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• Stepping outside Visual Studio IDE [Part 2 of 2] with Mono 2.6.4

  - by mbcrump

  Continuing part 2 of my Stepping outside the Visual Studio IDE, is the open-source Mono Project. Mono is a software platform designed to allow developers to easily create cross platform applications. Sponsored by Novell (http://www.novell.com/), Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime. A growing family of solutions and an active and enthusiastic contributing community is helping position Mono to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications. So, to clarify. You can use Mono to develop .NET applications that will run on Linux, Windows or Mac. It’s basically a IDE that has roots in Linux. Let’s first look at the compatibility: Compatibility If you already have an application written in .Net, you can scan your application with the Mono Migration Analyzer (MoMA) to determine if your application uses anything not supported by Mono. The current release version of Mono is 2.6. (Released December 2009) The easiest way to describe what Mono currently supports is: Everything in .NET 3.5 except WPF and WF, limited WCF. Here is a slightly more detailed view, by .NET framework version: Implemented C# 3.0 System.Core LINQ ASP.Net 3.5 ASP.Net MVC C# 2.0 (generics) Core Libraries 2.0: mscorlib, System, System.Xml ASP.Net 2.0 - except WebParts ADO.Net 2.0 Winforms/System.Drawing 2.0 - does not support right-to-left C# 1.0 Core Libraries 1.1: mscorlib, System, System.Xml ASP.Net 1.1 ADO.Net 1.1 Winforms/System.Drawing 1.1 Partially Implemented LINQ to SQL - Mostly done, but a few features missing WCF - silverlight 2.0 subset completed Not Implemented WPF - no plans to implement WF - Will implement WF 4 instead on future versions of Mono. System.Management - does not map to Linux System.EnterpriseServices - deprecated Links to documentation. The Official Mono FAQ’s Links to binaries. Mono IDE Latest Version is 2.6.4 That's it, nothing more is required except to compile and run .net code in Linux. Installation After landing on the mono project home page, you can select which platform you want to download. I typically pick the Virtual PC image since I spend all of my day using Windows 7. Go ahead and pick whatever version is best for you. The Virtual PC image comes with Suse Linux. Once the image is launch, you will see the following: I’m not going to go through each option but its best to start with “Start Here” icon. It will provide you with information on new projects or existing VS projects. After you get Mono installed, it's probably a good idea to run a quick Hello World program to make sure everything is setup properly. This allows you to know that your Mono is working before you try writing or running a more complex application. To write a "Hello World" program follow these steps: Start Mono Development Environment. Create a new Project: File->New->Solution Select "Console Project" in the category list. Enter a project name into the Project name field, for example, "HW Project". Click "Forward" Click “Packaging” then OK. You should have a screen very simular to a VS Console App. Click the "Run" button in the toolbar (Ctrl-F5). Look in the Application Output and you should have the “Hello World!” Your screen should look like the screen below. That should do it for a simple console app in mono. To test out an ASP.NET application, simply copy your code to a new directory in /srv/www/htdocs, then visit the following URL: http://localhost/directoryname/page.aspx where directoryname is the directory where you deployed your application and page.aspx is the initial page for your software. Databases You can continue to use SQL server database or use MySQL, Postgress, Sybase, Oracle, IBM’s DB2 or SQLite db. Conclusion I hope this brief look at the Mono IDE helps someone get acquainted with development outside of VS. As always, I welcome any suggestions or comments.

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• At the Java DEMOgrounds - Oracle Java ME Embedded Enables the “Internet of Things”

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  I caught up with Oracle’s Robert Barnes, Senior Director, Java Product Management, who was demonstrating a new product from Oracle’s Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) product portfolio, Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2, a complete client Java runtime optimized for microcontrollers and other resource-constrained devices. Oracle’s Java ME Embedded 3.2 is a Java ME runtime based on CLDC 1.1 (JSR-139) and IMP-NG (JSR-228).“What we are showing here is the Java ME Embedded 3.2 that we announced last week,” explained Barnes. “It’s the start of the 'Internet of Things,’ in which you have very very small devices that are on the edge of the network where the sensors sit. You often have a middle area called a gateway or a concentrator which is fairly middle to higher performance. On the back end you have a very high performance server. What this is showing is Java spanning all the way from the server side right down towards the type of chip that you will get at the sensor side as the network.” Barnes explained that he had two different demos running.The first, called the Solar Panel System Demo, measures the brightness of the light.  “This,” said Barnes, “is a light source demo with a Cortex M3 controlling the motor, on the end of which is a sensor which is measuring the brightness of the lamp. This is recording the data of the brightness of the lamp and as we move the lamp out of the way, we should be able using the server to turn the sensor towards the lamp so the brightness reading will go higher. This sends the message back to the server and we can look at the web server sitting on the PC underneath the desk. We can actually see the data being passed back effectively through a back office type of function within a utility environment.” The second demo, the Smart Grid Response Demo, Barnes explained, “has the same board and processor and is still using Java ME embedded with a different app on top. This is a demand response demo. What we are seeing within the managing environment is that people want to track the pricing signals of the electricity. If it’s particularly expensive at any point in time, they may turn something off. This demo sets the price of the electricity as though this is coming from the back of the server sending pricing signals to my home.” The demo had a lamp and a fan and it was tracking the price of electricity. “If I set the price of the electricity to go over 5 cents, then the device will turn off,” explained Barnes. “I can go into my settings and, in this case, change the price to 50 cents and we can wait a minus and the lamp will go off. When I change the pricing signal so that it is lower, the lamp will come back on. The key point is that the Java software we have running is the same across all the different devices; it’s a way to build applications across multiple devices using the same software. This is important because it fixes peak loading on the network and can stops blackouts.” This demo brought me back to a prior decade when Sun Microsystems first promoted  Jini technology, a version of Java that would put everything on the network and give us the smart home. Your home would be automated to tell you when you were out of milk, when to change your light bulbs, etc. You would have access to the web and the network throughout your home.It’s interesting to see how technology moves over time – from the smart home to the Internet of Things.

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• What are the disadvantages of self-encapsulation?

  - by Dave Jarvis

  Background Tony Hoare's billion dollar mistake was the invention of null. Subsequently, a lot of code has become riddled with null pointer exceptions (segfaults) when software developers try to use (dereference) uninitialized variables. In 1989, Wirfs-Brock and Wikerson wrote: Direct references to variables severely limit the ability of programmers to re?ne existing classes. The programming conventions described here structure the use of variables to promote reusable designs. We encourage users of all object-oriented languages to follow these conventions. Additionally, we strongly urge designers of object-oriented languages to consider the effects of unrestricted variable references on reusability. Problem A lot of software, especially in Java, but likely in C# and C++, often uses the following pattern: public class SomeClass { private String someAttribute; public SomeClass() { this.someAttribute = "Some Value"; } public void someMethod() { if( this.someAttribute.equals( "Some Value" ) ) { // do something... } } public void setAttribute( String s ) { this.someAttribute = s; } public String getAttribute() { return this.someAttribute; } } Sometimes a band-aid solution is used by checking for null throughout the code base: public void someMethod() { assert this.someAttribute != null; if( this.someAttribute.equals( "Some Value" ) ) { // do something... } } public void anotherMethod() { assert this.someAttribute != null; if( this.someAttribute.equals( "Some Default Value" ) ) { // do something... } } The band-aid does not always avoid the null pointer problem: a race condition exists. The race condition is mitigated using: public void anotherMethod() { String someAttribute = this.someAttribute; assert someAttribute != null; if( someAttribute.equals( "Some Default Value" ) ) { // do something... } } Yet that requires two statements (assignment to local copy and check for null) every time a class-scoped variable is used to ensure it is valid. Self-Encapsulation Ken Auer's Reusability Through Self-Encapsulation (Pattern Languages of Program Design, Addison Wesley, New York, pp. 505-516, 1994) advocated self-encapsulation combined with lazy initialization. The result, in Java, would resemble: public class SomeClass { private String someAttribute; public SomeClass() { setAttribute( "Some Value" ); } public void someMethod() { if( getAttribute().equals( "Some Value" ) ) { // do something... } } public void setAttribute( String s ) { this.someAttribute = s; } public String getAttribute() { String someAttribute = this.someAttribute; if( someAttribute == null ) { setAttribute( createDefaultValue() ); } return someAttribute; } protected String createDefaultValue() { return "Some Default Value"; } } All duplicate checks for null are superfluous: getAttribute() ensures the value is never null at a single location within the containing class. Efficiency arguments should be fairly moot -- modern compilers and virtual machines can inline the code when possible. As long as variables are never referenced directly, this also allows for proper application of the Open-Closed Principle. Question What are the disadvantages of self-encapsulation, if any? (Ideally, I would like to see references to studies that contrast the robustness of similarly complex systems that use and don't use self-encapsulation, as this strikes me as a fairly straightforward testable hypothesis.)

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• More Stuff less Fluff

  - by brendonpage

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/brendonpage/archive/2013/11/08/more-stuff-less-fluff.aspxYAGNI – "You Aren't Going To Need It". This is an acronym commonly used in software development to remind developers to only write what they need. This acronym exists because software developers have gotten into the habit of writing everything they need to solve a problem and then everything they think they're going to possibly need in the future. Since we can't predict the future this results in a large portion of the code that we write never being used. That extra code causes unnecessary complexity, which makes it harder to understand and harder to modify when we inevitably have to write something that we didn't think of. I've known about YAGNI for some time now but I never really got it. The words made sense and the idea was clear but the concept never sank in. I was one of those devs who'd happily write a ton of code in the anticipation of future needs. In my mind this was an essential part of writing high quality code. I didn't realise that in doing so I was actually writing low quality code. If you are anything like me you are probably thinking "Lies and propaganda! High quality code needs to be future proof." I agree! But what makes code future proof? If we could see into the future the answer would be simple, code that allows for or meets all future requirements. Since we can't see the future the best we can do is write code that can easily adapt to future requirements, this means writing flexible code. Flexible code is: Fast to understand. Fast to add to. Fast to modify. To be flexible code has to be simple, this means only making it as complex as it needs to be to meet those 3 criteria. That is high quality code. YAGNI! The art is in deciding where to place the seams (abstractions) that will give you flexibility without making decisions about future functionality. Robert C Martin explains it very nicely, he says a good architecture allows you to defer decisions because if you can defer a decision then you have the flexibility to change it. I've recently had a YAGNI experience which brought this all into perspective. I was working on a new project which had multiple clients that connect to a server hosted in the cloud. I was tasked with adding a feature to the desktop client that would allow users to capture items that would then be saved to the cloud. My immediate thought was "Hey we have multiple clients so I should build a web service for these items, that way we can access them from other clients", so I went to work and this is what I created.  I stood back and gazed upon what I'd created with a warm fuzzy feeling. It was beautiful! Then the time came for the team to use the design I'd created for another feature with a new entity. Let's just say that they didn't get the same warm fuzzy feeling that I did when they looked at the design. After much discussion they eventually got it through to me that I'd bloated the design based on an assumption of future functionality. After much more discussion we cut the design down to the following. This design gives us future flexibility with no extra work, it is as complex as it needs to be. It has been a couple of months since this incident and we still haven't needed to access either of the entities from other clients. Using the simpler design allowed us to do more stuff with less stuff!

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• Construction Paper, Legos, and Architectural Modeling

  I can remember as a kid playing with construction paper and Legos to explore my imagination. Through my exploration I was able to build airplanes, footballs, guns, and more, out of paper. Additionally I could create entire cities, robots, or anything else I could image out of Legos.  These toys, I now realize were in fact tools that gave me an opportunity to explore my ideas in the physical world through the use of modeling.  My imagination was allowed to run wild as I, unknowingly at the time, made design decisions that directly affected the models I was building from the raw materials.  To prove my point further, I can remember building a paper airplane that seemed to go nowhere when I tried to throw it. So I decided to attach a paper clip to the plane before I decided to throw it the next time to test my concept that by adding more weight to the plane that it would fly better and for longer distances. The paper airplane allowed me to model my design decision through the use of creating an artifact in that I created a paper airplane that was carrying extra weight through the incorporation of the paper clip in to the design. Also, I remember using Legos to build all sorts of creations, and these creations became artifacts of my imagination. As I further and further defined my Lego creations through the process of playing I was able to create elaborate artifacts of my imagination. These artifacts represented design decision I had made in the evolution of my creation through my child like design process. In some form or fashion the artifacts I created as a kid are very similar to the artifacts that I create when I model a software architectural concept or a software design in that the process of making decisions is directly translated in to a tangible model in the form of an architectural model. Architectural models have been defined as artifacts that depict design decisions of a system’s architecture.  The act of creating architectural models is the act of architectural modeling. Furthermore, architectural modeling is the process of creating a physical model based architectural concepts and documenting these design decisions. In the process of creating models, the standard notation used is Architectural modeling notation. This notation is the primary method of capturing the essence of design decisions regarding architecture.  Modeling notations can vary based on the need and intent of a project; typically they range from natural language to a diagram based notation. Currently, Unified Markup Language (UML) is the industry standard in terms of architectural modeling notation  because allows for architectures to be defined through a series of boxes, lines, arrows and other basic symbols that encapsulate design designs in to virtual components, connectors, configurations and interfaces.  Furthermore UML allows for additional break down of models through the use of natural language as to explain each section of the model in plain English. One of the major factors in architectural modeling is to define what is to be modeled. As a basic rule of thumb, I tend to model architecture based on the complexity of systems or sub sub-systems of architecture. Another key factor is the level of detail that is actually needed for a model. For example if I am modeling a system for a CEO to view then the low level details will be omitted. In comparison, if I was modeling a system for another engineer to actually implement I would include as much detailed information as I could to help the engineer implement my design.

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• Government Mandates and Programming Languages

  A recent SEC proposal (which, at over 600 pages, I havent read in any detail) includes the following: We are proposing to require the filing of a computer program (the waterfall computer program, as defined in the proposed rule) of the contractual cash flow provisions of the securities in the form of downloadable source code in Python, a commonly used computer programming language that is open source and interpretive. The computer program would be tagged in XML and required to be filed with the Commission as an exhibit. Under our proposal, the filed source code for the computer program, when downloaded and run (by loading it into an open Python session on the investors computer), would be required to allow the user to programmatically input information from the asset data file that we are proposing to require as described above. We believe that, with the waterfall computer program and the asset data file, investors would be better able to conduct their own evaluations of ABS and may be less likely to be dependent on the opinions of credit rating agencies. With respect to any registration statement on Form SF-1 (Section 239.44) or Form SF-3 (Section 239.45) relating to an offering of an asset-backed security that is required to comply with Item 1113(h) of Regulation AB, the Waterfall Computer Program (as defined in Item 1113(h)(1) of Regulation AB) must be written in the Python programming language and able to be downloaded and run on a local computer properly configured with a Python interpreter. The Waterfall Computer Program should be filed in the manner specified in the EDGAR Filer Manual. I dont see how it can be in investors best interests that the SEC demand a particular programming language be used for software related to investment data.  I have a feeling that investors who use computers at all already have software with which they are familiar, and that the vast majority of them are not running an open source scripting language on their machines to do their financial analysis.  In fact, I would wager that most of them are using tools like Excel, and if they really need to script anything, its being done with VBA in Excel. Now, Im not proposing that the SEC should require that the data be provided in Excel format with VBA scripts included so everyone can easily access the data (despite the fact that this would actually be pretty useful generally).  Rather, I think it is ill-advised for a government agency to make recommendations of this nature, period.  If the goal of the recommendation is to ensure that the way things work is codified in a transparent manner, than I can certainly respect that.  It seems to me that this could be accomplished without dictating the technology to use.  To wit: An Excel document could contain all of the data as well as the formulae necessary, and most likely would not require the end-user to install anything on their machine The SEC could simply create a calculator in the cloud such that any/all investors could use a single canonical web-based (or web service based) tool Millions of Java and .NET developers could write their own implementations You can read more about this issue, including the favorable position on it, on Jayanth Varmas blog. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Replicating between Cloud and On-Premises using Oracle GoldenGate

  - by Ananth R. Tiru

  Do you have applications running on the cloud that you need to connect with the on premises systems. The most likely answer to this question is an astounding YES!  If so, then you understand the importance of keep the data fresh at all times across the cloud and on-premises environments. This is also one of the key focus areas for the new GoldenGate 12c release which we announced couple of week ago via a press release. Most enterprises have spent years avoiding the data “silos” that inhibit productivity. For example, an enterprise which has adopted a CRM strategy could be relying on an on-premises based marketing application used for developing and nurturing leads. At the same time it could be using a SaaS based Sales application to create opportunities and quotes. The sales and the marketing teams which use these systems need to be able to access and share the data in a reliable and cohesive way. This example can be extended to other applications areas such as HR, Supply Chain, and Finance and the demands the users place on getting a consistent view of the data. When it comes to moving data in hybrid environments some of the key requirements include minimal latency, reliability and security: Data must remain fresh. As data ages it becomes less relevant and less valuable—day-old data is often insufficient in today’s competitive landscape. Reliability must be guaranteed despite system or connectivity issues that can occur between the cloud and on-premises instances. Security is a key concern when replicating between cloud and on-premises instances. There are several options to consider when replicating between the cloud and on-premises instances. Option 1 – Secured network established between the cloud and on-premises A secured network is established between the cloud and on-premises which enables the applications (including replication software) running on the cloud and on-premises to have seamless connectivity to other applications irrespective of where they are physically located. Option 2 – Restricted network established between the cloud and on-premises A restricted network is established between the cloud and on-premises instances which enable certain ports (required by replication) be opened on both the cloud and on the on-premises instances and white lists the IP addresses of the cloud and on-premises instances. Option 3 – Restricted network access from on-premises and cloud through HTTP proxy This option can be considered when the ports required by the applications (including replication software) are not open and the cloud instance is not white listed on the on-premises instance. This option of tunneling through HTTP proxy may be only considered when proper security exceptions are obtained. Oracle GoldenGate Oracle GoldenGate is used for major Fortune 500 companies and other industry leaders worldwide to support mission-critical systems for data availability and integration. Oracle GoldenGate addresses the requirements for ensuring data consistency between cloud and on-premises instances, thus facilitating the business process to run effectively and reliably. The architecture diagram below illustrates the scenario where the cloud and the on-premises instance are connected using GoldenGate through a secured network In the above scenario, Oracle GoldenGate is installed and configured on both the cloud and the on-premises instances. On the cloud instance Oracle GoldenGate is installed and configured on the machine where the database instance can be accessed. Oracle GoldenGate can be configured for unidirectional or bi-directional replication between the cloud and on premises instances. The specific configuration details of Oracle GoldenGate processes will depend upon the option selected for establishing connectivity between the cloud and on-premises instances. The knowledge article (ID - 1588484.1) titled ' Replicating between Cloud and On-Premises using Oracle GoldenGate' discusses in detail the options for replicating between the cloud and on-premises instances. The article can be found on My Oracle Support. To learn more about Oracle GoldenGate 12c register for our launch webcast where we will go into these new features in more detail.   You may also want to download our white paper "Oracle GoldenGate 12c Release 1 New Features Overview" I would love to hear your requirements for replicating between on-premises and cloud instances, as well as your comments about the strategy discussed in the knowledge article to address your needs. Please post your comments in this blog or in the Oracle GoldenGate public forum - https://forums.oracle.com/community/developer/english/business_intelligence/system_management_and_integration/goldengate

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• What Color is your Jetpack ?

  - by JoshReuben

  I’m a programmer, Im approaching 40, and I’m fairly decent at my job – I’ll keep doing what I’m doing for as long as they let me!   So what are your career options if you know how to code? A Programmer could be ..   An Algorithm developer Pros Interesting High barriers of entry, potential for startup competitive factor Cons Do you have the skill, qualifications? What are working conditions n this mystery niche ? micro-focus An Academic Pros Low pressure Job security – or is this an illusion ? Cons Low Pay Need a PhD A Software Architect Pros: strategic, rather than tactical Setting technology platform and high level vision You say how it should work, others have to figure out why its not working the way its supposed to ! broad view – you are paid to learn (how do you con people into paying for you to learn ??) Cons: Glorified developer – more often than not! competitive – everyone wants to do it ! loose touch with underlying tech in tough times, first guy to get the axe ! A Software Engineer Pros: interesting, always more to learn fun I can do it Fallback Cons: Nothing new under the sun – been there, done that Dealing with poor requirements, deadlines, other peoples code, overtime C#, XAML, Web - Low barriers of entry –> à race to the bottom A Team leader Pros: Setting code standards and proposing technology choices Cons: Glorified developer – more often than not! Inspecting other peoples code and debugging the problems they cannot fix Dealing with mugbies and prima donas Responsible for QA of others A Project Manager Pros No need for debugging other peoples code Cons Low barrier of entry High pressure Responsible for QA of others Loosing touch with technology A lot of bullshit meetings Have to be an asshole A Product Manager Pros No need for debugging other peoples code Learning new skillset of sales and marketing Cons Travel (I'm a family man) May need to know the bs details of an uninteresting product things I want to work with: AI, algorithms, Numerical Computing, Mathematica, C++ AMP – unfortunately, the work here is few & far between. VS & TFS Extensibility, DSLs (Workflow , Lightswitch), Code Generation – one day, code will write code ! Unity3D, WebGL – fun, fun, fun ! Modern Web – Knockout, SignalR, MVC, Node.Js ??? (tentative – I'll wait until things stabilize as this area is undergoing a pre-Cambrian explosion) Things I don’t want to work with: (but will if I'm asked to !) C# – same old, same old – not learning anything new here Old code – blech ! Environment with code & fix mentality , ad hoc requirements, excessive overtime Pc support, System administration – even after 20 years, people still ask you to do this sometimes ! debugging – my skills are just not there yet Oracle Old tech: VB 6, XSLT, WinForms, Net 3.51 or less Old style Web dev Information Systems: ASP.NET webforms, Reporting services / crystal reports, SQL Server CRUD with manual data layer, XAML MVVM – variations of the same concept, ad nauseaum. Low barriers of entry –> race to the bottom.  Metro – an elegant API coupled to a horrendous UX – I'll wait for market penetration viability before investing further in this.   Conclusion So if you are in a slump, take heart: Programming is a great career choice compared to every other job !

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• The battle between Java vs. C#

  The battle between Java vs. C# has been a big debate amongst the development community over the last few years. Both languages have specific pros and cons based on the needs of a particular project. In general both languages utilize a similar coding syntax that is based on C++, and offer developers similar functionality. This being said, the communities supporting each of these languages are very different. The divide amongst the communities is much like the political divide in America, where the Java community would represent the Democrats and the .Net community would represent the Republicans. The Democratic Party is a proponent of the working class and the general population. Currently, Java is deeply entrenched in the open source community that is distributed freely to anyone who has an interest in using it. Open source communities rely on developers to keep it alive by constantly contributing code to make applications better; essentially they develop code by the community. This is in stark contrast to the C# community that is typically a pay to play community meaning that you must pay for code that you want to use because it is developed as products to be marketed and sold for a profit. This ties back into my reference to the Republicans because they typically represent the needs of business and personal responsibility. This is emphasized by the belief that code is a commodity and that it can be sold for a profit which is in direct conflict to the laissez-faire beliefs of the open source community. Beyond the general differences between Java and C#, they also target two different environments. Java is developed to be environment independent and only requires that users have a Java virtual machine running in order for the java code to execute. C# on the other hand typically targets any system running a windows operating system and has the appropriate version of the .Net Framework installed. However, recently there has been push by a segment of the Open source community based around the Mono project that lets C# code run on other non-windows operating systems. In addition, another feature of C# is that it compiles into an intermediate language, and this is what is executed when the program runs. Because C# is reduced down to an intermediate language called Common Language Runtime (CLR) it can be combined with other languages that are also compiled in to the CLR like Visual Basic (VB) .Net, and F#. The allowance and interaction between multiple languages in the .Net Framework enables projects to utilize existing code bases regardless of the actual syntax because they can be compiled in to CLR and executed as one codebase. As a software engineer I personally feel that it is really important to learn as many languages as you can or at least be open to learn as many languages as you can because no one language will work in every situation.  In some cases Java may be a better choice for a project and others may be C#. It really depends on the requirements of a project and the time constraints. In addition, I feel that is really important to concentrate on understanding the logic of programming and be able to translate business requirements into technical requirements. If you can understand both programming logic and business requirements then deciding which language to use is just basically choosing what syntax to write for a given business problem or need. In regards to code refactoring and dynamic languages it really does not matter. Eventually all projects will be refactored or decommissioned to allow for progress. This is the way of life in the software development industry. The language of a project should not be chosen based on the fact that a project will eventually be refactored because they all will get refactored.

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• Comparing Apples and Pairs

  - by Tony Davis

  A recent study, High Costs and Negative Value of Pair Programming, by Capers Jones, pulls no punches in its assessment of the costs-to- benefits ratio of pair programming, two programmers working together, at a single computer, rather than separately. He implies that pair programming is a method rushed into production on a wave of enthusiasm for Agile or Extreme Programming, without any real regard for its effectiveness. Despite admitting that his data represented a far from complete study of the economics of pair programming, his conclusions were stark: it was 2.5 times more expensive, resulted in a 15% drop in productivity, and offered no significant quality benefits. The author provides a more scientific analysis than Jon Evans’ Pair Programming Considered Harmful, but the theme is the same. In terms of upfront-coding costs, pair programming is surely more expensive. The claim of productivity loss is dubious and contested by other studies. The third claim, though, did surprise me. The author’s data suggests that if both the pair and the individual programmers employ static code analysis and testing, then there is no measurable difference in the resulting code quality, in terms of defects per function point. In other words, pair programming incurs a massive extra cost for no tangible return in investment. There were, inevitably, many criticisms of his data and his conclusions, a few of which are persuasive. Firstly, that the driver/observer model of pair programming, on which the study bases its findings, is far from the most effective. For example, many find Ping-Pong pairing, based on use of test-driven development, far more productive. Secondly, that it doesn’t distinguish between “expert” and “novice” pair programmers– that is, independently of other programming skills, how skilled was an individual at pair programming. Thirdly, that his measure of quality is too narrow. This point rings true, certainly at Red Gate, where developers don’t pair program all the time, but use the method in short bursts, while tackling a tricky problem and needing a fresh perspective on the best approach, or more in-depth knowledge in a particular domain. All of them argue that pair programming, and collective code ownership, offers significant rewards, if not in terms of immediate “bug reduction”, then in removing the likelihood of single points of failure, and improving the overall quality and longer-term adaptability/maintainability of the design. There is also a massive learning benefit for both participants. One developer told me how he once worked in the same team over consecutive summers, the first time with no pair programming and the second time pair-programming two-thirds of the time, and described the increased rate of learning the second time as “phenomenal”. There are a great many theories on how we should develop software (Scrum, XP, Lean, etc.), but woefully little scientific research in their effectiveness. For a group that spends so much time crunching other people’s data, I wonder if developers spend enough time crunching data about themselves. Capers Jones’ data may be incomplete, but should cause a pause for thought, especially for any large IT departments, supporting commerce and industry, who are considering pair programming. It certainly shouldn’t discourage teams from exploring new ways of developing software, as long as they also think about how to gather hard data to gauge their effectiveness.

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• Snap App Windows to Pre-Defined Screen Sections with Acer GridVista

  - by Asian Angel

  The window snapping feature in Windows 7 and the ability to organize monitor(s) into specific gridded sections have both become popular lately. If you love the idea of having both combined in a single software then join us as we look at Acer GridVista. Note: Acer GridVista works with Windows XP, Vista, & 7. It will also work with dual monitors. Setup Acer GridVista comes in a zip file format and at first you might assume that it is portable in nature but it is not. Once you unzip the enclosed folder you will need to double click on “Setup.exe” to install the program. Acer GridVista in Action Once you have installed the program and started it up all that you will notice at first is the new “System Tray Icon”. Here you can see the “Context Menu”… The only menu command that you will likely use most of the time is the “Grid Configuration Command”. Notice that for our single monitor setup that it lists “Display 1”. The “Single Setting” is enabled by default and you can easily choose the layout that best suits your needs. The enabled layout style will always be highlighted in yellow for easy reference. For our example we chose the “Triple (primary at right)” layout style. Each section will be specifically numbered as shown here. Do not worry…the grid and numbers only appear for a moment and then become invisible again until you move an app window into that section/area of your screen. On every regular app window that you open you will notice three new buttons in the upper right corner. Here is what each of these new buttons do: Acer GridVista Extensions (Transparent, Send To Window Grid, About Acer GridVista): Viewable in a drop-down menu Lock To Grid (Enable/Disable): Enabled by default –> Note: Set to disable on a particular window to keep it free of the “grid locking function” Always On Top (Enable/Disable): Disabled by default A good look at the “Extensions Drop-Down Menu” where you can set an app window to be transparent or send it to a specific screen section on your monitor(s). If you open an app it will not automatically lock into a specific section. To lock the window into a specific section drag-and-drop the app window into the desired section. Notice the red outline and highlighted number on “Section 2” below. The red outline and highlighted number serves as an indicator that if you release the app window at that moment it will lock into the outlined/highlighted section. Now that Notepad is locked into “Section 2” you can see that it is maximized within that section. Continue to drag-and-drop your app windows into the appropriate sections as desired…apps can still be reduced to the “Taskbar” the same as before. Options These are the options available for Acer GridVista… Conclusion If you have been wanting the ability to “snap” windows and organize them into specific screen areas then Acer GridVista is definitely a program that you should try out. Links Download Acer GridVista at Softpedia View detailed information at the Acer GridVista Homepage Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Multitask Like a Pro with AquaSnapHelp Troubleshoot the Blue Screen of Death by Preventing Automatic RebootAdd Windows 7’s AeroSnap Feature to Vista and XPResize Windows to Specific Dimensions Easily With SizerKeyboard Ninja: Assign a Hotkey to any Window TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Playing Games In Chrome Made Easier Stop In The Name Of Love (Firefox addon) Chitika iPad Labs Gives Live iPad Sale Stats Heaven & Hell Finder Icon Using TrueCrypt to Secure Your Data Quickly Schedule Meetings With NeedtoMeet

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• How can a developer realize the full value of his work [closed]

  - by Jubbat

  I, honestly, don't want to work as a developer in a company anymore after all I have seen. I want to continue developing software, yes, but not in the way I see it all around me. And I'm in London, a city that congregates lots of great developers from the whole world, so it shouldn't be a problem of location. So, what are my concerns? First of all, best case scenario: you are paying managers salary out of yours. You are consistently underpaid by making up for the average manager negative net return plus his whole salary. Typical scenario. I am a reasonably good developer with common sense who cares for readable code with attention to basic principles. I have found way too often, overconfident and arrogant developers with a severe lack of common sense. Personally, I don't want to follow TDD or Agile practices like all the cool kids nowadays. I would read about them, form my own opinion and take what I feel is useful, but don't follow it sheepishly. I want to work with people who understand that you have to design good interfaces, you absolutely have to document your code, that readability is at the top of your priorities. Also people who don't have a cargo cult mentality too. For instance, the same person who asked me about design patterns in a job interview, later told me that something like a List of Map of Vector of Map of Set (in Java) is very readable. Why would someone ask me about design patterns if they can't even grasp encapsulation? These kind of things are the norm. I've seen many examples. I've seen worse than that too, from very well paid senior devs, by the way. Every second that you spend working with people with such lack of common sense and clear thinking, you are effectively losing money by being terribly inefficient with your time. Yet, with all these inefficiencies, the average developer earns a high salary. So I tried working on my own then, although I don't like the idea. I prefer healthy exchange of opinions and ideas and task division. I then did a bit of online freelancing for a while but I think working in a sweatshop might be more enjoyable. Also, I studied computer engineering and you are in an environment in which your client will presume you don't have any formal education because there is no way to prove it. Again, you are undervalued. You could try building a product, yes. But, of course, luck is a big factor. I wonder if there is a way to work in something you can do well, software development, and be valued for the quality of your work and be paid accordingly, and where you and only you get fairly paid for the value you generate. I know that what I have written seems somehow unlikely but I strongly feel this way. Hopefully someone will understand me and has already figured this out. I don't think I'm alone in this kind of feeling.

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• Creating a Corporate Data Hub

  - by BuckWoody

  The Windows Azure Marketplace has a rich assortment of data and software offerings for you to use – a type of Software as a Service (SaaS) for IT workers, not necessarily for end-users. Among those offerings is the “Data Hub” – a  codename for a project that ironically actually does what the codename says. In many of our organizations, we have multiple data quality issues. Finding data is one problem, but finding it just once is often a bigger problem. Lots of departments and even individuals have stored the same data more than once, and in some cases, made changes to one of the copies. It’s difficult to know which location or version of the data is authoritative. Then there’s the problem of accessing the data. It’s fairly straightforward to publish a database, share or other location internally to store the data. But then you have to figure out who owns it, how it is controlled, and pass out the various connection strings to those who want to use it. And then you need to figure out how to let folks access the internal data externally – bringing up all kinds of security issues. Finally, in many cases our user community wants us to combine data from the internally sources with external data, bringing up the security, strings, and exploration features up all over again. Enter the Data Hub. This is an online offering, where you assign an administrator and data stewards. You import the data into the service, and it’s available to you - and only you and your organization if you wish. The basic steps for this service are to set up the portal for your company, assign administrators and permissions, and then you assign data areas and import data into them. From there you make them discoverable, and then you have multiple options that you or your users can access that data. You’re then able, if you wish, to combine that data with other data in one location. So how does all that work? What about security? Is it really that easy? And can you really move the data definition off to the Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) that know the particular data stack better than the IT team does? Well, nothing good is easy – but using the Data Hub is actually pretty simple. I’ll give you a link in a moment where you can sign up and try this yourself. Once you sign up, you assign an administrator. From there you’ll create data areas, and then use a simple interface to bring the data in. All of this is done in a portal interface – nothing to install, configure, update or manage. After the data is entered in, and you’ve assigned meta-data to describe it, your users have multiple options to access it. They can simply use the portal – which actually has powerful visualizations you can use on any platform, even mobile phones or tablets.     Your users can also hit the data with Excel – which gives them ultimate flexibility for display, all while using an authoritative, single reference for the data. Since the service is online, they can do this wherever they are – given the proper authentication and permissions. You can also hit the service with simple API calls, like this one from C#: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh921924  You can make HTTP calls instead of code, and the data can even be exposed as an OData Feed. As you can see, there are a lot of options. You can check out the offering here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlazurelabs/labs/data-hub.aspx and you can read the documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh921938

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• TechEd 2010 Important Events

  If youll be attending TechEd in New Orleans in a couple of weeks, make sure the following are all on your calendar:   Party with Palermo TechEd 2010 Edition Sunday 6 June 2010 7:30-930pm Central Time RSVP and see who else is coming here.  The party takes place from 730pm to 930pm Central (Local) Time,  and includes a full meal, free swag, and prizes.  The event is being held at Jimmy Buffetts Margaritaville located at 1104 Decatur Street.   Developer Practices Session: DPR304 FAIL: Anti-Patterns and Worst Practices Monday 7 June 2010 4:30pm-545pm Central Time Room 276 Come to my session and hear about what NOT to do on your software project.  Hear my own and others war stories and lessons learned.  Youll laugh, youll cry, youll realize youre a much better developer than a lot of folks out there.  Heres the official description: Everybody likes to talk about best practices, tips, and tricks, but often it is by analyzing failures that we learn from our own and others' mistakes. In this session, Steve describes various anti-patterns and worst practices in software development that he has encountered in his own experience or learned about from other experts in the field, along with advice on recognizing and avoiding them. View DPR304 in TechEd Session Catalog >> Exhibition Hall Reception Monday 7 June 2010 545pm-9pm Immediately following my session, come meet the shows exhibitors, win prizes, and enjoy plenty of food and drink.  Always a good time.   Party: Geekfest Tuesday 8 June 8pm-11pm Central Time, Pat OBriens Lets face it, going to a technical conference is good for your career but its not a whole lot of fun. You need an outlet. You need to have fun. Cheap beer and lousy pizza (with a New Orleans twist) We are bringing back GeekFest! Join us at Pat OBriens for a night of gumbo, beer and hurricanes. There are limited invitations available, so what are you waiting for? If you are attending the TechEd 2010 conference and you are a developer, you are invited. To register pick up your "duck" ticket (and wristband) in the TechEd Technical Learning Center (TLC) at the Developer Tools & Languages (DEV) information desk. You must have wristband to get in. Tuesday, June 8th from 8pm 11pm Pat OBriens New Orleans 624 Bourbon Street New Orleans, LA 70130 Closing Party at Mardi Gras World Thursday 10 June 730pm-10pm Central Time Join us for the Closing Party and enjoy great food, beverages, and the excitement of New Orleans at Mardi Gras World. The colors, the lights, the music, the joie de vivreits all here.  Learn more >> Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• New Version 3.1 Endeca Information Discovery Now Available

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Business User Self-Service Data Mash-up Analysis and Discovery integrated with OBI11g and Hadoop Oracle Endeca Information Discovery 3.1 (OEID) is a major release that incorporates significant new self-service discovery capabilities for business users, including agile data mashup, extended support for unstructured analytics, and an even tighter integration with Oracle BI.  · Self-Service Data Mashup and Discovery Dashboards: business users can combine information from multiple sources, including their own up-loaded spreadsheets, to conduct analysis on the complete set.  Creating discovery dashboards has been made even easier by intuitive drag-and drop layouts and wizard-based configuration.  Business users can now build new discovery applications in minutes, without depending on IT. · Enhanced Integration with Oracle BI: OEID 3.1 enhances its’ native integration with Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation. Business users can now incorporate information from trusted BI warehouses, leveraging dimensions and attributes defined in Oracle’s Common Enterprise Information Model, but evolve them based on the varying day-to-day demands and requirements that they personally manage. · Deep Unstructured Analysis: business users can gain new insights from a wide variety of enterprise and public sources, helping companies to build an actionable Big Data strategy.  With OEID’s long-standing differentiation in correlating unstructured information with structured data, business users can now perform their own text mining to identify hidden concepts, without having to request support from IT. They can augment these insights with best in class keyword search and pattern matching, all in the context of rich, interactive visualizations and analytic summaries. · Enterprise-Class Self-Service Discovery:  OEID 3.1 enables IT to provide a powerful self-service platform to the business as part of a broader Business Analytics strategy, preserving the value of existing investments in data quality, governance, and security.  Business users can take advantage of IT-curated information to drive discovery across high volumes and varieties of data, and share insights with colleagues at a moment’s notice. · Harvest Content from the Web with the Endeca Web Acquisition Toolkit:  Oracle now provides best-of-breed data access to website content through the Oracle Endeca Web Acquisition Toolkit.  This provides an agile, graphical interface for developers to rapidly access and integrate any information exposed through a web front-end.  Organizations can now cost-effectively include content from consumer sites, industry forums, government or supplier portals, cloud applications, and myriad other web sources as part of their overall strategy for data discovery and unstructured analytics. For more information: OEID 3.1 OTN Software and Documentation Download And Endeca available for download on Software Delivery Cloud (eDelivery) New OEID 3.1 Videos on YouTube Oracle.com Endeca Site /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

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• Creating a Corporate Data Hub

  - by BuckWoody

  The Windows Azure Marketplace has a rich assortment of data and software offerings for you to use – a type of Software as a Service (SaaS) for IT workers, not necessarily for end-users. Among those offerings is the “Data Hub” – a  codename for a project that ironically actually does what the codename says. In many of our organizations, we have multiple data quality issues. Finding data is one problem, but finding it just once is often a bigger problem. Lots of departments and even individuals have stored the same data more than once, and in some cases, made changes to one of the copies. It’s difficult to know which location or version of the data is authoritative. Then there’s the problem of accessing the data. It’s fairly straightforward to publish a database, share or other location internally to store the data. But then you have to figure out who owns it, how it is controlled, and pass out the various connection strings to those who want to use it. And then you need to figure out how to let folks access the internal data externally – bringing up all kinds of security issues. Finally, in many cases our user community wants us to combine data from the internally sources with external data, bringing up the security, strings, and exploration features up all over again. Enter the Data Hub. This is an online offering, where you assign an administrator and data stewards. You import the data into the service, and it’s available to you - and only you and your organization if you wish. The basic steps for this service are to set up the portal for your company, assign administrators and permissions, and then you assign data areas and import data into them. From there you make them discoverable, and then you have multiple options that you or your users can access that data. You’re then able, if you wish, to combine that data with other data in one location. So how does all that work? What about security? Is it really that easy? And can you really move the data definition off to the Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) that know the particular data stack better than the IT team does? Well, nothing good is easy – but using the Data Hub is actually pretty simple. I’ll give you a link in a moment where you can sign up and try this yourself. Once you sign up, you assign an administrator. From there you’ll create data areas, and then use a simple interface to bring the data in. All of this is done in a portal interface – nothing to install, configure, update or manage. After the data is entered in, and you’ve assigned meta-data to describe it, your users have multiple options to access it. They can simply use the portal – which actually has powerful visualizations you can use on any platform, even mobile phones or tablets.     Your users can also hit the data with Excel – which gives them ultimate flexibility for display, all while using an authoritative, single reference for the data. Since the service is online, they can do this wherever they are – given the proper authentication and permissions. You can also hit the service with simple API calls, like this one from C#: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh921924  You can make HTTP calls instead of code, and the data can even be exposed as an OData Feed. As you can see, there are a lot of options. You can check out the offering here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlazurelabs/labs/data-hub.aspx and you can read the documentation here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh921938

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• Incentivizing Work with Development Teams

  - by MarkPearl

  Recently I saw someone on twitter asking about incentives and if anyone had past experience with incentivizing work. I promised to respond with some of the experiences I have had in the past so here goes... **Disclaimer** - these are my experiences with incentives, generally in software development - in some other industries this may not be applicable – this is also my thinking at this point in time, with more experience my opinion may change. Incentivize at the level that you want people to group at If you are wanting to promote a team mentality, incentivize teams. If you want to promote an individual mentality, incentivize individuals. There is nothing worse than mixing this up. Some organizations put a lot of effort in establishing teams and team mentalities but reward individuals. This has a counter effect on the resources they have put towards establishing a team mentality. In the software projects that I work with we want promote cross functional teams that collaborate. Personally, if I was on a team and knew that there was an opportunity to work on a critical component of the system, and that by doing so I would get a bigger bonus, then I would be hesitant to include other people in solving that problem. Thus, I would hinder the teams efforts in being cross functional and reduce collaboration levels. Does that mean everyone in the team should get an even share of an incentive? In most situations I would say yes - even though this may feel counter-intuitive. I have heard arguments put forward that if “person x contributed more than person Y then they should be rewarded more” – This may sound controversial but I would rather treat people how would you like them to perform, not where they currently are at. To add to this approach, if someone is free loading, you bet your bottom dollar that the team is going to make this a lot more transparent if they feel that individual is going to be rewarded at the same level that everyone else is. Bad incentives promote destructive work If you are going to incentivize people, pick you incentives very carefully. I had an experience once with a sales person who was told they would get a bonus provided that they met an ordering target with a particular supplier. What did this person do? They sold everything at cost for the next month or so. They reached the goal, but the company didn't gain anything from it. It was a bad incentive. Expect the same with development teams, if you incentivize zero bug levels, you will get zero code committed to the solution. If you incentivize lines of code, you will get many many lines of bad code. Is there such a thing as a good incentives? Monetary wise, I am not sure there is. I would much rather encourage organizations to pay their people what they are worth upfront. I would also advise against paying money to teams as an incentive or even a bonus or reward for reaching a milestone. Rather have a breakaway for the team that promotes team building as a reward if they reach a milestone than pay them more money. I would also advise against making the incentive the reason for them to reach the milestone. If this becomes the norm it promotes people to begin to only do their job if there is an incentive at the end of the line. This is not a behaviour one wants to encourage. If the team or individual is in the right mind-set, they should not work any harder than they are right now with normal pay.

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• TechEd 2010 Important Events

  If youll be attending TechEd in New Orleans in a couple of weeks, make sure the following are all on your calendar:   Party with Palermo TechEd 2010 Edition Sunday 6 June 2010 7:30-930pm Central Time RSVP and see who else is coming here.  The party takes place from 730pm to 930pm Central (Local) Time,  and includes a full meal, free swag, and prizes.  The event is being held at Jimmy Buffetts Margaritaville located at 1104 Decatur Street.   Developer Practices Session: DPR304 FAIL: Anti-Patterns and Worst Practices Monday 7 June 2010 4:30pm-545pm Central Time Room 276 Come to my session and hear about what NOT to do on your software project.  Hear my own and others war stories and lessons learned.  Youll laugh, youll cry, youll realize youre a much better developer than a lot of folks out there.  Heres the official description: Everybody likes to talk about best practices, tips, and tricks, but often it is by analyzing failures that we learn from our own and others' mistakes. In this session, Steve describes various anti-patterns and worst practices in software development that he has encountered in his own experience or learned about from other experts in the field, along with advice on recognizing and avoiding them. View DPR304 in TechEd Session Catalog >> Exhibition Hall Reception Monday 7 June 2010 545pm-9pm Immediately following my session, come meet the shows exhibitors, win prizes, and enjoy plenty of food and drink.  Always a good time.   Party: Geekfest Tuesday 8 June 8pm-11pm Central Time, Pat OBriens Lets face it, going to a technical conference is good for your career but its not a whole lot of fun. You need an outlet. You need to have fun. Cheap beer and lousy pizza (with a New Orleans twist) We are bringing back GeekFest! Join us at Pat OBriens for a night of gumbo, beer and hurricanes. There are limited invitations available, so what are you waiting for? If you are attending the TechEd 2010 conference and you are a developer, you are invited. To register pick up your "duck" ticket (and wristband) in the TechEd Technical Learning Center (TLC) at the Developer Tools & Languages (DEV) information desk. You must have wristband to get in. Tuesday, June 8th from 8pm 11pm Pat OBriens New Orleans 624 Bourbon Street New Orleans, LA 70130 Closing Party at Mardi Gras World Thursday 10 June 730pm-10pm Central Time Join us for the Closing Party and enjoy great food, beverages, and the excitement of New Orleans at Mardi Gras World. The colors, the lights, the music, the joie de vivreits all here.  Learn more >> Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Ask the Readers: How Many Monitors Do You Use with Your Computer?

  - by Asian Angel

  Most people have a single monitor for their computers, many have two, and some individuals enjoy “3 monitor plus” goodness. This week we would like to know how many monitors you use with your computer. Photo by DamnedNice. A good majority of people have a single monitor that they use with their computers and that single monitor serves their needs very well. It could be that these individuals do not engage in a heavy amount of work or play on their computers…they just need to do the basics like checking e-mail, using I.M., working with photos, etc. Another possibility is the use of virtual desktop software such as Dexpot, Yodm 3D, or Sysinternals Desktops on Windows systems. Linux systems such as Ubuntu already have that wonderful multi-desktop functionality built in. The wonderful part about virtual desktops is that a single monitor can feel equivalent to a small army of monitors. The ability to separate your open windows into “categories” and spread them out across multiple desktops is definitely nice. With each passing year dual monitor setups are becoming more common. Having twice the screen real-estate visible at the same time can be extremely convenient when you are multi-tasking. Perhaps you like to monitor your system’s stats and an e-mail account on the second monitor while working with software on the first. It certainly beats having windows popping up and down on your screen constantly while keeping on top of everything! Next we have the people who have three or more monitors in use with their computers. This may be a result of the type of work they do, an experiment to see if multiple monitors are right for them, or the cool, geeky factor that comes with having all those monitors. Needless to say these individuals can induce a good amount of envy and/or inspiration in the rest of us when we see their awesome setups. Are you perfectly content with a single monitor? Do you have two or more monitors that you use? If you have two or more monitors are they actually that useful to you? Perhaps you are getting ready even now to add additional monitors to your system. Whatever your situation may be at the moment, let us know your thoughts (and possible multi-monitor plans) in the comments! How-To Geek Polls require Javascript. Please Click Here to View the Poll. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? HTG Explains: Why Does Photo Paper Improve Print Quality? Hidden Tracks Your Stolen Mac; Free Until End of January Why the Other Checkout Line Always Moves Faster World of Warcraft Theme for Windows 7 Ubuntu Font Family Now Available for Download Oh No! WikiLeaks Published Santa Claus’s Naughty List [Video] Remember the Milk Now Supports HTTPS Encryption for the Entire Session

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• When will EBS 12.2 be released?

  - by Steven Chan (Oracle Development)

  The most frequently asked question at OpenWorld this year was, "When will EBS 12.2 be released?" Sadly, Oracle's communication policies prohibit us from speculating about release dates for unreleased software. We are not permitted to give estimates, rough timelines, guesses, or anything else that remotely resembles specific guidance on release dates. You can monitor My Oracle Support and this blog for updates on EBS 12.2.  I'll post them here as soon as they're available.  I'm embedding an old favourite from 2007 in its entirety here, since it applies equally to new releases as well as certifications. "Loose Lips Sink Ships" (March 20, 2007)If I were to sort emails in my inbox into groups, the biggest -- by far -- would be the one for emails that start with, "When will _____ be certified with the E-Business Suite?"  I answer these dutifully but know that my replies can sometimes be maddening, for two reasons:  technical uncertainty, and Oracle's rules for such communications. On the Spiral Model of CertificationsTechnology stack certifications tend to be highly iterative in nature.  As a result, statements about certification dates tend to be accurate only when made in hindsight.  Laypeople are horrified to hear this, but it's the ugly truth.  Uncertainty is simply inherent to the process.  I've become inured to it over the years, but it might come as a surprise to you that it can take many cycles to get fully-released software to work together.  Take this scenario: We test a particular combination of Component A and B. If we encounter a problem, say, with Component A, we log a bug. We receive a new version of Component A. The process iterates again. The reality is this: until a certification is completed and released, there's no accurate way of telling how many iterations are yet to come.  This is true regardless of the number of iterations that have already been completed.  Our Lips Are SealedGenerally, people understand that things are subject to change, so the second reason I can't say anything specific is actually much more important than the first.  "Loose lips might sink ships" was coined in World War II in an effort to remind people that careless talk can have serious consequences.  Curiously, this applies to Oracle's communications about upcoming features, configurations, and releases, too.  As a publicly traded company, we have very strict policies that prohibit us from linking specific releases to specific dates.  If you've ever listened to an earnings call with analysts, you'll often hear them asking, "Can you add a little more color to that statement?"  For certifications, color is usually the only thing that I have.  Sometimes I can provide a bit more information about the technical nature of the certification in question, such as expected footprints or version levels.  I can occasionally share technical issues that we've found, too, to convey the degree of risk or complexity involved in the certification.  Aside from that, there's little additional information about specific dates, date ranges, or even speculation about dates that I can provide... that is, without having one of those uncomfortable conversations with Oracle Legal.  So, as much as it pains me to do so, when it comes to dates, I'm always forced to conclude with a generic reply that blandly states one of the following: We're working on that certification right now That certification is in the pipeline but hasn't been started yet We don't have plans for that certification Don't Shoot the MessengerThankfully, I've developed a thick skin over the years -- which is a good thing, considering the colorful and energetic responses I've received over the years after answering these questions.  However, on behalf of my Oracle colleagues who are faced with these questions every day in the field, I urge you to remember that they're required to follow these same corporate rules about date disclosures.  It never hurts to ask, but don't be too disappointed if we can't provide you with a detailed answer.  The Go-Go's had it right, after all.  Related Articles Webcast Replay Available: Technical Preview of EBS 12.2 Online Patching

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• Getting Started with Cloud Computing

  - by juanlarios

  You’ve likely heard about how Office 365 and Windows Intune are great applications to get you started with Cloud Computing. Many of you emailed me asking for more info on what Cloud Computing is, including the distinction between "Public Cloud" and "Private Cloud". I want to address these questions and help you get started. Let's begin with a brief set of definitions and some places to find more info; however, an excellent place where you can always learn more about Cloud Computing is the Microsoft Virtual Academy. Public Cloud computing means that the infrastructure to run and manage the applications users are taking advantage of is run by someone else and not you. In other words, you do not buy the hardware or software to run your email or other services being used in your organization – that is done by someone else. Users simply connect to these services from their computers and you pay a monthly subscription fee for each user that is taking advantage of the service. Examples of Public Cloud services include Office 365, Windows Intune, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Hotmail, and others. Private Cloud computing generally means that the hardware and software to run services used by your organization is run on your premises, with the ability for business groups to self-provision the services they need based on rules established by the IT department. Generally, Private Cloud implementations today are found in larger organizations but they are also viable for small and medium-sized businesses since they generally allow an automation of services and reduction in IT workloads when properly implemented. Having the right management tools, like System Center 2012, to implement and operate Private Cloud is important in order to be successful. So – how do you get started? The first step is to determine what makes the most sense to your organization. The nice thing is that you do not need to pick Public or Private Cloud – you can use elements of both where it makes sense for your business – the choice is yours. When you are ready to try and purchase Public Cloud technologies, the Microsoft Volume Licensing web site is a good place to find links to each of the online services. In particular, if you are interested in a trial for each service, you can visit the following pages: Office 365, CRM Online, Windows Intune, and Windows Azure. For Private Cloud technologies, start with some of the courses on Microsoft Virtual Academy and then download and install the Microsoft Private Cloud technologies including Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and System Center 2012 in your own environment and take it for a spin. Also, keep up to date with the Canadian IT Pro blog to learn about events Microsoft is delivering such as the IT Virtualization Boot Camps and more to get you started with these technologies hands on. Finally, I want to ask for your help to allow the team at Microsoft to continue to provide you what you need. Twice a year through something we call "The Global Relationship Study" – they reach out and contact you to see how they're doing and what Microsoft could do better. If you get an email from "Microsoft Feedback" with the subject line "Help Microsoft Focus on Customers and Partners" between March 5th and April 13th, please take a little time to tell them what you think. Cloud Computing Resources: Microsoft Server and Cloud Computing site – information on Microsoft's overall cloud strategy and products. Microsoft Virtual Academy – for free online training to help improve your IT skillset. Office 365 Trial/Info page – get more information or try it out for yourself. Office 365 Videos – see how businesses like yours have used Office 365 to transition to the cloud. Windows Intune Trial/Info – get more information or try it out for yourself. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online page – information on trying and licensing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Additional Resources You May Find Useful: Springboard Series Your destination for technical resources, free tools and expert guidance to ease the deployment and management of your Windows-based client infrastructure. TechNet Evaluation Center Try some of our latest Microsoft products for free, Like System Center 2012 Pre-Release Products, and evaluate them before you buy. AlignIT Manager Tech Talk Series A monthly streamed video series with a range of topics for both infrastructure and development managers. Ask questions and participate real-time or watch the on-demand recording. Tech·Days Online Discover what's next in technology and innovation with Tech·Days session recordings, hands-on labs and Tech·Days TV.

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• Don’t string together XML

  - by KyleBurns

  XML has been a pervasive tool in software development for over a decade.  It provides a way to communicate data in a manner that is simple to understand and free of platform dependencies.  Also pervasive in software development is what I consider to be the anti-pattern of using string manipulation to create XML.  This usually starts with a “quick and dirty” approach because you need an XML document and looks like (for all of the examples here, we’ll assume we’re writing the body of a method intended to take a Contact object and return an XML string): return string.Format("<Contact><BusinessName>{0}</BusinessName></Contact>", contact.BusinessName);   In the code example, I created (or at least believe I created) an XML document representing a simple contact object in one line of code with very little overhead.  Work’s done, right?  No it’s not.  You see, what I didn’t realize was that this code would be used in the real world instead of my fantasy world where I own all the data and can prevent any of it containing problematic values.  If I use this code to create a contact record for the business “Sanford & Son”, any XML parser will be incapable of processing the data because the ampersand is special in XML and should have been encoded as &amp;. Following the pattern that I have seen many times over, my next step as a developer is going to be to do what any developer in his right mind would do – instruct the user that ampersands are “bad” and they cannot be used without breaking computers.  This may work in many cases and is often accompanied by logic at the UI layer of applications to block these “bad” characters, but sooner or later someone is going to figure out that other applications allow for them and will want the same.  This often leads to the creation of “cleaner” functions that perform a replace on the strings for every special character that the person writing the function can think of.  The cleaner function will usually grow over time as support requests reveal characters that were missed in the initial cut.  Sooner or later you end up writing your own somewhat functional XML engine. I have never been told by anyone paying me to write code that they would like to buy a somewhat functional XML engine.  My employer/customer’s needs have always been for something that may use XML, but ultimately is functionality that drives business value. I’m not going to build an XML engine. So how can I generate XML that is always well-formed without writing my own engine?  Easy – use one of the ones provided to you for free!  If you’re in a shop that still supports VB6 applications, you can use the DomDocument or MXXMLWriter object (of the two I prefer MXXMLWriter, but I’m not going to fully describe either here).  For .Net Framework applications prior to the 3.5 framework, the code is a little more verbose than I would like, but easy once you understand what pieces are required:             using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter())             {                 using (XmlTextWriter writer = new XmlTextWriter(sw))                 {                     writer.WriteStartDocument();                     writer.WriteStartElement("Contact");                     writer.WriteElementString("BusinessName", contact.BusinessName);                     writer.WriteEndElement(); // end Contact element                     writer.WriteEndDocument();                     writer.Flush();                     return sw.ToString();                 }             }   Looking at that code, it’s easy to understand why people are drawn to the initial one-liner.  Lucky for us, the 3.5 .Net Framework added the System.Xml.Linq.XElement object.  This object takes away a lot of the complexity present in the XmlTextWriter approach and allows us to generate the document as follows: return new XElement("Contact", new XElement("BusinessName", contact.BusinessName)).ToString();   While it is very common for people to use string manipulation to create XML, I’ve discussed here reasons not to use this method and introduced powerful APIs that are built into the .Net Framework as an alternative.  I’ve given a very simplistic example here to highlight the most basic XML generation task.  For more information on the XmlTextWriter and XElement APIs, check out the MSDN library.

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• Rethinking Oracle Optimizer Statistics for P6 Part 2

  - by Brian Diehl

  In the previous post (Part 1), I tried to draw some key insights about the relationship between P6 and Oracle Optimizer Statistics.  The first is that average cardinality has the greatest impact on query optimization and that the particular queries generated by P6 are more likely to use this average during calculations. The second is that these are statistics that are unlikely to change greatly over the life of the application. Ultimately, our goal is to get the best query optimization possible.  Or is it? Stability No application administrator wants to get the call at 9am that their application users cannot get there work done because everything is running slow. This is a possibility with a regularly scheduled nightly collection of statistics. It may not just be slow performance, but a complete loss of service because one or more queries are optimized poorly. Ideally, this should not be the case. The database optimizer should make better decisions with more up-to-date data. Better statistics may give incremental performance benefit. However, this benefit must be balanced against the potential cost of system down time.  It is stability that we ultimately desire and not absolute optimal performance. We do want the benefit from more accurate statistics and better query plans, but not at the risk of an unusable system. As a result, I've developed the following methodology around managing database statistics for the P6 database.  1. No Automatic Re-Gathering - The daily, weekly, or other interval of statistic gathering is unlikely to be beneficial. Quite the opposite. It is more likely to cause problems. 2. Smart Re-Gathering - The time to collect statistics is when things have changed significantly. For a new installation of P6, this is happening more often because the data is growing from a few rows to thousands and more. But for a mature system, the data is not changing significantly from week-to-week. There are times to collect statistics: New releases of the application Changes in the underlying hardware or software versions (ex. new Oracle RDBMS version) When additional user groups are added. The new groups may use the software in significantly different ways. After significant changes in the data. This may be monthly, quarterly or yearly.  3. Always Test - If you take away one thing from this post, it would be to always have a plan to test after changing statistics. In reality, statistics can be collected as often as you desire provided there are tests in place to verify that performance is the same or better. These might be automated tests or simply a manual script of application functions. 4. Have a Way Out - Never change the statistics without a way to return to the previous set. Think of the statistics as one part of the overall application code that also includes the source code--both application and RDBMS. It would be foolish to change to the new code without a way to get back to the previous version. In the final post, I will talk about the actual script I created for P6 PMDB and possible future direction for managing query performance. 

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• How do you go from a so so programmer to a great one? [closed]

  - by Cervo

  How do you go from being an okay programmer to being able to write maintainable clean code? For example David Hansson was writing Basecamp when in the process he created Rails as part of writing Basecamp in a clean/maintainable way. But how do you know when there is value in a side project like that? I have a bachelors in computer science, and I am about to get a masters and I will say that colleges teach you to write code to solve problems, not neatly or anything. Basically you think of a problem, come up with a solution, and write it down...not necessarily the most maintainable way in the world. Also my first job was in a startup, and now my third is in a small team in a large company where the attitude was/is get it done yesterday (also most of my jobs are mainly database development with SQL with a few ASP.NET web pages/.NET apps on the side). So of course cut/paste is more favored than making things more cleanly. And they would rather have something yesterday even if you have to rewrite it next month rather than to have something in a week that lasts for a year. Also spaghetti code turns up all over the place, and it takes very smart people to write/understand/maintain spaghetti code...However it would be better to do things so simple/clean that even a caveman/woman could do maintenance. Also I get very bored/unmotivated having to go modify the same things cut/pasted in a few locations. Is this the type of skill that you need to learn by working with a serious software organization that has an emphasis on maintenance and maybe even an architect who designs a system architecture and reviews code? Could you really learn it by volunteering on an open source project (it seems to me that a full time programmer job is way more practice than a few hours a week on an open source project)? Is there some course where you can learn this? I can attest that graduate school and undergraduate school do not really emphasize clean software at all. They just teach the structures/algorithms and then send you off into the world to solve problems. Overall I think the first thing is learning to write clean/maintainable code within the bounds of the project in order to become a good programmer. Then the next thing is learning when you need to do a side project (like a framework) to make things more maintainable/clean even while you still deliver things for the deadline in order to become a great programmer. For example, you are making an SQL report and someone gives you 100 calculations for individual columns. At what point does it make sense to construct a domain specific language to encode the rules in simply and then generate all the SQL as opposed to cut/pasting the query from the table a bunch of times and then adjusting each query to do the appropriate calculations. This is the type of thing I would say a great programmer would know. He/she would maybe even know ways to avoid the domain specific language and to still do all the calculations without creating an unmaintainable mess or a ton of repetitive code to cut/paste everywhere.

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• Hosted Monitoring

  - by Grant Fritchey

  The concept of using services to take the place of writing a lot of your own code goes way, way back in computing history. The fundamentals of the concept go back to the dawn of computing with places like IBM hosting time-shares for computing power that you could rent for short periods of time. But things really took off with the building of the Web. Now, all the growth with virtual machines, hosted machines, hosted services from vendors like Amazon and Microsoft, the need to keep all of your software locally on physical boxes is just going the way of the dodo. There will likely always be some pieces of software that you keep on machines on your property or on your person, but the concept of keeping fundamental services locally is going away. As someone put it to me once, if you were starting a business right now, would you bother setting up an Exchange server to manage your email or would you just go to one of the external mail services for everything? For most of us (who are not Exchange admins) the answer is pretty easy. With all this momentum to having external services manage more and more of the infrastructure that’s not business unique, why would you burn up a server and license instance setting up monitoring for your SQL Servers? Of course, some of you are dealing with hyper-sensitive data that might require, through law or treaty, that you lock it down and never expose it to the intertubes, but most of us are not. So, what if someone else took on the basic hassle of setting up monitoring on your systems? That’s what we’re working on here at Red Gate. Right now it’s a private test, but we’re growing it and developing it and it’ll be going to a public beta, probably (hopefully) this year. I’m running it on my machines right now. The concept is pretty simple. You put a relay on your server, poke a hole in your firewall for it, and we start monitoring your server using SQL Monitor. It’s actually shocking how easy it is to get going. You still have to adjust your alerting thresholds, but that’s a standard part of alerting. Your pain threshold and my pain threshold for any given alert may be different. But from there, we do all the heavy lifting, keeping your data online and available, providing you with access to the information about how your servers are behaving, everything. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m really excited by this. I think we’re getting to a place where we can really help the small and medium sized businesses get a monitoring solution in place, quickly and easily. All you crazy busy, and possibly accidental, DBAs and system admins finally can set up monitoring without taking all the time to configure systems, run installs, and all the rest. You just have to tweak your alerts and you’re ready to run. If you are interested in checking it out, you can apply for the closed beta through the Monitor web page.

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