NET team, I’ve decided that this is the right time to leave Microsoft and, with the help of some friends, re-launch my ASP.NET training and consulting company. The company has the modest name Superexpert. While working on my Ph.D. at MIT, I was surrounded by professors and students who were passionate about knowledge. During the Internet boom, I was lucky enough to work side-by-side with some very smart and hard-working people to create several successful startups. However, the people I worked with at Microsoft were among the smartest and hardest working. Microsoft hires a small number of people and gives them huge responsibilities. It continues to amaze me that so few people work on the ASP.NET team when you consider how much the team produces. I had the opportunity to work with a number of inspiring people at Microsoft. I’ll miss working with Scott Hunter, Dave Reed, Boris Moore, Eilon Lipton, Scott Guthrie, James Senior, Jim Wang, Phil Haack, Damian Edwards, Vishal Joshi, Mike Pope, Jon Young, Dmitry Robsman, Simon Calvert, Stefan Schackow, and many others. I’m proud of what we accomplished while I was working at Microsoft. We reached out to the jQuery team and changed direction from Microsoft Ajax to jQuery. We successfully contributed several important new features to the open-source jQuery project including jQuery Templates, jQuery Data-Linking, jQuery Globalization, and (as John Resig announced at the last jQuery conference) jQuery Require. I’m looking forward to returning to training and consulting. We want to focus on providing consulting on the “right way” of building ASP.NET websites, which we call Modern ASP.NET applications. By Modern ASP.NET applications, I mean applications built with ASP.NET MVC, jQuery, HTML5, and Visual Studio ALM. Additionally, we want to help companies that have existing ASP.NET Web Forms applications migrate to ASP.NET MVC. If you are interested in having us provide training for your company or you need help building a custom ASP.NET application then please contact us at [email protected] or visit our website at Superexpert.com.

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