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  • What's the benefit of declaring class functions separately from their actual functionality?

    - by vette982
    In C++, what's the benefit of having a class with functions... say class someClass{ public: void someFunc(int arg1); }; then having the function's actual functionality declared after int main int main() { return 0; } void someClass::someFunc(int arg1) { cout<<arg1; } Furthermore, what's the benefit of declaring the class in a .h header file, then putting the functionality in a .cpp file that #includes the .h file?

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  • Shorter GUIDs than hashing a user id?

    - by Alex Mcp
    I'm wondering how Instapaper (bookmarklet that saves text) might generate URLs for their bookmarklet. Mine has a script src of something similar to www.instapaper.com/j/AnJHrfoDTRia The quality of these URLs is that they need to never collide, and not be really guessable (so other people can't save to your account). I know a simple approach might be to MD5 their email address (presumed to have been checked on signup for uniqueness), but then I'd end up with a super long string. This isn't a huge issue, but I'm wondering what techniques there are for shorter GUIDs that won't collide too often (this is obviously the tradeoff, but 12 characters above is pretty short in my opinion)

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  • Switch User in RedHat like XP [closed]

    - by rd42
    In our cluster, RedHat4 & 5 machines, if someone locks the computer and walks away no body can use it. Is there a feature in RedHat5, Gnome, KDE etc that would allow for the option of switching users at the lock screen, so more than one person can be logged in? Thanks, rd42

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  • User Inactivity Logout PHP

    - by user342391
    I want my users to be logged out automatically after X minutes of inactivity. I also want to have all sessions destroyed. How can this be done? How can I check for inactivity then perform a function to log them out???

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  • c# user notification while waiting

    - by user315445
    Hi, I am writing a simple win forms app in C#. There is a method call in my method which loads files but is taking a while to respond. Below is the method call Directory.GetFiles(selectedFolder, "*.xml", SearchOption.AllDirectories); I want to notify this to users. Is there a way to show them that file loading is in progress? I want a simplest way. I suppose Splash screen is too costly for my app. Thanks, Sid

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  • Why is the "Standard Account" option disabled (grayed-out)

    - by Clayton Hughes
    I just installed Win7 64bit on a new hard drive, and I created a user account through the OOBE. I want to make my user account a standard user. However, if I go into "User Accounts" and select "Change my account type", the standard user option is greyed out--this account apparently has to be an administrator. I thought maybe it was the only admin account on the machine, so I tried to create a new user account named "Administrator", but was told I couldn't, because one already exists. What gives? What do I have to do to run as a standard user?

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  • LAMP: How do I set up http://myservername.com/~user access?

    - by Travesty3
    Been trying to Google this, but I can't figure out good search terms to find any info about what I need, since I don't really know what it's called. I'm pretty much being thrown to the wolves to figure out how to set up a LAMP server. We had someone who knew how to do it, he set one up and then quit. It was set up so that when I went to "http://{myservername}.com/~travis" it showed the contents of my /home/travis/public_html folder. This worked fine, then we lost power and the server restarted (I know, battery backup, but this is a dev server in a dev building so it's OK). Now, the browser can't find that URL. I also need to know how to set this up on a new server, so instead of wasting time diagnosing this problem (probably just something dumb I did messing with settings or something), I really need to know how to set this up from scratch. Thanks for taking the time to read this and (hopefully) answer!

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  • How can I make a Prism webapp look like Firefox to a website? (user agent spoofing)

    - by Alex Aaron Goven
    I thought it would be cool to use Mozilla's Prism to create a webapp for min.us, but drag and drop is disallowed because the site doesn't see the program as Firefox, Chrome or Safari, those of which are apparently the only browsers allowed to do drag and drop for fear that something will be horribly broken. I'm pretty sure Prism runs on the same engine as Firefox, yet I wouldn't doubt it if Prism is running on an older version since it's kind of a forgotten beta. Anyways, like the title says, I want to be able to make Prism webapps appear look like Firefox to websites to unlock awesome features. Also, if it can only be done with Fluid, then I answers regarding that will be fine. I'm not sure what engine it's running though.

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  • How to find a user's (or mine) access rights on Windows Server 2008?

    - by Faiz
    I was given access to a Windows Server 2008 box and I need to check what all permissions I have on that box (if possible in the entire domain). I don't have access to domain controller and I don't want to write LDAP queries but just some GUI option or some command line stuff. Is there anyway? PS: I am not in to network administration, I am a BI developer. Pardon me if asked a stupid question.

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  • Ribbon Search: Locate MS Office Ribbon Menu Features/Functions Quickly

    - by Kavitha
    In the new versions of Microsoft Office  everything has changed with the introduction of Ribbon menus. Even though Ribbon menus has many advantages that simplifies accessing features, at times it’s a daunting task to navigate the Ribbon menus and find a specific command. Ribbon search is one of the interesting freeware tools to overcome these complaints from users, with this one can search Office ribbon for any feature or function easily. It supports both Office 2007 and  Office 2010(the versions which have ribbon). Once Installation has completed, you can find a text box on top of the ribbon in all the office applications (Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel etc.). As you type few letters of the feature you are looking for, Ribbon Search instantly displays the path through which you can access the feature. Here is a screen grab search of Ribbon Search in action When you start typing itself shows results instantly. And also it gives the path through which you can access feature you are searching for. If there are multiple ways to access the feature, it is also shown in the list. Download Ribbon Search This article titled,Ribbon Search: Locate MS Office Ribbon Menu Features/Functions Quickly, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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  • SQL SERVER – Introduction to PERCENT_RANK() – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012

    - by pinaldave
    SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical functions PERCENT_RANK(). This function returns relative standing of a value within a query result set or partition. It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I’d like to attempt to explain its function through a brief example. Instead of creating a new table, I will be using the AdventureWorks sample database as most developers use that for experiment purposes. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, RANK() OVER(ORDER BY SalesOrderID) Rnk, PERCENT_RANK() OVER(ORDER BY SalesOrderID) AS PctDist FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY PctDist DESC GO The above query will give us the following result: Now let us understand the resultset. You will notice that I have also included the RANK() function along with this query. The reason to include RANK() function was as this query is infect uses RANK function and find the relative standing of the query. The formula to find PERCENT_RANK() is as following: PERCENT_RANK() = (RANK() – 1) / (Total Rows – 1) If you want to read more about this function read here. Now let us attempt the same example with PARTITION BY clause USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, RANK() OVER(PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY ProductID ) Rnk, PERCENT_RANK() OVER(PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY ProductID ) AS PctDist FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY PctDist DESC GO Now you will notice that the same logic is followed in follow result set. I have now quick question to you – how many of you know the logic/formula of PERCENT_RANK() before this blog post? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • Syntactic sugar in PHP with static functions

    - by Anna
    The dilemma I'm facing is: should I use static classes for the components of an application just to get nicer looking API? Example - the "normal" way: // example component class Cache{ abstract function get($k); abstract function set($k, $v); } class APCCache extends Cache{ ... } class application{ function __construct() $this->cache = new APCCache(); } function whatever(){ $this->cache->add('blabla'); print $this->cache->get('blablabla'); } } Notice how ugly is this->cache->.... But it gets waay uglier when you try to make the application extensible trough plugins, because then you have to pass the application instance to its plugins, and you get $this->application->cache->... With static functions: interface CacheAdapter{ abstract function get($k); abstract function set($k, $v); } class Cache{ public static $ad; public function setAdapter(CacheAdapter $a){ static::$ad = $ad; } public static function get($k){ return static::$ad->get($k); } ... } class APCCache implements CacheAdapter{ ... } class application{ function __construct(){ cache::setAdapter(new APCCache); } function whatever() cache::add('blabla', 5); print cache::get('blabla'); } } Here it looks nicer because you just call cache::get() everywhere. The disadvantage is that I loose the possibility to extend this class easily. But I've added a setAdapter method to make the class extensible to some point. I'm relying on the fact that I won't need to rewrite to replace the cache wrapper, ever, and that I won't need to run multiple application instances simultaneously (it's basically a site - and nobody works with two sites at the same time) So, am doing it wrong?

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  • Can't access any functions after chown command.

    - by explorex
    I am not being to access any functions in my desktop and I don't have an OS besides Ubuntu and I am new to Ubuntu. I think I rebooted my computer thinking that Google Chrome crashed. I opened Google Chrome but it showed opening message but never opened so I restarted my computer. and when my system was loading (I was playing with keyboard dont know what I typed) and when by Ubuntu loaded, I was unable to access anything some of characteristics are listed below: I cannot hear any sound I cannot access wired ethernet connection on the right corner where I usually enable to access internet and I have no internet. There is no local apache server either. when ever I try to start apacer I get setuid must be root or something. When I type sudo then I get message setuid must be root. I cannot access orther external storage devices like pendrive and portable hard drive and cannot mount my other drives with FAT32 filesystem. When I try to start my apache webserver with out typing sudo then I get message cannnot open socket or something like it. I remember also doing command chown -R www-data / earlier and got error message I cannot shutdown my computer, it only logs off

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  • MySQL – Introduction to CONCAT and CONCAT_WS functions

    - by Pinal Dave
    MySQL supports two types of concatenation functions. They are CONCAT and CONCAT_WS CONCAT function just concats all the argument values as such SELECT CONCAT('Television','Mobile','Furniture'); The above code returns the following TelevisionMobileFurniture If you want to concatenate them with a comma, either you need to specify the comma at the end of each value, or pass comma as an argument along with the values SELECT CONCAT('Television,','Mobile,','Furniture'); SELECT CONCAT('Television',',','Mobile',',','Furniture'); Both the above return the following Television,Mobile,Furniture However you can omit the extra work by using CONCAT_WS function. It stands for Concatenate with separator. This is very similar to CONCAT function, but accepts separator as the first argument. SELECT CONCAT_WS(',','Television','Mobile','Furniture'); The result is Television,Mobile,Furniture If you want pipeline as a separator, you can use SELECT CONCAT_WS('|','Television','Mobile','Furniture'); The result is Television|Mobile|Furniture So CONCAT_WS is very flexible in concatenating values along with separate. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: MySQL, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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  • learn the programming language for computing functions about integers

    - by asd
    Hi I know something about Pascal, Mathematica and Matlab, but I dont have any idea about C,C++,C# languages. I want to learn one of the languages that they they are fast and exact to compute some arithmetic functions for large numbers(for example larger than $10^3000$). I asked somebody and he said he used C++ and he said I computed this sequence in less than 10 min. I want to know C, C++, C# and visual kind of theses programs and know which is better for my goal. Let $f$ be an arithmetic function and A={k1,k2,...,kn} are integers in increasing order. Now I want to start with k1 and compare f(ki) with f(k1). If f(ki)f(k1), put ki as k1. Now start with ki, and compare f(kj) with f(ki), for ji. If f(kj)f(ki), put kj as ki, and repeat this procedure. At the end we will have a sub sequence B={L1,...,Lm} of A by this property: f(L(i+1))f(L(i)), for any 1<=i<=m-1 I have written a code for this program with Mathematica, and it take some hours to compute f of ki's or the set B for large numbers. For example, let f is the divisor function of integers. Do you know how to write the code for my purpose in Mathematica or Matlab. Mathematica is preferable.

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  • TDD with SQL and data manipulation functions

    - by Xophmeister
    While I'm a professional programmer, I've never been formally trained in software engineering. As I'm frequently visiting here and SO, I've noticed a trend for writing unit tests whenever possible and, as my software gets more complex and sophisticated, I see automated testing as a good idea in aiding debugging. However, most of my work involves writing complex SQL and then processing the output in some way. How would you write a test to ensure your SQL was returning the correct data, for example? Then, say if the data wasn't under your control (e.g., that of a 3rd party system), how can you efficiently test your processing routines without having to hand write reams of dummy data? The best solution I can think of is making views of the data that, together, cover most cases. I can then join those views with my SQL to see if it's returning the correct records and manually process the views to see if my functions, etc. are doing what they're supposed to. Still, it seems excessive and flakey; particularly finding data to test against...

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  • Problem with missing JSON functions on PHP 5.2.6 / Plesk 8.4

    - by Drachenviech
    I have a vserver running openSuse 10.3, Apache 2 and Plesk 8.4. I can update/upgrade neither, as it is apparently not recommended to upgrade openSuse 10.3 (and an update to the EOL 10.4 does not seem to make much sense) and Plesk fails to update no matter what version I try (even fails to upgrade to 8.4.1). Still I can live with that somehow, primarily because I don’t have the time to do a fresh remote install on the vserver. What really is a problem is, that though the installed PHP is 5.2.6 it has no zip library and no json functions. The first is probably because PHP was not compiled with --enable-zip. The second is a big mystery though. As I understand it, it always comes with PHP unless its compiled with the --disable-json configure option. This is however not the case. And the json extension module is just not there. I even tried to enable it with extension=json.so with no luck either. the configure options of my PHP are (as shipped with Plesk 8.4) '../configure' '--prefix=/usr' '--datadir=/usr/share/php5' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--bindir=/usr/bin' '--with-libdir=lib' '--includedir=/usr/include' '--sysconfdir=/etc/php5/apache2' '--with-config-file-path=/etc/php5/apache2' '--with-config-file-scan-dir=/etc/php5/conf.d' '--enable-libxml' '--enable-session' '--with-mm' '--with-pcre-regex=/usr' '--enable-xml' '--enable-simplexml' '--enable-spl' '--enable-filter' '--disable-debug' '--enable-inline-optimization' '--disable-rpath' '--disable-static' '--enable-shared' '--program-suffix=5' '--with-pic' '--with-gnu-ld' '--with-system-tzdata=/usr/share/zoneinfo' '--with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs2' '--disable-all' '--disable-cli' As I understand it, PECL is not an option with 5.2.6. Or am I mistaken? Even if I was not, the openSuse repository only goes as far as PHP 5.2.4. The openSuse install even came without zypper, which I had to manually install. So is there a way to get ziplib and json running in PHP 5.2.6 without having to recompile the binary?

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  • how to fully unit test functions and their internal validation

    - by Patrick
    I am just now getting into formal unit testing and have come across an issue in testing separate internal parts of functions. I have created a base class of data manipulation (i.e.- moving files, chmodding file, etc) and in moveFile() I have multiple levels of validation to pinpoint when a moveFile() fails (i.e.- source file not readable, destination not writeable). I can't seem to figure out how to force a couple particular validations to fail while not tripping the previous validations. Example: I want the copying of a file to fail, but by the time I've gotten to the actual copying, I've checked for everything that can go wrong before copying. Code Snippit: (Bad code on the fifth line...) // if the change permissions is set, change the file permissions if($chmod !== null) { $mod_result = chmod($destination_directory.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$new_filename, $chmod); if($mod_result === false || $source_directory.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$source_filename == '/home/k...../file_chmod_failed.qif') { DataMan::logRawMessage('File permissions update failed on moveFile [ERR0009] - ['.$destination_directory.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$new_filename.' - '.$chmod.']', sfLogger::ALERT); return array('success' => false, 'type' => 'Internal Server Error [ERR0009]'); } } So how do I simulate the copy failing. My stop-gap measure was to perform a validation on the filename being copied and if it's absolute path matched my testing file, force the failure. I know this is very bad to put testing code into the actual code that will be used to run on the production server but I'm not sure how else to do it. Note: I am on PHP 5.2, symfony, using lime_test(). EDIT I am testing the chmodding and ensuring that the array('success' = false, 'type' = ..) is returned

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  • database design help for game / user levels / progress

    - by sprugman
    Sorry this got long and all prose-y. I'm creating my first truly gamified web app and could use some help thinking about how to structure the data. The Set-up Users need to accomplish tasks in each of several categories before they can move up a level. I've got my Users, Tasks, and Categories tables, and a UserTasks table which joins the three. ("User 3 has added Task 42 in Category 8. Now they've completed it.") That's all fine and working wonderfully. The Challenge I'm not sure of the best way to track the progress in the individual categories toward each level. The "business" rules are: You have to achieve a certain number of points in each category to move up. If you get the number of points needed in Cat 8, but still have other work to do to complete the level, any new Cat 8 points count toward your overall score, but don't "roll over" into the next level. The number of Categories is small (five currently) and unlikely to change often, but by no means absolutely fixed. The number of points needed to level-up will vary per level, probably by a formula, or perhaps a lookup table. So the challenge is to track each user's progress toward the next level in each category. I've thought of a few potential approaches: Possible Solutions Add a column to the users table for each category and reset them all to zero each time a user levels-up. Have a separate UserProgress table with a row for each category for each user and the number of points they have. (Basically a Many-to-Many version of #1.) Add a userLevel column to the UserTasks table and use that to derive their progress with some kind of SUM statement. Their current level will be a simple int in the User table. Pros & Cons (1) seems like by far the most straightforward, but it's also the least flexible. Perhaps I could use a naming convention based on the category ids to help overcome some of that. (With code like "select cats; for each cat, get the value from Users.progress_{cat.id}.") It's also the one where I lose the most data -- I won't know which points counted toward leveling up. I don't have a need in mind for that, so maybe I don't care about that. (2) seems complicated: every time I add or subtract a user or a category, I have to maintain the other table. I foresee synchronization challenges. (3) Is somewhere in between -- cleaner than #2, but less intuitive than #1. In order to find out where a user is, I'd have mildly complex SQL like: SELECT categoryId, SUM(points) from UserTasks WHERE userId={user.id} & countsTowardLevel={user.level} groupBy categoryId Hmm... that doesn't seem so bad. I think I'm talking myself into #3 here, but would love any input, advice or other ideas. P.S. Sorry for the cross-post. I wrote this up on SO and then remembered that there was a game dev-focused one. Curious to see if I get different answers one place than the other....

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  • How to get the Entire Function from a file

    - by SoLoGHoST
    Ok, I'm reading through a file now, line by line. I know each functions name in the file, since it is defined elsewhere in an XML document. That is what should be this: function function_name Where function_name is the name of the function. I get all of the function definitions from an XML document that I already have put into an array of function names, and I need to grab just those functions from the php file. And rebuild that php file so that it only has those functions in it. That is to say, if a php file has more functions than what is defined in the XML tag, than I need to strip out those functions, and rewrite the .php file with only the functions that the user specified in the XML file. So, the dilemma I face is how to determine the END of a function reading line by line, and I'm aware that functions can have function within them. So I don't want to remove the functions within them. Just functions that are standalone and aren't defined within the accompanying XML file. Any ideas on how to do this?? Thanks :)

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  • Who writes the words? A rant with graphs.

    - by Roger Hart
    If you read my rant, you'll know that I'm getting a bit of a bee in my bonnet about user interface text. But rather than just yelling about the way the world should be (short version: no UI text would suck), it seemed prudent to actually gather some data. Rachel Potts has made an excellent first foray, by conducting a series of interviews across organizations about how they write user interface text. You can read Rachel's write up here. She presents the facts as she found them, and doesn't editorialise. The result is insightful, but impartial isn't really my style. So here's a rant with graphs. My method, and how it sucked I sent out a short survey. Survey design is one of my hobby-horses, and since some smartarse in the comments will mention it if I don't, I'll step up and confess: I did not design this one well. It was potentially ambiguous, implicitly excluded people, and since I only really advertised it on Twitter and a couple of mailing lists the sample will be chock full of biases. Regardless, these were the questions: What do you do? Select the option that best describes your role What kind of software does your organization make? (optional) In your organization, who writes the text on your software user interfaces? (for example: button names, static text, tooltips, and so on) Tick all that apply. In your organization who is responsible for user interface text? Who "owns" it? The most glaring issue (apart from question 3 being a bit broken) was that I didn't make it clear that I was asking about applications. Desktop, mobile, or web, I wouldn't have minded. In fact, it might have been interesting to categorize and compare. But a few respondents commented on the seeming lack of relevance, since they didn't really make software. There were some other issues too. It wasn't the best survey. So, you know, pinch of salt time with what follows. Despite this, there were 100 or so respondents. This post covers the overview, and you can look at the raw data in this spreadsheet What did people do? Boring graph number one: I wasn't expecting that. Given I pimped the survey on twitter and a couple of Tech Comms discussion lists, I was more banking on and even Content Strategy/Tech Comms split. What the "Others" specified: Three people chipped in with Technical Writer. Author, apparently, doesn't cut it. There's a "nobody reads the instructions" joke in there somewhere, I'm sure. There were a couple of hybrid roles, including Tech Comms and Testing, which sounds gruelling and thankless. There was also, an Intranet Manager, a Creative Director, a Consultant, a CTO, an Information Architect, and a Translator. That's a pretty healthy slice through the industry. Who wrote UI text? Boring graph number two: Annoyingly, I made this a "tick all that apply" question, so I can't make crude and inflammatory generalizations about percentages. This is more about who gets involved in user interface wording. So don't panic about the number of developers writing UI text. First off, it just means they're involved. Second, they might be good at it. What? It could happen. Ours are involved - they write a placeholder and flag it to me for changes. Sometimes I don't make any. It's also not surprising that there's so much UX in the mix. Some of that will be people taking care, and crafting an understandable interface. Some of it will be whatever text goes on the wireframe making it into production. I'm going to assume that's what happened at eBay, when their iPhone app purportedly shipped with the placeholder text "Some crappy content goes here". Ahem. Listing all 17 "other" responses would make this post lengthy indeed, but you can read them in the raw data spreadsheet. The award for the approach that sounds the most like a good idea yet carries the highest risk of ending badly goes to whoever offered up "External agencies using focus groups". If you're reading this, and that actually works, leave a comment. I'm fascinated. Who owned UI text Stop. Bar chart time: Wow. Let's cut to the chase, and by "chase", I mean those inflammatory generalizations I was talking about: In around 60% of cases the person responsible for user interface text probably lacks the relevant expertise. Even in the categories I count as being likely to have relevant skills (Marketing Copywriters, Content Strategists, Technical Authors, and User Experience Designers) there's a case for each role being unsuited, as you'll see in Rachel's blog post So it's not as simple as my headline. Does that mean that you personally, Mr Developer reading this, write bad button names? Of course not. I know nothing about you. It rather implies that as a category, the majority of people looking after UI text have neither communication nor user experience as their primary skill set, and as such will probably only be good at this by happy accident. I don't have a way of measuring those frequency of those accidents. What the Others specified: I don't know who owns it. I assume the project manager is responsible. "copywriters" when they wish to annoy me. the client's web maintenance person, often PR or MarComm That last one chills me to the bone. Still, at least nobody said "the work experience kid". You can see the rest in the spreadsheet. My overwhelming impression here is of user interface text as an unloved afterthought. There were fewer "nobody" responses than I expected, and a much broader split. But the relative predominance of developers owning and writing UI text suggests to me that organizations don't see it as something worth dedicating attention to. If true, that's bothersome. Because the words on the screen, particularly the names of things, are fundamental to the ability to understand an use software. It's also fascinating that Technical Authors and Content Strategists are neck and neck. For such a nascent discipline, Content Strategy appears to have made a mark on software development. Or my sample is skewed. But it feels like a bit of validation for my rant: Content Strategy is eating Tech Comms' lunch. That's not a bad thing. Well, not if the UI text is getting done well. And that's the caveat to this whole post. I couldn't care less who writes UI text, provided they consider the user and don't suck at it. I care that it may be falling by default to people poorly disposed to doing it right. And I care about that because so much user interface text sucks. The most interesting question Was one I forgot to ask. It's this: Does your organization have technical authors/writers? Like a lot of survey data, that doesn't tell you much on its own. But once we get a bit dimensional, it become more interesting. So taken with the other questions, this would have let me find out what I really want to know: What proportion of organizations have Tech Comms professionals but don't use them for UI text? Who writes UI text in their place? Why this happens? It's possible (feasible is another matter) that hundreds of companies have tech authors who don't work on user interfaces because they've empirically discovered that someone else, say the Marketing Copywriter, is better at it. And once we've all finished laughing, I'll point out that I've met plenty of tech authors who just aren't used to thinking about users at the point of need in the way UI text and embedded user assistance require. If you've got what I regard, perhaps unfairly, as the bad kind of tech author - the old-school kind with the thousand-page pdf and the grammar obsession - if you've got one of those then you probably are better off getting the UX folk or the copywriters to do your UI text. At the very least, they'll derive terminology from user research.

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