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• What language and topics should be covered when teaching non-CS college students how to program?

  - by michaelcarrano

  I have been asked by many of my non-computer science friends to teach them how to program. I have agreed to hold a seminar for them that will last for approximately 1 to 2 hours. My thoughts are to use Python as the language to teach them basic programming skills. I figured Python is relatively easier to learn from what I have researched. It is also a language I want to learn which will make holding this seminar all the more enjoyable. The topics I plan to cover are as followed: Variables / Arrays Logic - If else statements, switch case, nested statements Loops - for, while, do-while and nested loops Functions - pass by value, pass by reference (is this the correct terms for Python? I am mostly a C/C++ person) Object Oriented Programming Of course, I plan to have code examples for all topics and I will try to have each example flow into each other so that at the end of the seminar everyone will have a complete working program. I suppose my question is, if you were given 1 to 2 hours to teach a group of college students how to program, what language would you choose and what topics would you cover? Update: Thank you for the great feedback. I should have mentioned in my earlier post above that a majority of the students attending the seminar have some form of programming experience whether it was with Java or using Matlab. Most of these students are 3rd/4th year Engineering students who want to get a refresher on programming before they graduate.

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• What did Rich Hickey mean when he said, "All that specificity [of interfaces/classes/types] kills your reuse!"

  - by GlenPeterson

  In Rich Hickey's thought-provoking goto conference keynote "The Value of Values" at 29 minutes he's talking about the overhead of a language like Java and makes a statement like, "All those interfaces kill your reuse." What does he mean? Is that true? In my search for answers, I have run across: The Principle of Least Knowledge AKA The Law of Demeter which encourages airtight API interfaces. Wikipedia also lists some disadvantages. Kevlin Henney's Imperial Clothing Crisis which argues that use, not reuse is the appropriate goal. Jack Diederich's "Stop Writing Classes" talk which argues against over-engineering in general. Clearly, anything written badly enough will be useless. But how would the interface of a well-written API prevent that code from being used? There are examples throughout history of something made for one purpose being used more for something else. But in the software world, if you use something for a purpose it wasn't intended for, it usually breaks. I'm looking for one good example of a good interface preventing a legitimate but unintended use of some code. Does that exist? I can't picture it.

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• Need advice: Staying techie or going the MBA way?

  - by SharePoint Newbie

  I know this is a very subjective question and I am the best person to decide this for myself...but I am just looking for your views. I have 5 years of experience as a professional developer. I have a decent background in Maths and have done my bachelors in engineering in CS. I have still not reached a stage in my career where growth is difficult and do not foresee this happenning for a very long time if ever because I find myself constantly (self) motivated to pick up new skills. A lot of my friends have however been getting through their MBA lately ...and not from the likes of Harvard or Kellogs, just mediocre colleges. They've however been landing paychecks fatter than me even though they have little or no work experience. Given that I have the option of pursuing an MBA an have my finances in order (and am planning an MBA from INSEAD / IE) would it make sense for me to sell out what I like doing and go for an MBA? Will I regret not doing an MBA later, given that I am in the right age/experience group to do an MBA? I absolutely love what I am doing right now and also the people I'm doing it with, but am just worried if this career would be as rewarding financially as the one after a management degree.

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• To sell or give for free

  - by QAH

  Hello everyone! I am currently making a game that I was originally planning to sell. It is a simple 2D arcade style game for the PC. I've seen many indie games become popular and generate revenue from advertisements, but the game itself remains free. I need some advice on whether or not I should sell my game, release it for free with advertisements, or ask for donations and keep the game free. I feel that my game is fun, but of course the graphics aren't tip top because I am a programmer, not an artist. I just take screenshots of 3D models I get from Turbosquid and crop around it to make a sprite. Also, and I could be very wrong about this, it seems that there are more legal issues surrounding selling a game than making it free and generating revenue from advertisement, or asking for donations. If I am wrong, someone please correct me. Also, I am very interested in generating some revenue for my work, but that isn't at the very top of my list. I am in my last year of high school, soon to be going to college, and I am going to major in computer science/software engineering. So I am trying to gain some preliminary experience at home by coding stuff every day. One way of getting this experience is by making this game. So what do you think? What route should I take? What has worked well with other indie games? Thanks in advance.

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• Floating point undesirable in highly critical code?

  - by Kirt Undercoffer

  Question 11 in the Software Quality section of "IEEE Computer Society Real-World Software Engineering Problems", Naveda, Seidman, lists fp computation as undesirable because "the accuracy of the computations cannot be guaranteed". This is in the context of computing acceleration for an emergency braking system for a high speed train. This thinking seems to be invoking possible errors in small differences between measurements of a moving object but small differences at slow speeds aren't a problem (or shouldn't be), small differences between two measurements at high speed are irrelevant - can there be a problem with small roundoff errors during deceleration for an emergency braking system? This problem has been observed with airplane braking systems resulting in hydroplaning but could this actually happen in the context of a high speed train? The concern about fp errors seems to not be well-founded in this context. Any insight? The fp is used for acceleration so perhaps the concern is inching over a speed limit? But fp should be just fine if they use a double in whatever implementation language. The actual problem in the text states: During the inspection of the code for the emergency braking system of a new high speed train (a highly critical, real-time application), the review team identifies several characteristics of the code. Which of these characteristics are generally viewed as undesirable? The code contains three recursive functions (well that one is obvious). The computation of acceleration uses floating point arithmetic. All other computations use integer arithmetic. The code contains one linked list that uses dynamic memory allocation (second obvious problem). All inputs are checked to determine that they are within expected bounds before they are used.

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• MVC: How to Implement Linked Views?

  - by cw'

  I'm developing a java application to visualize time series. I need (at least) three linked views, meaning that interaction with one of them updates the others. The views are: A list represents the available and currently selected time series. The selected time series are used as input for subsequent computations. Changing the selection should update the other views. A line chart displays the available and selected time series. Time series should be selectable from here by clicking on them. A bar chart shows aggregated data on time series. When zooming in to a period of time, the line chart should zoom in to the same period (and vice versa). How to implement this nicely, from a software engineering point of view? I.e. I'd like to write reusable and clear, maintainable code. So I thought of the MVC pattern. At first I liked the idea of having the three view components observing my model class and to refresh views upon being notified. But then, it didn't feel right to store view related data in the model. Storing e.g. the time series selection or plot zoom level in the model makes implications about the view which I wouldn't want in a reusable model. On the other hand, having the controllers observe each other results in a lot of dependencies. When adding another view, I'd have to register all other views as observer of the new view and vice versa, passing around many references and introducing dependencies. Maybe another "model" storing only view-related data would be the solution?

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• Any empirical evidence on the efficacy of CMMI?

  - by mehaase

  I am wondering if there are any studies that examine the efficacy of software projects in CMMI-oriented organizations. For example, are CMMI organizations more likely to finish projects on time and/or on budget than non-CMMI organizations? Edit for clarification: CMMI stands for "Capability Maturity Model Integration". It's developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University (SEI-CMU). It's not a certification, but there are various companies that will "appraise" your organization to various levels of CMMI, such as level 2 and level 3. (I believe CMMI level 1 is an animalistic, Hobbesian free-for-all that nobody aspires to. In other words, everybody is at least CMMI level 1, even if you've never heard of CMMI before.) I'm definitely not an expert, but I believe that an organization can be appraised for CMMI levels within different scopes of work: i.e. service delivery, software development, foobaring, etc. My question is focused on the software development appraisal: is an organization that has been appraised to CMMI Level X for software projects more likely to finish a software project on time and on budget than another organization that has not been appraised to CMMI Level X? However, in the absence of hard data about software-oriented CMMI, I'd be interested in the effect that CMMI appraisals have on other activities as well. I originally asked the question because I've seen various studies conducted on software (e.g. the essays in The Mythical Man Month refer to numerous empirical studies, as does McConnell's Code Complete), so I know that there are organizations performing empirical studies of software development.

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• sharing life experience

  - by gcc

  I am a student of computer engineering. I have never done any programming before, and as you can understand, I don't know how to study it or how to make my own programs. My English is weak [edited for clarity - ed], and so if you don't like the choices I list, please feel free to provide others. How should I study? How should I learn programming languages? Study completely from a book. Don't study from a book, just try writing code. A mix of the two; study from a book, then try writing code. Study half the book, then write the code by hand on paper. Listed to the teacher, then try to solve general problems (those not from any specific chapter). I have send that question to stackoverflow before when I am at first year. Now, I want to construct webpage to guide fresh students by giving advise of yours and mines.Maybe, you wonder Why I want to construct webpage , I just want help the other student. I am giving a link to that question < http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3389465/how-should-i-study-programming-languagess If you have other advice, feel free. EDIT: This web cite, I think , is constructed to share member's life experience and also I know these experiences is valuable . So I have no right to want your opinion, But I want your opinion / experience even if you think it is not so helpful to other

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• EE vs Computer Science: Effect on Developers' Approaches, Styles?

  - by DarenW

  Are there any systematic differences between software developers (sw engineers, architect, whatever job title) with an electronics or other engineering background, compared to those who entered the profession through computer science? By electronics background, I mean an EE degree, or a self-taught electronics tinkerer, other types of engineers and experimental physicists. I'm wondering if coming into the software-making professions from a strong knowledge of flip flops, tristate buffers, clock edge rise times and so forth, usually leads to a distinct approach to problems, mindsets, or superior skills at certain specialties and lack of skills at others, when compared to the computer science types who are full of concepts like abstract data types, object orientation, database normalization, who speak of "closures" in programming languages - things that make little sense to the soldering iron crowd until they learn enough programming. The real world, I'm sure, offers a wild range of individual exceptions, but for the most part, can you say there are overall differences? Would these have hiring implications e.g. (to make up something) "never hire an electron wrangler to do database design"? Could knowing about any differences help job seekers find something appropriate more effectively? Or provide enlightenment or some practical advice for those who find themselves misfits in a particular job role? (Btw, I've never taken any computer science classes; my impression of exactly what they cover is fuzzy. I'm an electronics/physics/art type, myself.)

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• How to connect to my own WiFi using Broadcom STA drivers?

  - by Chris

  I'm trying hard to switch to Linux from Windows because of my engineering project. Unfortunately, everything is against that change! Before I have installed Broadcom STA proprietary drivers, I was seeing on NetworkManager and nm-applet only local radio-internet-access networks. After I installed Broadcom STA, I see my neighbor's wireless network (channel 11, WEP) Neither before nor after the installation is own wireless network available. Computer: Asus Lamborghini VX6 Ubuntu: 12.04 LTS 64-bit Router: ASUS N55U (A1) with newest AsusWRT firmware Network: Channel 5 (tried also 10 and 11, both on 20 and 40MHz bands), WPA2 Personal, 2,4 + 5 GHz (what is not very important, 'cause the wlan card in VX6 is only 2,4GHz). Network works fine on Windows, also through D-Link repeater on the other floor. Unfortunately, same network is invisible to Ubuntu on same machine. I have tried some combinations with other GUIs but it did not work. Are there any better drivers for Ubuntu? I need that network badly, but I'm an Ubuntu newbie, so I don't know how to solve that problem. Please help.

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• During interviews, how do I gauge a company's respect for my position?

  - by Bluu

  I'm a web developer who previously joined a software company not knowing their value and respect went to big data analysis, not their website. Sure, they needed a public-facing website, but I eventually found that the most exciting, valued projects there went to data teams. Realizing this, members of the web team were picked off and switched teams, making it hard for those left behind to keep up the work load, and making us look bad. At times it seemed the company culture sneered at us, wondering, "What does that team even do here?" A friend of mine had the opposite problem at another software company. All he wanted to do was crunch big numbers. However he complained that the rest of the company wouldn't shut up about developing the usability of their website. Meanwhile his analytics team languished. I've also heard of salespeople getting love at a company, while engineering as a whole is undervalued, or vice versa. As for my story, if I could have known the company was like that, I might have avoided the job in the first place. So, before I join a new company, how do I gauge its actual respect for my programming role? For its other roles? I want to avoid companies that aren't serious about my particular focus in programming, or, perhaps bigger picture, companies that don't value everybody who works there. (Note I think gauging the company's attitude toward the basic needs of its programmers is covered by these related questions.)

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• Is there a common programming term for the problems of adding features to an already-featureful program?

  - by Jeremy Friesner

  I'm looking for a commonly used programming term to describe a software-engineering phenomenon, which (for lack of a better way to describe it) I'll illustrate first with a couple of examples-by-analogy: Scenario 1: We want to build/extend a subway system on the outskirts of a small town in Wyoming. There are the usual subway-problems to solve, of course (hiring the right construction company, choosing the best route, buying the subway cars), but other than that it's pretty straightforward to implement the system because there aren't a huge number of constraints to satisfy. Scenario 2: Same as above, except now we need to build/extend the subway system in downtown Los Angeles. Here we face all of the problems we did in case (1), but also additional problems -- most of the applicable space is already in use, and has a vocal constituency which will protest loudly if we inconvenience them by repurposing, redesigning, or otherwise modifying the infrastructure that they rely on. Because of this, extensions to the system happen either very slowly and expensively, or they don't happen at all. I sometimes see a similar pattern with software development -- adding a new feature to a small/simple program is straightforward, but as the program grows, adding further new features becomes more and more difficult, if only because it is difficult to integrate the new feature without adversely affecting any of the large number of existing use-cases or user-constituencies. (even with a robust, adaptable program design, you run into the problem of the user interface becoming so elaborate that the program becomes difficult to learn or use) Is there a term for this phenomenon?

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• How should I approach learning programming languages?

  - by gcc

  I am a student of computer engineering. I have never done any programming before, and as you can understand, I don't know how to study it or how to make my own programs. My English is weak [edited for clarity - ed], and so if you don't like the choices I list, please feel free to provide others. How should I study? How should I learn programming languages? Study completely from a book. Don't study from a book, just try writing code. A mix of the two; study from a book, then try writing code. Study half the book, then write the code by hand on paper. Listed to the teacher, then try to solve general problems (those not from any specific chapter). I have send that question to stackoverflow before when I am at first year. Now, I want to construct webpage to guide fresh students by giving advise of yours and mines.Maybe, you wonder Why I want to construct webpage , I just want help the other student. I am giving a link to that question < http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3389465/how-should-i-study-programming-languagess If you have other advice, feel free. EDIT: This web cite, I think , is constructed to share member's life experience and also I know these experiences is valuable . So I have no right to want your opinion, But I want your opinion / experience even if you think it is not so helpful to other

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• Help deciding on language for a complex desktop - web application

  - by user967834

  I'm about to start working on a fairly complex project needing a desktop GUI as well as a web interface and I need to decide on a language(s) to use. This is from an electrical engineering/robotics background. These are the requirements: Program will have to read data from multiple sensors and inputs (motion sensor, temperature sensor, capacitive sensor, infrared, magnetic sensors, etc) through a port on a computer - so either through USB or ethernet. Program will have to be able to send control signals based on this input. Program will have to continuously monitor all input signals at all times - so realtime data. Program will require authentication. Program will need to be controllable from a web interface from anywhere via logging in to a website. Web interface will also need to have realtime feedback once authenticated. What language do you think would best accomplish this? I was thinking maybe saving everything into a database which can be accessed by both the desktop and web app? And would Python be able to do all of this? Or something like a remote desktop app? I know this is a complex project but let's assume I can learn any language. Has anyone done something like this and if so how did you accomplish it?

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• Why job postings always looking for "rockstars?" [closed]

  - by Xepoch

  I have noticed a recent trend in requesting programmers who are rockstars. I get it, they're looking for someone who is really good at what they do. But why (pray) make the reference to a rockstar? Do these companies really want these traits as a real rockstar? Party all night and wake up to take care of quick business in the morning? Substance abuse, Narcissism with celebrity, Compensation well exceeding their management, Excellent at putting on a short-lived show, Entertainment instead of value, 1 hit (project) wonders or single-genre performers, Et cetera What is wrong with Senior or Principal Software Engineer who has an established and proven passion for the business? Rather do we mean quite the opposite, someone who: rolls up the sleeves and gets to work, takes appropriate direction and helps influence teams, programs in lessons' learned and proper practices, provides timely communication to the whole team, can code and understand multiple languages, understands the science and theory behind computation, Is there a trend to diversify the software engineering ranks? How many software rockstars can you hire before your band starts breaking up? Sure, there are lots of folks doing this stuff on their own, maybe even a rare few who do coding for show, but I wager the majority is for business. I don't see ads for rockstar accountants, or rockstar machinists, or rockstart CFOs. What makes the software programmer and their hiring departments lean towards this kind of job title?

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• How well do graduates from top universities perform and how does it feel compare to the rest of the world?

  - by Amumu

  I always have impressions to those who got admitted into top Universities like MIT, Standford... for studying Engineering. I don't actually know what they are doing in the University or what they will do, but I always feel they can perform higher level tasks with more complexities. I always think that they are good at create and applying mathematical model in real life and I tend to agree: If you can't apply math, it's your problems, not math. I am a junior software engineer on embedded devices. I am learning more on Linux kernel and low level stuffs. Even so, my will is not strong enough to pursue technical path forever, with a final purpose is to create something significant on my own. May I have a chance to get on their level if I keep learning through experience and self-study? In my opinion, Math is the must have requirement, since it seems that programs on those Universities are very Math oriented. Without very strong math skill, how can one perform good in science and researching beyond making regular business products?

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• Computer Science graduate. Master or full-time job? [closed]

  - by Alex

  Possible Duplicate: Is a Master's worth it? I have just gotten my Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and I have to make choice. Whether to continue with my full-time job I just got or put the job slightly in the background and concentrate on getting a Master's degree. I am currently working as an embedded C developer in a small company. The cool thing is that, because the team is quite small, my engineering ideas really play a part in the final product. Not to mention that I get to work on very different areas of embedded programming: device drivers and development of a Real Time OS. I am very enthusiastic about my job and what I do. On the other hand, in my country there isn't really a master's degree that focuses on embedded development so my gain from getting this degree will mainly in the field of general computer science knowledge. That being said, is it worth giving up all my spare time which I now use to study different areas of embedded devices and work mainly to get a degree rather than pure knowledge and experience in the field I want to work in?

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• Getting into the details of game engine programming

  - by Darkslash

  I am interested in learning game programming, but I really have an interest in the lower level engineering in games. I have OpenGL experience, and I am really interested in learning more about implementing AI, Physics, etc. I have a computer science degree, so I really like getting into technical stuff. Many times when I ask about this sort of thing, I get a lot of "Use an engine", "Use Unity3d", "Why waste your time writing code that already exists", etc, etc. My idea was to use simpler libraries such as SFML or XNA so that I could learn how to implement the more complex systems. The thing is, although I do want to write games, I want to learn things that using something like Unity simply doesn't teach you. My goal is not to make a current generation quality 3D game to sell, I just want to make some cool smaller games and learn all I can about the programming side of game development. Is this something that people just do not do anymore? It seems like everywhere I turn people are using Unity or UDK or GameMaker. I fully understand why you would use a tool like these, but I cant see how they would suit my purposes. So where does someone like myself turn? Am I trying to learn something that people just do not bother doing anymore? Is the innovation in this area gone and just all about gameplay now? I'm sorry if this question seems silly, but I am genuinely interested in knowing more about this and meeting more people who are interested in this sort of thing.

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• Is IDirectInput8::FindDevice totally broken on Windows 7?

  - by Noora

  I'm developing on Windows 7, and using DirectInput8 for my input needs. I'm tracking gamepad additions and removals (that is, GUID_DEVINTERFACE_HID devices) using the DBT_DEVICEARRIVAL and DBT_DEVICEREMOVECOMPLETE messages, which works fine. However, what I've come to find out is that no matter what I do, passing the received values from DBT_DEVICEARRIVAL to IDirectInput8's FindDevice method, it will always fail to identify the device, returning DIERR_DEVICENOTREG. DirectInput still clearly knows about the device, because I can enumerate and create it just fine. I've tried with three different gamepads, and the error persists, so it's not about that either. I also tried passing some alternative interface GUIDs for the RegisterDeviceNotification call, didn't help. So, has anyone else faced the same problem, and have you found a usable workaround? I'm afraid I'll soon have to stoop down to re-enumerating all devices when something is added or removed, but I'll first give this question one last shot here. EDIT: For the record, I've also tried pretty much every single HID API & SetupAPI function for alternative ways of figuring out the needed GUIDs, with zero success. So if you're facing the same problem as me, don't bother with that route. I'm pretty sure those GUIDs are made up by DirectInput itself somehow. Short of reverse engineering dinput8.dll, I'm truly out of ideas now.

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• Need Directions to become a programmer [closed]

  - by Omin

  Before youguys go on about how there are many types of programmers, please read through the post. Long term goal: Develop my own software (company) Short term goal: Get a job that involves coding/programming Current status: Support Analyst (at a software company but does not involve any programming) with 40k salary, 3rd year computer engineering student I had everything figured out. I'm going to develop a 2D scrolling game for iphone or android, publish the app, sell a bunch, and then apply at a studios as a software developer. And then something hit me. I think I need to get a job that involes programming to learn as much as I can in the shortest time possible. So I got a phone interview at a fast growing start up software company, passed that no problem, but then had to take an online technical assessment. That failed miserably. I thought that if I could just present myself, show that I am hard working, positive attitude, eager to make self improvements, type of a guy, I could get the job. I was wrong. And now, I am lost. Im thinking of staying with my job until I find a new one as a programmer. I will be working, self studying, and trying to make this happen without finishing university. I forgot to mention that the online technical assessment was based on data structures/algorithms, OO design, runtime complexity. I was hoping that I could get some guidence. Should I be focusing on app development or study computer science fundamentals? I have a list of books I can be going through: Learning C# O'Reilly (I got interested in C# because of Unity3D and Mono), C# 5.0 in a Nutshell, Head First Design Patterns, Code Complete, Introduction to Algorithms, Programming Interviews Exposed, Cracking the Coding Interview, The Google Resume.

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• How can I get non-programmer colleagues on board with bespoke software rather than Dynamics CRM + Sharepoint?

  - by Bendos

  I am working with a company which designs and builds one-off machines. They have been 'dabbling' with hosted Dynamics CRM and Sharepoint (on different servers!) in an attempt to centralise their data and help colleagues collaborate more effectively across projects. They haven't used either system to their potential. Now we are looking at the engineering department who already use a form of version control software for the various CAD files (Autodesk Vault) however it is becoming increasingly necessary to implement more of a generic file version control system as they use many more files than can be managed in Vault (sometimes just photos or scans of paper documents), hence why they were looking at using Sharepoint. However... as the 'programmer' of the bunch, I can see several scenarios which don't seem to fit well with the Dynamics + Sharepoint approach; simple reports based on cross-table queries, exporting certain metrics as a spreadsheet, defining project hierarchies and many-many relationships, and as such I have been pushing for an in-house developed 'ECM' / 'ERP' software package (perhaps in .NET or php). Some colleagues seem to attach a greater value to the MS software (perhaps becuase it has a logo!) but don't see that it's just a framework, not a solution. Can anyone provide a good example of when custom software would actually be better than using Dynamics + Sharepoint and how do I relate that to non-technical staff?

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• PARTNER News: Tips and Guidelines from Avago (formerly LSI)

  - by Zeynep Koch

  In this blog write-up we would like to focus our attention to one of our IHV partners, Avago (formerly LSI) . Avago and Oracle have been collaborating at many levels for many years.  At the lowest level, Avago and Oracle engineer solutions to inbox advanced features in our I/O device drivers.  We collaborate to test, verify and optimize these drivers in Oracle Linux with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. Both LSI Nytro and Sun F-Series PCIe flash devices are supported inbox in Oracle Linux with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. By collaborating early in the engineering design cycle we can find and resolve issues sooner and deliver to the end-customer a fully optimized platform for I/O efficiency and data protection.  Hear more about the partnership and benefits in this podcast  LSI and Oracle Partnership. Avago had also been working on technical whitepaper and video whiteboard to explain some of the optimizations you can achieve by using smart flash cache with Oracle Linux.  Technical Paper: Improve Database Performance Using Sun Flash Accelerator Card, Database Smart Flash Cache and Oracle Linux Video: Improving DB Performance with Database Smart Flash Cache If you want more information about the partnership and product benefits, you can visit the LSI Oracle alliance page. 

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• Developing an Interface to a Dynamic System

  - by radix07

  I work for a small company and have been designing a GUI to interface our embedded system. The problem with this embedded system is that it is not a finished product (may never be) and is constantly under development and being tweaked and updated for different customers and applications in small volumes. So to deal with this I made a program that can export all the data from a spreadsheet where most of the embedded system variables are sourced from and throw them into a small database for the GUI application to use. This database program I made also spits out a cross reference file for the embedded system which allows the GUI to look up all the variables. This system works pretty well so far, and is even integrated with version control among the GUI, database, and embedded system. The big problem is that there is constant development on several projects that use this system and it gets terribly tedious to keep the system up to date and bring in new changes. This has gotten to the point to where I have had to code the GUI to dynamically (generically) generate all interfaces since I am never guaranteed to find the same data the same way. I have not been able to come up with a good way to uniquely identify the data I import from excel since all fields are able to be changed (due to engineering stubbornness, code re-factoring and/or excel issues) and I cannot assign a fixed reference within the sheet itself. So, are there any good methods or ideas on how to handle the chaos?

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• HTTP PHP Authentication and Android

  - by edc598

  I am working on a website for which I hope to have an application for as well. Because of this, I am creating PHP API's which will go into my Database and serve specific data based on the method/function called. I want to protect these API's from misuse however, and I plan on implementing Authentication Digest to do so. However one of the OS's I want to support is Android. And I know that a malicious user would be able to reverse engineer the Android app and figure out my authentication scheme. I am left wondering: 1. Is there a better way to protect these API's from misuse? 2. Is there a way to prevent a malicious user from reverse engineering the app and potentially seeing the source code for it, enabling them to see my authentication scheme? 3. If none of these are preventable, then is my only option to have a Username/Password cred specifically for the Android app, and when eventually hacked, change the creds and issue an update for the app? I apologize if this is not the place to post such a question. Still pretty new to StackOverflow. Thanks in advance for any insight, it would be quite helpful.

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• How "commercially savvy" should software developers be? [closed]

  - by mattnz

  I have been watching answers to many questions on this site, and have come to the conclusion that commercial pragmatism does not factor into many software development discussions. As a result, I seriously wonder at the commercial skills within the industry, specifically the ability to deliver projects on time and to a budget. I see no indication from the site that commercially successful project delivery is a serious concern, yet the industry has a reputation for poor performance in this. Rarely, if ever, does the cost of time factor into discussions. I have never seen concepts such as opportunity cost, time to market, competitive advantage or cash flow mentioned, let alone discussed in technical answers to questions. How can you answer virtually any question without understanding the commercial background on which it is asked? Even Open source projects have a need to operate efficiently and deploy their limited resources to providing the most value for effort. Typically small start-ups have cash flow issues that outweigh longevity concerns, yet they are typically still advised to build for a future they probably won’t have if they do. Is it fair to say that these problems are solely the Managers and Project managers to solve, or are we, as developers, also responsible for ensuring successful on time, within budget delivery of projects, even if those budgets do not allow use to achieve engineering excellence?

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