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• How to experience gradual improvement of knowledge while a newbie does .NET maintenance programming?

  - by amir

  I started my career as a software developer about 6 months ago. This is my first job, and I am the only developer in this company. I gained .NET knowledge by self study and also by doing some university projects. Our systems have old foundations based on an earlier version of .NET, and I'm starting to feel that I am not improving since I am a maintenance programmer here. Everything is old and my manager is not really taking any chances on gradually improving the software. What is your opinion? What should I do? I am newbie and also work hard to find my way through. There is no other developer, not even a senior one to help me here. I need your advice on my situation. And one last thing, can I get a new job with doing maintenance programming? I mean don't managers say that you do not have the experience of developing a new software from scratch? I feel redundant, what do I do?

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• I know how to program, and how to learn how to program, but how/where do you learn how to make systems properly?

  - by Ryan

  There are many things that need to be considered when making a system, let's take for example a web based system where users log in and interact with each other, creating and editing content. Now I have to think about security, validation (I don't even think I am 100% sure what that entails), "making sure users don't step on each others feet" (term for this?), preventing errors in many cases, making sure database data doesn't become problematic through unexpected... situations? All these things I don't know how or where to learn, is there a book on this kind of stuff? Like I said there seems to be a huge difference between writing code and actually writing the right code, know what I mean? I feel like my current programming work lacks much of what I have described and I can see the problems it causes later, and then the problems are much harder to solve because data exists and people are using it. So can anyone point me to books or resources or the proper subset of programming(?) for this type of learning? PS: feel free to correct my tags, I don't know what I am talking about. Edit: I assume some of the examples I wrote apply to other types of systems too, I just don't know any other good examples because I've been mostly involved in web work.

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• What is meant by, "A user shouldn't decide whether it is an Admin or not. The Privileges or Security system should."

  - by GlenPeterson

  The example used in the question pass bare minimum data to a function touches on the best way to determine whether the user is an administrator or not. One common answer was: user.isAdmin() This prompted a comment which was repeated several times and up-voted many times: A user shouldn't decide whether it is an Admin or not. The Privileges or Security system should. Something being tightly coupled to a class doesn't mean it is a good idea to make it part of that class. I replied, The user isn't deciding anything. The User object/table stores data about each user. Actual users don't get to change everything about themselves. But this was not productive. Clearly there is an underlying difference of perspective which is making communication difficult. Can someone explain to me why user.isAdmin() is bad, and paint a brief sketch of what it looks like done "right"? Really, I fail to see the advantage of separating security from the system that it protects. Any security text will say that security needs to be designed into a system from the beginning and considered at every stage of development, deployment, maintenance, and even end-of-life. It is not something that can be bolted on the side. But 17 up-votes so far on this comment says that I'm missing something important.

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• Reinventing the Wheel, why should I?

  - by Mercfh

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

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• What's the best way to learn/increase problem-solving skills?

  - by tucaz

  Hi all! I'm not sure this is the right place to ask this question, neither if this is the right way to ask this question but I hope you help me if it is not. I work as a programmer since I was 15 (will be 24 next week) so learning programming logic was somehow natural during the course of my career and I think that it helped me to get pretty good problem-solving. One thing none of us (programmers) can deny is that programming logic helps us in a lot of fields outside computer programming. So I'd say it is a very valuable resource that one should learn. My girlfriend is not a programmer and graduated in college on a non related course (Foreign Relations) because she didn't know what to study back then. As the years passed she discovered that she liked Logistics and started to work with it almost two years ago. However, since she does not have a technical background (not even basic Math) she is really having a hard time with it. She is already trying to catch up with Math, but even simple questions/brain-teasers are hard to her. For example, trying to find the missing numbers of this sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, _, _, 34 and so on. We know that this is Fibonacci but if we didn't we would probably be able to get to the correct answer just by "guessing" (using our acquired problem-solving skills). I'm not sure if problem-solving skills or logic are the correct name for it, but this is what I mean: quick solve problems, brain-teasers, find patterns, have a "sharp" mind. So, the question is: what is the best way for someone to learn this kind of skills without being a programmer (or studying algorithms and such)? If you say it is a book, could you please recommend one? Thanks a lot!

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• Turn-based Client-Server Card Game - Unicast (TCP) or Multicast (UDP)

  - by LDM91

  I am currently planning to make a card game project where the clients will communicate with the server in a turn-based and synchronous manner using messages sent over sockets. The problem I have is how to handle the following scenario: (Client takes it turn and sends its action to server) Client sends a message telling the server its move for the turn (e.g. plays the card 5 from its hand which needs to placed onto the table) Server receives messages and updates game state (server will hold all game state). Server iterates through a list of connected clients and sends a message to tell of them change in state Clients all refresh to display the state This is all based on using TCP, and looking at it now it seems a bit like the Observer pattern. The reason this seems to be an issue to me is this message doesn't seem to be point-to-point like the others as I want to send it to all the clients, and doesn't seem very efficient sending the same message in that way. I was thinking about using multicasting with UDP as then I could send the message to all the clients, however wouldn't this mean that the clients would in theory be able to message each other? There is of course the synchronous aspect as well, though this could be put on top of the UDP I guess. Basically, I would like to know what would be good practice as this project is really all about learning, and even though it won't be big enough to encounter performance issues from this I would like to consider them anyway. However, please note I am not interested in using message oriented middleware as a solution (I have experience with using MOM and I'm interested in considering other options excluding MOM if TCP sockets is a bad idea!).

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• Can't install Skype on Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit

  - by Gabriel Alvim

  I've tried many different ways: I downloaded the file on the Skype website, which returned me this error "Cannot install ia-32-libs" I followed this instructions https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Skype and here is what I got: **W: Failed to fetch http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/partner/Packages/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.191 80] W: Failed to fetch http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/partner/Packages/binary-i386/Packages 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.191 80] E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.** I even tried this command line: sudo apt-get install lib32stdc++6 lib32asound2 ia32-libs libc6-i386 lib32gcc1 skype And this is what I got: **Error: need a repository as argument pandora@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install lib32stdc++6 lib32asound2 ia32-libs libc6-i386 lib32gcc1 skype Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies: ia32-libs : Depends: ia32-libs-multiarch skype : Depends: skype-bin E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.** I just don't know what to do anymore, if I can't use skype, I might as well not use ubuntu at all. Please, someone help

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• Gigabyte u24f Touchpad (elantech) not detected

  - by user314973

  A new Ubuntu user here. I just installed Ubuntu 14.04 on my gigabyte U24F laptop. At first the touch-pad (I believe it's elantech) was working fine but one day I turned it off using fn+f10 key from the keyboard. The next day I could no longer turn it back on and it has since been undetected by the system. xinput returns Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)] ? ? Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)] ? ? Logitech USB Optical Mouse id=11 [slave pointer (2)] ? Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)] ? Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Video Bus id=7 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Sleep Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Video Bus id=9 [slave keyboard (3)] ? Power Button id=10 [slave keyboard (3)] ? AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=12 [slave keyboard (3)] so there's no touch-pad detected. I'm using a USB mouse at the moment. Attempting to run synclient gives "Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded?" Things I've tried so far to no avail Reinstalling xserver-xorg-input-synaptics. Checking dconf.editor settings, touchpad is enabled. Booting into a live usb session, touchpad no longer even works in this case. (Does this mean a fresh install wouldn't even solve the problem?) Any help is greatly appreciated!

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• ROI in choosing a CMS solution

  - by Tio

  At the company I work for we need a CMS. The question is, what to choose, for me I think the best solution is to develop one of our own, but we ( my boss and I ), talked about using Drupal. But my boss is completely non-technical, and want's to take a lot of shortcut's which for programming is utterly bad. Too many shortcut's ( and that's why just last Friday we had a bug on one of our systems that caused a lot of panic ). So I'm trying to investigate on the ROI of using already existing CMS solutions VS developing our own customized CMS ( based on a open source library or not ). So that I can sell this to my boss. I'm almost sure that developing a customized CMS is the best for our small company. After a search on google I found this: Choose between a commercial, open source, or customized CMS, but the link is from 2003, it has some truth's, but the world changed a lot from 2003. But I can't seem to find anything else about it. I've developed my own CMS, so I know it's not the most easy thing to do, and that it takes time. Can someone give me any tips? EDIT: With CMS I mean Content Management System, to manage the webpages of our clients.

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• Information about how much time in spent in a function, based on the input of this function

  - by olchauvin

  Is there a (quantitative) tool to measure performance of functions based on its input? So far, the tools I used to measure performance of my code, tells me how much time I spent in functions (like Jetbrain Dottrace for .Net), but I'd like to have more information about the parameters passed to the function in order to know which parameters impact the most the performance. Let's say that I have function like that: int myFunction(int myParam1, int myParam 2) { // Do and return something based on the value of myParam1 and myParam2. // The code is likely to use if, for, while, switch, etc.... } If would like a tool that would allow me to tell me how much time is spent in myFunction based on the value of myParam1 and myParam2. For example, the tool would give me a result looking like this: For "myFunction" : value | value | Number of | Average myParam1 | myParam2 | call | time ---------|----------|-----------|-------- 1 | 5 | 500 | 301 ms 2 | 5 | 250 | 1253 ms 3 | 7 | 1268 | 538 ms ... That would mean that myFunction has been call 500 times with myParam1=1 and myParam2=5, and that with those parameters, it took on average 301ms to return a value. The idea behind that is to do some statistical optimization by organizing my code such that, the blocs of codes that are the most likely to be executed are tested before the one that are less likely to be executed. To put it bluntly, if I know which values are used the most, I can reorganize the if/while/for etc.. structure of the function (and the whole program) to optimize it. I'd like to find such tools for C++, Java or.Net. Note: I am not looking for technical tips to optimize the code (like passing parameters as const, inlining functions, initializing the capacity of vectors and the like).

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• crippling repeating "pciehp card not present" notifications

  - by Nanne

  When using ubuntu (12.04, both installed and on a live usb) I get a lot of these messages: pciehp 0000:00:1c.5:pcie04: Card not present on Slot(37) pciehp 0000:00:1c.5:pcie04: Card present on Slot(37) And with a lot I mean about 20 per second. This has a crippling effect, and I would like to get rid of it :) The computer is a packard bell easynote BG48-U-100 DC. I tip I picked up from some fedora/redhat error here was to look at lspci -vnn. I have pasted the part about "00:1c.5" here: http://pastebin.com/0sfsiqW2 For what good it may do, here is the lsmod of my machine: http://pastebin.com/DQZy1kAL From that first pastebin I think to conclude that it has to do with the module shpchp, which seems to me (aka: google) to have something to do with ACPI. That's as far as I've come in disecting this. Can anyone help me along further? What can I do, check etc? I did see this topic but my intentions are not to surpress the error message: I know how to do this (from that topic ;) ), but I'm looking for a real sollution. Finding the problem on the internet does suspect me to believe it is neither an ubuntu specific nor a packard-bell specific problem.If you google the problem it seems that is present on several other distribution/hardware combo's as well, and it looks like the advice is to remove one of the drivers? I have no clue as to which driver I should look at and and what would be the effect of just removing it. I have seen this topic which is old-ish, but describes my problem and is about a similar computer. The solution in this topic was to compile a new kernel using a spanish guide, which seems a bit extreme to me, so I'm kinda hoping for a better solution than that.

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• Mocking concrete class - Not recommended

  - by Mik378

  I've just read an excerpt of "Growing Object-Oriented Software" book which explains some reasons why mocking concrete class is not recommended. Here some sample code of a unit-test for the MusicCentre class: public class MusicCentreTest { @Test public void startsCdPlayerAtTimeRequested() { final MutableTime scheduledTime = new MutableTime(); CdPlayer player = new CdPlayer() { @Override public void scheduleToStartAt(Time startTime) { scheduledTime.set(startTime); } } MusicCentre centre = new MusicCentre(player); centre.startMediaAt(LATER); assertEquals(LATER, scheduledTime.get()); } } And his first explanation: The problem with this approach is that it leaves the relationship between the objects implicit. I hope we've made clear by now that the intention of Test-Driven Development with Mock Objects is to discover relationships between objects. If I subclass, there's nothing in the domain code to make such a relationship visible, just methods on an object. This makes it harder to see if the service that supports this relationship might be relevant elsewhere and I'll have to do the analysis again next time I work with the class. I can't figure out exactly what he means when he says: This makes it harder to see if the service that supports this relationship might be relevant elsewhere and I'll have to do the analysis again next time I work with the class. I understand that the service corresponds to MusicCentre's method called startMediaAt. What does he mean by "elsewhere"? The complete excerpt is here: http://www.mockobjects.com/2007/04/test-smell-mocking-concrete-classes.html

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• Compute the AES-encryption key given the plaintext and its ciphertext?

  - by Null Pointers etc.

  I'm tasked with creating database tables in Oracle which contain encrypted strings (i.e., the columns are RAW). The strings are encrypted by the application (using AES, 128-bit key) and stored in Oracle, then later retrieved from Oracle and decrypted (i.e., Oracle itself never sees the unencrypted strings). I've come across this one column that will be one of two strings. I'm worried that someone will notice and presumably figure out what those two values to figure out the AES key. For example, if someone sees that the column is either Ciphertext #1 or #2: Ciphertext #1: BF,4F,8B,FE, 60,D8,33,56, 1B,F2,35,72, 49,20,DE,C6. Ciphertext #2: BC,E8,54,BD, F4,B3,36,3B, DD,70,76,45, 29,28,50,07. and knows the corresponding Plaintexts: Plaintext #1 ("Detroit"): 44,00,65,00, 74,00,72,00, 6F,00,69,00, 74,00,00,00. Plaintext #2 ("Chicago"): 43,00,68,00, 69,00,63,00, 61,00,67,00, 6F,00,00,00. can he deduce that the encryption key is "Buffalo"? 42,00,75,00, 66,00,66,00, 61,00,6C,00, 6F,00,00,00. I'm thinking that there should be only one 128-bit key that could convert Plaintext #1 to Ciphertext #1. Does this mean I should go to a 192-bit or 256-bit key instead, or find some other solution? (As an aside, here are two other ciphertexts for the same plaintexts but with a different key.) Ciphertext #1 A ("Detroit"): E4,28,29,E3, 6E,C2,64,FA, A1,F4,F4,96, FC,18,4A,C5. Ciphertext #2 A ("Chicago"): EA,87,30,F0, AC,44,5D,ED, FD,EB,A8,79, 83,59,53,B7.

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• What is the philosophy/reasoning behind C#'s Pascal-casing method names?

  - by Nocturne

  I'm just starting to learn C#. Coming from a background in Java, C++ and Objective-C, I find C#'s Pascal-casing its method-names rather unique, and a tad difficult to get used to at first. What is the reasoning and philosophy behind this? I'm guessing it is because of C# properties. Unlike in Objective-C, where method names can be exactly the same as an instance variables, this is not the case with C#. I would guess one of the goals with properties (as it is with most of the languages that support it) is to make properties truly indistinguishable from variables and methods. So, one can have an "int x" in C#, and the corresponding property becomes X. To ensure that properties and methods are indistinguishable, all method names I'm guessing are also therefore expected to start with an uppercase letter. (This is just my hypothesis based on what I know of C# so far—I'm still learning). I'm very curious to know how this curious guideline came into being (given that it's not something one sees in most other languages where method names are expected to start with a lowercase letter) (EDIT: By Pascal-casing, I mean PascalCase (which is basically camelCase but starting with a capital letter). Method names typically start with a lowercase letter in most languages)

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• How to Turn Your Home Ubuntu PC Into a LAMP Web Server

  - by YatriTrivedi

  Got a Linux PC you want to put to work? Maybe you’re not comfortable with the command-line only version of Ubuntu Server Edition. Here’s how to keep the standard Ubuntu desktop and add web-serving capabilities to it. Whether you’re not comfortable with a command-line only system, you’re using your Ubuntu desktop for other things, or you just need it installed for a few particular apps, you can add Apache, MySQL, and PHP to any standard desktop installation of Ubuntu very quickly and easily Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Integrate Dropbox with Pages, Keynote, and Numbers on iPad RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean? How to Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally How To Colorize Black and White Vintage Photographs in Photoshop How To Get SSH Command-Line Access to Windows 7 Using Cygwin The How-To Geek Video Guide to Using Windows 7 Speech Recognition Stylebot Customizes Web Pages in Chrome, Now Has Downloadable Styles Blackberry, Dell, Apple, and Motorola Tablets Compared [Infographic] Encrypt Your Google Search Queries Vintage Posters Showcase the History of Tech Advertising Google Cloud Print Extension Lets You Print Doc/PDF/Txt Files from Web Sites Hack a $10 Flashlight into an Ultra-bright Premium One

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• Unicode license

  - by Eric Grange

  Unicode Terms of use (http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html) state that any software that uses their data files (or a modification of it) should carry the Unicode license references. It seems to me that most Unicode libraries have functions to check if a character is a digit, a letter, a symbol, etc. ans so will contain a modification of the Unicode Data Files (usually in the form of tables). Does that mean the license applies and all applications that use such Unicode libraries should carry the license? I've checked around, and it appears very few Unicode software do carry the license, though arguable most of those that didn't carry the license were from companies that were members of the Unicode consortium (do they get license exemption?). Some (f.i. Mozilla) are only "Liaison Members", and while their software do not carry the license (AFAICT), they do obviously rely on data derived from those data files. Is Mozilla in breach of the license? Should we carry the license in all apps that include any form of advanced Unicode support? (ie. are bound to rely on the Unicode data files) Or is there some form of broad exemption? (since very very few software out there carries the license)

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• Easily Add Program Shortcuts to the Desktop Context Menu in Windows 7

  - by Lori Kaufman

  If you use the Desktop context menu often, wouldn’t it be useful if you could add program shortcuts to it so you can quickly access your favorite apps? We’ve shown you how to do this using a quick registry tweak, but there’s an easier way. DeskIntegrator is a free, portable program that allows you to quickly and easily add applications to the Desktop context menu. It does not need to be installed. Extract the program files from the .zip file you downloaded (see the link at the end of the article) to a location on your hard drive. NOTE: This article shows you how to use DeskIntegrator in Windows 7, but we tested it in Windows 8 Release Preview and it worked there as well. To use DeskIntegrator, you must run it as administrator. Right-click on the DeskIntegrator.exe file and select Run as administrator from the popup menu. HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It? HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me? HTG Explains: How Windows 8′s Secure Boot Feature Works & What It Means for Linux

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• Non-blocking ORM issues

  - by Nikolay Fominyh

  Once I had question on SO, and found that there are no non-blocking ORMs for my favorite framework. I mean ORM with callback support for asynchronous retrieval. The ORM would be supplied with a callback or some such to "activate" when data has been received. Otherwise ORM needs to be split of in a separate thread to guarantee UI responsiveness. I want to create one, but I have some questions that blocking me from starting development: What issues we can meet when developing ORM? Does word "non-blocking" before word "ORM" will dramatically increase complexity of ORM? Why there are not much non-blocking ORMs around? Update: It looks, that I have to improve my question. We have solutions that already allows us to receive data in non-blocking way. And I believe that not all companies that use such solutions - using raw SQL. We want to create more generic solution, that we can reuse in future projects. What difficulties we can meet?

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• Does anybody know of any resources to achieve this particular "2.5D" isometric engine effect?

  - by Craig Whitley

  I understand this is a little vague, but I was hoping somebody might be able to describe a high-level workflow or link to a resource to be able to achieve a specific isometric "2.5D" tile engine effect. I fell in love with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6ISVaM5Ww this engine. Especially with the lighting and the shaders! He has a brief description of how he achieved what he did, but I could really use a brief flow of where you would start, what you would read up on and learn and the logical order to implement these things. A few specific questions: 1) Is there a heightmap on the ground texture that lets the light reflect brighter on certain parts of it? 2) "..using a special material which calculates the world-space normal vectors of every pixel.." - is this some "magic" special material he has created himself, or can you hazard a guess at what he means? 3) with relation to the above quote - what does he mean by 'world-space normal vectors of every pixel'? 4) I'm guessing I'm being a little bit optimistic when I ask if there's any 'all-in-one' tutorial out there? :)

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• good literature for teaching object oriented thinking in C [closed]

  - by Dipan Mehta

  Quite often C is the primary platform for the development. And when things are large scale, I have seen partitioning of the system as different objects is quite a natural thing. Some or many of the object orientated analysis and design principles are used here very well. This is not a debate question about whether or not C is a good candidate for object oriented programming or not. This is also NOT a question how to do OO in C. You can refer to this question and there are probably many such citations. As far as I am concerned, I have learned some of this things while working with many open source and commercial projects. (libjpeg, ffmpeg, Gstreamer which is based on GObject). I can probably extend a few references that explains some of these concepts such as - 1. Event Helix article, 2. Linux Mag article 3. one of my answers which links Schreiner's reference. Unfortunately, when we induct younger folks, it seems too hard to make them learn all of it the hard way. Usually, when we say it's C, a general reaction is to throw away all of the "Object thinking". Looking for help extending above references from those who have been in the similar areas of work. Are there any good formal literature that explains how Object thinking can be made to use while you are working in C? I have seen tons of book on general "object oriented paradigms" but they all focus on advanced languages mostly not in C. You see most C books - but most focus only on the syntax and the obfuscated corners of C and that's it. There are hardly ANY good reference, specially books or any systematic (I mean formal) literature on how to apply OO in C. This is very surprising given that so many large scale open source projects use C which are truly using this very well; but we hardly see any good formal literature on this subject.

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• Contract Work - Lessons Learned

  - by samerpaul

  I thought I would write a post of a different nature today, but still relevant to the tech world. I do a lot of contract jobs myself and really enjoy it. It's nice to keep jumping from project to project, and not having to go to an office or keep regular hours, etc. I really enjoy it. I have learned a lot in the past few years of doing it (both from experience and from help given to me from others, and the internet) so I thought I'd share some of that knowledge/experience today.So here's my own personal "lesson's learned" that hopefully will help you if you find yourself doing contract work:Should I take the job?Ok, so this is the first step. Assuming you were given sufficient information about what they want, then you should really think about what you're capable of doing and whether or not you should take this job. Personally, my rule is, if I know it's possible, I'll say yes, even if I don't yet know how to do it. That's because the internet is such a great help, it would be rare to run into an issue that you can't figure out with some help. So if your clients are asking for something that you don't yet know how to program, but you know you can do it on the platform then go for it. How else are you going to learn?Use this rule with some limitation, however. If you're really lacking the expertise or foundation in something, then unless you have tons of time to complete the project, then I wouldn't say yes. For example, I haven't personally done any 3d/openGL programming yet so I wouldn't say yes to a project that extensively uses it. OK, so I want the job, but how much do I charge?This part can be tricky. There is no set formula really, but I have some tips for pricing that will hopefully give you a better idea on how to confidently ask your price and have them accept. Here are some personal guidelinesHow much time do you have to complete the project? If it's shorter than average, then charge more. You can even make a subtle note about this (or not so subtle if they still don't get it.) If it seems too short of a time (i.e. near impossible to complete), be sure to say that. It looks bad to promise a time that you can't keep--and it makes it less likely for them to return to you for work.Your Hourly rate: How long have you been working in that language? Do you have existing projects to back you up? Or previous contacts that can vouch for your work? Are there very few people with your particular skill set? All of these things will lend themselves to setting an hourly rate. I'd also try out a quick google search of what your line of work is, to see what the industry standard is at that point in time.I wouldn't price too low, because you want to make your time worth it. You also want them to feel like they're paying for quality work (assuming you can deliver it :) ). Finally, think about your client. If it's a small business, then don't price it too high if you want the job. If it's an enterprise (like a Fortune company), then don't be afraid to price higher. They have the budget for it.Fixed price: If they want a fixed price project, then you need to think about how many hours it will take you to complete it and multiply it by the hourly rate you set for yourself. Then, honestly, I would add 10-20% on top of that. Why? Because nothing ever works exactly how you want it to. There are lots of times that something "trivial" is way harder than it should be, or something that "should work" doesn't for hours and it eats away at your hourly rate. I can't count the number of times I encountered a logical bug that took away an entire's day work because debuggers don't help in those cases. By adding that padding in, it's still OK to have those days where you don't get as much done as you want. And another useful tip: Depending on your client, and the scope, you most likely want to set that you both sign off on a specification sheet before doing any work, and that any changes will result in a re-evaulation of the price. This is to help protect you from being handed a huge new addition to the project half-way in, without any extra payment.Scope of project: Finally, is it a huge project? Is it really small/fast? This affects how much your client will be willing to pay. If it sounds big, they will be willing to pay more for it. If it seems really small, then you won't be able to get away with a large asking price (as easily).Ok, I priced it, now what?So now that you have the price, you want to make sure it feels justified to your client. I never set a price before I can really think about everything. For example, if you're still in your introduction phase, and they want a price, don't give one! Just comment that you will send them a proposal sheet with all the features outlined, and a price for everything. You don't want to shout out a low number and then deliver something that is way higher. You also don't want to shock them with a big number before they feel like they are getting a great product.Make up a proposal document in a word editor. Personally, I leave the price till the very end. Why? Because by the time they reach the end, you've already discussed all the great features you plan to implement, and how it's the best product they'll ever use, etc etc...so your price comes off as a steal! If you hit them up front with a price, they will read through the document with a negative bias. Think about those commercials on TV. They always go on about their product, then at the end, ask "What would you pay for something like this? $100? $50? How about $20!!". This is not by accident.Scenario: I finished the job way earlier than expectedYou have two options then. You can either polish the hell out of the application, and even throw in a few bonus features (assuming they are in-line with the customer's needs) or you can sit and wait on it until you near your deadline. Why don't you want to turn it in too early? Because you should treat that extra time as a surplus. If you said it is going to take you 3 weeks, and it took you only 1, you have a surplus of 2 weeks. I personally don't want to let them know that I can do a 3 week project in 1 week. Why not? Because that may not always be the case! I may later have a 3 week project that takes all 3 weeks, but if I set a precedent of delivering super early, then the pressure is on for that longer project. It also makes it harder to quote longer times if you keep delivering too early.Feel free to deliver early, but again, don't do it too early. They may also wonder why they paid you for 3 weeks of work if you're done in 1. They may further wonder if the product sucks, or what is wrong with it, if it's done so early, etc.I would just polish the application. Everyone loves polish in their applications. The smallest details are what make an application go from "functional" to "fantastic". And since you are still delivering on time, then they are still going to be very happy with you.Scenario: It's taking way too long to finish this, and the deadline is nearing/here!So this is not a fun scenario to be in, but it'll happen. Sometimes the scope of the project gets out of hand. The best policy here is OPENNESS/HONESTY. Tell them that the project is taking longer than expected, and give a reasonable time for when you think you'll have it done. I typically explain it in a way that makes it sound like it isn't something that I did wrong, but it's just something about the nature of the project. This really goes for any scenario, to be honest. Just continue to stay open and communicative about your progress. This doesn't mean that you should email them every five minutes (unless they want you to), but it does mean that maybe every few days or once a week, give them an update on where you're at, and what's next. They'll be happy to know they are paying for progress, and it'll make it easier to ask for an extension when something goes wrong, because they know that you've been working on it all along.Final tips and thoughts:In general, contract work is really fun and rewarding. It's nice to learn new things all the time, as mandated by the project ,and to challenge yourself to do things you may not have done before. The key is to build a great relationship with your clients for future work, and for recommendations. I am always very honest with them and I never promise something I can't deliver. Again, under promise, over deliver!I hope this has proved helpful!Cheers,samerpaul

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• Why the clip space in OpenGL has 4 dimensions?

  - by user827992

  I will use this as a generic reference, but the more i browser online docs and books, the less i understand about this. const float vertexPositions[] = { 0.75f, 0.75f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.75f, -0.75f, 0.0f, 1.0f, -0.75f, -0.75f, 0.0f, 1.0f, }; in this online book there is an example about how to draw the first and classic hello world for OpenGL about making a triangle. The vertex structure for the triangle is declared as stated in the code above. The book, as all the other sources about this, stress the point that the Clip Space is a 4D structure that is used to basically decide what will be rasterized and rendered to the screen. Here I have my questions: i can't imagine something in 4D, i don't think that a human can do that, what is a 4D for this Clip space ? the most human-readable doc that i have read speaks about a camera, which is just an abstraction over the clipping concept, and i get that, the problem is, why not using the concept of a camera in the first place which is a more familiar 3D structure? The only problem with the concept of a camera is that you need to define the prospective in other way and so you basically have to add another statement about what kind of camera you wish to have. How i'm supposed to read this 0.75f, 0.75f, 0.0f, 1.0f ? All i get is that they are all float values and i get the meaning of the first 3 values, what does it mean the last one?

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• How do I force apt-get to install a package that will not install due to a bug introduced by Ubuntu 11.10?

  - by Hemm

  Ubuntu 11.10 separated out python-profiler from the Python standard library due to licensing philosophies. (According to what I could Google, correct me if I'm wrong.) This is an active bug since October for 11.10. I have Python 2.7.2 installed, so the dependency errors are wrong. 'apt-get check' does not resolve the problem. What is the best way to resolve to this? Thank you. sudo apt-get install python-profiler Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies: python-profiler : Depends: python (>= 2.5) but it is not going to be installed Depends: python (< 2.8) but it is not going to be installed E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

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• YOUR FREE, EXCLUSIVE, ONLINE UPDATE ON FANTASTIC NEW ORACLE PARTNER OPPORTUNITIES - REGISTER TODAY!

  - by Claudia Costa

  New products. New specializations. New opportunities.There really has never been a better time to be an Oracle partner! Find out exactly what Oracle's "Software. Hardware. Complete" strategy, and the latest developments in the OPN Specialized program, mean for your business.   Register now for the Oracle PartnerNetwork Days Virtual Event on the 29th of June at 11:00h to learn: How to use Oracle's uniquely comprehensive technology stack to grow your business How specialization with Oracle can significantly improve your competitive position How the Oracle PartnerNetwork is evolving to help you succeed Highlights include important updates from Oracle EMEA strategy, partner and product leaders, a live link to the Oracle FY11 Global Partner Kickoff, and interviews with local Oracle partners that are already enjoying the benefits of specialization. The event will also feature: ·         Live Q&A sessions with our speakers, ·         Virtual information booths packed with useful information ·         Opportunities to network with Oracle experts and your peers. ·         Special guest speaker is a former Microsoft executive who has used the principles of specialization with spectacular results to become one of the world's most successful social entrepreneurs. Plus, at the end of the event, you can submit your feedback form for your chance to win two passes to Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco this September! CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW!

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• Large enterprise application - clients wish to use duplicate e-mails addresses?

  - by Alex Key

  I'd like to know people's opinions, reactions to clients and technical work arounds (if applicable), to the issue of an enterprise application where a client wishes to use duplicate e-mail addresses? To clarify, when I say duplicate e-mail addresses I mean within the same client system, having multiple users that have the same e-mail address. So not just using generic e-mail addresses but using the e-mail address of another user. e.g. Bob Jenkins: [email protected] James Jeffery: [email protected] Context To give this some further context, in the e-learning sector it is common that although all staff in an organisation must complete e-learning - they may not have their own e-mail address so they choose to use their managers e-mail address. Albeit against good practice in public sites... it's a requirement we've over and over again where an organisation is split between office based staff and perhaps e.g. staff in a warehouse. Where problem lies Mr Steak, good point, the problem lies in password resets and perhaps in situations where semi-personal information could be sent (not confidential enough to worry about the insecurities of email). Perhaps reminders for specific system actions, which would be confusing for the unintended party to see (if perhaps misreading the e-mail's intended recipient) Possible solutions System knowing the difference between a "for the attention of" and direct to the person e-mails, including this in the body text. Using alternative communication such as SMS Simply not having e-mails sent to people who are not the intended recipient. Providing an e-mail service ourselfs (not really viable for a corporate IT dept) Thoughts?

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