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  • Which source control paradigm and solution to embed in a custom editor application?

    - by Greg Harman
    I am building an application that manages a number of custom objects, which may be edited concurrently by multiple users (using different instances of the application). These objects have an underlying serialized representation, and my plan is to persist them (through my application UI) in an external source control system. Of course this implies that my application can check the current version of an object for updates, a merging interface for each object, etc. My question is what source control paradigm(s) and specific solution(s) to support and why. The way I (perhaps naively) see the source control world is three general paradigms: Single-repository, locked access (MS SourceSafe) Single-repository, concurrent access (CVS/SVN) Distributed (Mercurial, Git) I haven't heard of anyone using #1 for quite a number of years, so I am planning to disregard this case altogether (unless I get a compelling argument otherwise). However, I'm at a loss as to whether to support #2 or #3, and which specific implementations. I'm concerned that the use paradigms are subtly different enough that I can't adequately capture basic operations in a single UI. The last bit of information I should convey is that this application is intended to be deployed in a commercial setting, where a source control system may already be in use. I would prefer not to support more than one solution unless it's really a deal-breaker, so wide adoption in a corporate setting is a plus.

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  • What's the best practice for handling system-specific information under version control?

    - by Joe
    I'm new to version control, so I apologize if there is a well-known solution to this. For this problem in particular, I'm using git, but I'm curious about how to deal with this for all version control systems. I'm developing a web application on a development server. I have defined the absolute path name to the web application (not the document root) in two places. On the production server, this path is different. I'm confused about how to deal with this. I could either: Reconfigure the development server to share the same path as the production Edit the two occurrences each time production is updated. I don't like #1 because I'd rather keep the application flexible for any future changes. I don't like #2 because if I start developing on a second development server with a third path, I would have to change this for every commit and update. What is the best way to handle this? I thought of: Using custom keywords and variable expansion (such as setting the property $PATH$ in the version control properties and having it expanded in all the files). Git doesn't support this because it would be a huge performance hit. Using post-update and pre-commit hooks. Possibly the likely solution for git, but every time I looked at the status, it would report the two files as being changed. Not really clean. Pulling the path from a config file outside of version control. Then I would have to have the config file in the same location on all servers. Might as well just have the same path to begin with. Is there an easy way to deal with this? Am I over thinking it?

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  • Loading a Template From a User Control

    - by Ricardo Peres
    What if you wanted to load a template (ITemplate property) from an external user control (.ascx) file? Yes, it is possible; there are a number of ways to do this, the one I'll talk about here is through a type converter. You need to apply a TypeConverterAttribute to your ITemplate property where you specify a custom type converter that does the job. This type converter relies on InstanceDescriptor. Here is the code for it: public class TemplateTypeConverter: TypeConverter { public override Boolean CanConvertFrom(ITypeDescriptorContext context, Type sourceType) { return ((sourceType == typeof(String)) || (base.CanConvertFrom(context, sourceType) == true)); } public override Boolean CanConvertTo(ITypeDescriptorContext context, Type destinationType) { return ((destinationType == typeof(InstanceDescriptor)) || (base.CanConvertTo(context, destinationType) == true)); } public override Object ConvertTo(ITypeDescriptorContext context, CultureInfo culture, Object value, Type destinationType) { if (destinationType == typeof(InstanceDescriptor)) { Object objectFactory = value.GetType().GetField("_objectFactory", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance).GetValue(value); Object builtType = objectFactory.GetType().BaseType.GetField("_builtType", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance).GetValue(objectFactory); MethodInfo loadTemplate = typeof(TemplateTypeConverter).GetMethod("LoadTemplate"); return (new InstanceDescriptor(loadTemplate, new Object [] { "~/" + (builtType as Type).Name.Replace('_', '/').Replace("/ascx", ".ascx") })); } return base.ConvertTo(context, culture, value, destinationType); } public static ITemplate LoadTemplate(String virtualPath) { using (Page page = new Page()) { return (page.LoadTemplate(virtualPath)); } } } And, on your control: public class MyControl: Control { [Browsable(false)] [TypeConverter(typeof(TemplateTypeConverter))] public ITemplate Template { get; set; } } This allows the following declaration: Hope this helps! SyntaxHighlighter.config.clipboardSwf = 'http://alexgorbatchev.com/pub/sh/2.0.320/scripts/clipboard.swf'; SyntaxHighlighter.brushes.CSharp.aliases = ['c#', 'c-sharp', 'csharp']; SyntaxHighlighter.brushes.Xml.aliases = ['xml']; SyntaxHighlighter.all();

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  • Failed to load viewstate.The control tree into which viewstate is being loaded...etc

    - by alaa9jo
    Two days ago,a colleague of mine tried to publish an asp.net website (which is built in VS2008 using framework 3.5) to our server,he configured everything in IIS (he made sure that the selected asp.net version is 2.0) and launched the website..at first it was working great but when he tried to click on a specific treeview...BOOM..: "Failed to load viewstate. The control tree into which viewstate is being loaded must match the control tree that was used to save viewstate during the previous request. For example, when adding controls dynamically, the controls added during a post-back must match the type and position of the controls added during the initial request." In that page there were these control: a TreeView and a Placeholder,when the user selects any node then it's controls will be created dynamically into that placeholder..for the first time it's working fine but when (s)he select another node then that issue appears. He called me to help him with this issue,for me this is the first time I see such an issue,scratch my head then I decided to eliminate the possibilities of this issue one by one,at the development machine it's working perfectly,he published the website at the local IIS and again..it's working perfectly,I took a copy of the website and published it into my laptop but no issues at all,so this is means that it's not an issue in the code. So there is something missing/wrong in our server [it has Windows Server 2003],we went to the server and checked on the web-config and the configurations on IIS...nothing wrong so far,so I decided to check if the framework 3.5 is installed or not and the answer: it wasn't installed Of course he assumed that it was installed and there was nothing to tell if it wasn't from the "ASP.Net version" in IIS because frameworks 3.0 and 3.5 will not be listed there [2.0 will be listed there instead],the only way to check if it was installed or not is to search for the framework in this path:[WINDOWS Folder]\Microsoft.NET\Framework or check if it was installed in Add or remove programs. The obvious solution for his case: We installed Framework 3.5 SP1 into our server,did a restart to the machine and it worked ! If anyone faced the same issue and solved it using the same solution or with a different one please post it here to share experience.

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  • EM12c Release 4: Cloud Control to Major Tom...

    - by abulloch
    With the latest release of Enterprise Manager 12c, Release 4 (12.1.0.4) the EM development team has added new functionality to assist the EM Administrator to monitor the health of the EM infrastructure.   Taking feedback delivered from customers directly and through customer advisory boards some nice enhancements have been made to the “Manage Cloud Control” sections of the UI, commonly known in the EM community as “the MTM pages” (MTM stands for Monitor the Monitor).  This part of the EM Cloud Control UI is viewed by many as the mission control for EM Administrators. In this post we’ll highlight some of the new information that’s on display in these redesigned pages and explain how the information they present can help EM administrators identify potential bottlenecks or issues with the EM infrastructure. The first page we’ll take a look at is the newly designed Repository information page.  You can get to this from the main Setup menu, through Manage Cloud Control, then Repository.  Once this page loads you’ll see the new layout that includes 3 tabs containing more drill-down information. The Repository Tab The first tab, Repository, gives you a series of 6 panels or regions on screen that display key information that the EM Administrator needs to review from time to time to ensure that their infrastructure is in good health. Rather than go through every panel let’s call out a few and let you explore the others later yourself on your own EM site.  Firstly, we have the Repository Details panel. At a glance the EM Administrator can see the current version of the EM repository database and more critically, three important elements of information relating to availability and reliability :- Is the database in Archive Log mode ? Is the database using Flashback ? When was the last database backup taken ? In this test environment above the answers are not too worrying, however, Production environments should have at least Archivelog mode enabled, Flashback is a nice feature to enable prior to upgrades (for fast rollback) and all Production sites should have a backup.  In this case the backup information in the Control file indicates there’s been no recorded backups taken. The next region of interest to note on this page shows key information around the Repository configuration, specifically, the initialisation parameters (from the spfile). If you’re storing your EM Repository in a Cluster Database you can view the parameters on each individual instance using the Instance Name drop-down selector in the top right of the region. Additionally, you’ll note there is now a check performed on the active configuration to ensure that you’re using, at the very least, Oracle minimum recommended values.  Should the values in your EM Repository not meet these requirements it will be flagged in this table with a red X for non-compliance.  You can of-course change these values within EM by selecting the Database target and modifying the parameters in the spfile (and optionally, the run-time values if the parameter allows dynamic changes). The last region to call out on this page before moving on is the new look Repository Scheduler Job Status region. This region is an update of a similar region seen on previous releases of the MTM pages in Cloud Control but there’s some important new functionality that’s been added that customers have requested. First-up - Restarting Repository Jobs.  As you can see from the graphic, you can now optionally select a job (by selecting the row in the UI table element) and click on the Restart Job button to take care of any jobs which have stopped or stalled for any reason.  Previously this needed to be done at the command line using EMDIAG or through a PL/SQL package invocation.  You can now take care of this directly from within the UI. Next, you’ll see that a feature has been added to allow the EM administrator to customise the run-time for some of the background jobs that run in the Repository.  We heard from some customers that ensuring these jobs don’t clash with Production backups, etc is a key requirement.  This new functionality allows you to select the pencil icon to edit the schedule time for these more resource intensive background jobs and modify the schedule to avoid clashes like this. Moving onto the next tab, let’s select the Metrics tab. The Metrics Tab There’s some big changes here, this page contains new information regions that help the Administrator understand the direct impact the in-bound metric flows are having on the EM Repository.  Many customers have provided feedback that they are in the dark about the impact of adding new targets or large numbers of new hosts or new target types into EM and the impact this has on the Repository.  This page helps the EM Administrator get to grips with this.  Let’s take a quick look at two regions on this page. First-up there’s a bubble chart showing a comprehensive view of the top resource consumers of metric data, over the last 30 days, charted as the number of rows loaded against the number of collections for the metric.  The size of the bubble indicates a relative volume.  You can see from this example above that a quick glance shows that Host metrics are the largest inbound flow into the repository when measured by number of rows.  Closely following behind this though are a large number of collections for Oracle Weblogic Server and Application Deployment.  Taken together the Host Collections is around 0.7Mb of data.  The total information collection for Weblogic Server and Application Deployments is 0.38Mb and 0.37Mb respectively. If you want to get this information breakdown on the volume of data collected simply hover over the bubble in the chart and you’ll get a floating tooltip showing the information. Clicking on any bubble in the chart takes you one level deeper into a drill-down of the Metric collection. Doing this reveals the individual metric elements for these target types and again shows a representation of the relative cost - in terms of Number of Rows, Number of Collections and Storage cost of data for each Metric type. Looking at another panel on this page we can see a different view on this data. This view shows a view of the Top N metrics (the drop down allows you to select 10, 15 or 20) and sort them by volume of data.  In the case above we can see the largest metric collection (by volume) in this case (over the last 30 days) is the information about OS Registered Software on a Host target. Taken together, these two regions provide a powerful tool for the EM Administrator to understand the potential impact of any new targets that have been discovered and promoted into management by EM12c.  It’s a great tool for identifying the cause of a sudden increase in Repository storage consumption or Redo log and Archive log generation. Using the information on this page EM Administrators can take action to mitigate any load impact by deploying monitoring templates to the targets causing most load if appropriate.   The last tab we’ll look at on this page is the Schema tab. The Schema Tab Selecting this tab brings up a window onto the SYSMAN schema with a focus on Space usage in the EM Repository.  Understanding what tablespaces are growing, at what rate, is essential information for the EM Administrator to stay on top of managing space allocations for the EM Repository so that it works as efficiently as possible and performs well for the users.  Not least because ensuring storage is managed well ensures continued availability of EM for monitoring purposes. The first region to highlight here shows the trend of space usage for the tablespaces in the EM Repository over time.  You can see the upward trend here showing that storage in the EM Repository is being consumed on an upward trend over the last few days here. This is normal as this EM being used here is brand new with Agents being added daily to bring targets into monitoring.  If your Enterprise Manager configuration has reached a steady state over a period of time where the number of new inbound targets is relatively small, the metric collection settings are fairly uniform and standardised (using Templates and Template Collections) you’re likely to see a trend of space allocation that plateau’s. The table below the trend chart shows the Top 20 Tables/Indexes sorted descending by order of space consumed.  You can switch the trend view chart and corresponding detail table by choosing a different tablespace in the EM Repository using the drop-down picker on the top right of this region. The last region to highlight on this page is the region showing information about the Purge policies in effect in the EM Repository. This information is useful to illustrate to EM Administrators the default purge policies in effect for the different categories of information available in the EM Repository.  Of course, it’s also been a long requested feature to have the ability to modify these default retention periods.  You can also do this using this screen.  As there are interdependencies between some data elements you can’t modify retention policies on a feature by feature basis.  Instead, retention policies take categories of information and bundles them together in Groups.  Retention policies are modified at the Group Level.  Understanding the impact of this really deserves a blog post all on it’s own as modifying these can have a significant impact on both the EM Repository’s storage footprint and it’s performance.  For now, we’re just highlighting the features visibility on these new pages. As a user of EM12c we hope the new features you see here address some of the feedback that’s been given on these pages over the past few releases.  We’ll look out for any comments or feedback you have on these pages ! 

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  • How to fetch only the sprites in the player's range of motion for collision testing? (2D, axis aligned sprites)

    - by Twodordan
    I am working on a 2D sprite game for educational purposes. (In case you want to know, it uses WebGl and Javascript) I've implemented movement using the Euler method (and delta time) to keep things simple. Now I'm trying to tackle collisions. The way I wrote things, my game only has rectangular sprites (axis aligned, never rotated) of various/variable sizes. So I need to figure out what I hit and which side of the target sprite I hit (and I'm probably going to use these intersection tests). The old fashioned method seems to be to use tile based grids, to target only a few tiles at a time, but that sounds silly and impractical for my game. (Splitting the whole level into blocks, having each sprite's bounding box fit multiple blocks I might abide. But if the sprites change size and move around, you have to keep changing which tiles they belong to, every frame, it doesn't sound right.) In Flash you can test collision under one point, but it's not efficient to iterate through all the elements on stage each frame. (hence why people use the tile method). Bottom line is, I'm trying to figure out how to test only the elements within the player's range of motion. (I know how to get the range of motion, I have a good idea of how to write a collisionCheck(playerSprite, targetSprite) function. But how do I know which sprites are currently in the player's vicinity to fetch only them?) Please discuss. Cheers!

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  • How does the Control class, provide the ForeColor, BackColor and Font default values?

    - by Miguel Angelo
    I know that component-model indicates whether a property has a default value or not, by means of ShouldSerializeValue method of PropertyDescriptor. The base windows-forms Control class, has some properties like ForeColor, BackColor and Font, that defaults to the same value of the parent, but I could not find any TypeDescriptor or PropertyDescriptor that provides these default values. The Control class does not implement ICustomTypeDescriptor nor has a TypeDescriptionProviderAttribute. How does the Control class indicates that these properties should be serialized or not? Where does it provide the PropertyDescriptors for these properties?? Thanks!!!

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  • flash player embedded in asp page which is opened in webbrowser control in .NET access through windo

    - by Prit
    I am develoing a windows application in C#.NET. In one of my winform I have added a WebBrowser control. In this webbrowser control I have opened an asp page from my local website. Now in this webpage there is one flash object which is used to play swf files. Now my question is can I access this control from my winform? If so then how? can u create a handler for that flash object?

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  • How can I isolate the form controls in a ASP Web User Control from the rest of the page's form contr

    - by Justin808
    I have a Web User Control I created for authentication. The web user control is inside the box below. Clicking any button (1 or 2) below works correct as it goes to the correct c# button click event in the code behind file. If I press enter on fields a or b it goes to the correct callback (button1's) if I press enter on field c it still goes to button1's callback, not button2's How can I give my web user control a nice self contained for and view state etc, so it wont mess with the remainder of the page's form? +--------------+ | User: __a___ | | Pass: __b___ | | [button1]| +--------------+ Prompt:______c______ [button2]

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  • Why avoid pessimistic locking in a version control system?

    - by raven
    Based on a few posts I've read concerning version control, it seems people think pessimistic locking in a version control system is a bad thing. Why? I understand that it prevents one developer from submitting a change while another has the file checked out, but so what? If your code files are so big that you constantly have more than one person working on them at the same time, I submit that you should reorganize your code. Break it up into smaller functional units. Integration of concurrent code changes is a tedious and error-prone process even with the tools a good version control system provides to make it easier. I think it should be avoided if at all possible. So, why is pessimistic locking discouraged?

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  • How to integrate access control with my ORM in a .net windows form application?

    - by Ying
    I am developing a general database query tools, a .Net 3.5 Windows Form application. In order to make the presentation layer is independent of the database layer. I use an ORM framework, XPO from DevExpress. But, I have no access control function built in. I surfed Internet and I found in WCF Data Services, there is an interesting concept, Interceptor, which is following AOP(Aspect Oriented Programming). I am wondering who has such an experience to build access control in ORM. My basic requirement is : It should be a general method and controlled by users in runtime. So any hard coding is not acceptable. It could be based on attribute, database table, or even an external assembly. I am willing to buy a ready solution. According to the idea of AOP, an access control function can be integrated with existing functions easily and nearly not knowingly to the previous developer;) Any suggestions are welcome.

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  • How to get the set events of a control?

    - by Jack
    It's possible via C# code get an list of methods/delegates that was set to Control? let me explain better.. For example. Assuming some definitions like this: foo.Click += (a, b) => { ... } //.. foo.Click += (A,B) => { ... } And a megic method: var baa = foo.GetEvents("Click"); Returns baa[0] points to (a, b) => { ... } baa[1] points to (A,B) => { ... } My scenery: I make and add dynamically event to some controls inside a loop. I want depending to a boolean value a event of control of index one,will removed by using control.Click -= baa[1] or something like this. I hope this is clear for your. Thanks in advance.

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  • My company is a Rackspace Cloud client (provided to us for free) and I'm trying to find some way to set up version control

    - by Nick S.
    As the title says, my (small) business is provided a free Rackspace Cloud client account. We receive a decent amount of traffic but I haven't been able to put together a business case to move to our own server yet. However, we are developing some complex apps and I'm frustrated with not having the ability to even ssh into the remote server. Ultimately, I'd like to set up some sort of version control (at this point, I'll take anything, git or otherwise). I have control over databases, can FTP, set up cron jobs, and perform a few other basic functions. I can't think of any way to set up git or something similar without ssh access. A thought went through my mind that maybe some sort of PHP version control exists that I might be able to set up, but I haven't had any luck finding it yet. Do you guys have any ideas, thoughts, or advice?

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  • How do I Integrate Production Database Hot Fixes into Shared Database Development model?

    - by TetonSig
    We are using SQL Source Control 3, SQL Compare, SQL Data Compare from RedGate, Mercurial repositories, TeamCity and a set of 4 environments including production. I am working on getting us to a dedicated environment per developer, but for at least the next 6 months we are stuck with a shared model. To summarize our current system, we have a DEV SQL server where developers first make changes/additions. They commit their changes through SQL Source Control to a local hgdev repository. When they execute an hg push to the main repository, TeamCity listens for that and then (among other things) pushes hgdev repository to hgrc. Another TeamCity process listens for that and does a pull from hgrc and deploys the latest to a QA SQL Server where regression and integration tests are run. When those are passed a push from hgrc to hgprod occurs. We do a compare of hgprod to our PREPROD SQL Server and generate deployment/rollback scripts for our production release. Separate from the above we have database Hot Fixes that will need to be applied in between releases. The process there is for our Operations team make changes on the PreProd database, and then after testing, to use SQL Source Control to commit their hot fix changes to hgprod from the PREPROD database, and then do a compare from hgprod to PRODUCTION, create deployment scripts and run them on PRODUCTION. If we were in a dedicated database per developer model, we could simply automatically push hgprod back to hgdev and merge in the hot fix change (through TeamCity monitoring for hgprod checkins) and then developers would pick it up and merge it to their local repository and database periodically. However, given that with a shared model the DEV database itself is the source of all changes, this won't work. Pushing hotfixes back to hgdev will show up in SQL Source Control as being different than DEV SQL Server and therefore we need to overwrite the reposistory with the "change" from the DEV SQL Server. My only workaround so far is to just have OPS assign a developer the hotfix ticket with a script attached and then we run their hotfixes against DEV ourselves to merge them back in. I'm not happy with that solution. Other than working faster to get to dedicated environment, are they other ways to keep this loop going automatically?

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  • What tales of horror have you regarding "whitespace" errors?

    - by reechard
    I'm looking for tales of woe such as companies, websites and products failing, religious flamewars, data loss. Examples: text editor settings conflicts indent at 4 tabs at 8 vs. indent at 2 tabs at 4 windows line endings vs. unix line endings, text vs. binary files, source code control related terms: "line feed" "carriage return" "horizontal tab" "mono spacing" "unix line endings" "version control" "diff" "merge" "ftp"

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  • Why can’t GridView extract child control’s values directly?

    - by SourceC
    Hello using Bind in a GridView control template enables the control to extract values from child controls in the template and pass them to the data source control. The data source control in turn performs the appropriate command for the database. For this reason, the Bind function is used inside the EditItemTemplate or InsertItemTemplate of a data-bound control. Why is Bind() needed to extract values and pass them to GridView. Why isn’t GridView able to extract child control’s values directly? thanx

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  • calling a method on the parent page from a user control

    - by Kyle
    I am using a user control that I created (just a .cs file not an .ascx file), that does some magic and depending on a value generated by the control, I need it to do something on the parent page that is 'hosting' the control. It needs to call a method under certain circumstances (method is on the parent control). the control is placed on the parent page like so: <customtag:MyControl ID="something" runat="server" /> I'm dynamically creating buttons etc on the control itself but when a button is clicked, let's say for example that there's a text box on the control and if the value of the textbox is "bob" it needs to call a method on the page that's housing the control...how can I accomplish this?

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  • .NET (C#) passing messages from a custom control to main application

    - by zer0c00l
    A custom windows form control named 'tweet' is in a dll. The custom control has couple of basic controls to display a tweet. I add this custom control to my main application. This custom control has a button named "retweet", when some user clicks this "retweet" button, i need to send some message to the main application. Unfortunately the this tweet control has no idea about this main application (both or in their own namespaces) How can i send messages from this custom control to the main application?

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  • Source-control 'wet-work'?

    - by Phil Factor
    When a design or creative work is flawed beyond remedy, it is often best to destroy it and start again. The other day, I lost the code to a long and intricate SQL batch I was working on. I’d thought it was impossible, but it happened. With all the technology around that is designed to prevent this occurring, this sort of accident has become a rare event.  If it weren’t for a deranged laptop, and my distraction, the code wouldn’t have been lost this time.  As always, I sighed, had a soothing cup of tea, and typed it all in again.  The new code I hastily tapped in  was much better: I’d held in my head the essence of how the code should work rather than the details: I now knew for certain  the start point, the end, and how it should be achieved. Instantly the detritus of half-baked thoughts fell away and I was able to write logical code that performed better.  Because I could work so quickly, I was able to hold the details of all the columns and variables in my head, and the dynamics of the flow of data. It was, in fact, easier and quicker to start from scratch rather than tidy up and refactor the existing code with its inevitable fumbling and half-baked ideas. What a shame that technology is now so good that developers rarely experience the cleansing shock of losing one’s code and having to rewrite it from scratch.  If you’ve never accidentally lost  your code, then it is worth doing it deliberately once for the experience. Creative people have, until Technology mistakenly prevented it, torn up their drafts or sketches, threw them in the bin, and started again from scratch.  Leonardo’s obsessive reworking of the Mona Lisa was renowned because it was so unusual:  Most artists have been utterly ruthless in destroying work that didn’t quite make it. Authors are particularly keen on writing afresh, and the results are generally positive. Lawrence of Arabia actually lost the entire 250,000 word manuscript of ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by accidentally leaving it on a train at Reading station, before rewriting a much better version.  Now, any writer or artist is seduced by technology into altering or refining their work rather than casting it dramatically in the bin or setting a light to it on a bonfire, and rewriting it from the blank page.  It is easy to pick away at a flawed work, but the real creative process is far more brutal. Once, many years ago whilst running a software house that supplied commercial software to local businesses, I’d been supervising an accounting system for a farming cooperative. No packaged system met their needs, and it was all hand-cut code.  For us, it represented a breakthrough as it was for a government organisation, and success would guarantee more contracts. As you’ve probably guessed, the code got mangled in a disk crash just a week before the deadline for delivery, and the many backups all proved to be entirely corrupted by a faulty tape drive.  There were some fragments left on individual machines, but they were all of different versions.  The developers were in despair.  Strangely, I managed to re-write the bulk of a three-month project in a manic and caffeine-soaked weekend.  Sure, that elegant universally-applicable input-form routine was‘nt quite so elegant, but it didn’t really need to be as we knew what forms it needed to support.  Yes, the code lacked architectural elegance and reusability. By dawn on Monday, the application passed its integration tests. The developers rose to the occasion after I’d collapsed, and tidied up what I’d done, though they were reproachful that some of the style and elegance had gone out of the application. By the delivery date, we were able to install it. It was a smaller, faster application than the beta they’d seen and the user-interface had a new, rather Spartan, appearance that we swore was done to conform to the latest in user-interface guidelines. (we switched to Helvetica font to look more ‘Bauhaus’ ). The client was so delighted that he forgave the new bugs that had crept in. I still have the disk that crashed, up in the attic. In IT, we have had mixed experiences from complete re-writes. Lotus 123 never really recovered from a complete rewrite from assembler into C, Borland made the mistake with Arago and Quattro Pro  and Netscape’s complete rewrite of their Navigator 4 browser was a white-knuckle ride. In all cases, the decision to rewrite was a result of extreme circumstances where no other course of action seemed possible.   The rewrite didn’t come out of the blue. I prefer to remember the rewrite of Minix by young Linus Torvalds, or the rewrite of Bitkeeper by a slightly older Linus.  The rewrite of CP/M didn’t do too badly either, did it? Come to think of it, the guy who decided to rewrite the windowing system of the Xerox Star never regretted the decision. I’ll agree that one should often resist calls for a rewrite. One of the worst habits of the more inexperienced programmer is to denigrate whatever code he or she inherits, and then call loudly for a complete rewrite. They are buoyed up by the mistaken belief that they can do better. This, however, is a different psychological phenomenon, more related to the idea of some motorcyclists that they are operating on infinite lives, or the occasional squaddies that if they charge the machine-guns determinedly enough all will be well. Grim experience brings out the humility in any experienced programmer.  I’m referring to quite different circumstances here. Where a team knows the requirements perfectly, are of one mind on methodology and coding standards, and they already have a solution, then what is wrong with considering  a complete rewrite? Rewrites are so painful in the early stages, until that point where one realises the payoff, that even I quail at the thought. One needs a natural disaster to push one over the edge. The trouble is that source-control systems, and disaster recovery systems, are just too good nowadays.   If I were to lose this draft of this very blog post, I know I’d rewrite it much better. However, if you read this, you’ll know I didn’t have the nerve to delete it and start again.  There was a time that one prayed that unreliable hardware would deliver you from an unmaintainable mess of a codebase, but now technology has made us almost entirely immune to such a merciful act of God. An old friend of mine with long experience in the software industry has long had the idea of the ‘source-control wet-work’,  where one hires a malicious hacker in some wild eastern country to hack into one’s own  source control system to destroy all trace of the source to an application. Alas, backup systems are just too good to make this any more than a pipedream. Somehow, it would be difficult to promote the idea. As an alternative, could one construct a source control system that, on doing all the code-quality metrics, would systematically destroy all trace of source code that failed the quality test? Alas, I can’t see many managers buying into the idea. In reading the full story of the near-loss of Toy Story 2, it set me thinking. It turned out that the lucky restoration of the code wasn’t the happy ending one first imagined it to be, because they eventually came to the conclusion that the plot was fundamentally flawed and it all had to be rewritten anyway.  Was this an early  case of the ‘source-control wet-job’?’ It is very hard nowadays to do a rapid U-turn in a development project because we are far too prone to cling to our existing source-code.

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  • Source-control 'wet-work'?

    - by Phil Factor
    When a design or creative work is flawed beyond remedy, it is often best to destroy it and start again. The other day, I lost the code to a long and intricate SQL batch I was working on. I’d thought it was impossible, but it happened. With all the technology around that is designed to prevent this occurring, this sort of accident has become a rare event.  If it weren’t for a deranged laptop, and my distraction, the code wouldn’t have been lost this time.  As always, I sighed, had a soothing cup of tea, and typed it all in again.  The new code I hastily tapped in  was much better: I’d held in my head the essence of how the code should work rather than the details: I now knew for certain  the start point, the end, and how it should be achieved. Instantly the detritus of half-baked thoughts fell away and I was able to write logical code that performed better.  Because I could work so quickly, I was able to hold the details of all the columns and variables in my head, and the dynamics of the flow of data. It was, in fact, easier and quicker to start from scratch rather than tidy up and refactor the existing code with its inevitable fumbling and half-baked ideas. What a shame that technology is now so good that developers rarely experience the cleansing shock of losing one’s code and having to rewrite it from scratch.  If you’ve never accidentally lost  your code, then it is worth doing it deliberately once for the experience. Creative people have, until Technology mistakenly prevented it, torn up their drafts or sketches, threw them in the bin, and started again from scratch.  Leonardo’s obsessive reworking of the Mona Lisa was renowned because it was so unusual:  Most artists have been utterly ruthless in destroying work that didn’t quite make it. Authors are particularly keen on writing afresh, and the results are generally positive. Lawrence of Arabia actually lost the entire 250,000 word manuscript of ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by accidentally leaving it on a train at Reading station, before rewriting a much better version.  Now, any writer or artist is seduced by technology into altering or refining their work rather than casting it dramatically in the bin or setting a light to it on a bonfire, and rewriting it from the blank page.  It is easy to pick away at a flawed work, but the real creative process is far more brutal. Once, many years ago whilst running a software house that supplied commercial software to local businesses, I’d been supervising an accounting system for a farming cooperative. No packaged system met their needs, and it was all hand-cut code.  For us, it represented a breakthrough as it was for a government organisation, and success would guarantee more contracts. As you’ve probably guessed, the code got mangled in a disk crash just a week before the deadline for delivery, and the many backups all proved to be entirely corrupted by a faulty tape drive.  There were some fragments left on individual machines, but they were all of different versions.  The developers were in despair.  Strangely, I managed to re-write the bulk of a three-month project in a manic and caffeine-soaked weekend.  Sure, that elegant universally-applicable input-form routine was‘nt quite so elegant, but it didn’t really need to be as we knew what forms it needed to support.  Yes, the code lacked architectural elegance and reusability. By dawn on Monday, the application passed its integration tests. The developers rose to the occasion after I’d collapsed, and tidied up what I’d done, though they were reproachful that some of the style and elegance had gone out of the application. By the delivery date, we were able to install it. It was a smaller, faster application than the beta they’d seen and the user-interface had a new, rather Spartan, appearance that we swore was done to conform to the latest in user-interface guidelines. (we switched to Helvetica font to look more ‘Bauhaus’ ). The client was so delighted that he forgave the new bugs that had crept in. I still have the disk that crashed, up in the attic. In IT, we have had mixed experiences from complete re-writes. Lotus 123 never really recovered from a complete rewrite from assembler into C, Borland made the mistake with Arago and Quattro Pro  and Netscape’s complete rewrite of their Navigator 4 browser was a white-knuckle ride. In all cases, the decision to rewrite was a result of extreme circumstances where no other course of action seemed possible.   The rewrite didn’t come out of the blue. I prefer to remember the rewrite of Minix by young Linus Torvalds, or the rewrite of Bitkeeper by a slightly older Linus.  The rewrite of CP/M didn’t do too badly either, did it? Come to think of it, the guy who decided to rewrite the windowing system of the Xerox Star never regretted the decision. I’ll agree that one should often resist calls for a rewrite. One of the worst habits of the more inexperienced programmer is to denigrate whatever code he or she inherits, and then call loudly for a complete rewrite. They are buoyed up by the mistaken belief that they can do better. This, however, is a different psychological phenomenon, more related to the idea of some motorcyclists that they are operating on infinite lives, or the occasional squaddies that if they charge the machine-guns determinedly enough all will be well. Grim experience brings out the humility in any experienced programmer.  I’m referring to quite different circumstances here. Where a team knows the requirements perfectly, are of one mind on methodology and coding standards, and they already have a solution, then what is wrong with considering  a complete rewrite? Rewrites are so painful in the early stages, until that point where one realises the payoff, that even I quail at the thought. One needs a natural disaster to push one over the edge. The trouble is that source-control systems, and disaster recovery systems, are just too good nowadays.   If I were to lose this draft of this very blog post, I know I’d rewrite it much better. However, if you read this, you’ll know I didn’t have the nerve to delete it and start again.  There was a time that one prayed that unreliable hardware would deliver you from an unmaintainable mess of a codebase, but now technology has made us almost entirely immune to such a merciful act of God. An old friend of mine with long experience in the software industry has long had the idea of the ‘source-control wet-work’,  where one hires a malicious hacker in some wild eastern country to hack into one’s own  source control system to destroy all trace of the source to an application. Alas, backup systems are just too good to make this any more than a pipedream. Somehow, it would be difficult to promote the idea. As an alternative, could one construct a source control system that, on doing all the code-quality metrics, would systematically destroy all trace of source code that failed the quality test? Alas, I can’t see many managers buying into the idea. In reading the full story of the near-loss of Toy Story 2, it set me thinking. It turned out that the lucky restoration of the code wasn’t the happy ending one first imagined it to be, because they eventually came to the conclusion that the plot was fundamentally flawed and it all had to be rewritten anyway.  Was this an early  case of the ‘source-control wet-job’?’ It is very hard nowadays to do a rapid U-turn in a development project because we are far too prone to cling to our existing source-code.

    Read the article

  • Can MKS Integrity integrate with other source control tools? (SVN, Git...)

    - by bnsmith
    My boss is interested in using MKS Integrity for bug tracking, feature requests, Wiki documentation and so on. However, we currently use Subversion, and he doesn't want to force us devs to use a version control system that we don't like. Is is possible to integrate a different version control program into MKS Integrity? I'm particularly interested in SVN, Git, Mercurial and Bazaar. If you've tried mixing tools like this before, I'd love to hear about your experiences.

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  • Differences between 'Add web site/solution to source control...'

    - by Andy Rose
    I have opened a website website hosted on my workstation in Visual Studio 2008 and saved it as solution. I now want to add this to source contol and I am being given the option to either 'Add solution to source control...' or 'Add web site to source control...'. This solution needs to be accessed, worked on and run locally by several other developers so I was wondering what the key differences are between each option and which would be the best to choose?

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  • Source Control System. API. Get metrics

    - by w1z
    Hello all, I have next situation. I need to choise source control system for my project. This scs must provide the API to my .net application to get information about check-in-s for specified user and date period and about changes which was done in this check-in-s (the number of added and updated lines). What source control system provides this functionality? P.S. I can't use the TFS, it's a limitation

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