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• Big AdventureWorks2012

  - by jamiet

  Last week I launched AdventureWorks on Azure, an initiative to make SQL Azure accessible to anyone, in my blog post AdventureWorks2012 now available for all on SQL Azure. Since then I think its fair to say that the reaction has been lukewarm with 31 insertions into the [dbo].[SqlFamily] table and only 8 donations via PayPal to support it; on the other hand those 8 donators have been incredibly generous and we nearly have enough in the bank to cover a full year’s worth of availability. It was always my intention to try and make this offering more appealing and to that end I have used an adapted version of Adam Machanic’s make_big_adventure.sql script to massively increase the amount of data in the database and give the community more scope to really push SQL Azure and see what it is capable of. There are now two new tables in the database: [dbo].[bigProduct] with 25200 rows [dbo].[bigTransactionHistory] with 7827579 rows The credentials to login and use AdventureWorks on Azure are as they were before: Server mhknbn2kdz.database.windows.net Database AdventureWorks2012 User sqlfamily Password sqlf@m1ly Remember, if you want to support AdventureWorks on Azure simply click here to launch a pre-populated PayPal Send Money form - all you have to do is login, fill in an amount, and click Send. We need more donations to keep this up and running so if you think this is useful and worth supporting, please please donate.   I mentioned that I had to adapt Adam’s script, the main reasons being: Cross-database queries are not yet supported in SQL Azure so I had to create a local copy of [dbo].[spt_values] rather than reference that in [master] SELECT…INTO is not supported in SQL Azure The 1GB limit of SQLAzure web edition meant that there would not be enough space to store all the data generated by Adam’s script so I had to decrease the total number of rows. The amended script is available on my SkyDrive at https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=550f681dad532637&resid=550F681DAD532637!16756&parid=550F681DAD532637!16755 @Jamiet

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• APress Deal of the Day - 1/June/2012 - Introducing Visual C# 2010

  - by TATWORTH

  Today's $10 Deal of the Day from APress at http://www.apress.com/9781430231714 is Introducing Visual C# 2010."If you're new to C# programming, this book is the ideal way to get started. Respected author Adam Freeman guides you through the C# language by carefully building up your knowledge from fundamental concepts to advanced features." Adam Freeman is an excellent author. This is an excellent introduction to C# programming and a manual for those with experience. Having read through book, I am very impressed by its practical approach to C#. I cannot improve on the by-line "Get started on your C# journey with an expert by your side leading by example" Adam Freeman teaches C# by precept and example. I suspect he drives a Volvo C30 as it comes up in many of the code examples! Throughout the book there are numerous links back and forth so as to avoid over complicating the current topic. I have have no hesitation in recommending this book both to programmers starting out with C# and to the seasoned professional. It is a book that should be on every C# development team's book shelf.

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• Machine only responds to network requests from machines it is pinging

  - by ILikeFood

  I have two machines. WOPR: Ubuntu server edition 10.10 LTS 32 bit Adam Selene: Windows 7 home premium 64 bit / Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 LTS 64 bit I want to be able to SSH from Adam Selene to WOPR, so I connect them to the same network. Here's where things get weird. I cannot connect to WOPR in any way under normal circumstances. But, if WOPR is pinging Adam, then it starts responding to ping requests, HTTP gets, and SSH tunnels. I'm an amateur, and brand new to Ubuntu server, so I suspect there's a misconfiguration somewhere, but there's an off chance it's a bug in the OS. Does anyone know what might cause this behavior? Thanks a lot!

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• Writing tests for Rails plugins

  - by Adam

  I'm working on a plugin for Rails that would add limited in-memory caching to ActiveRecord's finders. The functionality itself is mature enough, but I can't for the life of me get unit tests to work with the plugin. I now have under vendor/plugins/my_plugin/test/my_plugin_test.rb a standard subclass of ActiveSupport::TestCase with a couple of basic tests. I try running 'rake test' from the plugin directory, and I have confirmed that this task loads the ruby file with the test case, but it doesn't actually run any of the tests. I followed the Rails plugin guide (http://guides.rubyonrails.org/plugins.html) where applicable, but it seems to be horribly outdated (it suggests things that Rails now do automatically, etc.) The only output I get is this: Kakadu:ingenious_record adam$ rake test (in /Users/adam/Sites/1_PRK/vendor/plugins/ingenious_record) /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby -Ilib:lib:test "/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.3/lib/rake/rake_test_loader.rb" "test/ingenious_record_test.rb" The simplest test case looks like this: require 'test_helper' require 'active_record' class IngeniousRecordTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase test "example" do assert false end end This should definitely produce at least some output, and the only test in that file should produce a failed assertion. Any ideas what I could do to get Rails to run my tests?

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• How can I draw an arrow at the edge of the screen pointing to an object that is off screen?

  - by Adam Henderson

  I am wishing to do what is described in this topic: http://www.allegro.cc/forums/print-thread/283220 I have attempted a variety of the methods mentioned here. First I tried to use the method described by Carrus85: Just take the ratio of the two triangle hypontenuses (doesn't matter which triagle you use for the other, I suggest point 1 and point 2 as the distance you calculate). This will give you the aspect ratio percentage of the triangle in the corner from the larger triangle. Then you simply multiply deltax by that value to get the x-coordinate offset, and deltay by that value to get the y-coordinate offset. But I could not find a way to calculate how far the object is away from the edge of the screen. I then tried using ray casting (which I have never done before) suggested by 23yrold3yrold: Fire a ray from the center of the screen to the offscreen object. Calculate where on the rectangle the ray intersects. There's your coordinates. I first calculated the hypotenuse of the triangle formed by the difference in x and y positions of the two points. I used this to create a unit vector along that line. I looped through that vector until either the x coordinate or the y coordinate was off the screen. The two current x and y values then form the x and y of the arrow. Here is the code for my ray casting method (written in C++ and Allegro 5) void renderArrows(Object* i) { float x1 = i->getX() + (i->getWidth() / 2); float y1 = i->getY() + (i->getHeight() / 2); float x2 = screenCentreX; float y2 = ScreenCentreY; float dx = x2 - x1; float dy = y2 - y1; float hypotSquared = (dx * dx) + (dy * dy); float hypot = sqrt(hypotSquared); float unitX = dx / hypot; float unitY = dy / hypot; float rayX = x2 - view->getViewportX(); float rayY = y2 - view->getViewportY(); float arrowX = 0; float arrowY = 0; bool posFound = false; while(posFound == false) { rayX += unitX; rayY += unitY; if(rayX <= 0 || rayX >= screenWidth || rayY <= 0 || rayY >= screenHeight) { arrowX = rayX; arrowY = rayY; posFound = true; } } al_draw_bitmap(sprite, arrowX - spriteWidth, arrowY - spriteHeight, 0); } This was relatively successful. Arrows are displayed in the bottom right section of the screen when objects are located above and left of the screen as if the locations of the where the arrows are drawn have been rotated 180 degrees around the center of the screen. I assumed this was due to the fact that when I was calculating the hypotenuse of the triangle, it would always be positive regardless of whether or not the difference in x or difference in y is negative. Thinking about it, ray casting does not seem like a good way of solving the problem (due to the fact that it involves using sqrt() and a large for loop). Any help finding a suitable solution would be greatly appreciated, Thanks Adam

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• SQL Server Optimizer Malfunction?

  - by Tony Davis

  There was a sharp intake of breath from the audience when Adam Machanic declared the SQL Server optimizer to be essentially "stuck in 1997". It was during his fascinating "Query Tuning Mastery: Manhandling Parallelism" session at the recent PASS SQL Summit. Paraphrasing somewhat, Adam (blog | @AdamMachanic) offered a convincing argument that the optimizer often delivers flawed plans based on assumptions that are no longer valid with today’s hardware. In 1997, when Microsoft engineers re-designed the database engine for SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server got its initial implementation of a cost-based optimizer. Up to SQL Server 2000, the developer often had to deploy a steady stream of hints in SQL statements to combat the occasionally wilful plan choices made by the optimizer. However, with each successive release, the optimizer has evolved and improved in its decision-making. It is still prone to the occasional stumble when we tackle difficult problems, join large numbers of tables, perform complex aggregations, and so on, but for most of us, most of the time, the optimizer purrs along efficiently in the background. Adam, however, challenged further any assumption that the current optimizer is competent at providing the most efficient plans for our more complex analytical queries, and in particular of offering up correctly parallelized plans. He painted a picture of a present where complex analytical queries have become ever more prevalent; where disk IO is ever faster so that reads from disk come into buffer cache faster than ever; where the improving RAM-to-data ratio means that we have a better chance of finding our data in cache. Most importantly, we have more CPUs at our disposal than ever before. To get these queries to perform, we not only need to have the right indexes, but also to be able to split the data up into subsets and spread its processing evenly across all these available CPUs. Improvements such as support for ColumnStore indexes are taking things in the right direction, but, unfortunately, deficiencies in the current Optimizer mean that SQL Server is yet to be able to exploit properly all those extra CPUs. Adam’s contention was that the current optimizer uses essentially the same costing model for many of its core operations as it did back in the days of SQL Server 7, based on assumptions that are no longer valid. One example he gave was a "slow disk" bias that may have been valid back in 1997 but certainly is not on modern disk systems. Essentially, the optimizer assesses the relative cost of serial versus parallel plans based on the assumption that there is no IO cost benefit from parallelization, only CPU. It assumes that a single request will saturate the IO channel, and so a query would not run any faster if we parallelized IO because the disk system simply wouldn’t be able to handle the extra pressure. As such, the optimizer often decides that a serial plan is lower cost, often in cases where a parallel plan would improve performance dramatically. It was challenging and thought provoking stuff, as were his techniques for driving parallelism through query logic based on subsets of rows that define the "grain" of the query. I highly recommend you catch the session if you missed it. I’m interested to hear though, when and how often people feel the force of the optimizer’s shortcomings. Barring mistakes, such as stale statistics, how often do you feel the Optimizer fails to find the plan you think it should, and what are the most common causes? Is it fighting to induce it toward parallelism? Combating unexpected plans, arising from table partitioning? Something altogether more prosaic? Cheers, Tony.

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• Google Talk Chat/Conference Solutions

  - by Adam Davis

  I started using the old confbot python conference script in 2005 for my family. This essentially implements an IRC like conference room over Google Talk (or any Jabber/XMPP server). It has significantly increased family communication, and has become rather indispensable due to this. Recently it's begun to have severe problems (people can't see each other in the conference room) which has nearly killed the usefulness of it. Before I develop my own software or debug confbot (probably not - it uses an older jabber library that hasn't been updated since 2003) I wanted to see what other solutions exist that meet our needs: Supports Google Talk (Sorry, I'm not going to try to convince everyone involved to move to a new IM or other client) Free and open source (ideal, but not required) Runs on Windows (Not a web service run by someone else) Implements basic functionality such as kick/ban, emotes Remembers who joined the conference room across restarts Obeys Do Not Disturb and Busy status Archives all activity -Adam

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• Long file path returning 404 for "hello.htm"

  - by Adam Kane

  Hello, I have a long file path that works on my server, but a simliar path returns a 404 error when it is on my clients (IIS6) server (http://ddmat.com/). Here's the functioning file path on my server: http://www.forgefx.com/projects/ddmat/install/Application Files/McCurdys_1_0_0_0/Content/FBX/CCAE1B33/Roof-sectionB-02.fbm/hello.htm My guesses: Maybe the file path is too long? Maybe the ".fbm" in the directory path is invalid? Sorry for the vauge problem description. Please let me know what additional info I can provide that'd be helpful. Update: The problem happens even in short paths, with no spaces: http://www.myserver/test.folder/hell.htm Thanks, Adam

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• Redirecting X output

  - by Adam Matan

  Hi, I have a small program that checks some elements of a web service. The program shows graphics output and displays commmand-line results as well. I have been trying to automate this program to run periodically on a server in my office. Problem is, It only works when I have X enabled - either directly on the server, or via ssh -X. Following Google, I have tried Xvfb, which gave me quite cryptic error message: Xvfb :1 -screen 0 1600x1200x32 Fatal server error: Server is already active for display 1 If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X1-lock and start again. Any ideas how to run it? I'm actually looking for the X equivalent of &>/dev/null... Thanks in advance, Adam

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• SQL: How to select rows from a table while ignoring the duplicate field values?

  - by Maxxon

  How to select rows from a table while ignoring the duplicate field values? Here is an example: id user_id message 1 Adam "Adam is here." 2 Peter "Hi there this is Peter." 3 Peter "I am getting sick." 4 Josh "Oh, snap. I'm on a boat!" 5 Tom "This show is great." 6 Laura "Textmate rocks." What i want to achive is to select the recently active users from my db. Let's say i want to select the 5 recently active users. The problem is, that the following script selects Peter twice. mysql_query("SELECT * FROM messages ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 5 "); What i want is to skip the row when it gets again to Peter, and select the next result, in our case Adam. So i don't want to show my visitors that the recently active users were Laura, Tom, Josh, Peter, and Peter again. That does not make any sense, instead i want to show them this way: Laura, Tom, Josh, Peter, (skipping Peter) and Adam. Is there an SQL command i can use for this problem?

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• Assigning resources to MS Project 2007

  - by adam

  Hi, I'm planning a redesign of a site in Project 2007. I have three developers to hand, all with the same skills. There are about 80 templates to be rendered as part of the redesign, and each template has been added as a project task. Each of these tasks can be done by any of the 3 devs, and each will take a day (with a few exceptions). There is no order in which the tasks must be completed, so there are no predecessor rules. I'd like to be able to assign tasks to a 'Developer' resource group, and for Project to see that three tasks can be done at once (as the group has three resources members) and queue the tasks as such. Googling leads me to Team Assignment, but that appears to be part of Project Server. Surely I can do this in standalone Project? Thanks, Adam

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• SQL: Speed Improvement - Cluttered union query

  - by vol7ron

  SELECT * FROM ( SELECT a.user_id, a.f_name, a.l_name, b.user_id, b.f_name, b.l_name FROM current_tbl a INNER JOIN import_tbl b ON ( a.user_id = b.user_id ) UNION SELECT a.user_id, a.f_name, a.l_name, b.user_id, b.f_name, b.l_name FROM current_tbl a INNER JOIN import_tbl b ON ( lower(a.f_name)=lower(b.f_name) AND lower(a.l_name)=lower(b.l_name) ) ) foo -- UNION -- SELECT a.user_id , a.f_name , a.l_name , '' , '' , '' FROM current_tbl a WHERE a.user_id NOT IN ( select user_id from( SELECT a.user_id, a.f_name, a.l_name, b.user_id, b.f_name, b.l_name FROM current_tbl a INNER JOIN import_tbl b ON ( a.user_id = b.user_id ) UNION SELECT a.user_id, a.f_name, a.l_name, b.user_id, b.f_name, b.l_name FROM current_tbl a INNER JOIN import_tbl b ON ( lower(a.f_name)=lower(b.f_name) AND lower(a.l_name)=lower(b.l_name) ) ) bar ) ORDER BY user_id Example of table population: current_tbl: ------------------------------- user_id | f_name | l_name ---------+----------+---------- A1 | Adam | Acorn A2 | Beth | Berry A3 | Calv | Chard | | import_tbl: ------------------------------- user_id | f_name | l_name ---------+----------+---------- A1 | Adam | Acorn A2 | Beth | Butcher <- last_name different | | Expected Output: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- user_id1 | f_name1 | l_name1 | user_id2 | f_name2 | l_name2 ----------+-----------+-----------+------------+-----------+----------- A1 | Adam | Acorn | A1 | Adam | Acorn A2 | Beth | Berry | A2 | Beth | Butcher A3 | Calv | Chard | | | Doing this method gets rid of conditions where the row would be: A2 | Beth | Berry | A2 | Beth | Butcher But it keeps the A3 row I hope this makes sense and I haven't overly simplified it. This is a continuation question from my other question. The succession of these improvements has dropped the query down from ~32000ms to where it's at now ~1200ms - quite an improvement. I supect I can optimize by using UNION ALL in the subquery and of course the usual index optimizations, but I'm looking for the best SQL optimization. FYI this particular case is for PostgreSQL.

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• Prevent EC2 machine from halt, poweroff, shutdown

  - by Adam Matan

  Hi, EC2 Ubuntu servers erase all disk contents when being shut down. Following an unfortunate accident, I have decided to prevent the command-live halt, poweroff and shutdown. What's the best way to do it? I thought about renaming these commands (at /sbin) to something like HALT_RENAMED___ERASES_ALL_DISK_CONTENTS. Are there any files, other than the three listed above, that needs to be handled? I've noticed that halt and poweroff are merely links to reboot. Should reboot be renamed, too? Adam

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• How can I make my monitor run at it's native resolution under Kubuntu 9.10?

  - by Adam Matan

  Hi, I have installed Kubuntu 9.10 afresh on an HP desktop computer with a Samsung SyncMaster 2243 and Intel integrated graphics card. The screen resolution is fixed on 1280x1024 instead of the native 1680x1050, which makes my eyes bleed. $ lspci -k |grep "VGA" -A2 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31 Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 10) Kernel driver in use: i915 Kernel modules: i915 and my xorg.conf: /etc/X11$ cat xorg.conf Section "Device" Identifier "Configured Video Device" Driver "vesa" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Configured Monitor" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Monitor "Configured Monitor" Device "Configured Video Device" EndSection Any ideas how to make this driver work? I found no working solutions on Google searches. Thanks, Adam

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• Free, Linux-based rescue CD for Windows machines

  - by Adam Matan

  Hi, Too often, I'm being called to help a friend who screwed a Windows machine by some creative methods. Th usual remedy is backing up the hard drive contents and reinstalling. Right now, this is done by removing the defected hard drive to my machine. I figured out that using a rescue disk running some version of Linux might ease the process. I'm looking for: NTFS access Partition tools Large variety of drivers (Network, Hard drives, etc.) GUI and some rescue wizards a great plus. Any ideas? Adam

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• How can I coordinate code review tool and RCS (specifically git)

  - by Chris Nelson

  We're committed to git for code management. We're trying to find a tool that will help us systematize code reviews. We're considering Gerrit and Code Collaborator but would welcome other suggestions. We're having a problem answering the question, "How do we know every commit was reviewed?" (Or "What commits have yet to be reviewed?") One answer would be to submit every commit or every push for review and track incomplete reviews in the review tool. I'm not entirely happy with relying on a another tool -- especially if it's not open source -- to tell us this. What seems to be a better answer is to rely on sign offs in git (e.g., "Signed-off-by: Chris Nelson") and use a hook in the review tool to sign off commits on behalf of the reviewer. And advantage of this is if we use some other review mechanism for some commits, we have just one place to look for results. One problem with this is that we can't require review before push because the review tool is unlikely to have access to the developer's private repository clone to add the sign-off. Any ideas on integrating code review with code management to achieve ease of use and high visibility of unreviewed changes?

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• Q&amp;A: Can you develop for the Windows Azure Platform using Windows XP?

  - by Eric Nelson

  This question has come up several times recently as we take several hundred UK developers through 6 Weeks of Windows Azure training (sorry – we are full). Short answer: In the main, yes Longer answer: The question is sparked by the requirements as stated on the Windows Azure SDK download page. Namely: Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7; Windows Vista; Windows Vista 64-bit Editions Service Pack 1; Windows Vista Business; Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Enterprise; Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Home Premium; Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition; Windows Vista Service Pack 1; Windows Vista Service Pack 2; Windows Vista Ultimate; Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition Notice there is no mention of Windows XP. However things are not quite that simple. The Windows Azure Platform consists of three released technologies Windows Azure SQL Azure Windows Azure platform AppFabric The Windows Azure SDK is only for one of the three technologies, Windows Azure. What about SQL Azure and AppFabric? Well it turns out that you can develop for both of these technologies just fine with Windows XP: SQL Azure development is really just SQL Server development with a few gotchas – and for local development you can simply use SQL Server 2008 R2 Express (other versions will also work). AppFabric also has no local simulation environment and the SDK will install fine on Windows XP (SDK download) Actually it is also possible to do Windows Azure development on Windows XP if you are willing to always work directly against the real Azure cloud running in Microsoft datacentres. However in practice this would be painful and time consuming, hence why the Windows Azure SDK installs a local simulation environment. Therefore if you want to develop for Windows Azure I would recommend you either upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 or… you use a virtual machine running Windows 7. If this is a temporary requirement, then you could consider building a virtual machine using the Windows 7 Enterprise 90 day eval. Or you could download a pre-configured VHD – but I can’t quite find the link for a Windows 7 VHD. Pointers welcomed. Thanks.

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• 5 Steps to getting started with IronRuby

  - by Eric Nelson

  IronRuby is a Open Source implementation of the Ruby programming language for .NET, heavily relying on Microsoft's Dynamic Language Runtime. The project's #1 goal is to be a true Ruby implementation, meaning it runs existing Ruby code. Check out this summary of using the Ruby standard library and 3rd party libraries in IronRuby. IronRuby has tight integration with .NET, so any .NET types can be used from IronRuby and the IronRuby runtime can be embedded into any .NET application. These 5 steps should get you nicely up and running on IronRuby – OR … you could just watch a video session from the lead developer which took place earlier this month (March 2010 - 60mins). But the 5 steps will be quicker :-) Step 1 – Install IronRuby :-) You can install IronRuby automatically using an MSI or manually. For simplicity I would recommend the MSI install. TIP: As of the 25th of March IronRuby has not quite shipped. The download above is a Release Candidate (RC) which means it is still undergoing final testing by the team. You will need to uninstall this version (RC3) once the final release is available. The good news is that uninstalling IronRuby RC3 will work without a hitch as the MSI does relatively little. Step 2 – Install an IronRuby friendly editor You will need to Install an editor to work with IronRuby as there is no designer support for IronRuby inside Visual Studio. There are many editors to choose from but I would recommend you either went with: SciTE (Download the MSI): This is a lightweight text editor which is simple to get up and running. SciTE understands Ruby syntax and allows you to easily run IronRuby code within the editor with a small change to the config file. SharpDevelop 3.2 (Download the MSI): This is an open source development environment for C#, VB, Boo and now IronRuby. IronRuby support is new but it does include integrated debugging. You might also want to check out the main site for SharpDevelop. TIP: There are commercial tools for Ruby development which offer richer support such as intellisense.. They can be coerced into working with IronRuby. A good one to start with is RubyMine which needs some small changes to make it work with IronRuby. Step 3 – Run the IronRuby Tutorial Run through the IronRuby tutorial which is included in the IronRuby download. It covers off the basics of the Ruby languages and how IronRuby integrates with .NET. In a typical install it will end up at C:\Program Files\IronRuby 0.9.4.0\Samples\Tutorial. Which will give you the tutorial implemented in .NET and Ruby. TIP: You might also want to check out these two introductory posts Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the ‘Hello World of WPF’ and What's IronRuby, and how do I put it on Rails? Step 4 – Get some good books to read Get a great book on Ruby and IronRuby. There are several free ebooks on Ruby which will help you learn the language. The little book of Ruby is a good place to start. I would also recommend you purchase IronRuby Unleashed (Buy on Amazon UK | Buy on Amazon USA). You might also want to check out this mini-review. Other books are due out soon including IronRuby in Action. TIP: Also check out the official documentation for using .NET from IronRuby. Step 5 – Keep an eye on the team blogs Keep an eye on the IronRuby team blogs including Jimmy Schementi, Jim Deville and Tomas Matousek (full list) TIP: And keep a watch out for the final release of IronRuby – due anytime soon!

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• GuestPost: Unit Testing Entity Framework (v1) Dependent Code using TypeMock Isolator

  - by Eric Nelson

  Time for another guest post (check out others in the series), this time bringing together the world of mocking with the world of Entity Framework. A big thanks to Moses for agreeing to do this. Unit Testing Entity Framework Dependent Code using TypeMock Isolator by Muhammad Mosa Introduction Unit testing data access code in my opinion is a challenging thing. Let us consider unit tests and integration tests. In integration tests you are allowed to have environmental dependencies such as a physical database connection to insert, update, delete or retrieve your data. However when performing unit tests it is often much more efficient and productive to remove environmental dependencies. Instead you will need to fake these dependencies. Faking a database (also known as mocking) can be relatively straight forward but the version of Entity Framework released with .Net 3.5 SP1 has a number of implementation specifics which actually makes faking the existence of a database quite difficult. Faking Entity Framework As mentioned earlier, to effectively unit test you will need to fake/simulate Entity Framework calls to the database. There are many free open source mocking frameworks that can help you achieve this but it will require additional effort to overcome & workaround a number of limitations in those frameworks. Examples of these limitations include: Not able to fake calls to non virtual methods Not able to fake sealed classes Not able to fake LINQ to Entities queries (replace database calls with in-memory collection calls) There is a mocking framework which is flexible enough to handle limitations such as those above. The commercially available TypeMock Isolator can do the job for you with less code and ultimately more readable unit tests. I’m going to demonstrate tackling one of those limitations using MoQ as my mocking framework. Then I will tackle the same issue using TypeMock Isolator. Mocking Entity Framework with MoQ One basic need when faking Entity Framework is to fake the ObjectContext. This cannot be done by passing any connection string. You have to pass a correct Entity Framework connection string that specifies CSDL, SSDL and MSL locations along with a provider connection string. Assuming we are going to do that, we’ll explore another limitation. The limitation we are going to face now is related to not being able to fake calls to non-virtual/overridable members with MoQ. I have the following repository method that adds an EntityObject (instance of a Blog entity) to Blogs entity set in an ObjectContext. public override void Add(Blog blog) { if(BlogContext.Blogs.Any(b=>b.Name == blog.Name)) { throw new InvalidOperationException("Blog with same name already exists!"); } BlogContext.AddToBlogs(blog); } The method does a very simple check that the name of the new Blog entity instance doesn’t exist. This is done through the simple LINQ query above. If the blog doesn’t already exist it simply adds it to the current context to be saved when SaveChanges of the ObjectContext instance (e.g. BlogContext) is called. However, if a blog with the same name exits, and exception (InvalideOperationException) will be thrown. Let us now create a unit test for the Add method using MoQ. [TestMethod] [ExpectedException(typeof(InvalidOperationException))] public void Add_Should_Throw_InvalidOperationException_When_Blog_With_Same_Name_Already_Exits() { //(1) We shouldn't depend on configuration when doing unit tests! But, //its a workaround to fake the ObjectContext string connectionString = ConfigurationManager .ConnectionStrings["MyBlogConnString"] .ConnectionString; //(2) Arrange: Fake ObjectContext var fakeContext = new Mock<MyBlogContext>(connectionString); //(3) Next Line will pass, as ObjectContext now can be faked with proper connection string var repo = new BlogRepository(fakeContext.Object); //(4) Create fake ObjectQuery<Blog>. Will be used to substitute MyBlogContext.Blogs property var fakeObjectQuery = new Mock<ObjectQuery<Blog>>("[Blogs]", fakeContext.Object); //(5) Arrange: Set Expectations //Next line will throw an exception by MoQ: //System.ArgumentException: Invalid setup on a non-overridable member fakeContext.SetupGet(c=>c.Blogs).Returns(fakeObjectQuery.Object); fakeObjectQuery.Setup(q => q.Any(b => b.Name == "NewBlog")).Returns(true); //Act repo.Add(new Blog { Name = "NewBlog" }); } This test method is checking to see if the correct exception ([ExpectedException(typeof(InvalidOperationException))]) is thrown when a developer attempts to Add a blog with a name that’s already exists. On (1) a connection string is initialized from configuration file. To retrieve the full connection string. On (2) a fake ObjectContext is being created. The ObjectContext here is MyBlogContext and its being created using this var fakeContext = new Mock<MyBlogContext>(connectionString); This way a fake context is being created using MoQ. On (3) a BlogRepository instance is created. BlogRepository has dependency on generate Entity Framework ObjectContext, MyObjectContext. And so the fake context is passed to the constructor. var repo = new BlogRepository(fakeContext.Object); On (4) a fake instance of ObjectQuery<Blog> is being created to use as a substitute to MyObjectContext.Blogs property as we will see in (5). On (5) setup an expectation for calling Blogs property of MyBlogContext and substitute the return result with the fake ObjectQuery<Blog> instance created on (4). When you run this test it will fail with MoQ throwing an exception because of this line: fakeContext.SetupGet(c=>c.Blogs).Returns(fakeObjectQuery.Object); This happens because the generate property MyBlogContext.Blogs is not virtual/overridable. And assuming it is virtual or you managed to make it virtual it will fail at the following line throwing the same exception: fakeObjectQuery.Setup(q => q.Any(b => b.Name == "NewBlog")).Returns(true); This time the test will fail because the Any extension method is not virtual/overridable. You won’t be able to replace ObjectQuery<Blog> with fake in memory collection to test your LINQ to Entities queries. Now lets see how replacing MoQ with TypeMock Isolator can help. Mocking Entity Framework with TypeMock Isolator The following is the same test method we had above for MoQ but this time implemented using TypeMock Isolator: [TestMethod] [ExpectedException(typeof(InvalidOperationException))] public void Add_New_Blog_That_Already_Exists_Should_Throw_InvalidOperationException() { //(1) Create fake in memory collection of blogs var fakeInMemoryBlogs = new List<Blog> {new Blog {Name = "FakeBlog"}}; //(2) create fake context var fakeContext = Isolate.Fake.Instance<MyBlogContext>(); //(3) Setup expected call to MyBlogContext.Blogs property through the fake context Isolate.WhenCalled(() => fakeContext.Blogs) .WillReturnCollectionValuesOf(fakeInMemoryBlogs.AsQueryable()); //(4) Create new blog with a name that already exits in the fake in memory collection in (1) var blog = new Blog {Name = "FakeBlog"}; //(5) Instantiate instance of BlogRepository (Class under test) var repo = new BlogRepository(fakeContext); //(6) Acting by adding the newly created blog () repo.Add(blog); } When running the above test method it will pass as the Add method of BlogRepository is going to throw an InvalidOperationException which is the expected behaviour. Nothing prevents us from faking out the database interaction! Even faking ObjectContext  at (2) didn’t require a connection string. On (3) Isolator sets up a faking result for MyBlogContext.Blogs when its being called through the fake instance fakeContext created on (2). The faking result is just an in-memory collection declared an initialized on (1). Finally at (6) action we call the Add method of BlogRepository passing a new Blog instance that has a name that’s already exists in the fake in-memory collection which we set up at (1). As expected the test will pass because it will throw the expected exception defined on top of the test method - InvalidOperationException. TypeMock Isolator succeeded in faking Entity Framework with ease. Conclusion We explored how to write a simple unit test using TypeMock Isolator for code which is using Entity Framework. We also explored a few of the limitations of other mocking frameworks which TypeMock is successfully able to handle. There are workarounds that you can use to overcome limitations when using MoQ or Rhino Mock, however the workarounds will require you to write more code and your tests will likely be more complex. For a comparison between different mocking frameworks take a look at this document produced by TypeMock. You might also want to check out this open source project to compare mocking frameworks. I hope you enjoyed this post Muhammad Mosa http://mosesofegypt.net/ http://twitter.com/mosessaur Screencast of unit testing Entity Framework Related Links GuestPost: Introduction to Mocking GuesPost: Typemock Isolator – Much more than an Isolation framework

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• Rob Blackwell on interoperability and Azure

  - by Eric Nelson

  At QCon in March we had a sample Azure application implemented in both Java and Ruby to demonstrate that the Windows Azure Platform is not just about .NET. The following is an interesting interview with Rob Blackwell, the R&D director of the partner who implemented the application. UK Interoperability Team Interviews Rob Blackwell, R&D Director at Active Web Solutions. Is Microsoft taking interoperability seriously? Yes. In the past, I think Microsoft has, quite rightly come in for criticism, but architects and developers should look at this again. The Interoperability Bridges site (http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/ ) shows a wide range of projects that allow interoperability from Java, Ruby and PHP for example. The Windows Azure platform has been architected with interoperable APIs in mind. It's straightforward to access the various storage facilities from just about any language or platform. Azure compute is capable of running more than just C# applications! Why is interoperability important to you? My company provides consultancy and bespoke development services. We're a Microsoft Gold Partner, but we live in the real world where companies have a mix of technologies provided by a variety of vendors. When developing an enterprise software solution, you rarely have a completely blank canvas. We often see integration scenarios where we need to exchange data with legacy systems. It's not unusual to see modern Silverlight applications being built on top of Java or Mainframe based back ends. Could you give us some examples of where interoperability has been important for your projects? We developed an innovative Sea Safety system for the RNLI Lifeboats here in the UK. Commercial Fishing is one of the most dangerous professions and we helped developed the MOB Guardian System which uses satellite technology and man overboard devices to raise the alarm when a fisherman gets into trouble. The solution is implemented in .NET running on Windows, but without interoperable standards, it would have been impossible to communicate with the satellite gateway technology. For more information, please see the case study: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000005892 More recently, we were asked to build a web site to accompany the QCon 2010 conference in London to help demonstrate and promote interoperability. We built the site using Java and Restlet and hosted it in Windows Azure Compute. The site accepts feedback from visitors and all the data is stored in Windows Azure Storage. We also ported the application to Ruby on Rails for demonstration purposes. Visitors to the stand were surprised that this was even possible. Why should Java developers be interested in Windows Azure? Windows Azure Storage consists of Blobs, Queues and Tables. The storage is scalable, durable, secure and cost-effective. Using the WindowsAzure4j library, it's easy to use, and takes just a few lines of code. If you are writing an application with large data storage requirements, or you want an offsite backup, it makes a lot of sense. Running Java applications in Azure Compute is straightforward with tools like the Tomcat Solution Accelerator (http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/winazuretomcat )and AzureRunMe (http://azurerunme.codeplex.com/ ). The Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus can also be used to connect heterogeneous systems running on different networks and in different data centres. How can The Service Bus be considered an interoperability solution? I think that the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus is one of Microsoft’s best kept secrets. Think of it as “a globally scalable application plumbing kit in the sky”. If you have used Enterprise Service Buses before, you’ll be familiar with the concept. Applications can connect to the service bus to securely exchange data – these can be point to point or multicast links. With the AppFabric Service Bus, the applications can exist anywhere that has access to the Internet and the connections can traverse firewalls. This makes it easy to extend or scale your application or reach out to other networks and technologies. For example, let’s say you have a SQL Server database running on premises and you want to expose the data to a Java application running in the cloud. You could set up a point to point Service Bus connection and use JDBC. Traditionally this would have been difficult or impossible without punching holes in firewalls and compromising security. Rob Blackwell is R&D Director at Active Web Solutions, www.aws.net , a Microsoft Gold Partner specialising in leading edge software solutions. He is an occasional writer and conference speaker and blogs at www.robblackwell.org.uk Related Links: UK Azure Online Community – join today. UK Windows Azure Site Start working with Windows Azure

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• SyncToBlog #12 Windows Azure and Cloud Links

  - by Eric Nelson

  Some more “syncing to paper” :) Steve Marx wrote a very interesting article about using Hosted Web Core in an Azure Worker Role. Hosted Web Core is a new feature in IIS 7 that enables developers to create applications that load the core IIS functionality. Wade Wegner is a new Technical Evangelist for Windows Azure platform AppFabric Example from Wade (and how I found him) Host WCF Services in IIS with Service Bus Endpoints Google and vmware “get engaged” over cloud http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/05/enabling-cloud-portability-with-google.html A new cloud comparison site – slick but limited coverage (it is not at Azure level, rather BPOS level) www.cloudhypermarket.com  The Rise of NoSQL Database (devx free registration required) Moe Khosravy talks about Codename "Dallas"  to my colleague David G (14min video) New videos Calculating the cost of Azure and Calculating the cost of SQL Azure Related Links: Previous SyncToBlog posts My delicious bookmarks

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• Conversation with David Chappell on Windows Azure and Cloud Computing

  - by Eric Nelson

  My colleague David spent some time with David Chappell recently and recorded a short interview which is now available on Channel 9. Watch now on Channel 9. They cover off: IaaS vs PaaS Private vs Public Cloud Applications that are not a great fit for Windows Azure and those which are. The threat of Public Cloud to IT departments Not bad for 10minutes :-)

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• Don’t install JDev and BPM in the same Home

  - by Mark Nelson

  I don’t think this is actually documented anywhere, but it is something that you will want to be aware of if you are using the BPM 11.1.1.5 Feature Pack. It is not supported to install the Feature Pack patch into an Oracle Home which contains JDeveloper and the runtime components (WebLogic, SOA, BPM, etc.) If you are installing on the same machine, like a developer’s machine for example, you should install JDeveloper into a separate Oracle (Middleware) Home.

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• IronRuby rocks at IronRuby-rocks.com

  - by Eric Nelson

  My colleague Edd (who wrote two great guest posts for me on IronRuby) just pointed me at a new site ironruby-rocks.com. It is early days for the site but I felt it was worth some additional exposure even at this early stage. Posts are nice and varied right now – from working with Microsoft Office to working with SQL Server. I wish the site the very best of luck. Related Links: 5 Steps to getting started with IronRuby Mini Book Review of IronRuby Unleashed by Shay Friedman Guest Post: Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the ‘Hello World of WPF’ Getting PhP and Ruby working on Windows Azure and SQL Azure Guest Post: What's IronRuby, and how do I put it on Rails?

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• I&rsquo;m speaking at Software Architect 2010 in October

  - by Eric Nelson

  I’m very pleased to report I have managed to slip past the quality police and get to speak for the third year in a row at the excellent Software Architect conference in London. Which makes it the only “long running” conference that I have a 100% record on speaking at year on year which gives it an extra special significance. How much longer before I am found out :) This conference attracts some great speakers including the likes of Kevlin Henney, Neal Ford and Tim Ewald (oh – and me). If you are a software/solution architect then I would definitely recommend you check out whether the sessions this year are something that would help you grow and make great technology/architecture choices in your organisation. I am delivering a brand new session - which means I need to create it :-) 10 things every architect needs to know about Windows Azure In this session we will look at the 10 most architecturally significant features of the Windows Azure platform which directly impact how you architect solutions if you plan to deploy in the Cloud. Maybe see you there…

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