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• How to write efficient code in spite of heavy deadlines

  - by gladysbixly

  Hi all, I am working in an environment wherein we have many projects with strict deadlines on deliverables. We even talk directly to the clients so getting the jobs done and fast is a must. My issue is that i'd always write code for the first solution that comes to my mind, which of course I thought as best at that moment. It always ends up ugly though and i'd later realize that there are better ways to do it but can't afford to change due to time restrictions. Are there any tips by which I could make my code efficient yet deliver on time?

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• How to export 3D models that consist of several parts (eg. turret on a tank)?

  - by Will

  What are the standard alternatives for the mechanics of attaching turrets and such to 3D models for use in-game? I don't mean the logic, but rather the graphics aspects. My naive approach is to extend the MD2-like format that I'm using (blender-exported using a script) to include a new set of properties for a mesh that: is anchored in another 'parent' mesh. The anchor is a point and normal in the parent mesh and a point and normal in the child mesh; these will always be colinear, giving the child rotation but not translation relative to the parent point. has a normal that is aligned with a 'target'. Classically this target is the enemy that is being engaged, but it might be some other vector e.g. 'the wind' (for sails and flags (and smoke, which is a particle system but the same principle applies)) or 'upwards' (e.g. so bodies of riders bend properly when riding a horse up an incline etc). that the anchor and target alignments have maximum and minimum and a speed coeff. there is game logic for multiple turrets and on a model and deciding which engages which enemy. 'primary' and 'secondary' or 'target0' ... 'targetN' or some such annotation will be there. So to illustrate, a classic tank would be made from three meshes; a main body mesh, a turret mesh that is anchored to the top of the main body so it can spin only horizontally and a barrel mesh that is anchored to the front of the turret and can only move vertically within some bounds. And there might be a forth flag mesh on top of the turret that is aligned with 'wind' where wind is a function the engine solves that merges environment's wind angle with angle the vehicle is travelling in an velocity, or something fancy. This gives each mesh one degree of freedom relative to its parent. Things with multiple degrees of freedom can be modelled by zero-vertex connecting meshes perhaps? This is where I think the approach I outlined begins to feel inelegant, yet perhaps its still a workable system? This is why I want to know how it is done in professional games ;) Are there better approaches? Are there formats that already include this information? Is this routine?

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• Studying computer science - what am I getting myself into?

  - by clankercrusher

  I'm a student considering the possibility of studying computer science. I've picked up programming indie games and websites as a hobby and I really enjoy it. Despite my fairly positive experience, I somehow get the feeling that computer science in the business world will be completely different than do-it-for-fun game making. Since I'm interested in the field and I'd like to study well, I want to prepare myself for the onslaught. (If that’s even possible) What are some of the most important principals I need to know if I decide to study computer science? What will I need to know about computer science that a University probably won't teach me? Is there any way I can get hands on experience before or while I'm at a University? What am I getting myself into? P.S. Is this the right stack exchange site for this type of question?

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• How often is your "Go-To" language the same as your favorite??

  - by K-RAN

  I know that there's already a question asking for your favorite programming language here. I'm curious though, what's your go-to language? The two can be very different. For example, I love Haskell. I learned it this past semester and I fell in love with it's very concise solutions and awesome syntax (I love theoretical math so something like fib = 1 : 1 : [ f | f <- zipWith (+) fibSeq (tail fibSeq)] makes my inner mathematician and computer scientist jump with joy!). However, the majority of my projects for classes and jobs have been in C/C++ & Java. As a result, most of the time when I'm testing something like an algorithm or Data Structure I go straight to C++. What about you guys? What languages do you love and why? What about your go-to language? What language do you use most often to get things done for work or personal projects and why? How often does a language fall into both categories??

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• Inspiring the method of teaching. Example- C++ :)

  - by Ashwin

  A year ago I graduated with a degree in Computer Science and Engineering. Considering C++ as the first choice of programming language I have been in the process of learning C++ in many ways. At first - five years back - I had many conceptions, most of which were so abstract to me. It started when I knew almost everything about Structs in C and nothing about Classes in C++. I went through a great time experimenting them all and learning a lot. I had a hard time evaluating Procedural programming vs Object-Oriented Programming. Deciding when to choose Procedural or Object-Oriented Programming took a great deal of patience for me. I knew that I cannot underestimate any of these Programming styles... Though Procedural programming is often a better choice than simple sequential unstructured programming, when solving problems with procedural programming, we usually divide one problem into several steps in order regarded as functions. Then we call these functions one by one to get the result of the problem. When solving problems with Object Oriented Priciples we divide one problem into several classes and form the interaction between them. Evaluating these two at the beginning (as a learner) required a lot of inspiration and thoughts. Instructing to think step by step. Relative concepts to understand deeply. Intensive interests to contrast both solving in both POP and OOP. If you were ever a mentor: What ideas/methods would you teach to students in which it will Inspire them to learn a programming language (in general, computer sciences)?

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• Adding complexity by generalising: how far should you go?

  - by marcog

  Reference question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4303813/help-with-interview-question The above question asked to solve a problem for an NxN matrix. While there was an easy solution, I gave a more general solution to solve the more general problem for an NxM matrix. A handful of people commented that this generalisation was bad because it made the solution more complex. One such comment is voted +8. Putting aside the hard-to-explain voting effects on SO, there are two types of complexity to be considered here: Runtime complexity, i.e. how fast does the code run Code complexity, i.e. how difficult is the code to read and understand The question of runtime complexity is something that requires a better understanding of the input data today and what it might look like in the future, taking the various growth factors into account where necessary. The question of code complexity is the one I'm interested in here. By generalising the solution, we avoid having to rewrite it in the event that the constraints change. However, at the same time it can often result in complicating the code. In the reference question, the code for NxN is easy to understand for any competent programmer, but the NxM case (unless documented well) could easily confuse someone coming across the code for the first time. So, my question is this: Where should you draw the line between generalising and keeping the code easy to understand?

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• Heterogeneous Datacenter Management with Enterprise Manager 12c

  - by Joe Diemer

  The following is a Guest Blog, contributed by Bryce Kaiser, Product Manager at Blue MedoraWhen I envision a perfect datacenter, it would consist of technologies acquired from a single vendor across the entire server, middleware, application, network, and storage stack - Apps to Disk - that meets your organization’s every IT requirement with absolute best-of-breed solutions in every category.   To quote a familiar motto, your datacenter would consist of "Hardware and Software, Engineered to Work Together".  In almost all cases, practical realities dictate something far less than the IT Utopia mentioned above.   You may wish to leverage multiple vendors to keep licensing costs down, a single vendor may not have an offering in the IT category you need, or your preferred vendor may quite simply not have the solution that meets your needs.    In other words, your IT needs dictate a heterogeneous IT environment.  Heterogeneity, however, comes with additional complexity. The following are two pretty typical challenges:1) No End-to-End Visibility into the Enterprise Wide Application Deployment. Each vendor solution which is added to an infrastructure may bring its own tooling creating different consoles for different vendor applications and platforms.2) No Visibility into Performance Bottlenecks. When multiple management tools operate independently, you lose diagnostic capabilities including identifying cross-tier issues with database, hung-requests, slowness, memory leaks and hardware errors/failures causing DB/MW issues. As adoption of Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) has increased, especially since the release of Enterprise Manager 12c, Oracle has seen an increase in the number of customers who want to leverage their investments in EM to manage non-Oracle workloads.  Enterprise Manager provides a single pane of glass view into their entire datacenter.  By creating a highly extensible framework via the Oracle EM Extensibility Development Kit (EDK), Oracle has provided the tooling for business partners such as my company Blue Medora as well as customers to easily fill gaps in the ecosystem and enhance existing solutions.  As mentioned in the previous post on the Enterprise Manager Extensibility Exchange, customers have access to an assortment of Oracle and Partner provided solutions through this Exchange, which is accessed at http://www.oracle.com/goto/emextensibility.  Currently, there are over 80 Oracle and partner provided plug-ins across the EM 11g and EM 12c versions.  Blue Medora is one of those contributing partners, for which you will find 3 of our solutions including our flagship plugin for VMware.  Let's look at Blue Medora’s VMware plug-in as an example to what I'm trying to convey.  Here is a common situation solved by true visibility into your entire stack:Symptoms•    My database is bogging down, however the database appears okay internally.  Maybe it’s starved for resources?•    My OS tooling is showing everything is “OK”.  Something doesn’t add up. Root cause•    Through the VMware plugin we can see the problem is actually on the virtualization layer Solution•    From within Enterprise Manager  -- the same tool you use for all of your database tuning -- we can overlay the data of the database target, host target, and virtual machine target for a true picture of the true root cause. Here is the console view: Perhaps your monitoring conditions are more specific to your environment.  No worries, Enterprise Manager still has you covered.  With Metric Extensions you have the “Next Generation” of User-Defined Metrics, which easily bring the power of your existing management scripts into a single console while leveraging the proven Enterprise Manager framework. Simply put, Oracle Enterprise manager boasts a growing ecosystem that provides the single pane of glass for your entire datacenter from the database and beyond.  Bryce can be contacted at [email protected]

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• Snake Game Help

  - by MuhammadA

  I am making a snake game and learning XNA at the same time. I have 3 classes : Game.cs, Snake.cs and Apple.cs My problem is more of a conceptual problem, I want to know which class is really responsible for ... detecting collision of snake head on apple/itself/wall? which class should increase the snakes speed, size? It seems to me that however much I try and put the snake stuff into snake.cs that game.cs has to know a lot about the snake, like : -- I want to increase the score depending on size of snake, the score variable is inside game.cs, which means now I have to ask the snake its size on every hit of the apple... seems a bit unclean all this highly coupled code. or -- I DO NOT want to place the apple under the snake... now the apple suddenly has to know about all the snake parts, my head hurts when I think of that. Maybe there should be some sort of AppleLayer.cs class that should know about the snake... Whats the best approach in such a simple scenario? Any tips welcome. Game.cs : using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Design; namespace Snakez { public enum CurrentGameState { Playing, Paused, NotPlaying } public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { private GraphicsDeviceManager _graphics; private SpriteBatch _spriteBatch; private readonly Color _niceGreenColour = new Color(167, 255, 124); private KeyboardState _oldKeyboardState; private SpriteFont _scoreFont; private SoundEffect _biteSound, _crashSound; private Vector2 _scoreLocation = new Vector2(10, 10); private Apple _apple; private Snake _snake; private int _score = 0; private int _speed = 1; public Game1() { _graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to perform any initialization it needs to before starting to run. /// This is where it can query for any required services and load any non-graphic /// related content. Calling base.Initialize will enumerate through any components /// and initialize them as well. /// </summary> protected override void Initialize() { base.Initialize(); } /// <summary> /// LoadContent will be called once per game and is the place to load /// all of your content. /// </summary> protected override void LoadContent() { _spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); _scoreFont = Content.Load<SpriteFont>("Score"); _apple = new Apple(800, 480, Content.Load<Texture2D>("Apple")); _snake = new Snake(Content.Load<Texture2D>("BodyBlock")); _biteSound = Content.Load<SoundEffect>("Bite"); _crashSound = Content.Load<SoundEffect>("Crash"); } /// <summary> /// UnloadContent will be called once per game and is the place to unload /// all content. /// </summary> protected override void UnloadContent() { Content.Unload(); } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to run logic such as updating the world, /// checking for collisions, gathering input, and playing audio. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { KeyboardState newKeyboardState = Keyboard.GetState(); if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Escape)) { this.Exit(); // Allows the game to exit } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Up); } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Down); } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Left); } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Right); } _oldKeyboardState = newKeyboardState; _snake.Update(); if (_snake.IsEating(_apple)) { _biteSound.Play(); _score += 10; _apple.Place(); } base.Update(gameTime); } /// <summary> /// This is called when the game should draw itself. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(_niceGreenColour); float frameRate = 1 / (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; _spriteBatch.Begin(); _spriteBatch.DrawString(_scoreFont, "Score : " + _score, _scoreLocation, Color.Red); _apple.Draw(_spriteBatch); _snake.Draw(_spriteBatch); _spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } } } Snake.cs : using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; namespace Snakez { public enum Direction { Up, Down, Left, Right } public class Snake { private List<Rectangle> _parts; private readonly Texture2D _bodyBlock; private readonly int _startX = 160; private readonly int _startY = 120; private int _moveDelay = 100; private DateTime _lastUpdatedAt; private Direction _direction; private Rectangle _lastTail; public Snake(Texture2D bodyBlock) { _bodyBlock = bodyBlock; _parts = new List<Rectangle>(); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX + bodyBlock.Width, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX + (bodyBlock.Width) * 2, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX + (bodyBlock.Width) * 3, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _direction = Direction.Right; _lastUpdatedAt = DateTime.Now; } public void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { foreach (var p in _parts) { spriteBatch.Draw(_bodyBlock, new Vector2(p.X, p.Y), Color.White); } } public void Update() { if (DateTime.Now.Subtract(_lastUpdatedAt).TotalMilliseconds > _moveDelay) { //DateTime.Now.Ticks _lastTail = _parts.First(); _parts.Remove(_lastTail); /* add new head in right direction */ var lastHead = _parts.Last(); var newHead = new Rectangle(0, 0, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height); switch (_direction) { case Direction.Up: newHead.X = lastHead.X; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y - _bodyBlock.Width; break; case Direction.Down: newHead.X = lastHead.X; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y + _bodyBlock.Width; break; case Direction.Left: newHead.X = lastHead.X - _bodyBlock.Width; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y; break; case Direction.Right: newHead.X = lastHead.X + _bodyBlock.Width; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y; break; } _parts.Add(newHead); _lastUpdatedAt = DateTime.Now; } } public void SetDirection(Direction newDirection) { if (_direction == Direction.Up && newDirection == Direction.Down) { return; } else if (_direction == Direction.Down && newDirection == Direction.Up) { return; } else if (_direction == Direction.Left && newDirection == Direction.Right) { return; } else if (_direction == Direction.Right && newDirection == Direction.Left) { return; } _direction = newDirection; } public bool IsEating(Apple apple) { if (_parts.Last().Intersects(apple.Location)) { GrowBiggerAndFaster(); return true; } return false; } private void GrowBiggerAndFaster() { _parts.Insert(0, _lastTail); _moveDelay -= (_moveDelay / 100)*2; } } } Apple.cs : using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; namespace Snakez { public class Apple { private readonly int _maxWidth, _maxHeight; private readonly Texture2D _texture; private readonly Random random = new Random(); public Rectangle Location { get; private set; } public Apple(int screenWidth, int screenHeight, Texture2D texture) { _maxWidth = (screenWidth + 1) - texture.Width; _maxHeight = (screenHeight + 1) - texture.Height; _texture = texture; Place(); } public void Place() { Location = GetRandomLocation(_maxWidth, _maxHeight); } private Rectangle GetRandomLocation(int maxWidth, int maxHeight) { // x and y -- multiple of 20 int x = random.Next(1, maxWidth); var leftOver = x % 20; x = x - leftOver; int y = random.Next(1, maxHeight); leftOver = y % 20; y = y - leftOver; return new Rectangle(x, y, _texture.Width, _texture.Height); } public void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { spriteBatch.Draw(_texture, Location, Color.White); } } }

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• Pay in the future should make you think in the present

  - by BuckWoody

  Distributed Computing - and more importantly “-as-a-Service” models of computing have a different cost model. This is something that sounds obvious on the surface but it’s often forgotten during the design and coding phase of a project. In on-premises computing, we’re used to purchasing a server and all of the hardware infrastructure and software licenses needed not only for one project, but several. This is an up-front or “sunk” cost that we consume by running code the organization needs to perform its function. Using a direct connection over wires you’ve already paid for, we don’t often have to think about bandwidth, hits on the data store or the amount of compute we use - we just know more is better. In a pay-as-you-go model, however, each of these architecture decisions has a potential cost impact. The amount of data you store, the number of times you access it, and the amount you send back all come with a charge. The offset is that you don’t buy anything at all up-front, so that sunk cost is freed up. And financial professionals know that money now is worth more than money later. Saving that up-front cost allows you to invest it in other things. It’s not just that you’re using things that now cost money - it’s that the design itself in distributed computing has a cost impact. That can be a really good thing, such as when you dynamically add capacity for paying customers. If you can tie back the cost of a series of clicks to what a user will pay to do so, you can set a profit margin that is easy to track. Here’s a case in point: Assume you are using a large instance in Windows Azure to compute some data that you retrieve from a SQL Azure database. If you don’t monitor the path of the application, you may not know what you are really using. Since you’re paying by the size of the instance, it’s best to maximize it all the time. Recently I evaluated just this situation, and found that downsizing the instance and adding another one where needed, adding a caching function to the application, moving part of the data into Windows Azure tables not only increased the speed of the application, but reduced the cost and more closely tied the cost to the profit. The key is this: from the very outset - the design - make sure you include metrics to measure for the cost/performance (sometimes these are the same) for your application. Windows Azure opens up awesome new ways of doing things, so make sure you study distributed systems architecture before you try and force in the application design you have on premises into your new application structure.

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• Refactoring and Open / Closed principle

  - by Giorgio

  I have recently being reading a web site about clean code development (I do not put a link here because it is not in English). One of the principles advertised by this site is the Open Closed Principle: each software component should be open for extension and closed for modification. E.g., when we have implemented and tested a class, we should only modify it to fix bugs or to add new functionality (e.g. new methods that do not influence the existing ones). The existing functionality and implementation should not be changed. I normally apply this principle by defining an interface I and a corresponding implementation class A. When class A has become stable (implemented and tested), I normally do not modify it too much (possibly, not at all), i.e. If new requirements arrive (e.g. performance, or a totally new implementation of the interface) that require big changes to the code, I write a new implementation B, and keep using A as long as B is not mature. When B is mature, all that is needed is to change how I is instantiated. If the new requirements suggest a change to the interface as well, I define a new interface I' and a new implementation A'. So I, A are frozen and remain the implementation for the production system as long as I' and A' are not stable enough to replace them. So, in view of these observation, I was a bit surprised that the web page then suggested the use of complex refactorings, "... because it is not possible to write code directly in its final form." Isn't there a contradiction / conflict between enforcing the Open / Closed Principle and suggesting the use of complex refactorings as a best practice? Or the idea here is that one can use complex refactorings during the development of a class A, but when that class has been tested successfully it should be frozen?

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• Recommendation for Improving Programming Skills

  - by Moaz ELdeen

  I'm 25, I know C++ syntax since 9 years.. but It seems that I have copied so much code, and I didn't learn that much and didn't solve a lot of algorithms in my own. Currently I'm working for computer vision programmer as a junior and I have difficulity of doing algorithms like blob tracking or object tracking, writing algorithms like KNN, Quadtree,..etc. I don't know what to do, or what to improve, I tried to write asteriods game, I have finished it, and here you can watch it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw0L4aCB4TU What should I do more to enhance my skills ?

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• Reinventing the Wheel, why should I?

  - by Mercfh

  So I have this problem, it may be my OCD (i have OCD it's not severe.....but It makes me very..lets say specific about certain things, programming being one of them) or it may be the fact that I graduated college and still feel "meh" at programming. Reading This made me think "OH thats me!" but thats not really my main problem. My big problem is....anytime im using a high level language/API/etc. I always think to myself that im not really "programming". I know I know...it sounds stupid. But Like I feel like....if i can't figure out how to do it at the lowest level then Im not really "understanding" it. I do this for just about every new technology I learn. I look at the lowest level and try to understand it. Sometimes I do.....most of the time I don't, I mean i've only really been programming for 4 years (at college, if you even call it programming.....our university's program was "meh"). For instance I do a little bit of embedded programming (with the Atmel AVR 8bits/Arduino stuff). And I can't bring myself to use the C compiler, even though it's 8 million times easier than using assembly......it's stupid I know... Anyone else feel like this, I think it's just my OCD that makes me feel this way....but has anyone else ever felt like they need to go down to the lowest level of the language to even be satisfied with using it? I apologize for the very very odd question, but I think it really hinders me in getting deep seeded into a programming language and making a real application of my own. (it's silly I know)

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• Early Adopters of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Report Agility and Productivity Benefits

  - by Anand Akela

  Earlier this month at the Oracle Open World 2012, we celebrated the first anniversary of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c . Early adopters of  Oracle Enterprise manager 12c have benefited from its federated self-service access to complete application stacks, automated provisioning, elastic scalability, metering, and charge-back capabilities. Crimson Consulting Group recently interviewed multiple early adopters of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c and captured their finding in a white Paper "Real-World Benefits of Private Cloud: Early Adopters of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Report Agility and Productivity Gains".  Here is summary of the finding :- On October 25th at 10 AM pacific time, Kirk Bangstad from the Crimson Consulting group will join us in a live webcast and share what learnt from the early adopters of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. Don't miss this chance to hear how private clouds could impact your business and ask questions from our experts. Webcast: Real-World Benefits of Private Cloud Early Adopters of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Report Agility and Productivity Benefits Date: Thursday, October 25, 2012 Time: 10:00 AM PDT | 1:00 PM EDT Register Today All attendees will receive the White Paper: Real-World Benefits of Private Cloud: Early Adopters of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Report Agility and Productivity Gains. Stay Connected Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Newsletter

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• How to choose a new technology for mastering and not lose sense of reality and practicality?

  - by Eyewan

  How to choose the right next step in learning programming and mastering new technologies? I have experience with WinForms applications in C# .NET. Next what I see as a good area of expanding the knowledge is ASP.NET. Language I already know, C #, so I think there is now more a matter of mastering new technologies. Also I have interest in WPF. Perhaps the best is to work on ASP.NET and WPF at the same time. Sometimes the problem is when we do not have motivation, but also known to become a problem when we want to much :) How to choose a new technology for mastering and not lose sense of reality and practicality?

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• Notifications for Expiring DBSNMP Passwords

  - by Courtney Llamas

  Most user accounts these days have a password profile on them that automatically expires the password after a set number of days.   Depending on your company’s security requirements, this may be as little as 30 days or as long as 365 days, although typically it falls between 60-90 days. For a normal user, this can cause a small interruption in your day as you have to go get your password reset by an admin. When this happens to privileged accounts, such as the DBSNMP account that is responsible for monitoring database availability, it can cause bigger problems. In Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c you may notice the error message “ORA-28002: the password will expire within 5 days” when you connect to a target, or worse you may get “ORA-28001: the password has expired". If you wait too long, your monitoring will fail because the password is locked out. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get an alert 10 days before our DBSNMP password expired? Thanks to Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Metric Extensions (ME), you can! See the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Administrator’s Guide for more information on Metric Extensions. To create a metric extension, select Enterprise / Monitoring / Metric Extensions, and then click on Create. On the General Properties screen select either Cluster Database or Database Instance, depending on which target you need to monitor.  If you have both RAC and Single instance you may need to create one for each. In this example we will create a Cluster Database metric.  Enter a Name for the ME and a Display Name. Then select SQL for the Adapter.  Adjust the Collection Schedule as desired, for this example we will collect this metric every 1 day. Notice for metric collected every day, we can determine the exact time we want to collect. On the Adapter page, enter the query that you wish to execute.  In this example we will use the query below that specifically checks for the DBSNMP user that is expiring within 10 days. Of course, you can adjust this query to alert for any user that can cause an outage such as an application account or service account such as RMAN. select username, account_status, trunc(expiry_date-sysdate) days_to_expirefrom dba_userswhere username = 'DBSNMP'and expiry_date is not null; The next step is to create the columns to store the data returned from the query.  Click Add and add a column for each of the fields in the same order that data is returned.  The table below will help you complete the column additions. Name Display Name Column Type Value Type Metric Category Unit Username User Name Key String Security AccountStatus Account Status Data String Security DaysToExpire Days Until Expiration Data Number Security Days When creating the DaysToExpire column, you can add a default threshold here for Warning and Critical (say < 10 and 5).  When all columns have been added, click Next. On the Credentials page, you can choose to use the default monitoring credentials or specify new credentials.  We will use the default credentials established for our target (dbsnmp). The next step is to test your Metric Extension.  Click on Add to select a target for testing, then click Select. Now click the button Run Test to execute the test against the selected target(s). We can see in the example below that the Metric Extension has executed and returned a value of 68 days to expire. Click Next to proceed. Review the metric extension in the final screen and click Finish. The metric will be created in Editable status.  Select the metric, click Actions and select Deployable Draft. You can do this once more to move to Published. Finally, we want to apply this metric to a target. When managing many targets, it’s best to add your metric to a template, for details on adding a Metric Extension to a template see the Administrator’s Guide. For this example, we will deploy this to a target directly. Select Actions / Deploy to Targets. Click Add and select the target you wish to deploy to and click Submit.  Once deployment is complete, we can go to the target and view the Metric & Collection Settings to see the new metric and its thresholds.   After some time, you will find the metric has collected and the days to expiration for DBSNMP user can be seen in the All Metrics view.   For metrics collected once per day, you may have to wait up to 24 hours to see the metric and current severity. In the example below, the current severity is Clear (green check) as it is not scheduled to expire within 10 days. To test the notification, we can edit the thresholds for the new metric so they trigger an alert.  Our password expires in 139 days, so we’ll change our Warning to 140 and leave Critical at 5, in our example we also changed the collection time to every 5 minutes.  At the next collection, you’ll find that the current severity changes to a Warning and any related Incident Rules would be triggered to create an Incident or Notification as desired. Now that you get a notification that your DBSNMP passwords is about to expire, you can use OEM Command Line Interface (EM CLI) verb update_db_password to change it at both the database target and the OEM target in one step.  The caveat is you must know the existing password to use the update_db_password command.  To learn more about EM CLI, see the Oracle Enterprise Manager Command Line Interface Guide.  Below is an example of changing the password with the update_db_password verb.  $ ./emcli update_db_password -target_name=emrep -target_type=oracle_database -user_name=dbsnmp -change_at_target=yes -change_all_references=yes Enter value for old_password :Enter value for new_password :Enter value for retype_new_password :Successfully submitted a job to change the password in Enterprise Manager and on the target database: "emrep"Execute "emcli get_jobs -job_id=FA66C1C4D663297FE0437656F20ACC84" to check the status of the job.Search for job name "CHANGE_PWD_JOB_FA66C1C4D662297FE0437656F20ACC84" on the Jobs home page to check job execution details. The subsequent job created will typically run quickly enough that a blackout is not needed, however if you submit a script with many targets to change, your job may run slower so adding a blackout to the script is recommended. $ ./emcli get_jobs -job_id=FA66C1C4D663297FE0437656F20ACC84 Name Type Job ID Execution ID Scheduled Completed TZ Offset Status Status ID Owner Target Type Target Name CHANGE_PWD_JOB_FA66C1C4D662297FE0437656F20ACC84 ChangePassword FA66C1C4D663297FE0437656F20ACC84 FA66C1C4D665297FE0437656F20ACC84 2014-05-28 09:39:12 2014-05-28 09:39:18 GMT-07:00 Succeeded 5 SYSMAN oracle_database emrep After implementing the above Metric Extension and using the EM CLI update_db_password verb, you will be able to stay on top of your DBSNMP password changes without experiencing an unplanned monitoring outage.  

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• More than one way to skin an Audit

  - by BuckWoody

  I get asked quite a bit about auditing in SQL Server. By "audit", people mean everything from tracking logins to finding out exactly who ran a particular SELECT statement. In the really early versions of SQL Server, we didn't have a great story for very granular audits, so lots of workarounds were suggested. As time progressed, more and more audit capabilities were added to the product, and in typical database platform fashion, as we added a feature we didn't often take the others away. So now, instead of not having an option to audit actions by users, you might face the opposite problem - too many ways to audit! You can read more about the options you have for tracking users here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc280526(v=SQL.100).aspx  In SQL Server 2008, we introduced SQL Server Audit, which uses Extended Events to really get a simple way to implement high-level or granular auditing. You can read more about that here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd392015.aspx  As with any feature, you should understand what your needs are first. Auditing isn't "free" in the performance sense, so you need to make sure you're only auditing what you need to. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• How should I study programming languages?

  - by gcc

  I am a student of computer engineering. I have never done any programming before, and as you can understand, I don't know how to study it or how to make my own programs. My English is weak [edited for clarity - ed], and so if you don't like the choices I list, please feel free to provide others. How should I study? How should I learn programming languages? Study completely from a book. Don't study from a book, just try writing code. A mix of the two; study from a book, then try writing code. Study half the book, then write the code by hand on paper. Listed to the teacher, then try to solve general problems (those not from any specific chapter).

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• Which web site gives the most accurate indication of a programmer's capabilities?

  - by Jerry Coffin

  If you were hiring programmers, and could choose between one of (say) the top 100 coders on topcoder.com, or one of the top 100 on stackoverflow.com, which would you choose? At least to me, it would appear that topcoder.com gives a more objective evaluation of pure ability to solve problems and write code. At the same time, despite obvious technical capabilities, this person may lack any hint of social skills -- he may be purely a "lone coder", with little or no ability to help/work with others, may lack mentoring ability to help transfer his technical skills to others, etc. On the other hand, stackoverflow.com would at least appear to give a much better indication of peers' opinion of the coder in question, and the degree to which his presence and useful and helpful to others on the "team". At the same time, the scoring system is such that somebody who just throws up a lot of mediocre (or even poor answers) will almost inevitably accumulate a positive total of "reputation" points -- a single up-vote (perhaps just out of courtesy) will counteract the effects of no fewer than 5 down-votes, and others are discouraged (to some degree) from down-voting because they have to sacrifice their own reputation points to do so. At the same time, somebody who makes little or no technical contribution seems unlikely to accumulate a reputation that lands them (even close to) the top of the heap, so to speak. So, which provides a more useful indication of the degree to which this particular coder is likely to be useful to your organization? If you could choose between them, which set of coders would you rather have working on your team?

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• How to deal with tautology in comments?

  - by Tamás Szelei

  Sometimes I find myself in situations when the part of code that I am writing is (or seems to be) so self-evident that its name would be basically repeated as a comment: class Example { /// <summary> /// The location of the update. /// </summary> public Uri UpdateLocation { get; set; }; } (C# example, but please refer to the question as language-agnostic). A comment like that is useless; what am I doing wrong? Is it the choice of the name that is wrong? How could I comment parts like this better? Should I just skip the comment for things like this?

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• Is good practice to optimize FPS even when it's above the lower limit to give illusion of movement?

  - by rraallvv

  I started over 50 FPS on the iPhone, but now I'm bellow 30 PFS, I've seen most iPhone games clamped to either 60 or 30 FPS, even when 24 or less would give the illusion of movement. I've concidered my limit to be a little bit over 15 FPS, in fact my physics simulation is updated at that rate (15.84 steps/s) as that is the lowest that still give fluid movement, a bit lower gives jerky motion. Is there a practical reason why to clamp FPS way above the lower limit? Update: The following image could help to clarify I can independently set the physic simulation step, frame rate, and simulation interval update. My concern is why should I clamp any of those to values greater than the minimum? For instance to conserve battery life I could just to choose the lower limits, but it seems that 60 or 30 FPS are the most used values.

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• OOP vs Frameworks (DRY, Organisation, Readability)

  - by benhowdle89

  In terms of organisation, code-readability and DRY programming, which, between OOP and Frameworks shows more of these 3 attributes? I'm aware that inline, procedural coding is viewed by many as a thing of the past, so which is the best route to take for these two? Just to clarify what i mean by OOP and frameworks From Wikipedia: Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which common code providing generic functionality can be selectively overridden or specialized by user code, thus providing specific functionality

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• rel="nofollow" SEO impact

  - by Torez

  I saw a technique used where there was a block with three parts: 1. Image (wrapped in an anchor tag) 2. Heading (anchor tag with heading text) 3. Paragraph (regular p tag with synopsis content) e.g. <li class="block"> <a rel="nofollow" class="thumb" href="#"><img src="images/placeholder_service_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" /></a> <a class="h3" href="#"Good SEO Heading</a> <pPellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Vestibulum tortor quam, feugiat vitae, ultricies eget, tempor sit amet, ante. Donec eu...</p> </li> With the image tag there was a rel="nofollow" on the wrapped anchor tag. So the idea is that the users still has the ability to click the image and go to the details page, but the image link does not rank. When users click on the heading text, that is only what ranks for that specific page. Q: Is this the correct approach? Does this even do anything? What is the best practice?

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• Generalise variable usage inside code

  - by Shirish11

  I would like to know if it is a good practice to generalize variables (use single variable to store all the values). Consider simple example Strings querycre,queryins,queryup,querydel; querycre = 'Create table XYZ ...'; execute querycre ; queryins = 'Insert into XYZ ...'; execute queryins ; queryup = 'Update XYZ set ...'; execute queryup; querydel = 'Delete from XYZ ...'; execute querydel ; and Strings query; query= 'Create table XYZ ... '; execute query ; query= 'Insert into XYZ ...'; execute query ; query= 'Update XYZ set ...'; execute query ; query= 'Delete from XYZ ...'; execute query ; In first case I use 4 strings each storing data to perform the actions mentioned in their suffixes. In second case just 1 variable to store all kinds the data. Having different variables makes it easier for someone else to read and understand it better. But having too many of them makes it difficult to manage. Also does having too many variables hamper my performance?

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• Is using ELSE bad programming?

  - by dave.b

  I've often come across bugs that have been caused by using the ELSE construct. A prime example is something along the lines of: If (passwordCheck() == false){ displayMessage(); }else{ letThemIn(); } To me this screams security problem. I know that passwordCheck is likely to be a boolean, but I wouldn't place my applications security on it. What would happen if its a string, int etc? I usually try to avoid using ELSE, and instead opt for two completely separate IF statements to test for what I expect. Anything else then either gets ignored OR is specifically handled. Surely this is a better way to prevent bugs / security issues entering your app. How do you guys do it?

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• Implementing Service Level Agreements in Enterprise Manager 12c for Oracle Packaged Applications

  - by Anand Akela

  Contributed by Eunjoo Lee, Product Manager, Oracle Enterprise Manager. Service Level Management, or SLM, is a key tool in the proactive management of any Oracle Packaged Application (e.g., E-Business Suite, Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards E1, Fusion Apps, etc.). The benefits of SLM are that administrators can utilize representative Application transactions, which are constantly and automatically running behind the scenes, to verify that all of the key application and technology components of an Application are available and performing to expectations. A single transaction can verify the availability and performance of the underlying Application Tech Stack in a much more efficient manner than by monitoring the same underlying targets individually. In this article, we’ll be demonstrating SLM using Siebel Applications, but the same tools and processes apply to any of the Package Applications mentioned above. In this demonstration, we will log into the Siebel Application, navigate to the Contacts View, update a contact phone record, and then log-out. This transaction exposes availability and performance metrics of multiple Siebel Servers, multiple Components and Component Groups, and the Siebel Database - in a single unified manner. We can then monitor and manage these transactions like any other target in EM 12c, including placing pro-active alerts on them if the transaction is either unavailable or is not performing to required levels. The first step in the SLM process is recording the Siebel transaction. The following screenwatch demonstrates how to record Siebel transaction using an EM tool called “OpenScript”. A completed recording is called a “Synthetic Transaction”. The second step in the SLM process is uploading the Synthetic Transaction into EM 12c, and creating Generic Service Tests. We can create a Generic Service Test to execute our synthetic transactions at regular intervals to evaluate the performance of various business flows. As these transactions are running periodically, it is possible to monitor the performance of the Siebel Application by evaluating the performance of the synthetic transactions. The process of creating a Generic Service Test is detailed in the next screenwatch. EM 12c provides a guided workflow for all of the key creation steps, including configuring the Service Test, uploading of the Synthetic Test, determining the frequency of the Service Test, establishing beacons, and selecting performance and usage metrics, just to name a few. The third and final step in the SLM process is the creation of Service Level Agreements (SLA). Service Level Agreements allow Administrators to utilize the previously created Service Tests to specify expected service levels for Application availability, performance, and usage. SLAs can be created for different time periods and for different Service Tests. This last screenwatch demonstrates the process of creating an SLA, as well as highlights the Dashboards and Reports that Administrators can use to monitor Service Test results. Hopefully, this article provides you with a good start point for creating Service Level Agreements for your E-Business Suite, Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards E1, or Fusion Applications. Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c, with the Application Management Suites, represents a quick and easy way to implement Service Level Management capabilities at customer sites. Stay Connected: Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Google+ |  Newsletter

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