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  • How to check if two System.Drawing.Color structures represent the same color in 16 bit color depth?

    - by David
    How can I check if two System.Drawing.Color structures represent the same color in 16 bit color depth (or generally based on the value of Screen.PrimaryScreen.BitsPerPixel)? Let's say I set Form.TransparencyKey to Value1 (of Color type), I want to check that when the user selects a new background color for the form (Value2), I don't set the entire form transparent. On 32bit color depth screens I simply compare the two values: if (Value1 == Value2) However, this does not work on 16bit color depth screens, as more Color values for the Value2 would represent the same actual 16bit color as Value1, as I found out the hard way.

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  • How do I know an array of structures was allocated in the Large Object Heap (LOH) in .NET?

    - by AMissico
    After some experimenation using CLR Profiler, I found that: Node[,] n = new Node[100,23]; //'84,028 bytes, is not placed in LOH Node[,] n = new Node[100,24]; //'86,428 bytes, is public struct Node { public int Value; public Point Point; public Color Color; public bool Handled; public Object Tag; } During run-time, how do I know an array of structures (or any array) was allocated in the Large Object Heap (LOH)?

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  • Is there a bash shortcut for traversing similar directory structures?

    - by Steve Weet
    The Korn shell used to have a very useful option to cd for traversing similar directory structures e.g. given the following directorys /home/sweet/dev/projects/trunk/projecta/app/models /home/andy/dev/projects/trunk/projecta/app/models Then if you were in the /home/sweet.... directory then you could change to the equivalent directory in andy's structure by typing cd sweet andy So if ksh saw 2 arguments then it would scan the current directory path for the first value, replace it with the second and cd there. Is anyone aware of similar functionality in bash. EDIT 1 Following on from Michal's excellent answer I have now created the following bash function called scd (For Sideways cd) function scd { cd "${PWD/$1/$2}" } EDIT 2 Thanks to @digitalross I can now reproduce the ksh functionality exactly with the code from below (With the addition of a pwd to tell you where you have changed to) cd () { if [ "x$2" != x ]; then builtin cd ${PWD/$1/$2} pwd else builtin cd "$@" fi }

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  • Why do Pascal control structures appear to be inconsistent?

    - by 70Mike
    Most Pascal control structures make sense to me, like: for ... do {statement}; if (condition) then {statement}; while (condition) do {statement}; where the {statement} is either a single statement, or a begin ... end block. I have a problem with: repeat {statement-list} until (expression); try {statement-list} except {statement-list} end; Wouldn't it be better that repeat and try have the same general structure, accepting only a single statement or a begin ... end block, instead of having a statement-list that's not formally blocked with a begin and an end?

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  • What are the ways to create draw data structures for latex?

    - by alicephacker
    I tried tikz/pgf a bit but have not had much luck creating a nice diagram to visualize bitfields or byte fields of packed data structures (i.e. in memory). Essentially I want a set of rectangles representing ranges of bits with labels inside, and offsets along the top. There should be multiple rows for each word of the data structure. This is similar to most of the diagrams in most processor manuals labeling opcode encoding etc. Has anyone else tried to do this using latex or is there a package for this?

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  • Qt: any way to automatically generate QSharedData-based structures?

    - by Eye of Hell
    Hello. Qt has a build-in supprt for creating objects with integrated reference counting via QSharedData and QSharedDataPointer. All wordks great, but for each such object i need to write a lot of code: QSharedData-based implementation class with constructor and copy constructor, object class itsef with accessor methods for each filed. For a simple structures with 5-10 fields this requires really lot of near same code. Is it some ways to automate such classes generation? Maybe it's some generators exists that take a short description and automatically generates implementation class and object class with all accessors?

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  • Guru Of the Week n° 41 : utiliser la bibliothèque standard, un article de Herb Sutter traduit par la rédaction C++

    La bibliothèque standard fournit un nombre important de structures de données et d'algorithmes. Dans de nombreux cas, il est possible de remplacer les structures de contrôle du langage (if, for, while) par les fonctionnalités provenant de celle-ci. Dans ce Guru Of the Week n° 41, Herb Sutter lance le défi de créer un Mastermind en minimisant l'utilisation des structures de contrôle. Guru Of the Week n° 41 : utiliser la bibliothèque standard Saurez-vous relever le défi et proposer un tel code de Mastermind ? Retrouver l'ensemble des Guru of the Week sur la

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  • Should I allow sending complete structures when using PUT for updates in a REST API or not?

    - by dafmetal
    I am designing a REST API and I wonder what the recommended way to handle updates to resources would be. More specifically, I would allow updates through a PUT on the resource, but what should I allow in the body of the PUT request? Always the complete structure of the resource? Always the subpart (that changed) of the structure of the resource? A combination of both? For example, take the resource http://example.org/api/v1/dogs/packs/p1. A GET on this resource would give the following: Request: GET http://example.org/api/v1/dogs/packs/p1 Accept: application/xml Response: <pack> <owner>David</owner> <dogs> <dog> <name>Woofer</name> <breed>Basset Hound</breed> </dog> <dog> <name>Mr. Bones</name> <breed>Basset Hound</breed> </dog> </dogs> </pack> Suppose I want to add a dog (Sniffers the Basset Hound) to the pack, would I support either: Request: PUT http://example.org/api/v1/dogs/packs/p1 <dog> <name>Sniffers</name> <breed>Basset Hound</breed> </dog> Response: HTTP/1.1 200 OK or Request: PUT http://example.org/api/v1/dogs/packs/p1 <pack> <owner>David</owner> <dogs> <dog> <name>Woofer</name> <breed>Basset Hound</breed> </dog> <dog> <name>Mr. Bones</name> <breed>Basset Hound</breed> </dog> <dog> <name>Sniffers</name> <breed>Basset Hound</breed> </dog> </dogs> </pack> Response: HTTP/1.1 200 OK or both? If supporting updates through subsections of the structure is recommended, how would I handle deletes (such as when a dog dies)? Through query parameters?

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  • designing data structures for an address book in C program??

    - by osabri
    i want that the number of address book item is not known in advance, i am thinking to use linked list is it the right choice?? "the user can enter new person data, or print the data for a given name, the asking data need not be a name but also an address on a telephone number, the program prints the whole information about a person, print the content of the book in alphabetical order. Store some data in a file; retrieve it and safe it after modification Program should write a file to the disk and retrieve the file from it. Program should be called with arguments. i will use malloc but i don't know when and how? somebody did similar task or have an idea can help me plz

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  • Do all C compilers allow functions to return structures?

    - by Jordan S
    I am working on a program in C and using the SDCC compiler for a 8051 architecture device. I am trying to write a function called GetName that will read 8 characters from Flash Memory and return the character array in some form. I know that it is not possible to return an array in C so I am trying to do it using a struct like this: //********************FLASH.h file******************************* MyStruct GetName(int i); //Function prototype #define NAME_SIZE 8 typedef struct { char Name[NAME_SIZE]; } MyStruct; extern MyStruct GetName(int i); // *****************FLASH.c file*********************************** #include "FLASH.h" MyStruct GetName( int i) { MyStruct newNameStruct; //... // Fill the array by reading data from Flash //... return newNameStruct; } I don't have any references to this function yet but for some reason, I get a compiler error that says "Function cannot return aggregate." Does this mean that my compiler does not support functions that return structs? Or am I just doing something wrong?

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  • How to initialize an array of structures within a function?

    - by drtwox
    In the make_quad() function below, how do I set the default values for the vertex_color array in the quad_t structure? /* RGBA color */ typedef { uint8_t r,g,b,a; } rgba_t; /* Quad polygon - other members removed */ typedef { rgba_t vertex_color[ 4 ] } quad_t; Elsewhere, a function to make and init a quad: quad_t *make_quad() { quad_t *quad = malloc( sizeof( quad_t ) ); quad->vertex_color = ??? /* What goes here? */ return ( quad ); } Obviously I can do it like this: quad->vertex_color[ 0 ] = { 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF }; ... quad->vertex_color[ 3 ] = { 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF }; but this: quad->vertex_color = { { 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF }, { 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF }, { 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF }, { 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF } }; ...results in "error: expected expression before '{' token".

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  • Can a program have a few IFs and only one Else structures?

    - by kwokwai
    Hi all, When I was doing some JQuery and PHP, I noticed the If-else patterns were treated differently and varied from one language to another. Say I got a simple input text field in a HTML and I was using some Ifs and Elses to check the value input into the text field. Text: <input type="text" name="testing"/> In JQuery, I got some codes as follows: if($("#testing").val()==1){ //do something } if($("#testing").val()=="add"){ //do something } else{ //do something } if($("#testing").val()=="hello"){ //do something } How come JQuery and PHP treated the Else statement differently? I mean in JQuery, the third If statement was still proceeded even if it had gone to the Else statement, but it stopped after the Else statement when I repeated the code in PHP script.

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  • How can I output my MySQL data into following structures?

    - by sky
    Here is the question, how can I output MySQL data into format like : userAge, userMid are the column name, table name Users. <script type="text/javascript"> userAge = new Array('21','36','20'), userMid = new Array('liuple','anhu','jacksen'); </script> Which I'll be using later with following code : var html = ' <table class="map-overlay"> <tr> <td class="user">' + '<a class="username" href="/' + **userMid[index]** + '" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="' + getAvatar(signImgList[index], '72x72') + '"></a><br> <a class="username" href="/' + **userMid[index]** + '" target="_blank">' + userNameList[index] + '</a><br> <span class="info">' + **userSex[index]** + ' ' + **userAge[index]** + '?<br> ' + cityList[index] + '</span>' + '</td> <td class="content">' + picString + somethings[index] + '<br> <span class="time">' + timeList[index] + picTips + '</span></td> </tr> </table> '; PS: I Just been told that i coulnt use JSON to output that format, so i have no idea now .< Thanks!

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  • In Silverlight, what structures, aside of the ListBox, can be used for binding?

    - by Aidenn
    I need to simply provide the content of a property to a custom User Control in Silverlight. My control is something like this: <UserControl x:Class="SilverlightApplication.Header" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignWidth="300" d:DesignHeight="120"> <Grid x:Name="Header_Layout"> <StackPanel x:Name="hiHeaderContent" Width="Auto" Margin="73,8,8,8"> <TextBlock x:Name="User:" Text="{Binding name}" /> </StackPanel> </Grid> I try to use this User Control from another control where I try to pass the parameter "name" to the previous UserControl ("Header"). I don't need to create a "ListBox" as I will only have 1 header, so I try to avoid doing: <ListBox x:Name="HeaderListBox" Grid.Row="0"> <ListBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <SilverlightApplication:Header/> </DataTemplate> </ListBox.ItemTemplate> </ListBox> in order to send the "User" account using: HeaderListBox.ItemsSource = name; Is there any other structure I can use instead of the ListBox to pass the parameter just once? It won't be a list, it's just a header... Thank you!

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  • Suitable data structures for saving files in localStorage (HTML5) ?

    - by WmasterJ
    It is nice when there isn't a DB to maintain and users to authenticate. My professor has asked me to convert a recent research project of his that uses Bespin and calculates errors made by users in a code editor as part of his research. The goal is to convert from MySQL to using HTML5 localStorage completely. Doesn't seem so hard to do, even though digging in his code might take some time. Question: I need to store files and state (last placement of cursor and active file). I have already done so by implementing the recommendations in another stackoverflow thread. But would like your input considering how to structure the content to use. My current solution Hashmap like solution with javascript objects: files = {}; // later, saving files[fileName] = data; And then storing in localStorage using some recommendations localStorage.setObject("files", files); // Note that setObject(key, data) does not exist but is added // using Storage.prototype.setObject = function() {... Currently I'm also considering using some type of numeric id. So that names can be changed without any hassle renaming the key in the hashmap. What is your opinion on the way it is solved and would you do it any differently?

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  • How can I share Perl data structures through a socket?

    - by pavun_cool
    In sockets I have written the client server program. First I tried to send the normal string among them it sends fine. After that I tried to send the hash and array values from client to server and server to client. When I print the values using Dumper, it gives me only the reference value. What should I do to get the actual values in client server? Server Program: use IO::Socket; use strict; use warnings; my %hash = ( "name" => "pavunkumar " , "age" => 20 ) ; my $new = \%hash ; #Turn on System variable for Buffering output $| = 1; # Creating a a new socket my $socket= IO::Socket::INET->new(LocalPort=>5000,Proto=>'tcp',Localhost => 'localhost','Listen' => 5 , 'Reuse' => 1 ); die "could not create $! \n" unless ( $socket ); print "\nUDPServer Waiting port 5000\n"; my $new_sock = $socket->accept(); my $host = $new_sock->peerhost(); while(<$new_sock>) { #my $line = <$new_sock>; print Dumper "$host $_"; print $new_sock $new . "\n"; } print "$host is closed \n" ; Client Program use IO::Socket; use Data::Dumper ; use warnings ; use strict ; my %hash = ( "file" =>"log.txt" , size => "1000kb") ; my $ref = \%hash ; # This client for connecting the specified below address and port # INET function will create the socket file and establish the connection with # server my $port = shift || 5000 ; my $host = shift || 'localhost'; my $recv_data ; my $send_data; my $socket = new IO::Socket::INET ( PeerAddr => $host , PeerPort => $port , Proto => 'tcp', ) or die "Couldn't connect to Server\n"; while (1) { my $line = <stdin> ; print $socket $ref."\n"; if ( $line = <$socket> ) { print Dumper $line ; } else { print "Server is closed \n"; last ; } } I have given my sample program about what I am doing. Can any one tell me what I am doing wrong in this code? And what I need to do for accessing the hash values?

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  • relaxng schema - use attributes for members and elements for structures?

    - by rpkrpk
    For a data-binding application, I am trying to draw parallels among RelaxNG, C++ and C. RelaxNG.Elements === C++.Class === C.Struct RelaxNG.Attributes === C++.class-members === C.structure-members Only that the Elements in RelaxNG can also have a data-type (i.e. it seems Attribute is a special case of the Element). Do I have the above equivalence correct? If I use the above convention in my implementation, will I be breaking some data-binding libraries?

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  • How can I add to List<? extends Number> data structures?

    - by kunjaan
    I have a List which is declared like this : List<? extends Number> foo3 = new ArrayList<Integer>(); I tried to add 3 to foo3. However I get an error message like this: The method add(capture#1-of ? extends Number) in the type List<capture#1-of ? extends Number> is not applicable for the arguments (ExtendsNumber)

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  • Something for the weekend - Whats the most complex query?

    - by simonsabin
    Whenever I teach about SQL Server performance tuning I try can get across the message that there is no such thing as a table. Does that sound odd, well it isn't, trust me. Rather than tables you need to consider structures. You have 1. Heaps 2. Indexes (b-trees) Some people split indexes in two, clustered and non-clustered, this I feel confuses the situation as people associate clustered indexes with sorting, but don't associate non clustered indexes with sorting, this is wrong. Clustered and non-clustered indexes are the same b-tree structure(and even more so with SQL 2005) with the leaf pages sorted in a linked list according to the keys of the index.. The difference is that non clustered indexes include in their structure either, the clustered key(s), or the row identifier for the row in the table (see http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kalen_delaney/archive/2008/03/16/nonclustered-index-keys.aspx for more details). Beyond that they are the same, they have key columns which are stored on the root and intermediary pages, and included columns which are on the leaf level. The reason this is important is that this is how the optimiser sees the world, this means it can use any of these structures to resolve your query. Even if your query only accesses one table, the optimiser can access multiple structures to get your results. One commonly sees this with a non-clustered index scan and then a key lookup (clustered index seek), but importantly it's not restricted to just using one non-clustered index and the clustered index or heap, and that's the challenge for the weekend. So the challenge for the weekend is to produce the most complex single table query. For those clever bods amongst you that are thinking, great I will just use lots of xquery functions, sorry these are the rules. 1. You have to use a table from AdventureWorks (2005 or 2008) 2. You can add whatever indexes you like, but you must document these 3. You cannot use XQuery, Spatial, HierarchyId, Full Text or any open rowset function. 4. You can only reference your table once, i..e a FROM clause with ONE table and no JOINs 5. No Sub queries. The aim of this is to show how the optimiser can use multiple structures to build the results of a query and to also highlight why the optimiser is doing that. How many structures can you get the optimiser to use? As an example create these two indexes on AdventureWorks2008 create index IX_Person_Person on Person.Person (lastName, FirstName,NameStyle,PersonType) create index IX_Person_Person on Person.Person(BusinessentityId,ModifiedDate)with drop_existing    select lastName, ModifiedDate   from Person.Person  where LastName = 'Smith' You will see that the optimiser has decided to not access the underlying clustered index of the table but to use two indexes above to resolve the query. This highlights how the optimiser considers all storage structures, clustered indexes, non clustered indexes and heaps when trying to resolve a query. So are you up to the challenge for the weekend to produce the most complex single table query? The prize is a pdf version of a popular SQL Server book, or a physical book if you live in the UK.  

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  • Is there a better term than "smoothness" or "granularity" to describe this language feature?

    - by Chris Stevens
    One of the best things about programming is the abundance of different languages. There are general purpose languages like C++ and Java, as well as little languages like XSLT and AWK. When comparing languages, people often use things like speed, power, expressiveness, and portability as the important distinguishing features. There is one characteristic of languages I consider to be important that, so far, I haven't heard [or been able to come up with] a good term for: how well a language scales from writing tiny programs to writing huge programs. Some languages make it easy and painless to write programs that only require a few lines of code, e.g. task automation. But those languages often don't have enough power to solve large problems, e.g. GUI programming. Conversely, languages that are powerful enough for big problems often require far too much overhead for small problems. This characteristic is important because problems that look small at first frequently grow in scope in unexpected ways. If a programmer chooses a language appropriate only for small tasks, scope changes can require rewriting code from scratch in a new language. And if the programmer chooses a language with lots of overhead and friction to solve a problem that stays small, it will be harder for other people to use and understand than necessary. Rewriting code that works fine is the single most wasteful thing a programmer can do with their time, but using a bazooka to kill a mosquito instead of a flyswatter isn't good either. Here are some of the ways this characteristic presents itself. Can be used interactively - there is some environment where programmers can enter commands one by one Requires no more than one file - neither project files nor makefiles are required for running in batch mode Can easily split code across multiple files - files can refeence each other, or there is some support for modules Has good support for data structures - supports structures like arrays, lists, and especially classes Supports a wide variety of features - features like networking, serialization, XML, and database connectivity are supported by standard libraries Here's my take on how C#, Python, and shell scripting measure up. Python scores highest. Feature C# Python shell scripting --------------- --------- --------- --------------- Interactive poor strong strong One file poor strong strong Multiple files strong strong moderate Data structures strong strong poor Features strong strong strong Is there a term that captures this idea? If not, what term should I use? Here are some candidates. Scalability - already used to decribe language performance, so it's not a good idea to overload it in the context of language syntax Granularity - expresses the idea of being good just for big tasks versus being good for big and small tasks, but doesn't express anything about data structures Smoothness - expresses the idea of low friction, but doesn't express anything about strength of data structures or features Note: Some of these properties are more correctly described as belonging to a compiler or IDE than the language itself. Please consider these tools collectively as the language environment. My question is about how easy or difficult languages are to use, which depends on the environment as well as the language.

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  • Is there a better term than "smoothness" or "granularity" to describe this language feature?

    - by Chris
    One of the best things about programming is the abundance of different languages. There are general purpose languages like C++ and Java, as well as little languages like XSLT and AWK. When comparing languages, people often use things like speed, power, expressiveness, and portability as the important distinguishing features. There is one characteristic of languages I consider to be important that, so far, I haven't heard [or been able to come up with] a good term for: how well a language scales from writing tiny programs to writing huge programs. Some languages make it easy and painless to write programs that only require a few lines of code, e.g. task automation. But those languages often don't have enough power to solve large problems, e.g. GUI programming. Conversely, languages that are powerful enough for big problems often require far too much overhead for small problems. This characteristic is important because problems that look small at first frequently grow in scope in unexpected ways. If a programmer chooses a language appropriate only for small tasks, scope changes can require rewriting code from scratch in a new language. And if the programmer chooses a language with lots of overhead and friction to solve a problem that stays small, it will be harder for other people to use and understand than necessary. Rewriting code that works fine is the single most wasteful thing a programmer can do with their time, but using a bazooka to kill a mosquito instead of a flyswatter isn't good either. Here are some of the ways this characteristic presents itself. Can be used interactively - there is some environment where programmers can enter commands one by one Requires no more than one file - neither project files nor makefiles are required for running in batch mode Can easily split code across multiple files - files can refeence each other, or there is some support for modules Has good support for data structures - supports structures like arrays, lists, and especially classes Supports a wide variety of features - features like networking, serialization, XML, and database connectivity are supported by standard libraries Here's my take on how C#, Python, and shell scripting measure up. Python scores highest. Feature C# Python shell scripting --------------- --------- --------- --------------- Interactive poor strong strong One file poor strong strong Multiple files strong strong moderate Data structures strong strong poor Features strong strong strong Is there a term that captures this idea? If not, what term should I use? Here are some candidates. Scalability - already used to decribe language performance, so it's not a good idea to overload it in the context of language syntax Granularity - expresses the idea of being good just for big tasks versus being good for big and small tasks, but doesn't express anything about data structures Smoothness - expresses the idea of low friction, but doesn't express anything about strength of data structures or features Note: Some of these properties are more correctly described as belonging to a compiler or IDE than the language itself. Please consider these tools collectively as the language environment. My question is about how easy or difficult languages are to use, which depends on the environment as well as the language.

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  • Abstracting functionality

    - by Ralf Westphal
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/08/22/abstracting-functionality.aspxWhat is more important than data? Functionality. Yes, I strongly believe we should switch to a functionality over data mindset in programming. Or actually switch back to it. Focus on functionality Functionality once was at the core of software development. Back when algorithms were the first thing you heard about in CS classes. Sure, data structures, too, were important - but always from the point of view of algorithms. (Niklaus Wirth gave one of his books the title “Algorithms + Data Structures” instead of “Data Structures + Algorithms” for a reason.) The reason for the focus on functionality? Firstly, because software was and is about doing stuff. Secondly because sufficient performance was hard to achieve, and only thirdly memory efficiency. But then hardware became more powerful. That gave rise to a new mindset: object orientation. And with it functionality was devalued. Data took over its place as the most important aspect. Now discussions revolved around structures motivated by data relationships. (John Beidler gave his book the title “Data Structures and Algorithms: An Object Oriented Approach” instead of the other way around for a reason.) Sure, this data could be embellished with functionality. But nevertheless functionality was second. When you look at (domain) object models what you mostly find is (domain) data object models. The common object oriented approach is: data aka structure over functionality. This is true even for the most modern modeling approaches like Domain Driven Design. Look at the literature and what you find is recommendations on how to get data structures right: aggregates, entities, value objects. I´m not saying this is what object orientation was invented for. But I´m saying that´s what I happen to see across many teams now some 25 years after object orientation became mainstream through C++, Delphi, and Java. But why should we switch back? Because software development cannot become truly agile with a data focus. The reason for that lies in what customers need first: functionality, behavior, operations. To be clear, that´s not why software is built. The purpose of software is to be more efficient than the alternative. Money mainly is spent to get a certain level of quality (e.g. performance, scalability, security etc.). But without functionality being present, there is nothing to work on the quality of. What customers want is functionality of a certain quality. ASAP. And tomorrow new functionality needs to be added, existing functionality needs to be changed, and quality needs to be increased. No customer ever wanted data or structures. Of course data should be processed. Data is there, data gets generated, transformed, stored. But how the data is structured for this to happen efficiently is of no concern to the customer. Ask a customer (or user) whether she likes the data structured this way or that way. She´ll say, “I don´t care.” But ask a customer (or user) whether he likes the functionality and its quality this way or that way. He´ll say, “I like it” (or “I don´t like it”). Build software incrementally From this very natural focus of customers and users on functionality and its quality follows we should develop software incrementally. That´s what Agility is about. Deliver small increments quickly and often to get frequent feedback. That way less waste is produced, and learning can take place much easier (on the side of the customer as well as on the side of developers). An increment is some added functionality or quality of functionality.[1] So as it turns out, Agility is about functionality over whatever. But software developers’ thinking is still stuck in the object oriented mindset of whatever over functionality. Bummer. I guess that (at least partly) explains why Agility always hits a glass ceiling in projects. It´s a clash of mindsets, of cultures. Driving software development by demanding small increases in functionality runs against thinking about software as growing (data) structures sprinkled with functionality. (Excuse me, if this sounds a bit broad-brush. But you get my point.) The need for abstraction In the end there need to be data structures. Of course. Small and large ones. The phrase functionality over data does not deny that. It´s not functionality instead of data or something. It´s just over, i.e. functionality should be thought of first. It´s a tad more important. It´s what the customer wants. That´s why we need a way to design functionality. Small and large. We need to be able to think about functionality before implementing it. We need to be able to reason about it among team members. We need to be able to communicate our mental models of functionality not just by speaking about them, but also on paper. Otherwise reasoning about it does not scale. We learned thinking about functionality in the small using flow charts, Nassi-Shneiderman diagrams, pseudo code, or UML sequence diagrams. That´s nice and well. But it does not scale. You can use these tools to describe manageable algorithms. But it does not work for the functionality triggered by pressing the “1-Click Order” on an amazon product page for example. There are several reasons for that, I´d say. Firstly, the level of abstraction over code is negligible. It´s essentially non-existent. Drawing a flow chart or writing pseudo code or writing actual code is very, very much alike. All these tools are about control flow like code is.[2] In addition all tools are computationally complete. They are about logic which is expressions and especially control statements. Whatever you code in Java you can fully (!) describe using a flow chart. And then there is no data. They are about control flow and leave out the data altogether. Thus data mostly is assumed to be global. That´s shooting yourself in the foot, as I hope you agree. Even if it´s functionality over data that does not mean “don´t think about data”. Right to the contrary! Functionality only makes sense with regard to data. So data needs to be in the picture right from the start - but it must not dominate the thinking. The above tools fail on this. Bottom line: So far we´re unable to reason in a scalable and abstract manner about functionality. That´s why programmers are so driven to start coding once they are presented with a problem. Programming languages are the only tool they´ve learned to use to reason about functional solutions. Or, well, there might be exceptions. Mathematical notation and SQL may have come to your mind already. Indeed they are tools on a higher level of abstraction than flow charts etc. That´s because they are declarative and not computationally complete. They leave out details - in order to deliver higher efficiency in devising overall solutions. We can easily reason about functionality using mathematics and SQL. That´s great. Except for that they are domain specific languages. They are not general purpose. (And they don´t scale either, I´d say.) Bummer. So to be more precise we need a scalable general purpose tool on a higher than code level of abstraction not neglecting data. Enter: Flow Design. Abstracting functionality using data flows I believe the solution to the problem of abstracting functionality lies in switching from control flow to data flow. Data flow very naturally is not about logic details anymore. There are no expressions and no control statements anymore. There are not even statements anymore. Data flow is declarative by nature. With data flow we get rid of all the limiting traits of former approaches to modeling functionality. In addition, nomen est omen, data flows include data in the functionality picture. With data flows, data is visibly flowing from processing step to processing step. Control is not flowing. Control is wherever it´s needed to process data coming in. That´s a crucial difference and needs some rewiring in your head to be fully appreciated.[2] Since data flows are declarative they are not the right tool to describe algorithms, though, I´d say. With them you don´t design functionality on a low level. During design data flow processing steps are black boxes. They get fleshed out during coding. Data flow design thus is more coarse grained than flow chart design. It starts on a higher level of abstraction - but then is not limited. By nesting data flows indefinitely you can design functionality of any size, without losing sight of your data. Data flows scale very well during design. They can be used on any level of granularity. And they can easily be depicted. Communicating designs using data flows is easy and scales well, too. The result of functional design using data flows is not algorithms (too low level), but processes. Think of data flows as descriptions of industrial production lines. Data as material runs through a number of processing steps to be analyzed, enhances, transformed. On the top level of a data flow design might be just one processing step, e.g. “execute 1-click order”. But below that are arbitrary levels of flows with smaller and smaller steps. That´s not layering as in “layered architecture”, though. Rather it´s a stratified design à la Abelson/Sussman. Refining data flows is not your grandpa´s functional decomposition. That was rooted in control flows. Refining data flows does not suffer from the limits of functional decomposition against which object orientation was supposed to be an antidote. Summary I´ve been working exclusively with data flows for functional design for the past 4 years. It has changed my life as a programmer. What once was difficult is now easy. And, no, I´m not using Clojure or F#. And I´m not a async/parallel execution buff. Designing the functionality of increments using data flows works great with teams. It produces design documentation which can easily be translated into code - in which then the smallest data flow processing steps have to be fleshed out - which is comparatively easy. Using a systematic translation approach code can mirror the data flow design. That way later on the design can easily be reproduced from the code if need be. And finally, data flow designs play well with object orientation. They are a great starting point for class design. But that´s a story for another day. To me data flow design simply is one of the missing links of systematic lightweight software design. There are also other artifacts software development can produce to get feedback, e.g. process descriptions, test cases. But customers can be delighted more easily with code based increments in functionality. ? No, I´m not talking about the endless possibilities this opens for parallel processing. Data flows are useful independently of multi-core processors and Actor-based designs. That´s my whole point here. Data flows are good for reasoning and evolvability. So forget about any special frameworks you might need to reap benefits from data flows. None are necessary. Translating data flow designs even into plain of Java is possible. ?

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  • Algorithmia Source Code released on CodePlex

    - by FransBouma
    Following the release of our BCL Extensions Library on CodePlex, we have now released the source-code of Algorithmia on CodePlex! Algorithmia is an algorithm and data-structures library for .NET 3.5 or higher and is one of the pillars LLBLGen Pro v3's designer is built on. The library contains many data-structures and algorithms, and the source-code is well documented and commented, often with links to official descriptions and papers of the algorithms and data-structures implemented. The source-code is shared using Mercurial on CodePlex and is licensed under the friendly BSD2 license. User documentation is not available at the moment but will be added soon. One of the main design goals of Algorithmia was to create a library which contains implementations of well-known algorithms which weren't already implemented in .NET itself. This way, more developers out there can enjoy the results of many years of what the field of Computer Science research has delivered. Some algorithms and datastructures are known in .NET but are re-implemented because the implementation in .NET isn't efficient for many situations or lacks features. An example is the linked list in .NET: it doesn't have an O(1) concat operation, as every node refers to the containing LinkedList object it's stored in. This is bad for algorithms which rely on O(1) concat operations, like the Fibonacci heap implementation in Algorithmia. Algorithmia therefore contains a linked list with an O(1) concat feature. The following functionality is available in Algorithmia: Command, Command management. This system is usable to build a fully undo/redo aware system by building your object graph using command-aware classes. The Command pattern is implemented using a system which allows transparent undo-redo and command grouping so you can use it to make a class undo/redo aware and set properties, use its contents without using commands at all. The Commands namespace is the namespace to start. Classes you'd want to look at are CommandifiedMember, CommandifiedList and KeyedCommandifiedList. See the CommandQueueTests in the test project for examples. Graphs, Graph algorithms. Algorithmia contains a sophisticated graph class hierarchy and algorithms implemented onto them: non-directed and directed graphs, as well as a subgraph view class, which can be used to create a view onto an existing graph class which can be self-maintaining. Algorithms include transitive closure, topological sorting and others. A feature rich depth-first search (DFS) crawler is available so DFS based algorithms can be implemented quickly. All graph classes are undo/redo aware, as they can be set to be 'commandified'. When a graph is 'commandified' it will do its housekeeping through commands, which makes it fully undo-redo aware, so you can remove, add and manipulate the graph and undo/redo the activity automatically without any extra code. If you define the properties of the class you set as the vertex type using CommandifiedMember, you can manipulate the properties of vertices and the graph contents with full undo/redo functionality without any extra code. Heaps. Heaps are data-structures which have the largest or smallest item stored in them always as the 'root'. Extracting the root from the heap makes the heap determine the next in line to be the 'maximum' or 'minimum' (max-heap vs. min-heap, all heaps in Algorithmia can do both). Algorithmia contains various heaps, among them an implementation of the Fibonacci heap, one of the most efficient heap datastructures known today, especially when you want to merge different instances into one. Priority queues. Priority queues are specializations of heaps. Algorithmia contains a couple of them. Sorting. What's an algorithm library without sort algorithms? Algorithmia implements a couple of sort algorithms which sort the data in-place. This aspect is important in situations where you want to sort the elements in a buffer/list/ICollection in-place, so all data stays in the data-structure it already is stored in. PropertyBag. It re-implements Tony Allowatt's original idea in .NET 3.5 specific syntax, which is to have a generic property bag and to be able to build an object in code at runtime which can be bound to a property grid for editing. This is handy for when you have data / settings stored in XML or other format, and want to create an editable form of it without creating many editors. IEditableObject/IDataErrorInfo implementations. It contains default implementations for IEditableObject and IDataErrorInfo (EditableObjectDataContainer for IEditableObject and ErrorContainer for IDataErrorInfo), which make it very easy to implement these interfaces (just a few lines of code) without having to worry about bookkeeping during databinding. They work seamlessly with CommandifiedMember as well, so your undo/redo aware code can use them out of the box. EventThrottler. It contains an event throttler, which can be used to filter out duplicate events in an event stream coming into an observer from an event. This can greatly enhance performance in your UI without needing to do anything other than hooking it up so it's placed between the event source and your real handler. If your UI is flooded with events from data-structures observed by your UI or a middle tier, you can use this class to filter out duplicates to avoid redundant updates to UI elements or to avoid having observers choke on many redundant events. Small, handy stuff. A MultiValueDictionary, which can store multiple unique values per key, instead of one with the default Dictionary, and is also merge-aware so you can merge two into one. A Pair class, to quickly group two elements together. Multiple interfaces for helping with building a de-coupled, observer based system, and some utility extension methods for the defined data-structures. We regularly update the library with new code. If you have ideas for new algorithms or want to share your contribution, feel free to discuss it on the project's Discussions page or send us a pull request. Enjoy!

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