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

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

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  • GPLv2 - Multiple AI chess engines to bypass GPL

    - by Dogbert
    I have gone through a number of GPL-related questions, the most recent being this one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3248823/legal-question-about-the-gpl-license-net-dlls/3249001#3249001 I'm trying to see how this would work, so bear with me. I have a simple GUI interface for a game of Chess. It essentially can send/receive commands to/from an external chess engine (ie: Tong, Fruit, etc). The application/GUI is similar in nature to XBoard ( http://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/ ), but was independently designed. After going through a number of threads on this topic, it seems that the FSF considers dynamically linking against a GPLv2 library as a derivative work, and that by doing so, the GPLv2 extends to my proprietary code, and I must release the source to my entire project. Other legal precedents indicate the opposite, and that dynamic linking doesn't cause the "viral" effect of the GPL to propagate to my proprietary code. Since there is no official consensus that can give a "hard-and-fast" answer to the dynamic linking question, would this be an acceptable alternative: I build my chess GUI so that it sends/receives the chess engine AI logic as text commands from an external interface library that I write The interface library I wrote itself is then released under the GPL The interface library is only used to communicate via a generic text pipe to external command-line chess engines The chess engine itself would be built as a command-line utility rather than as a library of any sort, and just sends strings in the Universal Chess Interface of Chess Engine Communication Protocol ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Engine_Communication_Protocol ) format. The one "gotcha" is that the interface library should not be specific to one single GPL'ed chess engine, otherwise the entire GUI would be "entirely dependent" on it. So, I just make my interface library so that it is able to connect to any command-line chess engine that uses a specific format, rather than just one unique engine. I could then include pre-built command-line-app versions of any of the chess engines I'm using. Would that sort of approach allow me to do the following: NOT release the source for my UI Release the source of the interface library I built (if necessary) Use one or more chess engines and bundle them as external command-line utilities that ship with a binary version of my UI Thank you.

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  • Mapping between 4+1 architectural view model & UML

    - by Sadeq Dousti
    I'm a bit confused about how the 4+1 architectural view model maps to UML. Wikipedia gives the following mapping: Logical view: Class diagram, Communication diagram, Sequence diagram. Development view: Component diagram, Package diagram Process view: Activity diagram Physical view: Deployment diagram Scenarios: Use-case diagram The paper Role of UML Sequence Diagram Constructs in Object Lifecycle Concept gives the following mapping: Logical view (class diagram (CD), object diagram (OD), sequence diagram (SD), collaboration diagram (COD), state chart diagram (SCD), activity diagram (AD)) Development view (package diagram, component diagram), Process view (use case diagram, CD, OD, SD, COD, SCD, AD), Physical view (deployment diagram), and Use case view (use case diagram, OD, SD, COD, SCD, AD) which combines the four mentioned above. The web page UML 4+1 View Materials presents the following mapping: Finally, the white paper Applying 4+1 View Architecture with UML 2 gives yet another mapping: Logical view class diagrams, object diagrams, state charts, and composite structures Process view sequence diagrams, communication diagrams, activity diagrams, timing diagrams, interaction overview diagrams Development view component diagrams Physical view deployment diagram Use case view use case diagram, activity diagrams I'm sure further search will reveal other mappings as well. While various people usually have different perspectives, I don't see why this is the case here. Specially, each UML diagram describes the system from a particular aspect. So, for instance, why the "sequence diagram" is considered as describing the "logical view" of the system by one author, while another author considers it as describing the "process view"? Could you please help me clarify the confusion?

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  • Message Passing Interface (MPI)

    So you have installed your cluster and you are done with introductory material on Windows HPC. Now you want to develop an application with the most common programming model: Message Passing Interface.The MPI programming model is a standard with implementations from many vendors. For newbies (like myself!), I have aggregated below links for getting started.Non-Microsoft MPI resources (useful even if you are not on the Windows platform)1. Message Passing Interface on wikipedia. 2. The MPI standard.3. MPICH2 - an MPI implementation.4. Tutorial on MPI by William Gropp.5. MPI patterns presented as a tutorial with sample code. 6. THE official MPI Forum (maintains the standard) including the wiki discussing the MPI future.7. Great MPI tutorial including at the end the MPI Exercise.8. C++ MPI Exercises by John Burkardt.9. Book online: MPI The Complete Reference.MS-MPI10. Windows HPC Server 2008 - Using MS-MPI whitepaper (15 page doc).11. Tracing MPI applications (27 page doc).12. Using Microsoft MPI (TechNet section).13. Windows HPC Server MPI forum (for posting questions). MPI.NET14. MPI.NET Home Page (not owned by Microsoft).15. MPI.NET Tutorial.16. HPC Development using F# using MPI.NET (38 page doc).Next time I'll post resources for the Microsoft Cluster SOA programming model - happy coding... Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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  • This company buries Ashes on Space for $3000

    - by Gopinath
    Does Space burials sounds crazy to you? Then you may not be a big fan of science fictions or a Japanese. According to a study conducted by NASA many science fiction fans prefer their final rights to be held on space and you can read more details about the research over here on NASA website. The other people who fancy about space burials are Japanese Buddhists. For those who are not aware of Space burials, it’s a procedure in which a small sample of the cremated ashes of the deceased are launched into space using spacecraft. The spacecraft will remain in orbit around the Earth or other planets  for decades and eventually burning up in the atmosphere. Celestis, an US based company, is pioneer in memorial spaceflight business and so far they have conducted a total of 10 space burials. Few of the famous people buried in space are Gene Roddenberry(creator of Star Trek),  Gerard K. O’Neill (space physicist), Clyde Tombaugh (astronomer and discoverer of Pluto)  and complete list is available on this Wikipedia page In the coming months Celestis have planned for a  launch of its latest memorial spacecraft and you can send your loved one’s remains for just $3000. Once they put the ashes on space they will also let you track the location of the spacecraft in orbit using a real time feed. Story via BBC and cc image credit: flickr/gsfc

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  • What is the definition of "Big Data"?

    - by Ben
    Is there one? All the definitions I can find describe the size, complexity / variety or velocity of the data. Wikipedia's definition is the only one I've found with an actual number Big data sizes are a constantly moving target, as of 2012 ranging from a few dozen terabytes to many petabytes of data in a single data set. However, this seemingly contradicts the MIKE2.0 definition, referenced in the next paragraph, which indicates that "big" data can be small and that 100,000 sensors on an aircraft creating only 3GB of data could be considered big. IBM despite saying that: Big data is more simply than a matter of size. have emphasised size in their definition. O'Reilly has stressed "volume, velocity and variety" as well. Though explained well, and in more depth, the definition seems to be a re-hash of the others - or vice-versa of course. I think that a Computer Weekly article title sums up a number of articles fairly well "What is big data and how can it be used to gain competitive advantage". But ZDNet wins with the following from 2012: “Big Data” is a catch phrase that has been bubbling up from the high performance computing niche of the IT market... If one sits through the presentations from ten suppliers of technology, fifteen or so different definitions are likely to come forward. Each definition, of course, tends to support the need for that supplier’s products and services. Imagine that. Basically "big data" is "big" in some way shape or form. What is "big"? Is it quantifiable at the current time? If "big" is unquantifiable is there a definition that does not rely solely on generalities?

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  • 'Unblock' / 'Yellow Out' game questions

    - by pimvdb
    I would very much like to build a game that is known as 'Unblock' or 'Yellow Out'. It is a puzzle game in which the task is to move a car out of a parking space by moving other cars in certain directions. These are links where the game can be played: Yellow Out Unblock My questions concerning this game are: Is this game actually licensed? I see it's available under two names (perhaps even more). Does this mean the game idea can be used freely? Is there an article about it? I have not been able to find it on Wikipedia. I would like to gather some information about the game so as to understand more details of it. Is there some database with puzzles available? I can just check the puzzles of existing games, but that's a pain because I have to finish a level to get on to the following one. I was wondering whether there is a general list of puzzles somewhere. Thanks!

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  • The Citroen GT – An Awesome Video Game Car Brought to Life [Video]

    - by Asian Angel
    If you are familiar with the Gran Turismo 5 video game releases, then you will definitely recognize the Citroen GT. French automaker Citroen and Japanese racing simulation developer Polyphony Digital decided to take things one step further and collaborated to bring this awesome car to life. Then they turned it loose on the streets of London! Citroen GT on the Streets of London (HD) [via BoingBoing] You can learn more about the Citroen GT, car show appearances, and more at Wikipedia: GT by Citroen Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware The Citroen GT – An Awesome Video Game Car Brought to Life [Video] Final Man vs. Machine Round of Jeopardy Unfolds; Watson Dominates Give Chromium-Based Browser Desktop Notifications a Native System Look in Ubuntu Chrome Time Track Is a Simple Task Time Tracker Google Sky Map Turns Your Android Phone into a Digital Telescope Walking Through a Seaside Village Wallpaper

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  • How do I manage the technical debate over WCF vs. Web API?

    - by Saeed Neamati
    I'm managing a team of like 15 developers now, and we are stuck at a point on choosing the technology, where the team is broken into two completely opposite teams, debating over usage of WCF vs. Web API. Team A which supports usage of Web API, brings forward these reasons: Web API is just the modern way of writing services (Wikipedia) WCF is an overhead for HTTP. It's a solution for TCP, and Net Pipes, and other protocols WCF models are not POCO, because of [DataContract] & [DataMember] and those attributes SOAP is not as readable and handy as JSON SOAP is an overhead for network compared to JSON (transport over HTTP) No method overloading Team B which supports the usage of WCF, says: WCF supports multiple protocols (via configuration) WCF supports distributed transactions Many good examples and success stories exist for WCF (while Web API is still young) Duplex is excellent for two-way communication This debate is continuing, and I don't know what to do now. Personally, I think that we should use a tool only for its right place of usage. In other words, we'd better use Web API, if we want to expose a service over HTTP, but use WCF when it comes to TCP and Duplex. By searching the Internet, we can't get to a solid result. Many posts exist for supporting WCF, but on the contrary we also find people complaint about it. I know that the nature of this question might sound arguable, but we need some good hints to decide. We're stuck at a point where choosing a technology by chance might make us regret it later. We want to choose with open eyes. Our usage would be mostly for web, and we would expose our services over HTTP. In some cases (say 5 to 10 percent) we might need distributed transactions though. What should I do now? How do I manage this debate in a constructive way?

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  • What are Web runtime environments and programming languages

    - by Bradly Spicer
    I've been looking into the details behind these two different categories: Web runtime environments Web application programming languages I believe I have the correct information and have phrased it correctly but I am unsure. I have been searching for a while but only find snippets of information or what I can see as useless information (I could be wrong). Here are my descriptions so far: Web runtime environments - A Run-time environment implements part of the core behaviour of any computer language and allows it to be modified via an API or embedded domain-specific language. A web runtime environment is similar except it uses web based languages such as Java-script which utilises the core behaviour a computer language. Another example of a Run-time environment web language is JsLibs which is a standable JavaScript development runtime environment for using JavaScript as a general all round scripting language. JavaScript is often used to create responsive interfaces which improve the user experience and provide dynamic functionality without having to wait for the server to react and direct to another page. Web application programming languages - A web application program language is something that mimics a traditional desktop application within a web page. For example, using PHP you can create forms and tables which use a database similar to that of Microsoft Excel. Some of the other languages for web application programming are: Ajax Perl Ruby Here are some of the resources used: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application_development http://code.google.com/p/jslibs/ I would like some confirmation that the descriptions I have created are correct as I am still slightly unsure as to whether I have hit the nail on the head.

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  • Ubuntu: The Movie

    - by CYREX
    Since Ubuntu is the most popular distribution and has made a lot of changes in many places around the globe and in different industries up to the point where even people that do not know what Linux is, they know what Ubuntu is (go figure? ) there might be a movie coming someday (like the social network for Facebook or Revolution OS for Linux/Red Hat) i wanted to know how it all came to be from the actual players in the show. UBUNTU: The Movie Since i have seen several of the primary characters of the movie here, this might be a good place to start on how it all came to be. Not in the traditional wikipedia way or the ubuntu help section, but in the what the actual developers have in mind on how it all went down to the point of having a huge amount of users, an incredible level sophistication in the forum, help sections, installers, etc.. This is just to have the KNOW HOW before the actual movie makes it out some day in the future. As a fan of Ubuntu this is a MOST KNOW! ;) Hope i made some people happy and some other shy hehe.

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  • Happy Chinese New Year!

    - by Shaun
    Today is Dec the 29th in Chinese Traditional Calendar, that means on Thursday (3rd of Feb) we will have the Chinese New Year! For those who doesn’t know about the Chinese New Year please visit the wikipedia site. This is the most important holiday not only for the Chinese in China, but the Chinese all around the world. Here I would like to say: ????. (Chun Jie Kuai Le, Happy Chinese New Year). OK I have 3 news with my celebration: The new windows azure developer portal had been published for a while and the windows azure team wants to get to know how do we think about it. Here is a survey avaiable you can send your feedback. PS, please refer to my previous blog for the features of this new site. The latest Window Azure Platform Training Kit Jan Update had been released that you can download here. There is a demo and a hands-on lab about the Windows Phone 7 application with Windows Azure avaiable which should be interesting. If you have heard about the new feature for SQL Azure named SQL Azure Federation, you might know that it’s a cool feature and solution about database sharding. But for now there seems no similar solution for normal SQL Server and local database. I had created a library named PODA, which stands for Partition Oriented Data Access which partially implemented the features of SQL Azure Federation. I’m going to explain more about this project after the Chinese New Year but you can download the source code here.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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  • Who would be the most efficacious Patron Saint of Programmers? [closed]

    - by Peter Turner
    The purpose of this question is to find someone out there to intercede for us and help our coding (not to magically align the bytes), to inspire our daily grind of software development by their lives of heroic virtue, to unite us under a common patron and to keep us on the straight and narrow path (i.e. don't be evil). In days of yore, the professional guilds had a patron saint. Regardless of whether we have a higher tendency to be atheists or not, who would you choose as the patron saint of programmers and what would be your criteria? Some people have chosen St. Isidore of Seville, but he's more like the patron saint of Wikipedia. If you're not Catholic please don't hesitate to nominate someone, just say what your criteria is. At the very least they should be dead and have lived a life of heroic virtue - or have died trying. It's a very pragmatic and noble custom which I heartily encourage. But if you find the practice off-putting, please don't be offended. I only mean to ask this question to other like minded programmers, which I have reason to believe exist. If you add a picture and a maybe make up a prayer that'd be excellent. It doesn't have to be gilded, illuminated and rhyme, although that would be sweet.

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  • What are the consequences of immutable classes with references to mutable classes?

    - by glenviewjeff
    I've recently begun adopting the best practice of designing my classes to be immutable per Effective Java [Bloch2008]. I have a series of interrelated questions about degrees of mutability and their consequences. I have run into situations where a (Java) class I implemented is only "internally immutable" because it uses references to other mutable classes. In this case, the class under development appears from the external environment to have state. Do any of the benefits (see below) of immutable classes hold true even by only "internally immutable" classes? Is there an accepted term for the aforementioned "internal mutability"? Wikipedia's immutable object page uses the unsourced term "deep immutability" to describe an object whose references are also immutable. Is the distinction between mutability and side-effect-ness/state important? Josh Bloch lists the following benefits of immutable classes: are simple to construct, test, and use are automatically thread-safe and have no synchronization issues do not need a copy constructor do not need an implementation of clone allow hashCode to use lazy initialization, and to cache its return value do not need to be copied defensively when used as a field make good Map keys and Set elements (these objects must not change state while in the collection) have their class invariant established once upon construction, and it never needs to be checked again always have "failure atomicity" (a term used by Joshua Bloch) : if an immutable object throws an exception, it's never left in an undesirable or indeterminate state

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  • Azure eBook Update #1 &ndash; 16 authors so far!

    - by Eric Nelson
    I just wanted to share with folks where we are up to with the Windows Azure eBook (Check out the original post for full details) I have had lots of great submissions from folks with some awesome stuff to share on Azure. Currently we have 16 authors and 25 proposed articles. There is still a couple of days left to submit your proposal if you would like to get involved (see the original post ) and some topic suggestions below for which we don’t currently have authors. It is official – I’m excited! :-) Article Area Accepted Wikipedia Explorer: A case study how we did it and why. CaseSetudy Optional Patterns for the Windows Azure Platform (picking up 1 or 2 patterns that seem to be evolving) Architecture Optional Azure and cost-oriented architecture. Architecture Yes Code walkthrough of a comprehensive application submitted to newCloudApp contest CaseSetudy Yes Principles of highly scalable apps on Azure Compute Optional Auto-Scaling Azure Compute Yes Implementing a distributed cache using memcached with worker roles Interop Yes Building a content-based router service to direct requests to internal HTTP endpoints Compute Optional How to debug an Azure app by with a custom TraceListener & the AppFabric Service Bus AppFabric Yes How to host Java apps in Azure Interop Yes Bing Maps Tile Servers using Azure Blog Storage Interop Yes Tricks for storing time and date fields in Table Storage Storage Yes Service Runtime in Windows Azure Compute Yes Azure Drive Storage Optional Queries in Azure Table Storage Optional Getting RubyOnRails running on Azure Interop Yes Consuming Azure services within Windows Phone Interop Yes De-risking Your First Azure Project Architecture Yes Designing for failure Architecture Optional Connecting to SQL Azure In x Minutes SQLAzure Yes Using Azure Table Service as a NoSQL store via the REST API Storage Yes Azure Table Service REST API Storage Optional Threading, Scalability and Reliability in the Cloud Compute Yes Azure Diagnostics Compute Yes 5 steps to getting started with Windows Azure Introduction Yes The best tools for working with Windows Azure Tools Author Needed Understanding how SQL Azure works SQLAzure Author Needed Getting started with AppFabric Control Services AppFabric Author Needed Using the Microsoft Sync Framework with SQL Azure SQLAzure Author Needed Dallas - just a TV show or something more? Dallas Author Needed Comparing Azure to other cloud offerings Interop Author Needed Hybrid solutions using Azure and on-premise Interop Author Needed

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  • Why does my browser take me to Scour.com? (redirect virus)

    - by Paula DiTallo
    The "scour" or Rootkit.Win32.TDSS virus has a long history which can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scour Here is the primary symptom: after searching for something in your web browser using google, one of the results that you click on redirects you to scour.com. If you've executed ClamWin, Malwarebytes, McAfee, Norton, etc. to find and isolate the virus without any luck--this isn't really a surprise, since this virus attaches to existing system drivers. I only know of one reliable package that will remove this without ill effects--like adding new spyware. This package is called TDSSKiller. I have seen multiple websites that claim to have this software available, but the one that I know is reliable is located here: http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/solutions?qid=208280684 Once you go to Kaspersky's tech support site, the TDSSKiller zip file is available for downloading. When you execute this software, you will be able to "cure" or repair the infected driver. Remember to jot down the name of the driver for future reference--should you need to reinstall the driver from a "same-as" working computer, or your install disk if the repair is ineffective. The driver that happened to get infected on my computer was the tcpip.sys driver. This caused my win sockets to loose their ip addresses. In most other instances, less critical drivers such as HDAudBus.sys are infected. In my case, I was not through correcting my computer problems until I corrected the broken WinSock issue and loaded an earlier version of the tcpip.sys driver from: C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386 which I placed in: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers Don't forget to reboot your computer after your repair! Once you download TDSSKiller and cure/repair your infected driver(s), the redirect on google searches should disappear .

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  • 'Binary XML' for game data?

    - by bluescrn
    I'm working on a level editing tool that saves its data as XML. This is ideal during development, as it's painless to make small changes to the data format, and it works nicely with tree-like data. The downside, though, is that the XML files are rather bloated, mostly due to duplication of tag and attribute names. Also due to numeric data taking significantly more space than using native datatypes. A small level could easily end up as 1Mb+. I want to get these sizes down significantly, especially if the system is to be used for a game on the iPhone or other devices with relatively limited memory. The optimal solution, for memory and performance, would be to convert the XML to a binary level format. But I don't want to do this. I want to keep the format fairly flexible. XML makes it very easy to add new attributes to objects, and give them a default value if an old version of the data is loaded. So I want to keep with the hierarchy of nodes, with attributes as name-value pairs. But I need to store this in a more compact format - to remove the massive duplication of tag/attribute names. Maybe also to give attributes native types, so, for example floating-point data is stored as 4 bytes per float, not as a text string. Google/Wikipedia reveal that 'binary XML' is hardly a new problem - it's been solved a number of times already. Has anyone here got experience with any of the existing systems/standards? - are any ideal for games use - with a free, lightweight and cross-platform parser/loader library (C/C++) available? Or should I reinvent this wheel myself? Or am I better off forgetting the ideal, and just compressing my raw .xml data (it should pack well with zip-like compression), and just taking the memory/performance hit on-load?

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  • Which algorithms/data structures should I "recognize" and know by name?

    - by Earlz
    I'd like to consider myself a fairly experienced programmer. I've been programming for over 5 years now. My weak point though is terminology. I'm self-taught, so while I know how to program, I don't know some of the more formal aspects of computer science. So, what are practical algorithms/data structures that I could recognize and know by name? Note, I'm not asking for a book recommendation about implementing algorithms. I don't care about implementing them, I just want to be able to recognize when an algorithm/data structure would be a good solution to a problem. I'm asking more for a list of algorithms/data structures that I should "recognize". For instance, I know the solution to a problem like this: You manage a set of lockers labeled 0-999. People come to you to rent the locker and then come back to return the locker key. How would you build a piece of software to manage knowing which lockers are free and which are in used? The solution, would be a queue or stack. What I'm looking for are things like "in what situation should a B-Tree be used -- What search algorithm should be used here" etc. And maybe a quick introduction of how the more complex(but commonly used) data structures/algorithms work. I tried looking at Wikipedia's list of data structures and algorithms but I think that's a bit overkill. So I'm looking more for what are the essential things I should recognize?

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  • links for 2010-06-16

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Automating Enterprise Reporting with SOA and Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher In the latest article in the Enterprise Solution Cookbook series, authors John Chung and Harish Gaur take you step-by-step through the development of an automated reporting platform using Oracle's SOA Suite, WebCenter, and Business Intelligence Publisher. (tags: soa enterprise2.0 architect entarch bpm oracle otn) @ORACLENERD: Job: Infrastructure Technical Architect Oracle ACE Chet "ORACLENERD" Justice shares the 411 on a great new gig for the right architect.  (tags: jobs employment infrastructure architect oracleace) Andrew Ness: Building a training environment for RAC, ASM and Dataguard on OEL 5.4 "In all the environments I've worked in where Oracle DBAs are involved, " says Ness, "they would have chewed my arm off to have this level of control over where their data lives." (tags: oracle grid database dba) Chris Quenelle: Virtualization terms UNIXy Goodness blogger Chris Quenelle dives into Wikipedia to compile this short but valuable glossary of virtualization terms.  (tags: solaris hypervisor virtualization) William Vambenepe: CMDB in the Cloud: not your father's CMDB "Most [customers] will be dealing with a mix of old-style and Cloud applications and they’ll be looking for a unified management approach. This helps CMDB incumbents. If you doubt the power to continuity, take a minute to realize that the entire value proposition of hypervisor-style virtualization is centered around it." -- William Vambenepe (tags: oracle otn cloud virtualization) Merv Adrian: Oracle Exadata: a Data Management Tipping Point "In this second version of its newest platform, Oracle not only provides the latest technology in each part of the data-management architecture, but also integrates them under the full control of one vendor, with a unified approach to leveraging the full stack." -- Merv Adrian (tags: oracle exadata database)

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  • What is the evidence that an API has exceeded its orthogonality in the context of types?

    - by hawkeye
    Wikipedia defines software orthogonality as: orthogonality in a programming language means that a relatively small set of primitive constructs can be combined in a relatively small number of ways to build the control and data structures of the language. The term is most-frequently used regarding assembly instruction sets, as orthogonal instruction set. Jason Coffin has defined software orthogonality as Highly cohesive components that are loosely coupled to each other produce an orthogonal system. C.Ross has defined software orthogonality as: the property that means "Changing A does not change B". An example of an orthogonal system would be a radio, where changing the station does not change the volume and vice-versa. Now there is a hypothesis published in the the ACM Queue by Tim Bray - that some have called the Bánffy Bray Type System Criteria - which he summarises as: Static typings attractiveness is a direct function (and dynamic typings an inverse function) of API surface size. Dynamic typings attractiveness is a direct function (and static typings an inverse function) of unit testing workability. Now Stuart Halloway has reformulated Banfy Bray as: the more your APIs exceed orthogonality, the better you will like static typing My question is: What is the evidence that an API has exceeded its orthogonality in the context of types? Clarification Tim Bray introduces the idea of orthogonality and APIs. Where you have one API and it is mainly dealing with Strings (ie a web server serving requests and responses), then a uni-typed language (python, ruby) is 'aligned' to that API - because the the type system of these languages isn't sophisticated, but it doesn't matter since you're dealing with Strings anyway. He then moves on to Android programming, which has a whole bunch of sensor APIs, which are all 'different' to the web server API that he was working on previously. Because you're not just dealing with Strings, but with different types, the API is non-orthogonal. Tim's point is that there is a empirical relationship between your 'liking' of types and the API you're programming against. (ie a subjective point is actually objective depending on your context).

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  • C/C++: Who uses the logical operator macros from iso646.h and why?

    - by Jaime Soto
    There has been some debate at work about using the merits of using the alternative spellings for C/C++ logical operators in iso646.h: and && and_eq &= bitand & bitor | compl ~ not ! not_eq != or || or_eq |= xor ^ xor_eq ^= According to Wikipedia, these macros facilitate typing logical operators in international (non-US English?) and non-QWERTY keyboards. All of our development team is in the same office in Orlando, FL, USA and from what I have seen we all use the US English QWERTY keyboard layout; even Dvorak provides all the necessary characters. Supporters of using the iso646.h macros claim we should them because they are part of the C and C++ standards. I think this argument is moot since digraphs and trigraphs are also part of these standards and they are not even supported by default in many compilers. My rationale for opposing these macros in our team is that we do not need them since: Everybody on our team uses the US English QWERTY keyboard layout; C and C++ programming books from the US barely mention iso646.h, if at all; and new developers may not be familiar with iso646.h (this is expected if they are from the US). /rant Finally, to my set of questions: Does anyone in this site use the iso646.h logical operator macros? Why? What is your opinion about using the iso646.h logical operator macros in code written and maintained on US English QWERTY keyboards? Is my digraph and trigraph analogy a valid argument against using iso646.h with US English QWERTY keyboard layouts? EDIT: I missed two similar questions in StackOverflow: Is anybody using the named boolean operators? Which C++ logical operators do you use: and, or, not and the ilk or C style operators? why?

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  • Why is Quicksort called "Quicksort"?

    - by Darrel Hoffman
    The point of this question is not to debate the merits of this over any other sorting algorithm - certainly there are many other questions that do this. This question is about the name. Why is Quicksort called "Quicksort"? Sure, it's "quick", most of the time, but not always. The possibility of degenerating to O(N^2) is well known. There are various modifications to Quicksort that mitigate this problem, but the ones which bring the worst case down to a guaranteed O(n log n) aren't generally called Quicksort anymore. (e.g. Introsort). I just wonder why of all the well-known sorting algorithms, this is the only one deserving of the name "quick", which describes not how the algorithm works, but how fast it (usually) is. Mergesort is called that because it merges the data. Heapsort is called that because it uses a heap. Introsort gets its name from "Introspective", since it monitors its own performance to decide when to switch from Quicksort to Heapsort. Similarly for all the slower ones - Bubblesort, Insertion sort, Selection sort, etc. They're all named for how they work. The only other exception I can think of is "Bogosort", which is really just a joke that nobody ever actually uses in practice. Why isn't Quicksort called something more descriptive, like "Partition sort" or "Pivot sort", which describe what it actually does? It's not even a case of "got here first". Mergesort was developed 15 years before Quicksort. (1945 and 1960 respectively according to Wikipedia) I guess this is really more of a history question than a programming one. I'm just curious how it got the name - was it just good marketing?

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  • Plastic Clamshell Packaging Voted Worse Design Ever

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    We’ve all been there: frustrated and trying free a new purchase from it’s plastic clamshell jail. You’re not alone, the packaging design has been voted the worst in history. In a poll at Quora, users voted on the absolute worst piece of design work they’d encountered. Overwhelmingly, they voted the annoying-to-open clamshell design to the top. The author of the top comment/entry, Anita Shillhorn writes: “Design should help solve problems” — clamshells are supposed to make it harder to steal small products and easier for employees to arrange on display — but this packaging, she says, makes new ones, such as time wasted, frustration, and the little nicks and scrapes people incur as they just try to get their damn lightbulb out. This is a product designed for the manufacturers and the retailers, not the end users. There is even a Wikipedia page devoted to “wrap rage,” “the common name for heightened levels of anger and frustration resulting from the inability to open hard-to-remove packaging.” Hit up the link below for more entries in their worst-design poll. Before you go, if you’ve got a great tip for getting goods out of the plastic shell they ship in, make sure to share it in the comments. What Is The Worst Piece of Design Ever Done? [via The Atlantic] HTG Explains: What Is RSS and How Can I Benefit From Using It? HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online

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  • Should a link validator report 302 redirects as broken links?

    - by Kevin Vermeer
    A while ago, sparkfun.com changed their URL structure from /commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9266 to /products/9266 This is nice, right? We don't need to know that it is (or was) a PHP page, and commerce, product_info, and products_id all tell us that we're looking at some products. The latter form seems like a great improvement. However, the change would have broken existing links. So, nicely, they stuck in 302 redirects. Visit http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9266 and your browser will issue GET /commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9266 HTTP/1.1 to which Sparkfun's servers reply HTTP/1.1 302 Found Location: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9266 This 302 redirect is caught by Stack Exchange's link validator as a broken link. It's not broken it works just fine. Here, try it: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9266 I understand that a 302 redirect is intended to be a temporary redirect, while a 301 should be used for permanent changes per RFC 2616. That said, Wikipedia and common practice use it as a redirect. Who is in error in this situation? Is this an error in Sparkfun's redirect implementation or in Stack Exchange's URL validator?

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  • How to share problem solving knowledge in a multiteam group?

    - by jonathan
    I've been working in multiteam groups for as long as I'm a webdeveloper, for me a team can be a lonely soldier or several people, generally a company will have multiple teams working in different projects and once the project is out in the wild, any team can perform the maintenance. This is a small picture since I'm not talking only about project wise knowledge, but "craft wise" knowledge, but it gives the picture of how I'm used to work, so: Since we work on modularised teams, sometimes I feel like the teams are too tightly enclosed in their projects, I've seen cases where after an hour of discussion, someone asked the question aloud and other person totally unrelated answered in a much simpler fashion. The problem is not so simple to solve as people tend not to be available all the time, also sometimes people can't afford the time to go through a problem with the "asker", but could do it alone. I've thought about software based solutions, something in the lines of SE, but I'd like to know other programmers opinions on the subject. EDIT I don't know if this is a wikipedia complex, but I feel that Wikis don't encourage the user to actually ask questions, but rather to write articles, and sometimes we don't know the knowledge we need, before needing it.

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