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  • Can I use Eclipse JDT to create new 'working copies' of source files in memory only?

    - by RYates
    I'm using Eclipse JDT to build a Java refactoring platform, for exploring different refactorings in memory before choosing one and saving it. I can create collections of working copies of the source files, edit them in memory, and commit the changes to disk using the JDT framework. However, I also want to generate new 'working copy' source files in memory as part of refactorings, and only create the corresponding real source file if I commit the working copy. I have seen various hints that this is possible, e.g. http://www.jarvana.com/jarvana/view/org/eclipse/jdt/doc/isv/3.3.0-v20070613/isv-3.3.0-v20070613.jar!/guide/jdt%5Fapi%5Fmanip.htm says "Note that the compilation unit does not need to exist in the Java model in order for a working copy to be created". So far I have only been able to create a new real file, i.e. ICompilationUnit newICompilationUnit = myPackage.createCompilationUnit(newName, "package piffle; public class Baz{private int i=0;}", false, null); This is not what I want. Does anyone know how to create a new 'working copy' source file, that does not appear in my file system until I commit it? Or any other mechanism to achieve the same thing?

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  • How many users are sufficient to make a heavy load for web application

    - by galymzhan
    I have a web application, which has been suffering high load recent days. The application runs on single server which has 8-core Intel CPU and 4gb of RAM. Software: Drupal 5 (Apache 2, PHP5, MySQL5) running on Debian. After reaching 500 authenticated and 200 anonymous users (simultaneous), the application drastically decreases its performance up to total failure. The biggest load comes from authenticated users, who perform activities, causing insert/update/deletes on db. I think mysql is a bottleneck. Is it normal to slow down on such number of users? EDIT: I forgot to mention that I did some kind of profiling. I runned commands top, htop and they showed me that all memory was being used by MySQL! After some time MySQL starts to perform terribly slow, site goes down, and we have to restart/stop apache to reduce load. Administrators said that there was about 200 active mysql connections at that moment. The worst point is that we need to solve this ASAP, I can't do deep profiling analysis/code refactoring, so I'm considering 2 ways: my tables are MyIsam, I heard they use table-level locking which is very slow, is it right? could I change it to Innodb without worry? what if I take MySQL, and move it to dedicated machine with a lot of RAM?

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  • Strongly typed dynamic Linq sorting

    - by David
    I'm trying to build some code for dynamically sorting a Linq IQueryable<. The obvious way is here, which sorts a list using a string for the field name http://dvanderboom.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/dynamically-composing-linq-orderby-clauses/ However I want one change - compile time checking of field names, and the ability to use refactoring/Find All References to support later maintenance. That means I want to define the fields as f=f.Name, instead of as strings. For my specific use I want to encapsulate some code that would decide which of a list of named "OrderBy" expressions should be used based on user input, without writing different code every time. Here is the gist of what I've written: var list = from m Movies select m; // Get our list var sorter = list.GetSorter(...); // Pass in some global user settings object sorter.AddSort("NAME", m=m.Name); sorter.AddSort("YEAR", m=m.Year).ThenBy(m=m.Year); list = sorter.GetSortedList(); ... public class Sorter ... public static Sorter GetSorter(this IQueryable source, ...) The GetSortedList function determines which of the named sorts to use, which results in a List object, where each FieldData contains the MethodInfo and Type values of the fields passed in AddSort: public SorterItem AddSort(Func field) { MethodInfo ... = field.Method; Type ... = TypeOf(TKey); // Create item, add item to diction, add fields to item's List // The item has the ThenBy method, which just adds another field to the List } I'm not sure if there is a way to store the entire field object in a way that would allow it be returned later (it would be impossible to cast, since it is a generic type) Is there a way I could adapt the sample code, or come up with entirely new code, in order to sort using strongly typed field names after they have been stored in some container and retrieved (losing any generic type casting)

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  • Need advice on C++ coding pattern

    - by Kotti
    Hi! I have a working prototype of a game engine and right now I'm doing some refactoring. What I'm asking for is your opinion on usage of the following C++ coding patterns. I have implemented some trivial algorithms for collision detection and they are implemented the following way: Not shown here - class constructor is made private and using algorithms looks like Algorithm::HandleInnerCollision(...) struct Algorithm { // Private routines static bool is_inside(Point& p, Object& object) { // (...) } public: /** * Handle collision where the moving object should be always * located inside the static object * * @param MovingObject & mobject * @param const StaticObject & sobject * @return void * @see */ static void HandleInnerCollision(MovingObject& mobject, const StaticObject& sobject) { // (...) } So, my question is - somebody advised me to do it "the C++" way - so that all functions are wrapped in a namespace, but not in a class. Is there some good way to preserve privating if I will wrap them into a namespace as adviced? What I want to have is a simple interface and ability to call functions as Algorithm::HandleInnerCollision(...) while not polluting the namespace with other functions such as is_inside(...) Of, if you can advise any alternative design pattern for such kind of logics, I would really appreciate that...

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  • What do you call a generalized (non-GUI-related) "Model-View-Controller" architecture?

    - by dcuccia
    I am currently refactoring code that coordinates multiple hardware components for data acquisition, and feeling a bit like I'm recreating the wheel. In particular, an MVC-like pattern seems to be emerging. Except, this has nothing to do with a GUI and I'm worried that I'm forcing this particular pattern where another might be more appropriate. Here's my scenario: Individual hardware "component" classes obey interface contracts for each hardware type. Previously, component instances were orchestrated by a single monolithic InstrumentController class, which relied heavily on configuration + branching logic for executing a specific acquisition sequence. After an iteration, I have a separate controller for each component, with these controllers all managed by a small InstrumentControllerBase (or its derivatives). The composite system will receive "input" either programmatically or via inter-hardware component triggering - in either case these interactions are routed to, and handled by, the appropriate controller. So, I have something that feels MVC-esque, but I don't know if that's because I'm forcing the point. With little direct MVC experience in application development, it's hard to know if I'm just trying to make my scenario fit MVC, where another pattern might be a good alternative or complimentary. My problem is, search results and wiki documentation of these family of patterns seems to immediately drop me into GUI-specific discussions. I understand "M means Model data and the V means View" - but do you call the superset pattern? Component-Commander-Controller? Whence can I exhume examples exemplary?

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  • Newbie - eclipse workflow (PHP development)

    - by engil
    Hi all - this is a bit of a newbie question but hoping I can get some guidance. I've been playing around with Eclipse for a couple months yet I'm still not completely comfortable with my setup and it seems like every time I install it to a new system I end up with different results. What I'm hoping to achieve is (I think) fairly standard. In my environment I'd like SVN (currently using Subclipse), FTP support (currently using Aptana plugin), debugging (going to use XDebug) and all the usual bells and whistles of development (code completion, refactoring, etc.) My biggest current issue is how to set up my environment to support both a 'development' and 'production' server. Optimally I would be able to work directly against the dev server (Eclipse on my Vista desktop against the VM Ubuntu dev server) and then push to production server (shared hosting). I'd prefer to work directly against the dev server (with no local project files, just using the Connections provided by Aptana) but I'm guessing this won't allow for code-completoin or all the other bells and whistles provided for development. Any thoughts? Kind of an open ended question, but maybe this could be an opportunity for some of you with a great deal of experience using Eclipse to describe your setups so people like me can get some insight into good ways to get set up.

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  • HeadJS ready for both document and script

    - by Yashua
    Current code: head.ready(function() { console.log($('.thing a').val()); }); It will sometimes fail with error that $ is not ready. I have loaded jquuery earlier with the label 'jquery'. Neither of these work: head.ready(document, function() { console.log($('.thing a').val()); }); head.ready('jquery', function() { console.log($('.thing a').val()); }); I would like to not do this if possible: head.ready(document, function() { head.ready('jquery', function() { console.log($('.thing a').val()); }); }); And also avoid refactoring current code to place that snippet at bottom of body though that I think may be the solution. Is it possible with HeadJS to define a ready call() using head.ready(), that is not placed at the bottom, that will wait for both a labeled script and the DOM to be loaded? UPDATE: the nested script doesn't actually work. I think the inner one erases/superseds the other :(

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  • Identifying a class which is extending an abstract class

    - by Simon A. Eugster
    Good Evening, I'm doing a major refactoring of http://wiki2xhtml.sourceforge.net/ to finally get better overview and maintainability. (I started the project when I decided to start programming, so – you get it, right? ;)) At the moment I wonder how to solve the problem I'll describe now: Every file will be put through several parsers (like one for links, one for tables, one for images, etc.): public class WikiLinks extends WikiTask { ... } public class WikiTables extends WikiTask { ... } The files will then be parsed about this way: public void parse() { if (!parse) return; WikiTask task = new WikiLinks(); do { task.parse(this); } while ((task = task.nextTask()) != null); } Sometimes I may want to use no parser at all (for files that only need to be copied), or only a chosen one (e.g. for testing purposes). So before running task.parse() I need to check whether this certain parser is actually necessary/desired. (Perhaps via Blacklist or Whitelist.) What would you suggest for comparing? An ID for each WikiTask (how to do?)? Comparing the task Object itself against a new instance of a WikiTask (overhead)?

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  • 20 lines of code you're working on right now [closed]

    - by Anton Gogolev
    Out of sheer curiosity. Hope none of you NDAs are violated or whatever. Here are mine. I'm currently refactoring a massively coupled webapp. As it usually is, no comments and no documentation whatsoever. if (paymentMethod == PaymentMethod.InAgency ) { EmailController.SendBookingCreateEmails(booking); this.DC.SubmitChanges(); return RedirectToAction("Result", new { id = booking.Id }); } else if (paymentMethod == PaymentMethod.CreditCard) { return RedirectToAction("Pay", new { id = booking.Id }); } else if(paymentMethod == PaymentMethod.MostravelBank || paymentMethod == PaymentMethod.MostravelCallback || paymentMethod == PaymentMethod.MostravelCardCredit || paymentMethod == PaymentMethod.MostravelCourierCash || paymentMethod == PaymentMethod.MostravelCourierPlasticCard) { isExclusive = true; Log.TraceInformation("Started booking for Mostravel. Payment method: {0}", paymentMethod); try { Log.TraceInformation("Sending emails"); EmailController.SendBookingCreateEmailsEx(booking); Log.TraceInformation("Sent emails. Started booking"); MakeRealBooking(booking, DC.MailRuAgencies.First(a => a.Id == MvcApplication.DefaultMailRuAgencyId)); Log.TraceInformation("Finished booking"); } catch(Exception ex) { Log.TraceEvent(TraceEventType.Error, 0, "Error while booking: {0}", ex.ToString()); } What are you working on right now?

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  • C# form - checkboxes do not respond to plus/minus keys - easy workaround?

    - by Scott
    On forms created with pre dotNET VB and C++ (MFC), a checkbox control responded to the plus/minus key without custom programming. When focus was on the checbox control, pressing PLUS would check the box, no matter what the previous state (checked/unchecked), while pressing MINUS would uncheck it, no matter the previous state. C# winform checkboxes do not seem to exhibit this behavior. Said behavior was very, very handy for automation, whereby the automating program would set focus to a checkbox control and issue a PLUS or MINUS to check or uncheck it. Without this capability, that cannot be done, as the automation program (at least the one I am using) is unable to query the current state of the checkbox (so it can decide whether to issue a SPACE key to toggle the state to the desired one). I've gone over the properties of a checkbox in the Visual Studio 2008 IDE and could not find anything that would restore/enable response to PLUS/MINUS. Since I am in control of the sourcecode for the WinForms in question, I could replace all checkbox controls with a custom checkbox control, but blech, I'd like to avoid that - heck, I don't think I could even consider that given the amount of refactoring that would need to be done. So the bottom line is: does anyone know of a way to get this behavior back more easily than a coding change?

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  • ZF2 - ServiceManager injecting into 84 tables... tedious

    - by Dominic Watson
    I originally made another thread about this a couple of months ago in regards to ZF2 injecting into tables with DI during Beta 1 and figured back then that it wasn't really possible. Now ZF2 has been released as version 2.0.0 and ServiceManager is defaulted to instead of DI I guess I have the same question now I'm refactoring. I've got 84 tables that need the DbAdapter injecting into them and I'm sure there has to be a better way as I'm replicating myself SO much. public function getServiceConfig() { return array( 'factories' => array( 'accountTable' => function ($sm) { $dbAdapter = $sm->get('Zend\Db\Adapter\Adapter'); $table = new Model\DbTable\AccountTable($dbAdapter); return $table; }, 'userTable' => function ($sm) { $dbAdapter = $sm->get('Zend\Db\Adapter\Adapter'); $table = new Model\DbTable\UserTable($dbAdapter); return $table; }, // another 82 tables of the above ) ) } With the EventsManager and ServiceManager I have no idea where I stand in getting my application's instances/resources. Thanks, Dom

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  • Scope of Groovy's ExpandoMetaClass?

    - by TicketMonster
    Groovy exposes an ExpandoMetaClass that allows you to dynamically add instance and class methods/properties to a POJO. I would like to use it to add an instance method to one of my Java classes: public class Fizz { // ...etc. } Fizz fizz = new Fizz(); fizz.metaClass.doStuff = { String blah -> fizz.buzz(blah) } This would be the equivalent to refactoring the Fizz class to have: public class Fizz { // ctors, getters/setters, etc... public void doStuff(String blah) { buzz(blah); } } My question: Does this add doStuff(String blah) to only this particular instance of Fizz? Or do all instances of Fizz now have a doStuff(String blah) instance method? If the former, how do I get all instances of Fizz to have the doStuff instance method? I know that if I made the Groovy: fizz.metaClass.doStuff << { String blah -> fizz.buzz(blah) } Then that would add a static class method to Fizz, such as Fizz.doStuff(String blah), but that's not what I want. I just want all instances of Fizz to now have an instance method called doStuff. Ideas?

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  • Best practices to deal with "slightly different" branches of source code

    - by jedi_coder
    This question is rather agnostic than related to a certain version control program. Assume there is a source code tree under certain distributed version control. Let's call it A. At some point somebody else clones it and gets its own copy. Let's call it B. I'll call A and B branches, even if some version control tools have different definitions for branches (some might call A and B repositories). Let's assume that branch A is the "main" branch. In the context of distributed version control this only means that branch A is modified much more actively and the owner of branch B periodically syncs (pulls) new updates from branch A. Let's consider that a certain source file in branch B contains a class (again, it's also language agnostic). The owner of branch B considers that some class methods are more appropriate and groups them together by moving them inside the class body. Functionally nothing has changed - this is a very trivial refactoring of the code. But the change gets reflected in diffs. Now, assuming that this change from branch B will never get merged into branch A, the owner of branch B will always get this difference when pulling from branch A and merging into his own workspace. Even if there's only one such trivial change, the owner of branch B needs to resolve conflicts every time when pulling from branch A. As long as branches A and B are modified independently, more and more conflicts like this appear. What is the workaround for this situation? Which workflow should the owner of branch B follow to minimize the effort for periodically syncing with branch A?

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  • Proc causing a random TypeError

    - by go____yourself
    I'm refactoring some code and this proc is causing an error randomly and I don't know why or how to debug it... Any ideas? New code with proc defense_moves, offense_moves = [], [] determine_move = ->move,side,i { side << move.count(move[i]) } defense.size.times { |i| determine_move.(defense, defense_moves, i) } offense.size.times { |i| determine_move.(offense, offense_moves, i) } dm = defense[defense_moves.index(defense_moves.max)].nil? ? [0] : defense[defense_moves.index(defense_moves.max)] om = offense[offense_moves.index(offense_moves.max)].nil? ? [0] : offense[offense_moves.index(offense_moves.max)] Original code: d = 0 defense_moves = [] loop do defense_moves << defense.count(defense[d]) break if defense.count(defense[d]).zero? d += 1 end o = 0 offense_moves = [] loop do offense_moves << offense.count(offense[o]) break if offense.count(offense[o]).zero? o += 1 end dm = defense[defense_moves.index(defense_moves.max)].nil? ? [0] : defense[defense_moves.index(defense_moves.max)] om = offense[offense_moves.index(offense_moves.max)].nil? ? [0] : offense[offense_moves.index(offense_moves.max)] TypeError ttt2.rb:95:in `[]': no implicit conversion from nil to integer (TypeError) from ttt2.rb:95:in `computer_make_move' from ttt2.rb:133:in `draw_board' from ttt2.rb:24:in `place' from ttt2.rb:209:in `block in start_new_game' from ttt2.rb:188:in `loop' from ttt2.rb:188:in `start_new_game' from ttt2.rb:199:in `block in start_new_game' from ttt2.rb:188:in `loop' from ttt2.rb:188:in `start_new_game' from ttt2.rb:199:in `block in start_new_game' from ttt2.rb:188:in `loop' from ttt2.rb:188:in `start_new_game' from ttt2.rb:199:in `block in start_new_game' from ttt2.rb:188:in `loop' from ttt2.rb:188:in `start_new_game' from ttt2.rb:199:in `block in start_new_game' from ttt2.rb:188:in `loop' from ttt2.rb:188:in `start_new_game' from ttt2.rb:234:in `<main>'

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  • How can I have a single helper work on different models passed to it?

    - by Angela
    I am probably going to need to refactor in two steps since I'm still developing the project and learning the use-cases as I go along since it is to scratch my own itch. I have three models: Letters, Calls, Emails. They have some similarilty, but I anticipate they also will have some different attributes as you can tell from their description. Ideally I could refactor them as Events, with a type as Letters, Calls, Emails, but didn't know how to extend subclasses. My immediate need is this: I have a helper which checks on the status of whether an email (for example) was sent to a specific contact: def show_email_status(contact, email) @contact_email = ContactEmail.find(:first, :conditions => {:contact_id => contact.id, :email_id => email.id }) if ! @contact_email.nil? return @contact_email.status end end I realized that I, of course, want to know the status for whether a call was made to a contact as well, so I wrote: def show_call_status(contact, call) @contact_call = ContactCall.find(:first, :conditions => {:contact_id => contact.id, :call_id => call.id }) if ! @contact_call.nil? return @contact_call.status end end I would love to be able to just have a single helper show_status where I can say show_status(contact,call) or show_status(contact,email) and it would know whether to look for the object @contact_call or @contact_email. Yes, it would be easier if it were just @contact_event, but I want to do a small refactoring while I get the program up and running, and this would make the ability to do a history for a given contact much easier. Thanks!

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  • NDepend tool – Why every developer working with Visual Studio.NET must try it!

    - by hajan
    In the past two months, I have had a chance to test the capabilities and features of the amazing NDepend tool designed to help you make your .NET code better, more beautiful and achieve high code quality. In other words, this tool will definitely help you harmonize your code. I mean, you’ve probably heard about Chaos Theory. Experienced developers and architects are already advocates of the programming chaos that happens when working with complex project architecture, the matrix of relationships between objects which simply even if you are the one who have written all that code, you know how hard is to visualize everything what does the code do. When the application get more and more complex, you will start missing a lot of details in your code… NDepend will help you visualize all the details on a clever way that will help you make smart moves to make your code better. The NDepend tool supports many features, such as: Code Query Language – which will help you write custom rules and query your own code! Imagine, you want to find all your methods which have more than 100 lines of code :)! That’s something simple! However, I will dig much deeper in one of my next blogs which I’m going to dedicate to the NDepend’s CQL (Code Query Language) Architecture Visualization – You are an architect and want to visualize your application’s architecture? I’m thinking how many architects will be really surprised from their architectures since NDepend shows your whole architecture showing each piece of it. NDepend will show you how your code is structured. It shows the architecture in graphs, but if you have very complex architecture, you can see it in Dependency Matrix which is more suited to display large architecture Code Metrics – Using NDepend’s panel, you can see the code base according to Code Metrics. You can do some additional filtering, like selecting the top code elements ordered by their current code metric value. You can use the CQL language for this purpose too. Smart Search – NDepend has great searching ability, which is again based on the CQL (Code Query Language). However, you have some options to search using dropdown lists and text boxes and it will generate the appropriate CQL code on fly. Moreover, you can modify the CQL code if you want it to fit some more advanced searching tasks. Compare Builds and Code Difference – NDepend will also help you compare previous versions of your code with the current one at one of the most clever ways I’ve seen till now. Create Custom Rules – using CQL you can create custom rules and let NDepend warn you on each build if you break a rule Reporting – NDepend can automatically generate reports with detailed stats, graph representation, dependency matrixes and some additional advanced reporting features that will simply explain you everything related to your application’s code, architecture and what you’ve done. And that’s not all. As I’ve seen, there are many other features that NDepend supports. I will dig more in the upcoming days and will blog more about it. The team who built the NDepend have also created good documentation, which you can find on the NDepend website. On their website, you can also find some good videos that will help you get started quite fast. It’s easy to install and what is very important it is fully integrated with Visual Studio. To get you started, you can watch the following Getting Started Online Demo and Tutorial with explanations and screenshots. If you are interested to know more about how to use the features of this tool, either visit their website or wait for my next blogs where I will show some real examples of using the tool and how it helps make your code better. And the last thing for this blog, I would like to copy one sentence from the NDepend’s home page which says: ‘Hence the software design becomes concrete, code reviews are effective, large refactoring are easy and evolution is mastered.’ Website: www.ndepend.com Getting Started: http://www.ndepend.com/GettingStarted.aspx Features: http://www.ndepend.com/Features.aspx Download: http://www.ndepend.com/NDependDownload.aspx Hope you like it! Please do let me know your feedback by providing comments to my blog post. Kind Regards, Hajan

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  • The Incremental Architect&rsquo;s Napkin - #5 - Design functions for extensibility and readability

    - by Ralf Westphal
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/08/24/the-incremental-architectrsquos-napkin---5---design-functions-for.aspx The functionality of programs is entered via Entry Points. So what we´re talking about when designing software is a bunch of functions handling the requests represented by and flowing in through those Entry Points. Designing software thus consists of at least three phases: Analyzing the requirements to find the Entry Points and their signatures Designing the functionality to be executed when those Entry Points get triggered Implementing the functionality according to the design aka coding I presume, you´re familiar with phase 1 in some way. And I guess you´re proficient in implementing functionality in some programming language. But in my experience developers in general are not experienced in going through an explicit phase 2. “Designing functionality? What´s that supposed to mean?” you might already have thought. Here´s my definition: To design functionality (or functional design for short) means thinking about… well, functions. You find a solution for what´s supposed to happen when an Entry Point gets triggered in terms of functions. A conceptual solution that is, because those functions only exist in your head (or on paper) during this phase. But you may have guess that, because it´s “design” not “coding”. And here is, what functional design is not: It´s not about logic. Logic is expressions (e.g. +, -, && etc.) and control statements (e.g. if, switch, for, while etc.). Also I consider calling external APIs as logic. It´s equally basic. It´s what code needs to do in order to deliver some functionality or quality. Logic is what´s doing that needs to be done by software. Transformations are either done through expressions or API-calls. And then there is alternative control flow depending on the result of some expression. Basically it´s just jumps in Assembler, sometimes to go forward (if, switch), sometimes to go backward (for, while, do). But calling your own function is not logic. It´s not necessary to produce any outcome. Functionality is not enhanced by adding functions (subroutine calls) to your code. Nor is quality increased by adding functions. No performance gain, no higher scalability etc. through functions. Functions are not relevant to functionality. Strange, isn´t it. What they are important for is security of investment. By introducing functions into our code we can become more productive (re-use) and can increase evolvability (higher unterstandability, easier to keep code consistent). That´s no small feat, however. Evolvable code can hardly be overestimated. That´s why to me functional design is so important. It´s at the core of software development. To sum this up: Functional design is on a level of abstraction above (!) logical design or algorithmic design. Functional design is only done until you get to a point where each function is so simple you are very confident you can easily code it. Functional design an logical design (which mostly is coding, but can also be done using pseudo code or flow charts) are complementary. Software needs both. If you start coding right away you end up in a tangled mess very quickly. Then you need back out through refactoring. Functional design on the other hand is bloodless without actual code. It´s just a theory with no experiments to prove it. But how to do functional design? An example of functional design Let´s assume a program to de-duplicate strings. The user enters a number of strings separated by commas, e.g. a, b, a, c, d, b, e, c, a. And the program is supposed to clear this list of all doubles, e.g. a, b, c, d, e. There is only one Entry Point to this program: the user triggers the de-duplication by starting the program with the string list on the command line C:\>deduplicate "a, b, a, c, d, b, e, c, a" a, b, c, d, e …or by clicking on a GUI button. This leads to the Entry Point function to get called. It´s the program´s main function in case of the batch version or a button click event handler in the GUI version. That´s the physical Entry Point so to speak. It´s inevitable. What then happens is a three step process: Transform the input data from the user into a request. Call the request handler. Transform the output of the request handler into a tangible result for the user. Or to phrase it a bit more generally: Accept input. Transform input into output. Present output. This does not mean any of these steps requires a lot of effort. Maybe it´s just one line of code to accomplish it. Nevertheless it´s a distinct step in doing the processing behind an Entry Point. Call it an aspect or a responsibility - and you will realize it most likely deserves a function of its own to satisfy the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP). Interestingly the above list of steps is already functional design. There is no logic, but nevertheless the solution is described - albeit on a higher level of abstraction than you might have done yourself. But it´s still on a meta-level. The application to the domain at hand is easy, though: Accept string list from command line De-duplicate Present de-duplicated strings on standard output And this concrete list of processing steps can easily be transformed into code:static void Main(string[] args) { var input = Accept_string_list(args); var output = Deduplicate(input); Present_deduplicated_string_list(output); } Instead of a big problem there are three much smaller problems now. If you think each of those is trivial to implement, then go for it. You can stop the functional design at this point. But maybe, just maybe, you´re not so sure how to go about with the de-duplication for example. Then just implement what´s easy right now, e.g.private static string Accept_string_list(string[] args) { return args[0]; } private static void Present_deduplicated_string_list( string[] output) { var line = string.Join(", ", output); Console.WriteLine(line); } Accept_string_list() contains logic in the form of an API-call. Present_deduplicated_string_list() contains logic in the form of an expression and an API-call. And then repeat the functional design for the remaining processing step. What´s left is the domain logic: de-duplicating a list of strings. How should that be done? Without any logic at our disposal during functional design you´re left with just functions. So which functions could make up the de-duplication? Here´s a suggestion: De-duplicate Parse the input string into a true list of strings. Register each string in a dictionary/map/set. That way duplicates get cast away. Transform the data structure into a list of unique strings. Processing step 2 obviously was the core of the solution. That´s where real creativity was needed. That´s the core of the domain. But now after this refinement the implementation of each step is easy again:private static string[] Parse_string_list(string input) { return input.Split(',') .Select(s => s.Trim()) .ToArray(); } private static Dictionary<string,object> Compile_unique_strings(string[] strings) { return strings.Aggregate( new Dictionary<string, object>(), (agg, s) => { agg[s] = null; return agg; }); } private static string[] Serialize_unique_strings( Dictionary<string,object> dict) { return dict.Keys.ToArray(); } With these three additional functions Main() now looks like this:static void Main(string[] args) { var input = Accept_string_list(args); var strings = Parse_string_list(input); var dict = Compile_unique_strings(strings); var output = Serialize_unique_strings(dict); Present_deduplicated_string_list(output); } I think that´s very understandable code: just read it from top to bottom and you know how the solution to the problem works. It´s a mirror image of the initial design: Accept string list from command line Parse the input string into a true list of strings. Register each string in a dictionary/map/set. That way duplicates get cast away. Transform the data structure into a list of unique strings. Present de-duplicated strings on standard output You can even re-generate the design by just looking at the code. Code and functional design thus are always in sync - if you follow some simple rules. But about that later. And as a bonus: all the functions making up the process are small - which means easy to understand, too. So much for an initial concrete example. Now it´s time for some theory. Because there is method to this madness ;-) The above has only scratched the surface. Introducing Flow Design Functional design starts with a given function, the Entry Point. Its goal is to describe the behavior of the program when the Entry Point is triggered using a process, not an algorithm. An algorithm consists of logic, a process on the other hand consists just of steps or stages. Each processing step transforms input into output or a side effect. Also it might access resources, e.g. a printer, a database, or just memory. Processing steps thus can rely on state of some sort. This is different from Functional Programming, where functions are supposed to not be stateful and not cause side effects.[1] In its simplest form a process can be written as a bullet point list of steps, e.g. Get data from user Output result to user Transform data Parse data Map result for output Such a compilation of steps - possibly on different levels of abstraction - often is the first artifact of functional design. It can be generated by a team in an initial design brainstorming. Next comes ordering the steps. What should happen first, what next etc.? Get data from user Parse data Transform data Map result for output Output result to user That´s great for a start into functional design. It´s better than starting to code right away on a given function using TDD. Please get me right: TDD is a valuable practice. But it can be unnecessarily hard if the scope of a functionn is too large. But how do you know beforehand without investing some thinking? And how to do this thinking in a systematic fashion? My recommendation: For any given function you´re supposed to implement first do a functional design. Then, once you´re confident you know the processing steps - which are pretty small - refine and code them using TDD. You´ll see that´s much, much easier - and leads to cleaner code right away. For more information on this approach I call “Informed TDD” read my book of the same title. Thinking before coding is smart. And writing down the solution as a bunch of functions possibly is the simplest thing you can do, I´d say. It´s more according to the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle than returning constants or other trivial stuff TDD development often is started with. So far so good. A simple ordered list of processing steps will do to start with functional design. As shown in the above example such steps can easily be translated into functions. Moving from design to coding thus is simple. However, such a list does not scale. Processing is not always that simple to be captured in a list. And then the list is just text. Again. Like code. That means the design is lacking visuality. Textual representations need more parsing by your brain than visual representations. Plus they are limited in their “dimensionality”: text just has one dimension, it´s sequential. Alternatives and parallelism are hard to encode in text. In addition the functional design using numbered lists lacks data. It´s not visible what´s the input, output, and state of the processing steps. That´s why functional design should be done using a lightweight visual notation. No tool is necessary to draw such designs. Use pen and paper; a flipchart, a whiteboard, or even a napkin is sufficient. Visualizing processes The building block of the functional design notation is a functional unit. I mostly draw it like this: Something is done, it´s clear what goes in, it´s clear what comes out, and it´s clear what the processing step requires in terms of state or hardware. Whenever input flows into a functional unit it gets processed and output is produced and/or a side effect occurs. Flowing data is the driver of something happening. That´s why I call this approach to functional design Flow Design. It´s about data flow instead of control flow. Control flow like in algorithms is of no concern to functional design. Thinking about control flow simply is too low level. Once you start with control flow you easily get bogged down by tons of details. That´s what you want to avoid during design. Design is supposed to be quick, broad brush, abstract. It should give overview. But what about all the details? As Robert C. Martin rightly said: “Programming is abot detail”. Detail is a matter of code. Once you start coding the processing steps you designed you can worry about all the detail you want. Functional design does not eliminate all the nitty gritty. It just postpones tackling them. To me that´s also an example of the SRP. Function design has the responsibility to come up with a solution to a problem posed by a single function (Entry Point). And later coding has the responsibility to implement the solution down to the last detail (i.e. statement, API-call). TDD unfortunately mixes both responsibilities. It´s just coding - and thereby trying to find detailed implementations (green phase) plus getting the design right (refactoring). To me that´s one reason why TDD has failed to deliver on its promise for many developers. Using functional units as building blocks of functional design processes can be depicted very easily. Here´s the initial process for the example problem: For each processing step draw a functional unit and label it. Choose a verb or an “action phrase” as a label, not a noun. Functional design is about activities, not state or structure. Then make the output of an upstream step the input of a downstream step. Finally think about the data that should flow between the functional units. Write the data above the arrows connecting the functional units in the direction of the data flow. Enclose the data description in brackets. That way you can clearly see if all flows have already been specified. Empty brackets mean “no data is flowing”, but nevertheless a signal is sent. A name like “list” or “strings” in brackets describes the data content. Use lower case labels for that purpose. A name starting with an upper case letter like “String” or “Customer” on the other hand signifies a data type. If you like, you also can combine descriptions with data types by separating them with a colon, e.g. (list:string) or (strings:string[]). But these are just suggestions from my practice with Flow Design. You can do it differently, if you like. Just be sure to be consistent. Flows wired-up in this manner I call one-dimensional (1D). Each functional unit just has one input and/or one output. A functional unit without an output is possible. It´s like a black hole sucking up input without producing any output. Instead it produces side effects. A functional unit without an input, though, does make much sense. When should it start to work? What´s the trigger? That´s why in the above process even the first processing step has an input. If you like, view such 1D-flows as pipelines. Data is flowing through them from left to right. But as you can see, it´s not always the same data. It get´s transformed along its passage: (args) becomes a (list) which is turned into (strings). The Principle of Mutual Oblivion A very characteristic trait of flows put together from function units is: no functional units knows another one. They are all completely independent of each other. Functional units don´t know where their input is coming from (or even when it´s gonna arrive). They just specify a range of values they can process. And they promise a certain behavior upon input arriving. Also they don´t know where their output is going. They just produce it in their own time independent of other functional units. That means at least conceptually all functional units work in parallel. Functional units don´t know their “deployment context”. They now nothing about the overall flow they are place in. They are just consuming input from some upstream, and producing output for some downstream. That makes functional units very easy to test. At least as long as they don´t depend on state or resources. I call this the Principle of Mutual Oblivion (PoMO). Functional units are oblivious of others as well as an overall context/purpose. They are just parts of a whole focused on a single responsibility. How the whole is built, how a larger goal is achieved, is of no concern to the single functional units. By building software in such a manner, functional design interestingly follows nature. Nature´s building blocks for organisms also follow the PoMO. The cells forming your body do not know each other. Take a nerve cell “controlling” a muscle cell for example:[2] The nerve cell does not know anything about muscle cells, let alone the specific muscel cell it is “attached to”. Likewise the muscle cell does not know anything about nerve cells, let a lone a specific nerve cell “attached to” it. Saying “the nerve cell is controlling the muscle cell” thus only makes sense when viewing both from the outside. “Control” is a concept of the whole, not of its parts. Control is created by wiring-up parts in a certain way. Both cells are mutually oblivious. Both just follow a contract. One produces Acetylcholine (ACh) as output, the other consumes ACh as input. Where the ACh is going, where it´s coming from neither cell cares about. Million years of evolution have led to this kind of division of labor. And million years of evolution have produced organism designs (DNA) which lead to the production of these different cell types (and many others) and also to their co-location. The result: the overall behavior of an organism. How and why this happened in nature is a mystery. For our software, though, it´s clear: functional and quality requirements needs to be fulfilled. So we as developers have to become “intelligent designers” of “software cells” which we put together to form a “software organism” which responds in satisfying ways to triggers from it´s environment. My bet is: If nature gets complex organisms working by following the PoMO, who are we to not apply this recipe for success to our much simpler “machines”? So my rule is: Wherever there is functionality to be delivered, because there is a clear Entry Point into software, design the functionality like nature would do it. Build it from mutually oblivious functional units. That´s what Flow Design is about. In that way it´s even universal, I´d say. Its notation can also be applied to biology: Never mind labeling the functional units with nouns. That´s ok in Flow Design. You´ll do that occassionally for functional units on a higher level of abstraction or when their purpose is close to hardware. Getting a cockroach to roam your bedroom takes 1,000,000 nerve cells (neurons). Getting the de-duplication program to do its job just takes 5 “software cells” (functional units). Both, though, follow the same basic principle. Translating functional units into code Moving from functional design to code is no rocket science. In fact it´s straightforward. There are two simple rules: Translate an input port to a function. Translate an output port either to a return statement in that function or to a function pointer visible to that function. The simplest translation of a functional unit is a function. That´s what you saw in the above example. Functions are mutually oblivious. That why Functional Programming likes them so much. It makes them composable. Which is the reason, nature works according to the PoMO. Let´s be clear about one thing: There is no dependency injection in nature. For all of an organism´s complexity no DI container is used. Behavior is the result of smooth cooperation between mutually oblivious building blocks. Functions will often be the adequate translation for the functional units in your designs. But not always. Take for example the case, where a processing step should not always produce an output. Maybe the purpose is to filter input. Here the functional unit consumes words and produces words. But it does not pass along every word flowing in. Some words are swallowed. Think of a spell checker. It probably should not check acronyms for correctness. There are too many of them. Or words with no more than two letters. Such words are called “stop words”. In the above picture the optionality of the output is signified by the astrisk outside the brackets. It means: Any number of (word) data items can flow from the functional unit for each input data item. It might be none or one or even more. This I call a stream of data. Such behavior cannot be translated into a function where output is generated with return. Because a function always needs to return a value. So the output port is translated into a function pointer or continuation which gets passed to the subroutine when called:[3]void filter_stop_words( string word, Action<string> onNoStopWord) { if (...check if not a stop word...) onNoStopWord(word); } If you want to be nitpicky you might call such a function pointer parameter an injection. And technically you´re right. Conceptually, though, it´s not an injection. Because the subroutine is not functionally dependent on the continuation. Firstly continuations are procedures, i.e. subroutines without a return type. Remember: Flow Design is about unidirectional data flow. Secondly the name of the formal parameter is chosen in a way as to not assume anything about downstream processing steps. onNoStopWord describes a situation (or event) within the functional unit only. Translating output ports into function pointers helps keeping functional units mutually oblivious in cases where output is optional or produced asynchronically. Either pass the function pointer to the function upon call. Or make it global by putting it on the encompassing class. Then it´s called an event. In C# that´s even an explicit feature.class Filter { public void filter_stop_words( string word) { if (...check if not a stop word...) onNoStopWord(word); } public event Action<string> onNoStopWord; } When to use a continuation and when to use an event dependens on how a functional unit is used in flows and how it´s packed together with others into classes. You´ll see examples further down the Flow Design road. Another example of 1D functional design Let´s see Flow Design once more in action using the visual notation. How about the famous word wrap kata? Robert C. Martin has posted a much cited solution including an extensive reasoning behind his TDD approach. So maybe you want to compare it to Flow Design. The function signature given is:string WordWrap(string text, int maxLineLength) {...} That´s not an Entry Point since we don´t see an application with an environment and users. Nevertheless it´s a function which is supposed to provide a certain functionality. The text passed in has to be reformatted. The input is a single line of arbitrary length consisting of words separated by spaces. The output should consist of one or more lines of a maximum length specified. If a word is longer than a the maximum line length it can be split in multiple parts each fitting in a line. Flow Design Let´s start by brainstorming the process to accomplish the feat of reformatting the text. What´s needed? Words need to be assembled into lines Words need to be extracted from the input text The resulting lines need to be assembled into the output text Words too long to fit in a line need to be split Does sound about right? I guess so. And it shows a kind of priority. Long words are a special case. So maybe there is a hint for an incremental design here. First let´s tackle “average words” (words not longer than a line). Here´s the Flow Design for this increment: The the first three bullet points turned into functional units with explicit data added. As the signature requires a text is transformed into another text. See the input of the first functional unit and the output of the last functional unit. In between no text flows, but words and lines. That´s good to see because thereby the domain is clearly represented in the design. The requirements are talking about words and lines and here they are. But note the asterisk! It´s not outside the brackets but inside. That means it´s not a stream of words or lines, but lists or sequences. For each text a sequence of words is output. For each sequence of words a sequence of lines is produced. The asterisk is used to abstract from the concrete implementation. Like with streams. Whether the list of words gets implemented as an array or an IEnumerable is not important during design. It´s an implementation detail. Does any processing step require further refinement? I don´t think so. They all look pretty “atomic” to me. And if not… I can always backtrack and refine a process step using functional design later once I´ve gained more insight into a sub-problem. Implementation The implementation is straightforward as you can imagine. The processing steps can all be translated into functions. Each can be tested easily and separately. Each has a focused responsibility. And the process flow becomes just a sequence of function calls: Easy to understand. It clearly states how word wrapping works - on a high level of abstraction. And it´s easy to evolve as you´ll see. Flow Design - Increment 2 So far only texts consisting of “average words” are wrapped correctly. Words not fitting in a line will result in lines too long. Wrapping long words is a feature of the requested functionality. Whether it´s there or not makes a difference to the user. To quickly get feedback I decided to first implement a solution without this feature. But now it´s time to add it to deliver the full scope. Fortunately Flow Design automatically leads to code following the Open Closed Principle (OCP). It´s easy to extend it - instead of changing well tested code. How´s that possible? Flow Design allows for extension of functionality by inserting functional units into the flow. That way existing functional units need not be changed. The data flow arrow between functional units is a natural extension point. No need to resort to the Strategy Pattern. No need to think ahead where extions might need to be made in the future. I just “phase in” the remaining processing step: Since neither Extract words nor Reformat know of their environment neither needs to be touched due to the “detour”. The new processing step accepts the output of the existing upstream step and produces data compatible with the existing downstream step. Implementation - Increment 2 A trivial implementation checking the assumption if this works does not do anything to split long words. The input is just passed on: Note how clean WordWrap() stays. The solution is easy to understand. A developer looking at this code sometime in the future, when a new feature needs to be build in, quickly sees how long words are dealt with. Compare this to Robert C. Martin´s solution:[4] How does this solution handle long words? Long words are not even part of the domain language present in the code. At least I need considerable time to understand the approach. Admittedly the Flow Design solution with the full implementation of long word splitting is longer than Robert C. Martin´s. At least it seems. Because his solution does not cover all the “word wrap situations” the Flow Design solution handles. Some lines would need to be added to be on par, I guess. But even then… Is a difference in LOC that important as long as it´s in the same ball park? I value understandability and openness for extension higher than saving on the last line of code. Simplicity is not just less code, it´s also clarity in design. But don´t take my word for it. Try Flow Design on larger problems and compare for yourself. What´s the easier, more straightforward way to clean code? And keep in mind: You ain´t seen all yet ;-) There´s more to Flow Design than described in this chapter. In closing I hope I was able to give you a impression of functional design that makes you hungry for more. To me it´s an inevitable step in software development. Jumping from requirements to code does not scale. And it leads to dirty code all to quickly. Some thought should be invested first. Where there is a clear Entry Point visible, it´s functionality should be designed using data flows. Because with data flows abstraction is possible. For more background on why that´s necessary read my blog article here. For now let me point out to you - if you haven´t already noticed - that Flow Design is a general purpose declarative language. It´s “programming by intention” (Shalloway et al.). Just write down how you think the solution should work on a high level of abstraction. This breaks down a large problem in smaller problems. And by following the PoMO the solutions to those smaller problems are independent of each other. So they are easy to test. Or you could even think about getting them implemented in parallel by different team members. Flow Design not only increases evolvability, but also helps becoming more productive. All team members can participate in functional design. This goes beyon collective code ownership. We´re talking collective design/architecture ownership. Because with Flow Design there is a common visual language to talk about functional design - which is the foundation for all other design activities.   PS: If you like what you read, consider getting my ebook “The Incremental Architekt´s Napkin”. It´s where I compile all the articles in this series for easier reading. I like the strictness of Function Programming - but I also find it quite hard to live by. And it certainly is not what millions of programmers are used to. Also to me it seems, the real world is full of state and side effects. So why give them such a bad image? That´s why functional design takes a more pragmatic approach. State and side effects are ok for processing steps - but be sure to follow the SRP. Don´t put too much of it into a single processing step. ? Image taken from www.physioweb.org ? My code samples are written in C#. C# sports typed function pointers called delegates. Action is such a function pointer type matching functions with signature void someName(T t). Other languages provide similar ways to work with functions as first class citizens - even Java now in version 8. I trust you find a way to map this detail of my translation to your favorite programming language. I know it works for Java, C++, Ruby, JavaScript, Python, Go. And if you´re using a Functional Programming language it´s of course a no brainer. ? Taken from his blog post “The Craftsman 62, The Dark Path”. ?

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  • Netbeans 7.2 Missing Modules Warning

    - by el10780
    Everytime I start Netbeans and the splash screen shows up when it gets to the part to load the modules I receive the following error message : Warning - could not install some modules: Editor Library 2 - None of the modules providing the capability org.netbeans.modules.editor.actions could be installed. Tags Based Editors Library - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.deprecated.pre65formatting/0-1 was needed and not found. Java Editor Library - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.deprecated.pre65formatting/0-1 was needed and not found. Preprocessor Bridge - None of the modules providing the capability org.netbeans.modules.java.preprocessorbridge.spi.JavaSourceUtilImpl could be installed. Freeform Ant Projects - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.indent.project/0-1 was needed and not found. Editor Code Templates - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. Static Analysis Core - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. Java Source - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.indent.project/0-1 was needed and not found. Eclipse Project Importer - The module named org.netbeans.modules.java.api.common/0-1 was needed and not found. Java Hints SPI - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. Java Refactoring - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. Java Editor - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.bracesmatching/0-1 was needed and not found. Java Editor - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. Java Editor - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.deprecated.pre65formatting/0-1 was needed and not found. Java Hints UI - The module named org.netbeans.modules.code.analysis/0-1 was needed and not found. Java Hints UI - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. Legacy Java Hints SPI - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. Java Hints - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. Java Declarative Hints - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. Javadoc - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.bracesmatching/0-1 was needed and not found. Javadoc - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. Common Scripting Language API (new) - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. XML Text Editor - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.bracesmatching/0-1 was needed and not found. XML Text Editor - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.deprecated.pre65formatting/0-1 was needed and not found. CSS Editor - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.bracesmatching/0-1 was needed and not found. HTML Editor - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.bracesmatching/0-1 was needed and not found. JavaScript Editing - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.bracesmatching/0-1 was needed and not found. JavaScript Hints - The module named org.netbeans.spi.editor.hints/0-1 was needed and not found. Editing Files - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.bracesmatching/0-1 was needed and not found. IDE Platform - The module named org.netbeans.modules.editor.macros/0-1 was needed and not found. Java SE Projects - The module named org.netbeans.modules.java.api.common/0-1 was needed and not found. 86 further modules could not be installed due to the above problems. Whatever I press either Exit or Disable Modules and Continue or even I close from the "X" Button the Warning window closes and then Netbeans never starts. I have looked it up on the Internet,but I couldn't find a solution.

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  • What is Agile Modeling and why do I need it?

    What is Agile Modeling and why do I need it? Agile Modeling is an add-on to existing agile methodologies like Extreme programming (XP) and Rational Unified Process (RUP). Agile Modeling enables developers to develop a customized software development process that actually meets their current development needs and is flexible enough to adjust in the future. According to Scott Ambler, Agile Modeling consists of five core values that enable this methodology to be effective and light weight Agile Modeling Core Values: Communication Simplicity Feedback Courage Humility Communication is a key component to any successful project. Open communication between stakeholder and the development team is essential when developing new applications or maintaining legacy systems. Agile models promote communication amongst software development teams and stakeholders. Furthermore, Agile Models provide a common understanding of an application for members of a software development team allowing them to have a universal common point of reference. The use of simplicity in Agile Models enables the exploration of new ideas and concepts through the use of basic diagrams instead of investing the time in writing tens or hundreds of lines of code. Feedback in regards to application development is essential. Feedback allows a development team to confirm that the development path is on track. Agile Models allow for quick feedback from shareholders because minimal to no technical expertise is required to understand basic models. Courage is important because you need to make important decisions and be able to change direction by either discarding or refactoring your work when some of your decisions prove inadequate, according to Scott Ambler. As a member of a development team, we must admit that we do not know everything even though some of us think we do. This is where humility comes in to play. Everyone is a knowledge expert in their own specific domain. If you need help with your finances then you would consult an accountant. If you have a problem or are in need of help with a topic why would someone not consult with a subject expert? An effective approach is to assume that everyone involved with your project has equal value and therefore should be treated with respect. Agile Model Characteristics: Purposeful Understandable Sufficiently Accurate Sufficiently Consistent Sufficiently Detailed Provide Positive Value Simple as Possible Just Fulfill Basic Requirements According to Scott Ambler, Agile models are the most effective possible because the time that is invested in the model is just enough effort to complete the job. Furthermore, if a model isn’t good enough yet then additional effort can be invested to get more value out of the model. However if a model is good enough, for the current needs, or surpass the current needs, then any additional work done on the model would be a waste. It is important to remember that good enough is in the eye of the beholder, so this can be tough. In order for Agile Models to work effectively Active Stakeholder need to participation in the modeling process. Finally it is also very important to model with others, this allows for additionally input ensuring that all the shareholders needs are reflected in the models. How can Agile Models be incorporated in to our projects? Agile Models can be incorporated in to our project during the requirement gathering and design phases. As requirements are gathered the models should be updated to incorporate the new project details as they are defined and updated. Additionally, the Agile Models created during the requirement phase can be the bases for the models created during the design phase.  It is important to only add to the model when the changes fit within the agile model characteristics and they do not over complicate the design.

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  • Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship – book review

    - by DigiMortal
       Writing code that is easy read and test is not something that is easy to achieve. Unfortunately there are still way too much programming students who write awful spaghetti after graduating. But there is one really good book that helps you raise your code to new level – your code will be also communication tool for you and your fellow programmers. “Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship” by Robert C. Martin is excellent book that helps you start writing the easily readable code. Of course, you are the one who has to learn and practice but using this book you have very good guide that keeps you going to right direction. You can start writing better code while you read this book and you can do it right in your current projects – you don’t have to create new guestbook or some other simple application to start practicing. Take the project you are working on and start making it better! My special thanks to Robert C. Martin I want to say my special thanks to Robert C. Martin for this book. There are many books that teach you different stuff and usually you have markable learning curve to go before you start getting results. There are many books that show you the direction to go and then leave you alone figuring out how to achieve all that stuff you just read about. Clean Code gives you a lot more – the mental tools to use so you can go your way to clean code being sure you will be soon there. I am reading books as much as I have time for it. Clean Code is top-level book for developers who have to write working code. Before anything else take Clean Code and read it. You will never regret your decision. I promise. Fragment of editorial review “Even bad code can function. But if code isn’t clean, it can bring a development organization to its knees. Every year, countless hours and significant resources are lost because of poorly written code. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What kind of work will you be doing? You’ll be reading code—lots of code. And you will be challenged to think about what’s right about that code, and what’s wrong with it. More importantly, you will be challenged to reassess your professional values and your commitment to your craft. Readers will come away from this book understanding How to tell the difference between good and bad code How to write good code and how to transform bad code into good code How to create good names, good functions, good objects, and good classes How to format code for maximum readability How to implement complete error handling without obscuring code logic How to unit test and practice test-driven development This book is a must for any developer, software engineer, project manager, team lead, or systems analyst with an interest in producing better code.” Table of contents Clean code Meaningful names Functions Comments Formatting Objects and data structures Error handling Boundaries Unit tests Classes Systems Emergence Concurrency Successive refinement JUnit internals Refactoring SerialDate Smells and heuristics A Concurrency II org.jfree.date.SerialDate Cross references of heuristics Epilogue Index

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  • POP Forums v9 Beta 1 for ASP.NET MVC 3 posted to CodePlex!

    - by Jeff
    As promised, I posted a beta build of my forum app for ASP.NET MVC 3. Get the new goodies here: http://popforums.codeplex.com/releases/view/58228 This is the first beta for the ASP.NET MVC 3 version of POP Forums. It is nearly feature complete, and ready for testing and feedback. For previous release notes, look here, here and here.Check out the live preview: http://preview.popforums.com/ForumsSetup instructions are on the home page of this project. The new hotness in the beta, or what has been done since the last preview: All views converted to use Razor E-mail subscription/notification of new posts New post indicators/mark read buttons Permalinks to posts Jump to newest post (from new post indicators) Recent topics Favorite topics Moderator functions for topics (pin/close/delete, plus move and rename) Search, ported from v8. Not a ton of optimization here, or new unit testing, but the old version worked pretty well User posts (topics the user posted in) Forgot password Vanity items (signatures and avatars) Hide vanity items per user preference Some minor data caching where appropriate A little bit of UI refinement Lots-o-bug fixes Lots-o-unit tests What's next? The plan between now and the next beta is as follows: Continue working through features/tasks, and fix bugs as they're reported Integrate the forum into a real, production site Refine the UI Refactor as much as possible... the code organization is not entirely logical in some places After the second beta, a release candidate will follow, with a real "final" release after that. Subsequent releases should come relatively frequently and without a lot of risk. The trick in building this thing has been that it mostly tossed the previous WebForms version, which was all full of crusties. The time table for this is a little harder to pin down, as day jobs and families will have their effect. Other notes Refactoring will be a priority. As the features of MVC have evolved, so have my desires to use it in a fashion that makes things clear and easy to follow. I don't even know if anyone will ever start mucking around in the code, but on the off chance they do, I'd like what they find to not suck. Other nice-to-haves are builds to target Windows Azure and SQL CE. A nice setup UI would be super too. I think the ASP.NET MVC world has gone long enough without a decent forum.The biggest challenge that I've found is making the forum something that can be dropped in any app. While it does rope its views into an area, areas are mostly just routing details. I haven't thought of a clever way yet to limit dependency injection, for example, to just the forum bits. I mean, everyone should be using Ninject, but how realistic is that? ;)How much time and effort should you spend on POP Forums in its current state? Change is inevitable, but at this point I'm reasonably committed to not changing the database schema. I really think it will stay as-is. All bets are off for the various interfaces throughout the app, but the data should generally resist change. It's not even that different from v8, which was one of the original goals because I didn't want to rewrite SQL or introduce a new ORM or whatever. My point is that if you wanted to build a site around this today, even though it's not entirely functional, I think it's low risk in terms of data loss. I can't vouch for whether or not you know what you're doing.I've been having some chats with people lately about quoting posts, and honestly there has to be something better and straight forward. That continues to be a holy grail of mine, and some day, I hope to find it.Enjoy... it's starting to feel more real every day!

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  • The dislikes of TDD

    - by andrewstopford
    I enjoy debates about TDD and Brian Harrys blog post is no exception. Brian sounds out what he likes and dislikes about TDD and it's the dislikes I'll focus on. The idea of having unit tests that cover virtually every line of code that I’ve written that I have to refactor every time I refactor my code makes me shudder.  Doing this way makes me take nearly twice as long as it would otherwise take and I don’t feel like I get sufficient benefits from it. Refactoring your tests to match your refactored code sounds like the tests are suffering. Too many hard dependencies with no SOLID concerns are a sure fire reason you would do this. Maybe at the start of a TDD cycle you would need to do this as your design evolves and you remove these dependencies but this should quickly be resolved as you refactor. If you find your self still doing it then stop and look back at your design. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of unit tests.  I just prefer to write them after the code has stopped shaking a bit.  In fact most of my early testing is “manual”.  Either I write a small UI on top of my service that allows me to plug in values and try it or write some quick API tests that I throw away as soon as I have validated them. The problem with this is that a UI can make assumptions on your code that then just unit test around and very quickly the design becomes bad and you technical debt sweeps in. If you want to blackbox test your code with a UI then do so after your TDD cycles not before. This is probably by biggest issue with a literal TDD interpretation.  TDD says you never write a line of code without a failing test to show you need it.  I find it leads developers down a dangerous path.  Without any help from a methodology, I have met way too many developers in my life that “back into a solution”.  By this, I mean they write something, it mostly works and they discover a new requirement so they tack it on, and another and another and when they are done, they’ve got a monstrosity of special cases each designed to handle one specific scenario.  There’s way more code than there should be and it’s way too complicated to understand. I believe in finding general solutions to problems from which all the special cases naturally derive rather than building a solution of special cases.  In my mind, to do this, you have to start by conceptualizing and coding the framework of the general algorithm.  For me, that’s a relatively monolithic exercise. TDD is an development pratice not a methodology, the danger is that the solution becomes a mass of different things that violate DRY. TDD won't solve these problems, only good communication and practices like pairing will help. Above all else an assumption that TDD replaces a methodology is a mistake, combine it with what ever works for your team\business but only good communication will help. A good naming scheme\structure for folders, files and tests can help you and your team isolate what tests are for what.

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  • asynchrony is viral

    - by Daniel Moth
    It is becoming hard to write code today without introducing some form of asynchrony and, if you are using .NET (e.g. for Windows Phone 8 or Windows Store apps), that means sooner or later you have to await something and mark your method as async. My most recent examples included introducing speech recognition in my Translator By Moth phone app where I had to await mySpeechRecognizerUI.RecognizeWithUIAsync() and when moving that code base to a Windows Store project just to show a MessageBox I had to await myMessageDialog.ShowAsync(). Any time you need to invoke an asynchronous method in your code, you have a choice to make: kick off the operation but don’t wait for it to complete (otherwise known as fire-and-forget), synchronously wait for it to complete (which will entail blocking, which can be bad, especially on a UI thread), or asynchronously wait for it to complete before continuing on with the rest of the method’s work. In most cases, you want the latter, and the await keyword makes that trivial to implement.  When you use the magical await keyword in front of an API call, then you typically have to make additional changes to your code: This await usage is within a method of course, and now you have to annotate that method with async. Furthermore, you have to change the return type of the method you just annotated so it returns a Task (if it previously returned void), or Task<myOldReturnType> (if it previously returned myOldReturnType). Note that if it returns void, in some cases you could cheat and stop there. Furthermore, any method that called this method you just annotated with async will now also be invoking an asynchronous operation, so you have to make that change in the body of the caller method to introduce the await keyword before the call to the method. …you guessed it, you now have to change this caller method to be annotated with async and have its return types tweaked... …and it goes on virally… At some point you reach the root of your user code, e.g. a GUI event handler, and whoever calls that void method can already deal with the fact that you marked it as async and the viral introduction of the keywords stops there… This is all wonderful progress and a very powerful mechanism, and I just wish someone had written a refactoring tool to take care of this… anyone? I mentioned earlier that you have a choice when invoking an asynchronous operation. If the first time you encounter this you wish to localize the impact of all these changes and essentially try to turn the asynchronous behavior into synchronous by blocking - don't! For reasons why you don't want to do that, read Toub's excellent blog post (and check out the rest of his blog with gems on async programming starting with the Async FAQ). Just embrace the pattern knowing that when you use one instance of an await, you'll propagate the change all the way to the root user code method, e.g. typically an event handler. Related aside: I just finished re-writing my MessageBox wrapper class for Phone projects, including making it work in Windows Store projects, and it does expect you to use it with an await :-). I'll share that in an upcoming post for those of you that have the same need… Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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  • T-SQL Tuesday #005 : SSRS Parameters and MDX Data Sets

    - by blakmk
    Well it this weeks  T-SQL Tuesday #005  topic seems quite fitting. Having spent the past few weeks creating reports and dashboards in SSRS and SSAS 2008, I was frustrated by how difficult it is to use custom datasets to generate parameter drill downs. It also seems Reporting Services can be quite unforgiving when it comes to renaming things like datasets, so I want to share a couple of techniques that I found useful. One of the things I regularly do is to add parameters to the querys. However doing this causes Reporting Services to generate a hidden dataset and parameter name for you. One of the things I like to do is tweak these hidden datasets removing the ‘ALL’ level which is a tip I picked up from Devin Knight in his blog: There are some rules i’ve developed for myself since working with SSRS and MDX, they may not be the best or only way but they work for me. Rule 1 – Never trust the automatically generated hidden datasets Or even ANY, automatically generated MDX queries for that matter.... I’ve previously blogged about this here.   If you examine the MDX generated in the hidden dataset you will see that it generates the MDX in the context of the originiating query by building a subcube, this mean it may NOT be appropriate to use this in a subsequent query which has a different context. Make sure you always understand what is going on. Often when i’m developing a dashboard or a report there are several parameter oriented datasets that I like to manually create. It can be that I have different datasets using the same dimension but in a different context. One example of this, is that I often use a dataset for last month and a dataset for the last 6 months. Both use the same date hierarchy. However Reporting Services seems not to be too smart when it comes to generating unique datasets when working with and renaming parameters and datasets. Very often I have come across this error when it comes to refactoring parameter names and default datasets. "an item with the same key has already been added" The only way I’ve found to reliably avoid this is to obey to rule 2. Rule 2 – Follow this sequence when it comes to working with Parameters and DataSets: 1.    Create Lookup and Default Datasets in advance 2.    Create parameters (set the datasets for available and default values) 3.    Go into query and tick parameter check box 4.    On dataset properties screen, select the parameter defined earlier from the parameter value defined earlier. Rule 3 – Dont tear your hair out when you have just renamed objects and your report doesn’t build Just use XML notepad on the original report file. I found I gained a good understanding of the structure of the underlying XML document just by using XML notepad. From this you can do a search and find references of the missing object. You can also just do a wholesale search and replace (after taking a backup copy of course ;-) So I hope the above help to save the sanity of anyone who regularly works with SSRS and MDX.   @Blakmk

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  • SSRS Parameters and MDX Data Sets

    - by blakmk
    Having spent the past few weeks creating reports and dashboards in SSRS and SSAS 2008, I was frustrated by how difficult it is to use custom datasets to generate parameter drill downs. It also seems Reporting Services can be quite unforgiving when it comes to renaming things like datasets, so I want to share a couple of techniques that I found useful. One of the things I regularly do is to add parameters to the querys. However doing this causes Reporting Services to generate a hidden dataset and parameter name for you. One of the things I like to do is tweak these hidden datasets removing the ‘ALL’ level which is a tip I picked up from Devin Knight in his blog: There are some rules i’ve developed for myself since working with SSRS and MDX, they may not be the best or only way but they work for me. Rule 1 – Never trust the automatically generated hidden datasets Or even ANY, automatically generated MDX queries for that matter.... I’ve previously blogged about this here.   If you examine the MDX generated in the hidden dataset you will see that it generates the MDX in the context of the originiating query by building a subcube, this mean it may NOT be appropriate to use this in a subsequent query which has a different context. Make sure you always understand what is going on. Often when i’m developing a dashboard or a report there are several parameter oriented datasets that I like to manually create. It can be that I have different datasets using the same dimension but in a different context. One example of this, is that I often use a dataset for last month and a dataset for the last 6 months. Both use the same date hierarchy. However Reporting Services seems not to be too smart when it comes to generating unique datasets when working with and renaming parameters and datasets. Very often I have come across this error when it comes to refactoring parameter names and default datasets. "an item with the same key has already been added" The only way I’ve found to reliably avoid this is to obey to rule 2. Rule 2 – Follow this sequence when it comes to working with Parameters and DataSets: 1.    Create Lookup and Default Datasets in advance 2.    Create parameters (set the datasets for available and default values) 3.    Go into query and tick parameter check box 4.    On dataset properties screen, select the parameter defined earlier from the parameter value defined earlier. Rule 3 – Dont tear your hair out when you have just renamed objects and your report doesn’t build Just use XML notepad on the original report file. I found I gained a good understanding of the structure of the underlying XML document just by using XML notepad. From this you can do a search and find references of the missing object. You can also just do a wholesale search and replace (after taking a backup copy of course ;-) So I hope the above help to save the sanity of anyone who regularly works with SSRS and MDX.

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