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• Oracle Executive Strategy Brief: Enterprise-Grade Cloud Applications

  - by B Shashikumar

  Cloud Computing has clearly evolved into one of the dominant secular trends in the industry. Organizations are looking to the cloud to change how they buy and consume IT. And its no longer about just lower up-front costs. The cloud promises to deliver greater agility and free up resources to focus on innovation versus running and maintaining systems. But are organizations actually realizing these benefits? The full promise of cloud is not being realized by customers who entrust their business to multiple niche cloud providers. While almost 9 out of 10 companies  expect more IT agility with cloud, only 47% are actually getting it (Source: 2011 State of Cloud Survey by Symantec). These niche cloud customers have also seen the promises of lower costs, efficiency gains, improved security, and compliance go unfulfilled. Having one cloud provider for customer relationship management (CRM) and another for human capital management (HCM), and then trying to glue these proprietary systems together while integrating to a back-office financial system can add to complexity and long-term costs. Completing a business process or generating an integrated report is cumbersome, and leverages incomplete data. Why can’t niche cloud providers deliver on the full promise of cloud? It’s simple: you still need to complete business processes. You still need reporting that enables you to take action using data from multiple systems. You still have to comply with SOX and other industry regulations. These requirements don’t go away just because you deploy in the cloud. Delivering lower up-front costs by enabling customers to buy software as a service (SaaS) is the easy part. To get real value that lasts longer than your quarterly report, it’s important to realize the benefits of cloud without compromising on functionality and while having the right level of control and flexibility. This is the true promise of cloud. Oracle’s cloud strategy centers around delivering the benefits of cloud—without compromise. We uniquely empower our customers with complete solutions and choice. From the richest functionality to integrated reporting and great user experience. It’s all available in the cloud. And it works not just with other Oracle cloud applications, but with your existing Oracle and third-party systems as well. This helps protect your current investments and extend their value as you journey to the cloud. We’ve made the necessary investments not only in our applications but also in the underlying technology that makes it all run—from the platform down to the hardware and operating system. We make it all. And we’ve engineered it to work together and be highly optimized for our customers, in the cloud. With Oracle enterprise-grade cloud applications, you get the benefits of cloud plus more power, more choice, and more confidence. Read more about how you can realize the true advantage of Cloud with Oracle Enterprise-grade Cloud applications in the Oracle Executive Strategy Brief here.  You can also attend an Oracle Cloud Conference event at a city near you. Register here. 

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• Where does a "Technical Programmer" fit in, and what does the title mean? [closed]

  - by Mike E

  Was: "What is a 'Technical Programmer'"? I've noticed in job posting boards a few postings, all from European companies in the games industry, for a "Technical Programmer". The job description was similar, having to do with tools development, 3d graphics programming, etc. It seems to be somewhere between a Technical Artist who's more technical than artist or who can code, and a Technical Director but perhaps without the seniority/experience. Information elsewhere on the position is sparse. The title seems redundant and I haven't seen any American companies post jobs by that name, exactly. One example is this job posting on gamedev.net which isn't exactly thorough. In case the link dies: Subject: Technical Programmer Frictional Games, the creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the Penumbra series, are looking for a talented programmer to join the company! You will be working for a small team with a big focus on finding new and innovating solutions. We want you who are not afraid to explore uncharted territory and constantly learn new things. Self-discipline and independence are also important traits as all work will be done from home. Some the things you will work with include: 3D math, rendering, shaders and everything else related. Console development (most likely Xbox 360). Hardware implementations (support for motion controls, etc). All coding is in C++, so great skills in that is imperative. Revised Summarised Question: So, where does a programmer of this nature fit in to software development team? If I had these on my team, what tasks am I expecting them to complete? Can I ask one to build a new level editor, or optimize the rendering engine? It doesn't seem to be a "tools programmer" which focuses on producing artist tools, often in high-level languages like C#, Python, or Java. Nor does it seem to be working directly on the engine, nor a graphics programmer, as such. Yet, a strong C++ requirement, which was mirrored in other postings besides this one I quoted. Edited To Add As far as it being a low-level programmer, I had considered that but lacking from the posting was a requirement of Assembly. Instead, they tend to require familiarity with higher-level hardware APIs such as DirectX, or DirectInput. I wasn't fully clear in my original post. I think, however, that Mathew Foscarini has it right in his answer, so barring someone who definitely works with or as a "Technical Programmer" stepping in to provide a clearer explanation, I'll go with that. A generalist, which also fits the description of a more-technical-than-artist TA.

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• Drive

  - by erikanollwebb

  Picking up where we left off, let's summarize.  People have both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, and whether reward works depends a bit on what you are rewarding.  Rewards don't decreased intrinsic motivation provided you know what you are getting and why, and when you reward high performance.  But as anyone who has watched the great animation of Dan Pink's TED talk knows, even that doesn't tell the whole story.  Although people may not be less intrinsically motivated by rewards, the impact of rewards on actual performance is a really odd questions.  Larger rewards don't necessarily lead to better performance and in fact, some times lead to worse performance.  Pink argues that people are driven and engaged when they have autonomy, mastery and purpose.  If they can self-direct and can be good at what they do and have a sense of purpose for what they are doing, they show the highest engagement.   (Personally, I would add progress to the list.  My experience is that if you have autonomy, mastery and a sense of purpose but don't get a feeling that you are making any progress day to day, your level of engagement will drop rapidly.) So Pink is arguing if we could set up work so that people have a sense of purpose in what they do, have some autonomy and the ability to build mastery, you'll have better companies.  And that's probably true in a lot of ways, but there's a problem.  Sometimes, you have things you need to do but maybe you don't really want to do.  Or that you don't really see the point of.  Or that doesn't have a lot of value to you at the end of the day.  Then what does a company do?  Let me give you an example.  I've worked on some customer relationship management (CRM) tools over the years and done user research with sales people to try and understand their world.  And there's a funny thing about sales tools in CRM.  Sometimes what the company wants a sales person to do is at odds with what a sales person thinks is useful to them.  For example, companies would like to know who a sales person talked to at the company and the person level.  They'd like to know what they talked about, when, and whether the deals closed.  Those metrics would help you build a better sales force and understand what works and what does not.  But sales people see that as busy work that doesn't add any value to their ability to sell.  So you have a sales person who has a lot of autonomy, they like to do things that improve their ability to sell and they usually feel a sense of purpose--the group is trying to make a quota!  That quota will help the company succeed!  But then you have tasks that they don't think fit into that equation.  The company would like to know more about what makes them successful and get metrics on what they do and frankly, have a record of what they do in case they leave, but the sales person thinks it's a waste of time to put all that information into a sales application. They have drive, just not for all the things the company would like.   You could punish them for not entering the information, or you could try to reward them for doing it, but you still have an imperfect model of engagement.  Ideally, you'd like them to want to do it.  If they want to do it, if they are motivated to do it, then the company wins.  If *something* about it is rewarding to them, then they are more engaged and more likely to do it.  So the question becomes, how do you create that interest to do something?

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• Does *every* project benefit from written specifications?

  - by nikie

  I know this is holy war territory, so please read the question to the end before answering. There are many cases where written specifications make a lot of sense. For example, if you're a contractor and you want to get paid, you need written specs. If you're working in a team with 20 persons, you need written specs. If you're writing a programming language compiler or interpreter (and it's not perl), you'll usually write a formal specification. I don't doubt that there are many more cases where written specifications are a really good idea. I just think that there are cases where there's so little benefit in written specs, that it doesn't outweigh the costs of writing and maintaining them. EDIT: The close votes say that "it is difficult to say what is asked here", so let me clarify: The usefulness of written, detailed specifications is often claimed like a dogma. (If you want examples, look at the comments.) But I don't see the use of them for the kind of development I'm doing. So what is asked here is: How would written specifications help me? Background information: I work for a small company that's developing vertical market software. If our product is easier to use and has better performance than the competition, it sells. If it's harder to use, even if it behaves 100% as the specification says, it doesn't sell. So there are no "external forces" for having written specs. The advantage would have to be somewhere in the development process. Now, I can see how frozen specifications would make a developer's life easier. But we'll never have frozen specs. If we see in the middle of development that feature X is not intuitive to use the way it's specified, then we can only choose between changing the specification or developing a product that won't sell. You'll probably ask by now: How do you know when you're done? Well, we're continually improving our product. The competition does the same. So (hopefully) we're never done. We keep improving the software, and when we reach a point when the benefits of the improvements we've added since the last release outweigh the costs of an update, we create a new release that is then tested, localized, documented and deployed. This also means that there's rarely any schedule pressure. Nobody has to do overtime to make a deadline. If the feature isn't done by the time we want to release the next version, it'll simply go into the next version. The next question might be: How do your developers know what they're supposed to implement? The answer is: They have a lot of domain knowledge. They know the customers business well enough, so a high-level description of the feature (or even just the problem that the customer needs solved) is enough to implement it. If it's not clear, the developer creates a few fake screens to get feedback from marketing/management or customers, but this is nowhere near the level of detail of actual specifications. This might be inefficient for larger teams, but for a small team with low turnover it works quite well. It has the additional benefit that the developer in question often comes up with a better solution than the person writing the specs might have. This question is already getting very long, but let me address one last point: Testing. Like I said in the beginning, if our software behaves 100% like the spec says, it still can be crap. In fact, if it's so unintuitive that you need a spec to know how to test it, it probably is crap. It makes sense to have fixed, written tests for some core functionality and for regression bugs, but again, this is nowhere near a full written spec of how the software should behave when. The main test is: hand the software to a user who doesn't know it yet and tell him to use the new feature X. If she can figure out how to use it and it works, it works.

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• Top 10 Reasons to Attend the 7th Annual Maintenance Summit

  - by Stephen Slade

  Some of you may be sitting the fence before registering for the Oracle Maintenance Summit 2013. Here are 10 solid reasons to register in the next 3 weeks: 1. It's the 'IN' red carpet maintenance event for 2013. The summit will have one of the greatest concentrations of maintenance best practices, case studies and success stories that can catapult your organization. 2.  Return a Hero! Hear how you can drive reliability and operational excellence back home at the plant!  3. Learn the Roadmap! Hear form product experts who will discuss the vision, strategy and roadmap for Oracle products 4. See Product Demos! All the SCM/EAM rich products will be exhibited by both sales consultants and developers. Ask the hardest question you can think of and be ready for a great response. 5. Meet our Partners! There will be a good number of supporting partners exhibiting at the summit. Hear and learn of what ingredients make for success. 6. Join a panel or discussion group! Raise your hand and be heard – have your questions answered. Contribute to the discussion. 7. Network with your peers. Rub elbows with your fellow maintenance managers and operations supervisors. Talk shop here! 8. 6 Summits under one roof. Hear and share supply chain information at one of the other summits taking place concurrently. Bring other team members and secure the group discount. 9. Save $100, register by Dec 31 for the early bird rate. Hotel will fill fast.  www.oracle.com/goto/vcs 10. Have a great time! The Summit is both informational and enjoyable. Set at the waterfront in downtown San Francisco at the Embarcadero, the summit will be a fun-filled and enjoyable experience.

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• Profiling Startup Of VS2012 &ndash; JustTrace Profiler

  - by Alois Kraus

  JustTrace is made by Telerik which is mainly known for its collection of UI controls. The current version (2012.3.1127.0) does include a performance and memory profiler which does cost 614€ and is currently with a special offer for 306€ on sale. It does include one year of free upgrades. The uneven € numbers are calculated from the 799€ and 50% dicsount price. The UI is already in Metro style and simple to use. Multi process, attach, method recording filter are not supported. It looks like JustTrace is like Ants a Just My Code profiler. For stuff where you do not have the pdbs or you want to dig deeper into the BCL code you will not get far. After getting the profile data you get in the All Methods grid a plain list with hit count and own time. The method list for all methods is also suspiciously short which is a clear sign that you will not get far during the analysis of foreign code. But at least there is also a memory profiler included. For this I have to choose in the first window for Profiling Type “Memory Profiler” to check the memory consumption of VS.  There are some interesting number to see but I do really miss from YourKit the thread stack window. How am I supposed to get a clue when much memory is allocated and the CPU consumption is high in which places I should look? The Snapshot summary gives a rough overview which is ok for a first impression. Next is Assemblies? This gives you a list of all loaded assemblies. Not terribly useful.   The By Type view gives you exactly what it is supposed to do. You have to keep in mind that this list is filtered by the types you did check in the Assemblies list. The By Type instance list does only show types from assemblies which do not originate from Microsoft. By default mscorlib and System are not checked. That is the reason why for the first time my By Type window looked like The idea behind this feature is to show only your instances because you are ultimately responsible for the overall memory consumption. I am not sure if I do like this feature because by default it does hide too much. I do want to see at least how many strings and arrays are allocated. A simple namespace filter would also do it in my opinion. Now you can examine all string instances and look who in the object graph does keep a reference on them. That is nice but YourKit has the big plus that you can also look into the string contents.  I am also not sure how in the graph cycles are visualized and what will happen if you have thousands of objects referencing you. That's pretty much it about JustTrace. It can help the average developer to pinpoint performance and memory issues by just looking at his own code and instances. Showing them more will not help them because the sheer amount of information will overwhelm them. And you need to have a pretty good understanding how the GC and the CLR does work. When you have a performance issue at a customer machine it is sometimes very helpful to be able a bring a profiler onto the machine (no pdbs, …) and to get a full snapshot of all processes which are in the problematic use case involved. For these more advanced use cased JustTrace is certainly the wrong tool. Next: SpeedTrace

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• Are separate business objects needed when persistent data can be stored in a usable format?

  - by Kylotan

  I have a system where data is stored in a persistent store and read by a server application. Some of this data is only ever seen by the server, but some of it is passed through unaltered to clients. So, there is a big temptation to persist data - whether whole rows/documents or individual fields/sub-documents - in the exact form that the client can use (eg. JSON), as this removes various layers of boilerplate, whether in the form of procedural SQL, an ORM, or any proxy structure which exists just to hold the values before having to re-encode them into a client-suitable form. This form can usually be used on the server too, though business logic may have to live outside of the object, On the other hand, this approach ends up leaking implementation details everywhere. 9 times out of 10 I'm happy just to read a JSON structure out of the DB and send it to the client, but 1 in every 10 times I have to know the details of that implicit structure (and be able to refactor access to it if the stored data ever changes). And this makes me think that maybe I should be pulling this data into separate business objects, so that business logic doesn't have to change when the data schema does. (Though you could argue this just moves the problem rather than solves it.) There is a complicating factor in that our data schema is constantly changing rapidly, to the point where we dropped our previous ORM/RDBMS system in favour of MongoDB and an implicit schema which was much easier to work with. So far I've not decided whether the rapid schema changes make me wish for separate business objects (so that server-side calculations need less refactoring, since all changes are restricted to the persistence layer) or for no separate business objects (because every change to the schema requires the business objects to change to stay in sync, even if the new sub-object or field is never used on the server except to pass verbatim to a client). So my question is whether it is sensible to store objects in the form they are usually going to be used, or if it's better to copy them into intermediate business objects to insulate both sides from each other (even when that isn't strictly necessary)? And I'd like to hear from anybody else who has had experience of a similar situation, perhaps choosing to persist XML or JSON instead of having an explicit schema which has to be assembled into a client format each time.

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• Screen brightness dull after upgrade to Ubuntu 14.04

  - by user288426

  After upgrading to Ubuntu 14.04 I found that I could not increase screen brightness. I'm using a Samsung NC110 netbook. Initially the function key to modify brightness did not respond at all. After implementation of the first part of the fix, the key came alive and the brightness bar could be modified. Yet at maximum brightness indicated the screen still remained very dull. The 2nd part of the fix cures that problem, at least for this type of machine. First part of the fix was copied and modified in line with my experience from following post: How to control Brightness Open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T). Then type sudo nano /etc/default/grub. It will ask for your password. Type it in. Around the 11th line, there will be something like: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash". Change it to: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor" Save the file by Ctrl+O followed by Ctrl+X. Then run sudo update-grub in the terminal. Reboot and see if backlight adjustment works. Then I needed to modify the rc.local file. Therefore read below fix to understand the procedure: problem with adjusting brightness Ubuntu 14.04 In my case I had 2 folders listed under /sys/class/backlight which were: intel_backlight samsung I realized that the samsung folder is governing. I had to modify the check for max brightness to: cat /sys/class/backlight/samsung/max_brightness In my case the max value obtained is 8. Besides putting this into rc.local, I also had to uncomment the first line to get this working. My rc.local under /etc/ now looks as follows: !/bin/sh -e # # rc.local # # This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel. # Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other # value on error. # # In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution # bits. # # By default this script does nothing. echo 8 > /sys/class/backlight/samsung/brightness exit 0 Now I can modify brightness on my netbook and also can get the screen up to its maximum brightness. Hope this is helpful.

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• What will be the better way for data retrieval on application that needs to handle limited amount of data.?

  - by Milanix

  This is not really a coding question since, I am not adding any code in here. Since, adding my code snippets itself would make this question really long. Instead, I am pretty interested in knowing a better ways for data retrieval on application that needs to handle limited amount of data which isn't updated regularly. Let's take this example: I am writing an application which gets a schedule as an XML from server. I have written a logic in order to parse XML version and update database only if the version is newer than the local version. Although the update is checked automatically/manually on daily basis based on user preference, the actual version update happens only once per few months or so. Since, this is done by some other authority which doesn't provide API but, rather inform publicly on their changes. The actual XML contains a "(n number of groups)(days in a week) (n number of schedule)" . The group is usually 6 and the number of schedule is usually 2. So basically there would usually be only around 100 strings. Now although I have used SQLite at the moment. I want to know how to make update on database. Should I show progress dialog that the application is updating and exit the app when it's done? Since, my updates are infrequent i don't think this will really harm user experience but, is there any better ways to do it? Because I don't want update to be made when user is searching which is done using database. This will cause an database already open exception. Atleast I have faced this problem before. Is it better to rather parse XML every time when user wants to view certain things or to use SQLite? Since, I make lots of use of adapter in my app to create lists, will that degrade the performance? It would really be a great help if anyone can give me better overview about it. Or may be counter argument against each. Many thanks!

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• So Much Happening at Devoxx

  - by Tori Wieldt

  Devoxx, the premier Java conference in Europe, has been sold out for a while. The organizers (thanks Stephan and crew!) cap the attendance to make sure all attendees have a great experience, and that speaks volumes about their priorities. The speakers, hackathons, labs, and networking are all first class. The Oracle Technology Network will be there, and if you were smart/lucky enough to get a ticket, come find us and join the fun: IoT Hack Fest Build fun and creative Internet of Things (IoT) applications with Java Embedded, Raspberry Pi and Leap Motion on the University Days (Monday and Tuesday). Learn from top experts Yara & Vinicius Senger and Geert Bevin at two Raspberry Pi & Leap Motion hands-on labs and hacking sessions. Bring your computer. Training and equipment will be provided. Devoxx will also host an Internet of Things shop in the exhibition floor where attendees can purchase Arduino, Raspberry PI and Robot starter kits. Bring your IoT wish list! Video Interviews Yolande Poirier and I will be interviewing members of the Java Community in the back of the Expo hall on Wednesday and Thursday. Videos are posted on Parleys and YouTube/Java. We have a few slots left, so contact me (you can DM @Java) if you want to share your insights or cool new tip or trick with the rest of the developer community. (No commercials, no fluff. Keep it techie and keep it real.)  Oracle Keynote Wednesday morning Mark Reinhold, Chief Java Platform Architect, and Brian Goetz, Java Language Architect will provide an update on Java 8 and beyond. Oracle Booth Drop by the Oracle booth to see old and new friends.  We'll have Java in Action demos and the experts to explain them and answer your questions. We are raffling off Raspberry Pi's each day, so be sure to get your badged scanned. We'll have beer in the booth each evening. Look for @Java in her lab coat.  See you at Devoxx! 

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• How / Where can I host my Java web application? [closed]

  - by Huliax

  Possible Duplicate: How to find web hosting that meets my requirements? In case you want to skip to the crux of my inquiry just read the bold type. I just finished my CS degree (at 39 years old :-)). For my final project I designed and built a system that can provide local positioning / location awareness to mobile wifi devices (only have Android client thus far). The server receives data from clients, processes it, and responds to the clients with a messages containing information about their respective locations. I would like to continue the project (perhaps release as open source but that is a different discussion). Thus far my server application has been running on the CS department's hardware where I could pretty much do whatever I wanted. I'm getting kicked off that system in a few weeks so I have to find a new home for my server application. I need a host that will let me run my Java server (along w/ mySQL db) -- preferably on the cheap since I haven't yet got a job. I have very little experience with the "real world" of web development / hosting. I'm having trouble figuring out what kind of hosting service will let me run my application as is. If that turns out to be a tall order then I need to know what my options are for changing thing so that I can get up and running with some hosting. As an aside, I'm also researching whether or not I should rewrite this in a different language. Trying to figure out if there is a substantially better (for whatever reason) one for what I'm doing. This might also potentially have a bearing on my hosting needs. One possibility is to write the server in something more widely accepted by hosting services. I have been searching for answers to my question and haven't found quite what I'm looking for. Part of the problem might be that I don't know exactly what terminology to use. If there is a good answer to this question elsewhere please feel free to point me towards it. Thanks for help / advice.

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• Collaborative work (small team) - Best practices

  - by LEM01

  I'm currently working in a very small team of programmers (2-3) and I'm looking for advices/best practices on how to organise our work. We're all working on the same application using PHP. Today we're kind of all working on our way. Today situation: List item that have to be worked on by each dev 1/week. What has to be done is defined at a high functional level (ex: Build the search engine for this product..) Commit / merge our individual branches (git) every week before the next meeting No real dev rules, no code review No test written (aouutch) Problems faced: Code quality issue: discovering someone else code is sometime tough (inline, variable+function+class names, spaces, comments..) Changes in already existing classes (impact on someone else work) Responsibility of each dev unclear: after getting someone else code and discover something messy, should I make the change? Should he make the change? How to plan those things,... What I'm looking for: Basically I'm looking into structuring the way we develop things in order to avoid frustration and improve overall quality. How to define coding standards (naming convention, code rules...)? Do you you any validation script to make sure code is valid before committing? Do you think that defining an architect role in the team is needed? Someone that would actually define what has to be developed during the next phase. By defining interfaces or class descriptions that have to be written. (Does it make sense in such a small team?) Today we're losing time into understanding what others did or tried to do, we're also losing time in discussion like "you should have done it that way! Why is this class doing that and not that..? Shouldn't we have a embedded class rather that this set of data...". I'm looking into a work process, maybe with more defined responsibilities and process in order to improve our performance. If you have experience, advices, best practices or anything to share that we could benefit from it will be much appreciated! Thanks a lot for your time!

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• Best practice for organizing/storing character/monster data in an RPG?

  - by eclecto

  Synopsis: Attempting to build a cross-platform RPG app in Adobe Flash Builder and am trying to figure out the best class hierarchy and the best way to store the static data used to build each of the individual "hero" and "monster" types. My programming experience, particularly in AS3, is embarrassingly small. My ultra-alpha method is to include a "_class" object in the constructor for each instance. The _class, in turn, is a static Object pulled from a class created specifically for that purpose, so things look something like this: // Character.as package { public class Character extends Sprite { public var _strength:int; // etc. public function Character(_class:Object) { _strength = _class._strength; // etc. } } } // MonsterClasses.as package { public final class MonsterClasses extends Object { public static const Monster1:Object={ _strength:50, // etc. } // etc. } } // Some other class in which characters/monsters are created. // Create a new instance of Character var myMonster = new Character(MonsterClasses.Monster1); Another option I've toyed with is the idea of making each character class/monster type its own subclass of Character, but I'm not sure if it would be efficient or even make sense considering that these classes would only be used to store variables and would add no new methods. On the other hand, it would make creating instances as simple as var myMonster = new Monster1; and potentially cut down on the overhead of having to read a class containing the data for, at a conservative preliminary estimate, over 150 monsters just to fish out the one monster I want (assuming, and I really have no idea, that such a thing might cause any kind of slowdown in execution). But long story short, I want a system that's both efficient at compile time and easy to work with during coding. Should I stick with what I've got or try a different method? As a subquestion, I'm also assuming here that the best way to store data that will be bundled with the final game and not read externally is simply to declare everything in AS3. Seems to me that if I used, say, XML or JSON I'd have to use the associated AS3 classes and methods to pull in the data, parse it, and convert it to AS3 object(s) anyway, so it would be inefficient. Right?

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• Forced to be trained [closed]

  - by steeb

  is it OK to force employees to take a training in order to make them sign a contract to stay in the job for X years? Here I'm the only developer in the company and before this job I've developed in VB6, VB.Net and others. There are others technicians here but they query the database server to make reports and make little programs but do not spend all day in programming. I was hired here to manage some legacy data to be migrated to a new system and I used my experience to accomplish the task. I also have made some utilities and other developments. Since we went live with the new system I've been developing a lot of side programs, add-ons and changed the source code of it and basically I've been learning from it since then and became some sort of jack of all trades when some feature needs to be changed or corrected. I have one and a half year in this company but during the last 8 months I've been entirely programming in the system. There have been times when even the implementers ask me how I accomplish certain things. The issue here is that the company has come and told me and other co-workers (which do not program in the system but know basic programming and databases) to have a basic training to program for the new system's platform and when we finish it we will sign a contract to stay in the company for an unspecified time. They have offered also an unspecified better salary. I'm feeling very suspicious cause I know the basics of system and I don't understand why I have to take it, being known by everybody all developments I've made. I gathered with my boss and told him that I should not take that course because I feel that I can learn more with all the daily requirements I've been asked and they should save that money. But he responded me that I have to take it and sign after that. I think they want me to be with them for a long time, and I'd like to, but my opinion is that I would like to stay in the company because I feel comfortable in all laboral aspects (including salary) but not because I signed a contract forced to do more tasks and forced to say no if I have others and better job offers. What advice can you give me in this kind of situation?

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• PHP - Internal APIs/Libraries - What makes sense?

  - by Mark Locker

  I've been having a discussion lately with some colleagues about the best way to approach a new project, and thought it'd be interesting to get some external thoughts thrown into the mix. Basically, we're redeveloping a fairly large site (written in PHP) and have differing opinions on how the platform should be setup. Requirements: The platform will need to support multiple internal websites, as well as external (non-PHP) projects which at the moment consist of a mobile app and a toolbar. We have no plans/need in the foreseeable future to open up an API externally (for use in products other than our own). My opinion: We should have a library of well documented native model classes which can be shared between projects. These models will represent everything in our database and can take advantage of object orientated features such as inheritance, traits, magic methods, etc. etc. As well as employing ORM. We can then add an API layer on top of these models which can basically accept requests and route them to the appropriate methods, translating the response so that it can be used platform independently. This routing for each method can be setup as and when it's required. Their opinion: We should have a single HTTP API which is used by all projects (internal PHP ones or otherwise). My thoughts: To me, there are a number of issues with using the sole HTTP API approach: It will be very expensive performance wise. One page request will result in several additional http requests (which although local, are still ones that Apache will need to handle). You'll lose all of the best features PHP has for OO development. From simple inheritance, to employing the likes of ORM which can save you writing a lot of code. For internal projects, the actual process makes me cringe. To get a users name, for example, a request would go out of our box, over the LAN, back in, then run through a script which calls a method, JSON encodes the output and feeds that back. That would then need to be JSON decoded, and be presented as an array ready to use. Working with arrays, as appose to objects, makes me sad in a modern PHP framework. Their thoughts (and my responses): Having one method of doing thing keeps things simple. - You'd only do things differently if you were using a different language anyway. It will become robust. - Seeing as the API will run off the library of models, I think my option would be just as robust. What do you think? I'd be really interested to hear the thoughts of others on this, especially as opinions on both sides are not founded on any past experience.

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• Setting uniform value of a vertex shader for different sprites in a SpriteBatch

  - by midasmax

  I'm using libGDX and currently have a simple shader that does a passthrough, except for randomly shifting the vertex positions. This shift is a vec2 uniform that I set within my code's render() loop. It's declared in my vertex shader as uniform vec2 u_random. I have two different kind of Sprites -- let's called them SpriteA and SpriteB. Both are drawn within the same SpriteBatch's begin()/end() calls. Prior to drawing each sprite in my scene, I check the type of the sprite. If sprite instance of SpriteA: I set the uniform u_random value to Vector2.Zero, meaning that I don't want any vertex changes for it. If sprite instance of SpriteB, I set the uniform u_random to Vector2(MathUtils.random(), MathUtils.random(). The expected behavior was that all the SpriteA objects in my scene won't experience any jittering, while all SpriteB objects would be jittering about their positions. However, what I'm experiencing is that both SpriteA and SpriteB are jittering, leading me to believe that the u_random uniform is not actually being set per Sprite, and being applied to all sprites. What is the reason for this? And how can I fix this such that the vertex shader correctly accepts the uniform value set to affect each sprite individually? passthrough.vsh attribute vec4 a_color; attribute vec3 a_position; attribute vec2 a_texCoord0; uniform mat4 u_projTrans; uniform vec2 u_random; varying vec4 v_color; varying vec2 v_texCoord; void main() { v_color = a_color; v_texCoord = a_texCoord0; vec3 temp_position = vec3( a_position.x + u_random.x, a_position.y + u_random.y, a_position.z); gl_Position = u_projTrans * vec4(temp_position, 1.0); } Java Code this.batch.begin(); this.batch.setShader(shader); for (Sprite sprite : sprites) { Vector2 v = Vector2.Zero; if (sprite instanceof SpriteB) { v.x = MathUtils.random(-1, 1); v.y = MathUtils.random(-1, 1); } shader.setUniformf("u_random", v); sprite.draw(this.batch); } this.batch.end();

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• I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I don't feel like I know how to program.

  - by wp123

  I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I see websites like Stack Overflow and search engines like Google and don't know where I'd even begin to write something like that. During one summer I did have the opportunity to work as a iPhone developer, but I felt like I was mostly gluing together libraries that other people had written with little understanding of the mechanics happening beneath the hood. I'm trying to improve my knowledge by studying algorithms, but it is a long and painful process. I find algorithms difficult and at the rate I am learning a decade will have passed before I will master the material in the book. Given my current situation, I've spent a month looking for work but my skills (C, Python, Objective-C) are relatively shallow and are not so desirable in the local market, where C#, Java, and web development are much higher in demand. That is not to say that C and Python opportunities do not exist but they tend to demand 3+ years of experience I do not have. My GPA is OK (3.0) but it's not high enough to apply to the large companies like IBM or return for graduate studies. Basically I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I don't feel like I've learned how to program. I thought that joining a company and programming full-time would give me a chance to develop my skills and learn from those more experienced than myself, but I'm struggling to find work and am starting to get really frustrated. I am going to cast my net wider and look beyond the city I've grown up in, but what have other people in similar situation tried to do? I've worked hard but don't have the confidence to go out on my own and write my own app. (That is, become an indie developer in the iPhone app market.) If nothing turns up I will need to consider upgrading and learning more popular skills or try something marginally related like IT, but given all the effort I've put in that feels like copping out. EDIT: Thank you for all the advice. I think I was premature because of unrealistic expectations but the comments have given me a dose of reality. I will persevere and continue to code. I have a project in mind, although well beyond my current capabilities it will challenge me to hone my craft and prove my worth to myself (and potential employers). Had I known there was a career overflow I would have posted there instead. Thanks again!

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• Calculating a circle or sphere along a vector

  - by Sparky

  Updated this post and the one at Math SE (http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/127866/calculating-a-circle-or-sphere-along-a-vector), hope this makes more sense. I previously posted a question (about half an hour ago) involving computations along line segments, but the question and discussion were really off track and not what I was trying to get at. I am trying to work with an FPS engine I am attempting to build in Java. The problem I am encountering is with hitboxing. I am trying to calculate whether or not a "shot" is valid. I am working with several approaches and any insight would be helpful. I am not a native speaker of English nor skilled in Math so please bear with me. Player position is at P0 = (x0,y0,z0), Enemy is at P1 = (x1,y1,z1). I can of course compute the distance between them easily. The target needs a "hitbox" object, which is basically a square/rectangle/mesh either in front of, in, or behind them. Here are the solutions I am considering: I have ruled this out...doesn't seem practical. [Place a "hitbox" a small distance in front of the target. Then I would be able to find the distance between the player and the hitbox, and the hitbox and the target. It is my understanding that you can compute a circle with this information, and I could simply consider any shot within that circle a "hit". However this seems not to be an optimal solution, because it requires you to perform a lot of calculations and is not fully accurate.] Input, please! Place the hitbox "in" the player. This seems like the better solution. In this case what I need is a way to calculate a circle along the vector, at whatever position I wish (in this case, the distance between the two objects). Then I can pick some radius that encompasses the whole player, and count anything within this area a "hit". I am open to your suggestions. I'm trying to do this on paper and have no familiarity with game engines. If any software folk out there think I'm doing this the hard way, I'm open to help! Also - Anyone with JOGL/LWJGL experience, please chime in. Is this making sense?

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• iPhone app development pricing [closed]

  - by AlexMorley-Finch

  I currently manage a website design and development company that integrates itself with print work too. I've been co manager for a couple of months now, however business is slow at the moment. I got an email today from a potential client asking if we do iPhone app development. Obviously we do not. But, seeing as there aren't many other project on the go at the moment, why not give it a go? Searching Google was my first option. I did a bit of background scrubbing. Discovered that I need certain developer tools etc. This can be arranged easily enough. The reason I came to Stack Exchange is for answers to these questions. I am a competant programmer and have had experience in Java, PHP, JavaScript, C++ and C#. So how long would it take me to come to grips with Objective-C? Assuming an 8 hour working day. Not only the language but also the iPhone interface libraries (if any exist) and other native libraries? The potential client said the app will be a catalogue. So I'm assuming either the data will be pulled online or in some kind of local database. I know the requirements are vague but does anyone have any idea of how mug time this would take? To learn the language, design the architecture and code? 40 Hours? 80 Hours? My final question kind of depends on the first two. But obviously the potential client wants a quote. And I have got no idea how much an app costs. I did some research and found a huge range in differences. The majority of the cost would cone from the time to develops the app! So to summarise. How long would it take me to be comfortable coding Objective-C, taking into consideration my past knowledge? I'm assuming a day or two to fully understand but you really don't know. How long would it take me to develop an app? How much should I charge (approx) for the development of this app?

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• Why is Java the lingua franca at so many institutions?

  - by Billy ONeal

  EDIT: This question at first seems to be bashing Java, and I guess at this point it is a bit. However, the bigger point I am trying to make is why any one single language is chosen as the one end all be all solution to all problems. Java happens to be the one that's used so that's the one I had to beat on here, but I'm not intentionality ripping Java a new one :) I don't like Java in most academic settings. I'm not saying the language itself is bad -- it has several extremely desirable aspects, most importantly the ability to run without recompilation on most any platform. Nothing wrong with using the language for Your Next App ^TM. (Not something I would personally do, but that's more because I have less experience with it, rather than it's design being poor) I think it is a waste that high level CS courses are taught using Java as a language. Too many of my co-students cannot program worth a damn, because they don't know how to work in a non-garbage-collected world. They don't fundamentally understand the machines they are programming for. When someone can work outside of a garbage collected world, they can work inside of one, but not vice versa. GC is a tool, not a crutch. But the way it is used to teach computer science students is a as a crutch. Computer science should not teach an entire suite of courses tailored to a single language. Students leave with the idea that all good design is idiomatic Java design, and that Object Oriented Design is the ONE TRUE WAY THAT IS THE ONLY WAY THINGS CAN BE DONE. Other languages, at least one of them not being a garbage collected language, should be used in teaching, in order to give the graduate a better understanding of the machines. It is an embarrassment that somebody with a PHD in CS from a respected institution cannot program their way out of a paper bag. What's worse, is that when I talk to those CS professors who actually do understand how things operate, they share feelings like this, that we're doing a disservice to our students by doing everything in Java. (Note that the above would be the same if I replaced it with any other language, generally using a single language is the problem, not Java itself) In total, I feel I can no longer respect any kind of degree at all -- when I can't see those around me able to program their way out of fizzbuzz problems. Why/how did it get to be this way?

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• How do you turn on the customizable gnome-panel features (like gnome-applets) in Precise?

  - by chriv

  I resurrected a broken laptop today. I took out the HDD, put it in a USB 3.0 enclosure, and created a VM that would use it. It was running lucid. I took a screenshot of the desktop before I started "do-release-upgrade", because from experience, I will never have my GUI back the way I want it again. I know how to install gnome-panel to get back the "Gnome Classic" session option. I know how to put my minimize, maximize, and close buttons back in the upper-right hand corner of windows (where they belong). I know how to use gdm instead of lightdm. Unity gets worse in every version (and the other desktop OS is going to be even worse with Metro). Here's what I don't know (in order of importance): 1. How do you make the panels in gnome (gnome-panel, to be precise) customizable again (like they were in older versions of Ubuntu)? 2. How do you install applets in the panels now (right-click is now ignored)? 3. How can you customize all of the window elements (like you could in older versions of Ubuntu)? I can't remember much about maverick, natty, or oneiric (except their names), so I don't know exactly when I lost these capabilities. Edit: (no screenshot), my StackExchange reputation (on other StackExchange sites) doesn't carry over to this site, so I can't post the screenshot. Take a look at the panels in the screen hot. They are nice, compact, and VERY functional (disk mounter applet, frequently used shortcuts, workspaces, show desktop, kill window, and trash icons, etc.) Notice how small the fonts (and how little real estate they waste). You can't notice the compact title bars, fonts, and window icons in this screen shot (since I redacted the rest of the desktop), but it's the same story there. Please help. I don't want to learn another distro, but Ubuntu gets less customizable with every "upgrade." Screenshot (not an inline image, since I don't have the reputation yet)... i.stack.imgur.com/puoUT.png

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• Determining whether a visitor reached two different pages in one visit

  - by Shaun

  I have a funnel that I would like to track. Tracking this funnel won't work with the default "goal funnel" tracking in Google due to the fact that I am mixing events and pageviews. As such, I've created a series of reports: Visits to demo pages - An inclusion filter on "Page". Triggers an Event on these pages - An inclusion filter on "Page" and "Event Category". Does not bounce - An inclusion filter on "Page" and an exclusion filter on "Exit Page" for these same pages. Reach our storefront - ?? Purchase something - An inclusion filter on "Page" and a report that shows "Transactions". At a basic level, I need to track users who reached demo pages, then reached any page on our store. Intuitively, I created a segment, used two inclusive "Page" filters (one for the demo pages and one for any page in our store), and combined them with an "AND" operator. I thought this was working until I tried to do the same thing in a dashboard widget and on a custom report. When I tried the same thing in those areas, I got zero results. I figured this might be because widgets and custom report filters function differently from segment filters (the options are different for all of them), so I tried applying my "demo page && store page" segment to a report that gave me a general page list. All I saw was a list of the specific pages. I tried simplifying things by creating a custom report that showed all visits to store pages, then applied a segment that filtered for users who visited demo pages. This got me the same numbers as my "demo page && store page" segment, but showed a list of demo pages. This has led me to believe that the "demo page && store page segment" approach and the "demo segment && store report" functionally behave the same. However, this experience has left me questioning whether they're giving me what I want. Are these methods showing me all users who reached both sets of pages? Is there a better/easier/more standard way of doing this aside from looking at visitor flow reports? I'm trying to avoid a combination of custom variables/events and using the horizontal funnel approach since it would consume a large number of our limited goals and seems more complicated than is necessary for tracking this funnel.

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• The difference

  So with the CTP tools available, weve been building a few apps, just to get a feel for the tools and whats supported in the framework.  Whats been great is that everything is fairly familiar and consistent, largely to do with the .net framework and Microsofts focus on providing good tools.  Weve produced mobile applications, mostly in concept form, for Windows Phone Classic, iPhone and Android but never so quickly and not of such high quality and visual impression.  I attribute some of this obviously to our familiarity to the Microsoft platform and tools.  Though when you look at the designs our team has produced, it becomes clear that this is not just another mobile application container.                                                            The Metro design language implores content prominence with fluid motion and transitions, with a crisp font and easily organized features and services placement.  In addition to a purposeful right edge tease, where the intent is for users to discover new premium content and services.   The concept that enables this is called hubs, building application with hubs changes your thinking from a single mobile application task, to thinking creatively about a mobile experience. Its engaging to think of the other brands and industry verticals that will take advantage of this core feature.  Combine this with Windows Phone 7 live tiles, more on that later, and you have a recipe for a solid mobile services platform.                                                              This so much more fun and liberating than my icon on a gridDid you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• What OpenGL version(s) to learn and/or use?

  - by zuko

  So, I'm new to OpenGL... I have general knowledge of game programming but little practical experience. I've been looking into various articles and books and trying to dive into OpenGL, but I've found the various versions and old vs new way of doing things confusing. I guess my first questions is does anyone know some figures about percentages of gamers that can run each version of OpenGL. What's the market share like? 2.x, 3.x, 4.x... I looked into the requirements for Half Life 2 since I know Valve updated it with OpenGL to run on Mac and I know they usually try to hit a very wide user-base, and they say a minimum of GeForce 8 Series. I looked at the 8800 GT on Nvidia's website and it listed support for OpenGL 2.1. Which, maybe I'm wrong, sounds ancient to me since there's already 4.x. I looked up a driver for 8800GT and it says it supports 4.2! A bit of a discrepancy there, lol. I've also read things like XP only supports up to a certain version, or OS X only supports 3.2, or all kinds of other things. Overall, I'm just confused as to how much support there is for various versions and what version to learn/use. I'm also looking for learning resources. My search results thus far have pointed me to the OpenGL SuperBible. The 4th edition has great reviews on Amazon, but it teaches 2.1. The 5th edition teaches 3.3 and there are a couple things in the reviews that mention the 4th edition is better and that the 5th edition doesn't properly teach the new features or something? Basically, even within learning material I'm seeing discrepancies and I just don't even know where to start. From what I understand, 3.x started a whole new way of doing things and I've read from various articles and reviews that you want to "stay away from deprecated features like glBegin(), glEnd()" yet a lot of books and tutorials I've seen use that method. I've seen people saying that, basically, the new way of doing stuff is more complicated yet the old way is bad . Just a side note, personally, I know I still have a lot to learn beforehand, but I'm interested in tessellation; so I guess that factors into it as well, because, as far as I understand that's only in 4.x? [just btw, my desktop supports 4.2]

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• How do I prevent ISPs from killing downloads of files in mid-transfer?

  - by Gorchestopher H

  I run a small website with a few users, low traffic, mostly to share personal mp3 files with a small community. Depending on their ISP, my users can't always download or stream larger files. By larger I mean larger than 1MB. Essentially the host either stops sending, or the client stops receiving. One of the links along the connection chain simply ends its connection before the transfer completes Trace-route shows no connection issues. There are no connection issues with short transfers that don't take more than a few seconds. It's these 10 second transfers that just end up ending. Just doing a straight download with a direct link can yield this error if you have the wrong ISP. Strangely enough, this is most common with users with ISPs who are essentially independent providers that buy service via a fiber link. Unfortunately these providers aren't very knowledgeable, are unable to do any testing, and insist it's a problem with the host. I have gotten my host to transfer my site to different servers of their, to the same effect. Nearly identical sites (affiliate sites actually) experience no such issue. What can I be doing to further troubleshoot this matter? How can I prove that someone is dropping the ball, and identify who that party is? Can I do a 5Mb traceroute? EDIT Maybe I can clear up some misconceptions with my question: The files are not very large. They are simply over 2Mb. The users do not have "slow" connections, they are at least 5mbps. This "time out" happens very quickly, in the realm of 5 seconds, so I don't know if it's a timeout or not. The user often gets 1 or 2Mb in this chunk of time. I have tried streaming with a flash player. I have tried saving the target. Forcing the download. I have tried allowing the browser to stream the file. I have tried different browsers (FF, IE, Chrome). Users are able to download identical files when on different hosts.

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