Search Results

Search found 25440 results on 1018 pages for 'agent based modeling'.

Page 416/1018 | < Previous Page | 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423  | Next Page >

• Getting Started with Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management

  Designed from the ground-up using the latest technology advances and incorporating the best practices gathered from Oracle's thousands of customers, Fusion Applications are 100 percent open standards-based business applications that set a new standard for the way we innovate, work and adopt technology. Delivered as a complete suite of modular applications, Fusion Applications work with your existing portfolio to evolve your business to a new level of performance. In this AppCast, part of a special series on Fusion Applications, you hear about the unique advantages of Fusion Human Capital Management, learn about the scope of the first release and discover how Fusion HCM modules can be used to complement and enhance your existing HCM solutions.

  Read the article

• Automatically zoom out the camera to show all players (XNA)

  - by user36159

  I am building a game in XNA that takes place in a rectangular arena. The game is multiplayer and each player may go where they like within the arena. The camera is a persepective camera that looks directly downwards. The camera should be automatically repositioned based on the game state. Currently, the xy position is a weighted sum of the xy positions of important entities. I would like the camera's z position to be calculated from the xy coordinates so that it zooms out to the point where all important entities are visible. My current approach is to: hw = the greatest x distance from the camera to an important entity hh = the greatest y distance from the camera to an important entity Calculate z = max(hw / tan(FoVx), hh / tan(FoVy)) My code seems to almost work as it should, but the resulting z values are always too low by a factor of about 4. Any ideas?

  Read the article

• ANTLRWorks 2: Early Access Preview 10

  - by Geertjan

  I took a quick look at how the ANTLRWorks 2 project is getting on... and discovered that today, March 23, the new early access preview 10 has been released: http://www.antlr.org/wiki/display/ANTLR4/1.+Overview Downloaded it immediately and was impressed when browsing through the Java.g file that I also found on the Antlr site: (Click to enlarge the image above.) On the page above, the following enhancements are listed: Add tooltips for rule references Finally fixed the navigator update bug Major improvements to code completion Fix legacy mode Many performance and stability updates I've blogged before about how the developers on the above project consider their code completion to be "scary fast". Some discussions have taken place about how code developed by the ANTLRWorks team could be contributed to the NetBeans project, since NetBeans IDE and ANTLRWorks 2 are both based on the NetBeans Platform.

  Read the article

• is GTK Installation (PHP for desktop) affect the web application?

  - by Harshal Mahajan

  I just going to install the GTK for creating a desktop application. But I want to know if we install the GTK then is it affect our web application server or php.ini or other features of web based application? I know there is no requirement of server for desktop but the GTK create the other php.ini . so is it affect my other applications? I downloaded the GTK Tool kit from here. So I am just little bit confusing that it should not affect my all running web applications. I think the php for desktop is a very interesting issue for all of us, so I just want to know the affection of desktop on web?

  Read the article

• Why does qt-creator need to connect to google-analytics?

  - by Nanda

  I just installed qt-creator to work on non-qt C++ projects. The installed version is 2.5.0 (Based on Qt 4.8.2 32-bit) If I click on any of these pages: I get this error: I realized that /etc/hosts file has the following entry: 127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com I don't want to remove the entry from the hosts file because it's always been there along with thousands of other similar adservices/porn/malware addresses. I do not intend to say that qt-creator is looking to create problems in my computer, but I am genuinely interested to know why qt-creator needs to connect to google-analytics? Can this be disabled and qt-creator can still be functional?

  Read the article

• API design and versioning using EJB

  - by broschb

  I have an API that is EJB based (i.e. there are remote interfaces defined) that most of the clients use. As the client base grows there are issues with updates to the API and forcing clients to have to update to the latest version and interface definition. I would like to possibly look at having a couple versions of the API deployed at a time (i.e. have multiple EAR files deployed with different versions of the API) to support not forcing the clients to update as frequently. I am not concerned about the actual deployment of this, but instead am looking for thoughts and experiences that others have on using EJB's as an API client. How do you support updating versions, are clients required to update? Does anyone run multiple versions in a production environment? Are there pro's cons? Any other experiences or thoughts on this approach, and having an EJB centric API?

  Read the article

• How do you handle increasingly long compile times when working with templates?

  - by Ghita

  I use Visual Studio 2012 and he have cases where we added templates parameters to a class "just" in order to introduce a "seam point" so that in unit-test we can replace those parts with mock objects. How do you usually introduce seam points in C++: using interfaces and/or mixing based on some criteria with implicit interfaces by using templates parameters also ? One reason to ask this is also because when compiling sometimes a single C++ file (that includes templates files, that could also include other templates) results in an object file being generated that takes in the order of around 5-10 seconds on a developer machine. VS compiler is also not particularly fast on compiling templates as far as I understand, and because of the templates inclusion model (you practically include the definition of the template in every file that uses it indirectly and possibly re-instantiate that template every time you modify something that has nothing to do with that template) you could have problems with compile times (when doing incremental compiling). What are your ways of handling incremental(and not only) compile time when working with templates (besides a better/faster compiler :-)).

  Read the article

• How to create a reasonably sized urban area manually but efficiently

  - by Overv

  I have a game concept that only really works in an urban area that is of reasonable scale and diversity. In terms of what it should look like, think GTA, in terms of the size think more like a small neighbourhood with residents and a few local shops, perhaps a supermarket. I'm mostly experienced in programming and not at all with modelling, texturing or drawing, but I've found that SketchUp allows me to design interesting looking buildings that I model after real world buildings in my own neighbourhood. Designing these buildings and other objects can take from a few tens of minutes to a few hours. My question is: what is the best approach for a one man army like me who does manage to model buildings to create an interesting city environment in a reasonable amount of time? My game will not be based on procedural generation, the environment will actually be modelled like GTA cities.

  Read the article

• AndEngine Sprite position

  - by Kirill Kulakov

  I had noticed the AndEngine a few days ago, and I tried to create basic game with a few Sprites.Sure, the engine makes the development process much more easier.However I found the sprite lacking a major functionally: Whenever there is a need to refer to the position of an Sprite the engine manipulates the position based on the top-left corner of sprite,this is not the best thing because there is a need to subtract/add the width/height to its position in order to refer to its center.However when we refer to he scale of the Sprite it scaled according to its center point (which is great) I find it very confusing to refer to its position each time differently.I solved that by extending the Sprite class and implementing my methods of setCenter and getCenter, I guess that not the best way to do so. Do you have any suggestion?

  Read the article

• ORM Release History : Q1 2010 SP 1 (v2010.01.0527)

  Enhancements Full support for Visual Studio 2010 - the visual designer is now working in Visual Studio 2010 Ria Provider beta - supports all basic operations (query, insert, update, delete) New Enhancer - The enhancer has been replaced by a new implementation based on mono cecil. This fixes all known enhancer bugs and speeds up the enhancing process as well. Data Services Wizard integration - The Data Services Wizard is now integrated into the OpenAccess product. You can start it by using the...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.

  Read the article

• Support for non-english characters?

  - by TomJ

  Is support for non-english characters common in programming languages? I mean, technically, I would think it is feasable, but I don't have any experience in anything other than english, so I don't know how common it is. I know that there are non-english based programming languages, but can something like C#, C++, C, Java, or Python support non-english classes/methods/variables? Example in go (url, http://play.golang.org/p/wRYCNVdbjC) package main import "fmt" type ?? struct { ?? string } func main() { fmt.Println("Hello, ??") ?? := new(??) ??.?? = "hello world" fmt.Println(??.??) }

  Read the article

• How to structure well my adwords campaign?

  - by Romain Dorange

  I am starting an adwords campaigns and I will measure conversion rates using the Adwords conversion tracking pixel. Conversion might be account creation or a concrete sale. As it will be a test campaign to have some insights on CTR, CR, etc... on the future, I am likely to try several configurations. two differents ads with different landing URL and messages : one with a focus on the product / the other will contains a discount embedded in the URL 4 differents groups/thematics of keywords I guess I have to build 4 ads groups based on the keywords 2 ads with the different messages assign the two ads to each ads groups follow the campaign precisely in the ads tabs where I can see the effectiveness of each Ads per Ads Groups (for a total of 8 lines of reporting) Am I right ? Also, what are the KPI I can have from an adwords campaign tu measure global effectiveness? measure of ROI from concrete sales (tracking pixel with e-commerce tag on confirmation page) measure of ROI from leads acquisition (tracking pixel on account creation) measure of traffic increase with the campaign Thanks a lot.

  Read the article

• Is the carriage-return char considered obsolete

  - by Evan Plaice

  I wrote an open source library that parses structured data but intentionally left out carriage-return detection because I don't see the point. It adds additional complexity and overhead for little/no benefit. To my surprise, a user submitted a bug where the parser wasn't working and I discovered the cause of the issue was that the data used CR line endings as opposed to LF or CRLF. Hasn't OSX been using LF style line-endings since switching over to a unix-based platform? I know there are applications like Notepad++ where line endings can be changed to use CR explicitly but I don't see why anybody would want to. Is it safe to exclude support for the statistically insignificant percentage of users who decide (for whatever reason) to the old Mac OS style line-endings?

  Read the article

• Manipulating DOM using jQuery

  - by bipinjoshi

  By now you know how to alter existing elements and their attributes. jQuery also allows you insert, append, remove and replace elements from HTML DOM so that you can modify the document structure. For example, say you are calling some WCF service from client script and based on its return values need to generate HTML table on the fly. In this article I am going to demonstrate some of these jQuery features by developing a simple RSS gadget that grabs and displays RSS feed items in a web form.http://www.bipinjoshi.net/articles/90f4fbef-ef36-467b-8ca0-d0922a5902b0.aspx 

  Read the article

• Kinect hacked for augmented reality

  - by Kit Ong

  It seems Kinect has more potential than any other consoles based motion detection device given the number of hacks that are out there in the wild. http://uk.videogames.games.yahoo.com/blog/article/19744/kinect-as-youve-never-seen-it-before.html Direct links to youtube videos of Kinect hacks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-wLOfjVfVc?fs=1&hl=en_GB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWmVrfjDCyw?fs=1&hl=en_GB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3gfMXwQOGI?fs=1&hl=en_GB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qhXQ_1CQjg?fs=1&hl=en_GB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgLp-KyK5g8?fs=1&hl=en_GB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeQwhujiWVk?fs=1&hl=en_GB

  Read the article

• Rebuilding CoasterBuzz, Part II: Hot data objects

  - by Jeff

  This is the second post, originally from my personal blog, in a series about rebuilding one of my Web sites, which has been around for 12 years. More: Part I: Evolution, and death to WCF After the rush to get moving on stuff, I temporarily lost interest. I went almost two weeks without touching the project, in part because the next thing on my backlog was doing up a bunch of administrative pages. So boring. Unfortunately, because most of the site's content is user-generated, you need some facilities for editing data. CoasterBuzz has a database full of amusement parks and roller coasters. The entities enjoy the relationships that you would expect, though they're further defined by "instances" of a coaster, to define one that has moved between parks as one, with different names and operational dates. And of course, there are pictures and news items, too. It's not horribly complex, except when you have to account for a name change and display just the newest name. In all previous versions, data access was straight SQL. As so much of the old code was rooted in 2003, with some changes in 2008, there wasn't much in the way of ORM frameworks going on then. Let me rephrase that, I mostly wasn't interested in ORM's. Since that time, I used a little LINQ to SQL in some projects, and a whole bunch of nHibernate while at Microsoft. Through all of that experience, I have to admit that these frameworks are often a bigger pain in the ass than not. They're great for basic crud operations, but when you start having all kinds of exotic relationships, they get difficult, and generate all kinds of weird SQL under the covers. The black box can quickly turn into a black hole. Sometimes you end up having to build all kinds of new expertise to do things "right" with a framework. Still, despite my reservations, I used the newer version of Entity Framework, with the "code first" modeling, in a science project and I really liked it. Since it's just a right-click away with NuGet, I figured I'd give it a shot here. My initial effort was spent defining the context class, which requires a bit of work because I deviate quite a bit from the conventions that EF uses, starting with table names. Then throw some partial querying of certain tables (where you'll find image data), and you're splitting tables across several objects (navigation properties). I won't go into the details, because these are all things that are well documented around the Internet, but there was a minor learning curve there. The basics of reading data using EF are fantastic. For example, a roller coaster object has a park associated with it, as well as a number of instances (if it was ever relocated), and there also might be a big banner image for it. This is stupid easy to use because it takes one line of code in your repository class, and by the time you pass it to the view, you have a rich object graph that has everything you need to display stuff. Likewise, editing simple data is also, well, simple. For this goodness, thank the ASP.NET MVC framework. The UpdateModel() method on the controllers is very elegant. Remember the old days of assigning all kinds of properties to objects in your Webforms code-behind? What a time consuming mess that used to be. Even if you're not using an ORM tool, having hydrated objects come off the wire is such a time saver. Not everything is easy, though. When you have to persist a complex graph of objects, particularly if they were composed in the user interface with all kinds of AJAX elements and list boxes, it's not just a simple matter of submitting the form. There were a few instances where I ended up going back to "old-fashioned" SQL just in the interest of time. It's not that I couldn't do what I needed with EF, it's just that the efficiency, both my own and that of the generated SQL, wasn't good. Since EF context objects expose a database connection object, you can use that to do the old school ADO.NET stuff you've done for a decade. Using various extension methods from POP Forums' data project, it was a breeze. You just have to stick to your decision, in this case. When you start messing with SQL directly, you can't go back in the same code to messing with entities because EF doesn't know what you're changing. Not really a big deal. There are a number of take-aways from using EF. The first is that you write a lot less code, which has always been a desired outcome of ORM's. The other lesson, and I particularly learned this the hard way working on the MSDN forums back in the day, is that trying to retrofit an ORM framework into an existing schema isn't fun at all. The CoasterBuzz database isn't bad, but there are design decisions I'd make differently if I were starting from scratch. Now that I have some of this stuff done, I feel like I can start to move on to the more interesting things on the backlog. There's a lot to do, but at least it's fun stuff, and not more forms that will be used infrequently.

  Read the article

• SDL2 with OpenGL -- weird results, what's wrong?

  - by ber4444

  I'm porting an app to iOS, and therefore need to upgrade it to SDL2 from SDL1.2 (so far I'm testing it as an on OS X desktop app only). However, when running the code with SDL2, I'm getting weird results as shown on the second image below (the first image is how it looks with SDL, correctly). The single changeset that causes this is this one, do you see something obviously wrong there, or does SDL2 have some OpenGL nuances I'm unaware of? My SDL is based on changeset dd7e57847ea9 from HG (since then there is one "Allow specifying of OpenGL 3.2 Core Profile on Mac OS X" commit, not sure if that would help).

  Read the article

• Minimum to install for a visual web browser in Ubuntu Server

  - by Svish

  I have set up a machine with Ubuntu Server. Some of the server software I want to run on it has web based user interfaces for setting it up et cetera. I know I could connect to it from a different machine which has a graphical user interface, but in this case I would rather do it on the box. So, from a fresh Ubuntu Server installation, what is the minimum I need to install to be able to launch a web browser I can use for this? For example chromium, firefox or arora.

  Read the article

• How to handle multiple domains correctly? [closed]

  - by Eric Itzhak

  Possible Duplicate: Could I buy a domain name to increase traffic to my site like this? I have a website with multiple keyword based domains ( 2 actully) Now both domains are common google searches for the topic. What i'm intrested is to handle the domains as such that google can recognize the seconed domain with the same page rank as the primary domain, so it will also appear on the first page. My question is how do i do it correctly so i will help SEO? meaning i want the 2nd domain to be on the first page, because the primary is on the first page for it's keyword. do i simple put a redirect in the index.php file? Or to do a 301 redirect? or change the .htaccess file? Or create a domain pointer in the Control panel?

  Read the article

• Where would a spam bot be located?

  - by Tim

  I have a hosted website using a free hosting service, I received an email this afternoon saying that I have been suspended because my account has been compromised. Basically, someone is using my email account to mass send spam. I've changed all the passwords and everything but when my Gmail pulls the emails from the host it's still downloading loads of spam messages that show like this: This message was created automatically by mail delivery software. A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed: [email protected] SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data: host 198.91.80.251 [198.91.80.251]: 554 5.6.0 id=23634-03 - Rejected by MTA on relaying, from MTA([127.0.0.1]:10030): 554 Error: This email address has lost rights to send email from the system ------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------ Return-path: <[email protected]> Received: from keenesystems.com ([66.135.33.211]:2370 helo=server211) by absolut.x10hosting.com with esmtpsa (TLSv1:RC4-MD5:128) (Exim 4.77) (envelope-from <[email protected]>) id 1TGwSW-002hHe-Lc for [email protected]; Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:35:44 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:35:43 -0500 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 3.9.9 (8.5.3-6) Subject: New staff members wanted at Auction It Online From: [email protected] Reply-To: [email protected] To: "Nadia Monti" <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID: <OUTLOOK-IDM-9aed7054-6a3e-e1a4-1d5c-3e73377652a6@server211> Date : 26 September 2012=0ATime : 13:35=0ASender : Dennise Halcomb Head = Office Manager of RJ Auction Drop-Off Int.=0A=0ANice to meet you Nadia M= onti=0A=0ARJ ADO Ltd., a USA based company, offers a significant amount = of goods worldwide for our customers on eBay and other auction venues. = Our company's main target is to provide a suitable and cost-effective se= rvice for any person, company or fundraising company. The main purpose o= f the administrative assistant / sales support representative is to cont= ribute to the sales force and add convenience to our cost-effective serv= ice dedicated to individuals, businesses, and organizations worldwide. O= ur HR department obtained your resume from one of the various job-orient= ed websites just to offer you this post.=0A=0AWorking Schedule: This is = a part time and home-based offer. You won't need to spend more than 3 ho= urs each day. Your =0Aschedule will be flexible.=0A=0ASalary: At the end= of the trial period (it lasts for 1 month) you will be paid 1,800 EUR. = With the average volume of clients your overall income will raise up to = 3,000 EUR per month. After the trial period is over your base salary wil= l grow up to 2,500 EUR per month, so you will earn 5% commission from th= e transactions completed.=0A=0AWhere?: Italy Wide. As it is a stay at ho= me position all the communication will be carried out via email and via = phone.=0A=0ARequirements: Access to the internet during the workday and = basic microsoft office skills are needed. Basic knowledge of English is = required (most of the contacts will be in English).=0A=0ACosts and Fees:= There are NO costs at any time for our employees. All fees related to t= his position are covered by the RJ ADO Co. Ltd..=0A=0AFurther Hiring Pro= cess: If you are interested in position we offer, please reply to this e= mail and send us the copy of your resume for verification.=0A=0AAfter re= viewing all of the received applications we will reply to successful app= licants only. Then we'll offer to these successful applicants a position= within our firm on a trial period basis for one month beginning from th= e date you sign a trial agreement. During this trial period you will rec= eive full guidance and support. Employees on a one monthly trial period = are evaluated at least one week prior to the end of their trial. During = the trial, your supervisor can recommend termination. At the end of the = trial period, the supervisor can offer continued employment, extension o= f trial period, or termination. After the trial period you may ask for m= ore hours or continue full-time.=0A=0AIf you are interested in this posi= tion, just reply to this email and send any questions you have and the c= opy of your resume for verification.=0A=0AThank You,=0AHR-Manager of RJ = ADO Co. Ltd.=0A=0APermission Settings=0AYou have been referred to RJ Auc= tion Drop-Off If you feel you received this email in error or do not wis= h to receive future messages, please reply to this message with "remove"= in the subject field. We will immediately update our database according= ly. =0AWe apologize for any inconvenience caused.=0A=0ARJ Auction Drop-O= ff Co. Ltd. I'm not aware of how this has happened. I'm not sure how anyone could have got hold of my password. It's a simple wordpress install, at some point recently my host went down and there was a fresh install of wordpress with default admin accounts, I have a feeling it could be something to do with this. My question is, even though I've changed all my passwords it's all still happening, is there annywhere in paticular this script would be stored on my host. I really can't deal with having my hosting account suspended and my email account sending all this spam.

  Read the article

• Is it legal to develop a game using D&D rules?

  - by Max

  For a while now I've been thinking about trying my hand at creating a game similar in spirit and execution to Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and offshoots. I'd rather not face the full bulk of work in implementing my own RPG system - I'd like to use D&D rules. Now, reading about the subject it seems there is something called "The License" which allows a company to brand a game as D&D. This license seems to be exclusive, and let's just say I don't have the money to buy it :p. Is it still legal for me to implement and release such a game? Commercially or open-source? I'm not sure exactly which edition would fit the best, but since Baldur's Gate is based of 2nd edition, could I go ahead an implement that? in short: what are the issues concerning licensing and publishing when it comes to D&D? Also: Didn't see any similar question...

  Read the article

• Unable to Mount Seagate Array from Iomega

  - by GE Cardiff

  I am new to Ubuntu so please be kind! My (Windows based) Iomega Storcentre ix2-200 stopped working, with all my business data upon it. Iomega helpfully told me that I should get Fedora, remove the Seagate hard drives and recover the information by connecting via a USB / SATA cable. First I could not get Fedora to load (due to it needing an Internet connection before loading complete) so I got Ubuntu - much easier to load. Software seems fine, and in "Computer" there is an "Array" icon - this is clearly the Seagate hard drive I have connected. It will not, however, Mount. "Unable to mount location, can't mount file". Any help gratefully received! As a slight aside, I can't seem to find "terminal" in this version of Ubuntu?

  Read the article

• What is (are) the most useful technique/visualization for overall project status?

  - by Wayne Werner

  For reasons "above my pay grade", we're developing an issue/project tracking system where I work (similar to Trac, FogBugz, etc). The managers want a useful tool to be able to track the overall health of the project (e.g. How much time left, how are we performing vs estimates) and one of the features that has been requested is some type of critical path support and visualization. The logic explained to me is that they want to be sure that at least the most important pieces of the project are currently being worked on. The initial idea was that we would create task-based dependencies. My understanding of project management tells me that this kind of granular approach is unnecessary - having milestones with specific deadlines/dependencies is much more useful. I would like to know what are the most useful techniques and "pretty pictures" you've seen/used for project development. Having objective data would be best, but somewhat subjective data is helpful too.

  Read the article

• Web development for people who mainly do client side..

  - by kamziro

  Okay, I'm sure there are a lot of us that has plenty of experience developing c++/opengl/objective C on the iPhone, java development on android, python games, etc (any client side stuff) while having little to no experience on web-based development. So what skillset should one learn in order to be able to work on web projects, say, to make a facebook clone (I kid), or maybe a startup that specializes on connecting random fashionistas with pics etc. I actualy do have some experience with C#/VB.net back-end development a while back, but as part of a team, I had a lot of support from the senior devs. Is C# considered a decent web development language?

  Read the article

• What Counts for a DBA: Humility

  - by drsql

  In football (the American sort, naturally,) there are a select group of players who really hope to never have their names called during the game. They are members of the offensive line, and their job is to protect other players so they can deliver the ball to the goal to score points. When you do hear their name called, it is usually because they made a mistake and the player that they were supposed to protect ended up flat on his back admiring the clouds in the sky instead of advancing towards the goal to scoring point. Even on the rare occasion their name is called for a good reason, it is usually because they were making up for a teammate who had made a mistake and they covered up for them. The role of offensive lineman is a very good analogy for the role of the admin DBA. As a DBA, you are called on to be barely visible and rarely heard, protecting the company data assets tenaciously, even though the enemies to our craft surround us on all sides:. Developers: Cries of ‘foul!’ often ensue when the DBA says that they want data integrity to be stringently enforced and that documentation is needed so they can support systems, mostly because every error occurrence in the enterprise will be initially blamed on the database and fall to the DBA to troubleshoot. Insisting too loudly may bring those cries of ‘foul’ that somewhat remind you of when your 2 year old daughter didn't want to go to bed. The result of this petulance is that the next "enemy" gets involved. Managers: The concerns that motivate DBAs to argue will not excite the kind of manager who gets his technical knowledge from a glossy magazine filled with buzzwords, charts, and pretty pictures. However, the other programmers in the organization will tickle the buzzword void with a stream of new-sounding ideas and technologies constantly, along with warnings that if we did care about data integrity and document things, the budget would explode! In contrast, the arguments for integrity of data and supportability tend to be about as exciting as watching grass grow, and far too many manager types seem to prefer to smoke it than watch it. Packaged Applications: The DBA is rarely given a chance to review a new application that is being demonstrated for the enterprise, and rarer still is the DBA that gets a veto of an application because the database it uses has clearly been created by an architect that won't read a data modeling book because he is already married. More often than not this leads to hours of work for the DBA trying to performance-tune a database with a menagerie of rules that must be followed to stay within the  application support agreement, such as no changing indexes on a third party schema even though there are 10 billion rows instead of the 10 thousand when the system was last optimized. Hardware Failures: Physical disks, networking devices, memory, and backup devices all come with a measure known as ‘mean time before failure’ and it is never listed in centuries or eons. More like years, and the term ‘mean’ indicates that half of the devices are expected to fail before that, which by my calendar means any hour of any day that it wants to fail it will. But the DBA sucks it up and does the task at hand with a humility that makes them nearly invisible to all but the most observant person in the organization. The best DBAs I know are so proactive in their relentless pursuit of perfection that they detect many of the bugs (which they seldom caused) in the system well before they become a problem. In the end the DBA gets noticed for one of same two reasons as the offensive lineman. You make a mistake, like dropping a critical production database that had never been backed up; or when a system crashes for any reason whatsoever and they are on the spot with troubleshooting and system restoration plans that have been well thought out, tested, and tested again. Not because there is any glory in it, but because it is what they do.   Note: The characteristics of the professions referred to in this blog are meant to be overstated stereotypes for humorous effect, and even some DBAs aren't quite this perfect. If you are reading this far and haven’t hand written a 10 page flaming comment about how you are a _______ and you aren’t like this, that is awesome. Not every situation applies to everyone, but if you have never worked with a bad packaged app, a magazine trained manager, programmers that aren’t team players, or hardware that occasionally failed, relax and go have a unicorn sandwich before you wake up.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423  | Next Page >