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• I'm a premature optimizer

  - by Matthew Day

  I work in a small sized software/web development company. I have gotten into the habit of optimizing prematurely, I know it is evil and promotes bad code... But I have been working at this firm for a long while and I have deemed this as a necessary evil. It has never caused me an issue so far in the past, but it might if I get partners or a successor. The point of this long-winded speech is that, should I change my evil practices to 'save face' and to help out in the future?

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• Round-twice error in .NET's Double.ToString method

  - by Jeppe Stig Nielsen

  Mathematically, consider for this question the rational number 8725724278030350 / 2**48 where ** in the denominator denotes exponentiation, i.e. the denominator is 2 to the 48th power. (The fraction is not in lowest terms, reducible by 2.) This number is exactly representable as a System.Double. Its decimal expansion is 31.0000000000000'49'73799150320701301097869873046875 (exact) where the apostrophes do not represent missing digits but merely mark the boudaries where rounding to 15 resp. 17 digits is to be performed. Note the following: If this number is rounded to 15 digits, the result will be 31 (followed by thirteen 0s) because the next digits (49...) begin with a 4 (meaning round down). But if the number is first rounded to 17 digits and then rounded to 15 digits, the result could be 31.0000000000001. This is because the first rounding rounds up by increasing the 49... digits to 50 (terminates) (next digits were 73...), and the second rounding might then round up again (when the midpoint-rounding rule says "round away from zero"). (There are many more numbers with the above characteristics, of course.) Now, it turns out that .NET's standard string representation of this number is "31.0000000000001". The question: Isn't this a bug? By standard string representation we mean the String produced by the parameterles Double.ToString() instance method which is of course identical to what is produced by ToString("G"). An interesting thing to note is that if you cast the above number to System.Decimal then you get a decimal that is 31 exactly! See this Stack Overflow question for a discussion of the surprising fact that casting a Double to Decimal involves first rounding to 15 digits. This means that casting to Decimal makes a correct round to 15 digits, whereas calling ToSting() makes an incorrect one. To sum up, we have a floating-point number that, when output to the user, is 31.0000000000001, but when converted to Decimal (where 29 digits are available), becomes 31 exactly. This is unfortunate. Here's some C# code for you to verify the problem: static void Main() { const double evil = 31.0000000000000497; string exactString = DoubleConverter.ToExactString(evil); // Jon Skeet, http://csharpindepth.com/Articles/General/FloatingPoint.aspx Console.WriteLine("Exact value (Jon Skeet): {0}", exactString); // writes 31.00000000000004973799150320701301097869873046875 Console.WriteLine("General format (G): {0}", evil); // writes 31.0000000000001 Console.WriteLine("Round-trip format (R): {0:R}", evil); // writes 31.00000000000005 Console.WriteLine(); Console.WriteLine("Binary repr.: {0}", String.Join(", ", BitConverter.GetBytes(evil).Select(b => "0x" + b.ToString("X2")))); Console.WriteLine(); decimal converted = (decimal)evil; Console.WriteLine("Decimal version: {0}", converted); // writes 31 decimal preciseDecimal = decimal.Parse(exactString, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); Console.WriteLine("Better decimal: {0}", preciseDecimal); // writes 31.000000000000049737991503207 } The above code uses Skeet's ToExactString method. If you don't want to use his stuff (can be found through the URL), just delete the code lines above dependent on exactString. You can still see how the Double in question (evil) is rounded and cast.

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• What's the best way to manage a multi-user project on github?

  - by Jim

  I'm looking to host a new project on github. This project will be worked on by two coders. One of these coders will also be the project manager who will have overall control over the github repo. I've followed the instructions regarding forking a github project at http://help.github.com/forking/. This all works fine and I'm working on the basis that the main repo is controlled by the lead coder, with the secondary coder working on a fork and submitting pull requests to the lead. A problem arises with this, however, when changes are made to the main branch and not pulled by the secondary coder into their fork. The secondary coder could then make changes to their own fork and submit a pull request to the lead, only for their patches to not match up with the main branch. What's the best way to manage this? I've not committed too much time to git/github, so I'm totally up for checking out other hosted solutions if they're better. Simplicity is the key!

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• INSERT..ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE - but NOT using the duplicate key to compare.

  - by calumbrodie

  I am trying to solve a problem I have inherited with poor treatment of different data sources. I have a user table that contains BOTH good and evil users. create table `users`( `user_id` int(13) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT , `email` varchar(255) , `name` varchar(255) , PRIMARY KEY (`user_id`) ); In this table the primary key is currently set to be user_id. I have another table ('users_evil') which contains ONLY the evil users (all the users from this table are included in the first table) - the user_id's on this table do NOT correspond to those in the first table. I want to have all my users in one table, and simply flag which are good and which are evil. What I want to do is alter the user table and add a column ('evil') which defaults to 0. I then want to dump the data from my 'users_evil') table and then run an INSERT..ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE with this data into the first table (setting 'evil'=1 where the emails match) The problem is that the 'PK' is set to the user_id and not the 'email'. Any suggestions, or even another strategy to successfully achive this. Can I run this statement but treat another column as PK only for the duration of the statement.

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• Friday Fun: Turkey Slice

  - by Asian Angel

  In this week’s game you engage in a holiday war with a group of evil turkeys that are determined to ruin your Thanksgiving Day celebrations. Can you put these evil turkeys on the menu where they belong or will they get in the last gobble at your expense? How To Delete, Move, or Rename Locked Files in Windows HTG Explains: Why Screen Savers Are No Longer Necessary 6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7

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• Friday Fun: Museum of Thieves

  - by Asian Angel

  In this week’s game you are lured to the mysterious Museum of Dunt where adventure and an evil force awaits. Can you find the differences in the museum’s strange, shifting rooms as you work your way through it or will the restless evil that dwells within escape? Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Reader Request: How To Repair Blurry Photos HTG Explains: What Can You Find in an Email Header?

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• OS X is based on the codex Gigas the devils bible: Android OS n 4.4 Dio Ra Egyptian deity why is that?

  - by user215250

  GUESS WHO? The Internet and all computers are based on a mathematical number system that seems to be 3, 4, 6, 8 and 10. The HTTP is 888P and UTF-8 and Windows 8 and 8 gigas of RAM(88) on a 64biTOS X-10 or Aten(satan) why is it allowed to be so evil and who all knows about it? Is this activity illegal and should I sew these companies for being involved in satanic practices? iC3 iC3 iC3 I do see XP (X) Chi and (P) Rho a monogram and symbol for Christ, consisting of the superimposed Greek letters. The X is ten, The X code, OS X(O Satan) and codex The Gigas the Devil bible and the P is Payne, The House of Payne in which God dwells. Windows 8, Google Android and Apples OS X are the foundation on which we operarte on the Internet and our Mobiles devices. What is it that these 3 companies have chosen to base their OS’s on such evil? Windows 8 is windows hate H8, HH and H8. Said to be the Devil. Google’s (UGLE) M the Masonic M behind Android OS.in 4.4 is Dio (R) DNA O Sin and 44 is the Devils name in Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger. Apple’s evil (i) OS X (ou-es-ten) O Satan them all beat (B8) considering Apple put their first product on the market for $666.66. The Holy Grail of computers they say. Your Excellency, Lord and King OS2 Eisus Uni Peg Unix: The Unicorn Pegasus Jesus Christ

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• Which web site gives the most accurate indication of a programmer's capabilities?

  - by Jerry Coffin

  If you were hiring programmers, and could choose between one of (say) the top 100 coders on topcoder.com, or one of the top 100 on stackoverflow.com, which would you choose? At least to me, it would appear that topcoder.com gives a more objective evaluation of pure ability to solve problems and write code. At the same time, despite obvious technical capabilities, this person may lack any hint of social skills -- he may be purely a "lone coder", with little or no ability to help/work with others, may lack mentoring ability to help transfer his technical skills to others, etc. On the other hand, stackoverflow.com would at least appear to give a much better indication of peers' opinion of the coder in question, and the degree to which his presence and useful and helpful to others on the "team". At the same time, the scoring system is such that somebody who just throws up a lot of mediocre (or even poor answers) will almost inevitably accumulate a positive total of "reputation" points -- a single up-vote (perhaps just out of courtesy) will counteract the effects of no fewer than 5 down-votes, and others are discouraged (to some degree) from down-voting because they have to sacrifice their own reputation points to do so. At the same time, somebody who makes little or no technical contribution seems unlikely to accumulate a reputation that lands them (even close to) the top of the heap, so to speak. So, which provides a more useful indication of the degree to which this particular coder is likely to be useful to your organization? If you could choose between them, which set of coders would you rather have working on your team?

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• How do you price your work?

  - by Dr.Kameleon

  Well, let me explain : This has really been an issue for me, for such a long time. And what is worse - since coding is something I simply ADORE (I would definitely do it, even if there was no payment involved whatsoever..) - is that I always end up feeling somewhat awkward... Anyway... So, here's the deal : You start working on a project, you may have something in your mind, and even if you're lucky enough and the client needs no "cost estimates" beforehand, sooner or later you'll face the ultimate dilemma of pricing your own work. So, how do YOU do it? By estimating the time you put into it? (obviously, this is not exact, 'coz perhaps a more capable coder will need much less time for the very same thing than a not-so-competent coder + even the very same coder may not "perform" equally at all times) By the Lines of code you've written? (obviously, this is not a measure either : a 10-line script that does exactly the same with a 1000-line script is, at least for me, "better") By taking into account the level of complexity of the project and, perhaps, how specialised the subject is? By taking into account other factors? (e.g. the value of the project for your customer)

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• How to convert an NSArray of NSManagedObjects to NSData

  - by carok

  Hi, I'm new to Objective C and was wondering if anyone can help me. I am using core data with a sqlite database to hold simple profile objects which have a name and a score attribute (both of which are of type NSString). What I want to do is fetch the profiles and store them in an NSData object, please see my code below: NSFetchRequest *fetchRequest = [[NSFetchRequest alloc] init]; NSEntityDescription *entity = [NSEntityDescription entityForName:@"GamerProfile" inManagedObjectContext:managedObjectContext]; [fetchRequest setEntity:entity]; NSSortDescriptor *sortDescriptor = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:@"Name" ascending:YES]; NSArray *sortDecriptors = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:sortDescriptor, nil]; [fetchRequest setSortDescriptors:sortDecriptors]; [sortDescriptor release]; [sortDecriptors release]; NSError *error; NSArray *items = [self.managedObjectContext executeFetchRequest:fetchRequest error:&error]; NSData *data = [NSKeyedArchiver archivedDataWithRootObject:items]; [self SendData:data]; [fetchRequest release]; When I run the code I'm getting the error "Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '* -[GamerProfile encodeWithCoder:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x3f4b530'" I presume I have to add an encodeWithCoderClass to my core data NSManagedObject object (GamerProfile) but I'm not sure how to do this even after reading the documentation, My attempt at doing this is below. I'm not sure if I'm going along the right lines with this as get a warning stating "NSManagedObject" may not respond to '-encodeWithCoder'" I would really, really appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction!! Thanks C Here is the code for my GamerProfile (CoreData NSManagedObject Object) with my attempt at adding an encodeWithCoder method... Header File #import <CoreData/CoreData.h> @interface GamerProfile : NSManagedObject <NSCoding> { } @property (nonatomic, retain) NSString * GamerScore; @property (nonatomic, retain) NSString * Name; - (void)encodeWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder; @end Code File #import "GamerProfile.h" @implementation GamerProfile @dynamic GamerScore; @dynamic Name; - (void)encodeWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder { [super encodeWithCoder:coder]; [coder encodeObject:GamerScore forKey:@"GamerScore"]; [coder encodeObject:Name forKey:@"Name"]; }

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• initWithCoder and initWithNibName

  - by vodkhang

  I am trying to encode some data state in a UITableViewController. In the first time, I init the object with Nibname without any problem. However, when I initWithCoder, the UITableViewController still loads but when I clicked on a cell, the application crash and the debugger tells me about EXEC_BAD_ACCESS, something wrong with my memory, but I do not know Here is my code: - (id) init { if(self = [self initWithNibName:@"DateTableViewController" bundle:nil]) { self.dataArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithObjects:@"1", @"2", @"3", nil]; } return self; } // Customize the appearance of table view cells. - (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"Cell"; UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier]; if (cell == nil) { cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier] autorelease]; } // Set up the cell... int index = indexPath.row; cell.textLabel.text = [self.dataArray objectAtIndex:index];; return cell; } - (NSString *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView titleForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section { return @"Test Archiver"; } - (void)encodeWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder { [super encodeWithCoder:coder]; [coder encodeObject:self.dataArray]; } - (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder { return [self init]; } - (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath { int index = indexPath.row; [self.dataArray addObject:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Hello %d", index]]; [self.tableView reloadData]; }

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• Restore and preserve UIViewController pushed from UINavigationController, no storyboard

  - by user2908112

  I try to restore a simple UIViewController that I pushed from my initial view controller. The first one is preserved, but the second one just disappear when relaunched. I don't use storyboard. I implement the protocol in every view controller and add the restorationIdentifier and restorationClass to each one of them. The second viewController inherit from a third viewController and is initialized from a xib file. I'm not sure if I need to implement the UIViewControllerRestoration to this third since I don't use it directly. My code looks like typically like this: - (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil { self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil]; if (self) { // Custom initialization self.restorationIdentifier = @"EditNotificationViewController"; self.restorationClass = [self class]; } return self; } -(void)encodeRestorableStateWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder { } -(void)decodeRestorableStateWithCoder:(NSCoder *)coder { } +(UIViewController *)viewControllerWithRestorationIdentifierPath:(NSArray *)identifierComponents coder:(NSCoder *)coder { EditNotificationViewController* envc = [[EditNotificationViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"SearchFormViewController" bundle:nil]; return envc; } Should perhaps the navigationController be subclassed so it too can inherit from UIViewControllerRestoration?

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• Backbone.js "model" query

  - by Novice coder

  I'm a learning coder trying to understand this code from a sample MVC framework. The below code is from a "model" file. I've done research on Backbone.js, but I'm still confused as to exactly how this code pull information from the app's database. For example, how are base_url, Model.prototype, and Collection.prototype being used to retrieve information from the backend? Any help would be greatly appreciated. exports.definition = { config : { "defaults": { "title": "-", "description": "-" }, "adapter": { "type": "rest", "collection_name": "schools", "base_url" : "/schools/", } }, extendModel: function(Model) { _.extend(Model.prototype, { // Extend, override or implement Backbone.Model urlRoot: '/school/', name:'school', parse: function(response, options) { response.id = response._id; return response; }, }); return Model; }, extendCollection: function(Collection) { _.extend(Collection.prototype, { // Extend, override or implement Backbone.Collection urlRoot: '/schools/', name: 'schools', }); return Collection; } }

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• What does it mean when a User-Agent has another User-Agent inside it?

  - by Erx_VB.NExT.Coder

  Basically, sometimes the user-agent will have its normal user-agent displayed, then at the end it will have teh "User-Agent: " tag displayed, and right after it another user-agent is shown. Sometimes, the second user-agent is just appended to the first one without the "User-Agent: " tag. Here are some samples I've seen: The first few contain the "User-Agent: " tag in the middle somewhere, and I've changed its font to make it easier to to see. Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; GTB6; User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1); SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506) Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; GTB6; MRA 5.10 (build 5339); User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1); .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1); .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729) Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1); .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152) Here are some without the "User-Agent: " tag in the middle, but just two user agents that seem stiched together. Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1); .NET CLR 3.5.30729) Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; GTB6; IPMS/6568080A-04A5AD839A9; TCO_20090713170733; Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1); InfoPath.2) Now, just to add a few notes to this. I understand that the "User-Agent: " tag is normally a header, and what follows a typical "User-Agent: " string sequence is the actual user agent that is sent to servers etc, but normally the "User-Agent: " string should not be part of the actual user agent, that is more like the pre-fix or a tag indicating that what follows will be the actual user agent. Additionally, I may have thought, hey, these are just two user agents pasted together, but on closer inspection, you realize that they are not. On all of these dual user agent listings, if you look at the opening bracket "(" just before the "compatible" keyword, you realize the pair to that bracket ")" is actually at the very end, the end of the second user agent. So, the first user agents closing bracket ")" never occurs before the second user agent begins, it's always right at the end, and therefore, the second user agent is more like one of the features of the first user agent, like: "Trident/4.0" or "GTB6" etc etc... The other thing to note that the second user agent is always MSIE 6.0 (Internet Explorer 6.0), interesting. What I had initially thought was it's some sort of Virtual Machine displaying the browser in use & the browser that is installed, but then I thought, what'd be the point in that? Finally, right now, I am thinking, it's probably soem sort of "Compatibility View" type thing, where even if MSIE 7.0 or 8.0 is installed, when my hypothetical the "Display In Internet Explorer 6.0" mode is turned on, the user agent changes to something like this. That being, IE 8.0 is installed, but is rendering everything as IE 6.0 would. Is there or was there such a feature in Internet Explorer? Am I on to something here? What are your thoughts on this? If you have any other ideas, please feel free to let us know. At the moment, I'm just trying to understand if these are valid User Agents, or if they are invalid. In a list of about 44,000 User Agents, I've seen this type of Dual User Agent about 400 times. I've closely inspected 40 of them, and every single one had MSIE 6.0 as the "second" user agent (and the first user agent a higher version of MSIE, such as 7 or 8). This was true for all except one, where both user agents were MSIE 8.0, here it is: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Win32; GMX); GTB0.0) This occured once in my 40 "close" inspections. I've estimated the 400 in 44,000 by taking a sample of the first 4,400 user agents, and finding 40 of these in the MSIE/Windows user agents, and extrapolated that to estimate 40. There were also similar things occuring for non MSIE user agents where there were two Mozilla's in one user agent, the non MSIE ones would probably add another 30% on top of the ones I've noted. I can show you samples of them if anyone would like. There we have it, this is where I'm at, what do you guys think?

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• Writing/discussions about the aesthetics of code?

  - by dilettante.coder

  I'm looking for considerations of the questions "Can code be beautiful?" and "What makes code beautiful?" Examples would include: This academic paper: Obfuscation, Weird Languages, and Code Aesthetics This blog post: Hamon or the Skin Deep Beauty of Code Please note that I'm not trying to start a discussion here, or asking for opinions about what makes code beautiful, or for code you think is beautiful; I'm trying to find stuff that has already been published. Thanks for your help.

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• UppercuT &ndash; Custom Extensions Now With PowerShell and Ruby

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Arguably, one of the most powerful features of UppercuT (UC) is the ability to extend any step of the build process with a pre, post, or replace hook. This customization is done in a separate location from the build so you can upgrade without wondering if you broke the build. There is a hook before each step of the build has run. There is a hook after. And back to power again, there is a replacement hook. If you don’t like what the step is doing and/or you want to replace it’s entire functionality, you just drop a custom replacement extension and UppercuT will perform the custom step instead. Up until recently all custom hooks had to be written in NAnt. Now they are a little sweeter because you no longer need to use NAnt to extend UC if you don’t want to. You can use PowerShell. Or Ruby.   Let that sink in for a moment. You don’t have to even need to interact with NAnt at all now. Extension Points On the wiki, all of the extension points are shown. The basic idea is that you would put whatever customization you are doing in a separate folder named build.custom. Each step Let’s take a look at all we can customize: The start point is default.build. It calls build.custom/default.pre.build if it exists, then it runs build/default.build (normal tasks) OR build.custom/default.replace.build if it exists, and finally build.custom/default.post.build if it exists. Every step below runs with the same extension points but changes on the file name it is looking for. NOTE: If you include default.replace.build, nothing else will run because everything is called from default.build.    * policyChecks.step    * versionBuilder.step NOTE: If you include build.custom/versionBuilder.replace.step, the items below will not run.      - svn.step, tfs.step, or git.step (the custom tasks for these need to go in build.custom/versioners)    * generateBuildInfo.step    * compile.step    * environmentBuilder.step    * analyze.step NOTE: If you include build.custom/analyze.replace.step, the items below will not run.      - test.step (the custom tasks for this need to go in build.custom/analyzers) NOTE: If you include build.custom/analyzers/test.replace.step, the items below will not run.        + mbunit2.step, gallio.step, or nunit.step (the custom tasks for these need to go in build.custom/analyzers)      - ncover.step (the custom tasks for this need to go in build.custom/analyzers)      - ndepend.step (the custom tasks for this need to go in build.custom/analyzers)      - moma.step (the custom tasks for this need to go in build.custom/analyzers)    * package.step NOTE: If you include build.custom/package.replace.step, the items below will not run.      - deploymentBuilder.step Customize UppercuT Builds With PowerShell UppercuT can now be extended with PowerShell (PS). To customize any extension point with PS, just add .ps1 to the end of the file name and write your custom tasks in PowerShell. If you are not signing your scripts you will need to change a setting in the UppercuT.config file. This does impose a security risk, because this allows PS to now run any PS script. This setting stays that way on ANY machine that runs the build until manually changed by someone. I’m not responsible if you mess up your machine or anyone else’s by doing this. You’ve been warned. Now that you are fully aware of any security holes you may open and are okay with that, let’s move on. Let’s create a file called default.replace.build.ps1 in the build.custom folder. Open that file in notepad and let’s add this to it: write-host "hello - I'm a custom task written in Powershell!" Now, let’s run build.bat. You could get some PSake action going here. I won’t dive into that in this post though. Customize UppercuT Builds With Ruby If you want to customize any extension point with Ruby, just add .rb to the end of the file name and write your custom tasks in Ruby.  Let’s write a custom ruby task for UC. If you were thinking it would be the same as the one we just wrote for PS, you’d be right! In the build.custom folder, lets create a file called default.replace.build.rb. Open that file in notepad and let’s put this in there: puts "I'm a custom ruby task!" Now, let’s run build.bat again. That’s chunky bacon. UppercuT and Albacore.NET Just for fun, I wanted to see if I could replace the compile.step with a Rake task. Not just any rake task, Albacore’s msbuild task. Albacore is a suite of rake tasks brought about by Derick Bailey to make building .NET with Rake easier. It has quite a bit of support with developers that are using Rake to build code. In my build.custom folder, I drop a compile.replace.step.rb. I also put in a separate file that will contain my Albacore rake task and I call that compile.rb. What are the contents of compile.replace.step.rb? rake = 'rake' arguments= '-f ' + Dir.pwd + '/../build.custom/compile.rb' #puts "Calling #{rake} " + arguments system("#{rake} " + arguments) Since the custom extensions call ruby, we have to shell back out and call rake. That’s what we are doing here. We also realize that ruby is called from the build folder, so we need to back out and dive into the build.custom folder to find the file that is technically next to us. What are the contents of compile.rb? require 'rubygems' require 'fileutils' require 'albacore' task :default => [:compile] puts "Using Ruby to compile UppercuT with Albacore Tasks" desc 'Compile the source' msbuild :compile do |msb| msb.properties = { :configuration => :Release, :outputpath => '../../build_output/UppercuT' } msb.targets [:clean, :build] msb.verbosity = "quiet" msb.path_to_command = 'c:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v3.5/MSBuild.exe' msb.solution = '../uppercut.sln' end We are using the msbuild task here. We change the output path to the build_output/UppercuT folder. The output path has “../../” because this is based on every project. We could grab the current directory and then point the task specifically to a folder if we have projects that are at different levels. We want the verbosity to be quiet so we set that as well. So what kind of output do you get for this? Let’s run build.bat custom_tasks_replace:      [echo] Running custom tasks instead of normal tasks if C:\code\uppercut\build\..\build.custom\compile.replace.step exists.      [exec] (in C:/code/uppercut/build)      [exec] Using Ruby to compile UppercuT with Albacore Tasks      [exec] Microsoft (R) Build Engine Version 3.5.30729.4926      [exec] [Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 2.0.50727.4927]      [exec] Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2007. All rights reserved. If you think this is awesome, you’d be right!   With this knowledge you shall build.

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• Chuck Norris Be Thy Name

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Chuck Norris doesn’t program with a keyboard. He stares the computer down until it does what he wants. All things need a name. We’ve tossed around a bunch of names for the framework of tools we’ve been working on, but one we kept coming back to was Chuck Norris. Why did we choose Chuck Norris? Well Chuck Norris sort of chose us. Everything we talked about, the name kept drawing us closer to it. We couldn’t escape Chuck Norris, no matter how hard we tried. So we gave in. Chuck Norris can divide by zero. What is the Chuck Norris Framework? @drusellers and I have been working on a variety of tools: WarmuP - http://github.com/chucknorris/warmup (Template your entire project/solution and create projects ready to code - From Zero to a Solution with everything in seconds. Your templates, your choices.) UppercuT - http://projectuppercut.org (Build with Conventions - Professional Builds in Moments, Not Days!) | Code also at http://github.com/chucknorris/uppercut DropkicK - http://github.com/chucknorris/dropkick (Deploy Fluently) RoundhousE - http://projectroundhouse.org (Professional Database Management with Versioning) | Code also at http://github.com/chucknorris/roundhouse SidePOP - http://sidepop.googlecode.com (Does your application need to check email?) HeadlocK - http://github.com/chucknorris/headlock (Hash a directory so you can later know if anything has changed) Others – still in concept or vaporware People ask why we choose such violent names for each tool of our framework? At first it was about whipping your code into shape, but after awhile the naming became, “How can we relate this to Chuck Norris?” People also ask why we uppercase the last letter of each name. Well, that’s more about making you ask questions…but there are a few reasons for it. Project managers never ask Chuck Norris for estimations…ever. The class object inherits from Chuck Norris Chuck Norris doesn’t need garbage collection because he doesn’t call .Dispose(), he calls .DropKick() So what are you waiting for? Join the Google group today, download and play with the tools. And lastly, welcome to Chuck Norris. Or should I say Chuck Norris welcomes you…

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• Symbolic Regular Expression Exploration

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  This is a pretty sweet little tool. Rex (Regular Expression Exploration) is a tool that allows you to give it a regular expression and it returns matching strings. The example below creates10 strings that start and end with a number and have at least 2 characters: > rex.exe "^\d.*\d$" /k:10 This is something I could use to validate/generate the Regular Expressions I have created with both UppercuT and RoundhousE. Check out the video below: Margus Veanes - Rex - Symbolic Regular Expression Exploration Margus Veanes, a Researcher from the RiSE group at Microsoft Research, gives an overview of Rex, a tool that generates matching string from .NET regular expressions. Rex turns regular expres...

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• Professional iOS Development as a Backup Career [closed]

  - by New Coder

  I am a research chemist by day and I am a self-taught hobbyist iOS programmer by night. I am in the process of developing a moderately complex iOS app and hope to launch it within a month or two. I love everything about iOS development (and programming in general). I want to know if iOS development could become a backup career for me if I loose my job. My question: Let's say I had a couple of apps in the app store, a solid foundation in objective-C and the apple frameworks and basic knowledge on network integrated apps. Without a formal CS degree, what other experience/knowledge would I need to land a job as a professional iOS developer? Forgive me if this question is out of bounds for this forum. If it is, suggestions on where to post such a question would be appreciated.

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• Coders For Charities

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Last weekend I had the opportunity to give back to the community doing what I love. As geeks we don’t usually have this opportunity. The event is called Coders 4 Charities (C4C) and it’s a grueling weekend of coding for nearly 30 hours over the weekend. When you finish you get to present to the charity and all of the other groups what you have completed. From the site: Coders For Charities is a 3-day charity event that pairs charities and local software developers. Charities often do not have the funds to implement a new website or intranet or database solution. Software developers often do not volunteer for charities because their skills do not apply. This event is the perfect marriage of these two needs; software developers volunteering their time to help charities better serve their community though the latest technology! The actual event was lined with multiple charities and about 50 developers, designers, business analysts, etc, each working with a different charity to come up with a solution that they could implement in less than 3 days. C4C provided a place and food for us so that we wouldn’t have to leave much during the time we had to implement our solution. They also provided games like Rock Band so we could get away and clear our minds for a few moments if necessary. I don’t think we made it down there to play, but the food and drinks were a huge help for us. The charity we we picked was Harvest Home. They had a need for an online intranet site where they could track membership and gardening. Over the next few days we worked on a site we could give them. Below is a screen shot with private data marked out. It was an awesome and humbling experience to be able to give back to a charity and I’m happy I was a part of it. I would definitely do it again. How often do we get to use our abilities to volunteer our time to a charity?

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• Puppet: Making Windows Awesome Since 2011

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/robz/archive/2014/08/07/puppet-making-windows-awesome-since-2011.aspxPuppet was one of the first configuration management (CM) tools to support Windows, way back in 2011. It has the heaviest investment on Windows infrastructure with 1/3 of the platform client development staff being Windows folks.  It appears that Microsoft believed an end state configuration tool like Puppet was the way forward, so much so that they cloned Puppet’s DSL (domain-specific language) in many ways and are calling it PowerShell DSC. Puppet Labs is pushing the envelope on Windows. Here are several things to note: Puppet x64 Ruby support for Windows coming in v3.7.0. An awesome ACL module (with order, SIDs and very granular control of permissions it is best of any CM). A wealth of modules that work with Windows on the Forge (and more on GitHub). Documentation solely for Windows folks - https://docs.puppetlabs.com/windows. Some of the common learning points with Puppet on Windows user are noted in this recent blog post. Microsoft OpenTech supports Puppet. Azure has the ability to deploy a Puppet Master (http://puppetlabs.com/solutions/microsoft). At Microsoft //Build 2014 in the Day 2 Keynote Puppet Labs CEO Luke Kanies co-presented with Mark Russonivich (http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/KEY02  fast forward to 19:30)! Puppet has a Visual Studio Plugin! It can be overwhelming learning a new tool like Puppet at first, but Puppet Labs has some resources to help you on that path. Take a look at the Learning VM, which has a quest-based learning tool. For real-time questions, feel free to drop onto #puppet on freenode.net (yes, some folks still use IRC) with questions, and #puppet-dev with thoughts/feedback on the language itself. You can subscribe to puppet-users / puppet-dev mailing lists. There is also ask.puppetlabs.com for questions and Server Fault if you want to go to a Stack Exchange site. There are books written on learning Puppet. There are even Puppet User Groups (PUGs) and other community resources! Puppet does take some time to learn, but with anything you need to learn, you need to weigh the benefits versus the ramp up time. I learned NHibernate once, it had a very high ramp time back then but was the only game on the street. Puppet’s ramp up time is considerably less than that. The advantage is that you are learning a DSL, and it can apply to multiple platforms (Linux, Windows, OS X, etc.) with the same Puppet resource constructs. As you learn Puppet you may wonder why it has a DSL instead of just leveraging the language of Ruby (or maybe this is one of those things that keeps you up wondering at night). I like the DSL over a small layer on top of Ruby. It allows the Puppet language to be portable and go more places. It makes you think about the end state of what you want to achieve in a declarative sense instead of in an imperative sense. You may also find that right now Puppet doesn’t run manifests (scripts) in order of the way resources are specified. This is the number one learning point for most folks. As a long time consternation of some folks about Puppet, manifest ordering was not possible in the past. In fact it might be why some other CMs exist! As of 3.3.0, Puppet can do manifest ordering, and it will be the default in Puppet 4. http://puppetlabs.com/blog/introducing-manifest-ordered-resources You may have caught earlier that I mentioned PowerShell DSC. But what about DSC? Shouldn’t that be what Windows users want to choose? Other CMs are integrating with DSC, will Puppet follow suit and integrate with DSC? The biggest concern that I have with DSC is it’s lack of visibility in fine-grained reporting of changes (which Puppet has). The other is that it is a very young Microsoft product (pre version 3, you know what they say :) ). I tried getting it working in December and ran into some issues. I’m hoping that newer releases are there that actually work, it does have some promising capabilities, it just doesn’t quite come up to the standard of something that should be used in production. In contrast Puppet is almost a ten year old language with an active community! It’s very stable, and when trusting your business to configuration management, you want something that has been around awhile and has been proven. Give DSC another couple of releases and you might see more folks integrating with it. That said there may be a future with DSC integration. Portability and fine-grained reporting of configuration changes are reasons to take a closer look at Puppet on Windows. Yes, Puppet on Windows is here to stay and it’s continually getting better folks.

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• Ajax application: using SOAP vs REST ?

  - by coder

  I'm building an ajax heavy application (client-side strictly html/css/js) which will be getting all the data and using server business logic via webservices. I know REST seems to be the hot topic but I can't find any good arguments. The main argument seems to be its "light-weight". My impression so far is that wsdl/soap based services are more expressive and allow for more a more complex transfer of data. It appears that soap would be more useful in the application I'm building where the only code consuming the services will be the js downloaded in the client browser. REST on the other hand seems to have a smaller entry barrier and so can be more useful for services like twitter in allowing other developers to consume these services easily. Also, REST seems to Te better suited for simple data transfers. So in summary SOAP is useful for complex data transfer and REST is useful in simple data transfer. I'm currently under the impression that using SOAP would be best due to the complexity of the messages but perhaps there's other factors. What are your thoughts on the pros/cons of soap/rest for a heavy ajax web app? EDIT: While the wsdl is in xml, the data I'm transferring back and forth is actually in JSON. It just appears more natural to use wsdl/soap here due to the nature of the app. The verbs GET and POST may not be enough. I may want to say something like: processQueue, or executeTimer. This is why my conclusion has been wsdl/soap would be good for bridging a complex layer between two applications (client and server) whereas REST would be better (due to its simplicity) for allowing many developer-users to consume resources programmatically. So you could say the choice falls along two lines Will the app be verb-oriented (completing tasks: use soap) or noun-oriented (consuming resources: use REST) Will the api be consumed by few developers or many developers (REST is strong for many developers)? Since such an ajax heavy app would potentially use many verbs and would only be used by the client developer it appears soap/wsdl would be the best fit.

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• Microsoft C# Most Valuable Professional

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Recently I was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Visual C#. For those that don’t know it’s an annual award based on nominations from peers and Microsoft. Although there are just over 4,000 MVPs worldwide from all kinds of specializations, there are less than 100 C# MVPs in the US. There is more information at the site: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com The Microsoft MVP Award is an annual award that recognizes exceptional technology community leaders worldwide who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with users and Microsoft. With fewer than 5,000 awardees worldwide, Microsoft MVPs represent a highly select group of experts. MVPs share a deep commitment to community and a willingness to help others. To recognize the contributions they make, MVPs from around the world have the opportunity to meet Microsoft executives, network with peers, and position themselves as technical community leaders. Here is my profile: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/profile/rob.reynolds I want to thank those that nominated me, without nominations this would never have happened. Thanks to Microsoft for liking me and finding my achievements and contributions to the community to be worth something. It’s good to know when you put in a lot of hard work that you get rewarded! I also want to thank many of the people I have worked with over the last 7 years. You guys have been great and I’m definitely standing on the shoulders of giants! Thanks to KDOT for giving me that first shot into professional programming and the experience and all of the training! A special thanks to @drusellers for kick starting me when I went stale in my learning back in 2007 and for always pushing me and bouncing ideas off of me. Without you I don’t think I would have made it this far. Thanks Alt.NET for keeping it fresh and funky! A very special thank you goes out to my wife for supporting me and locking me in the basement to work on all of my initiatives!

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• From Zero To Deployed Contest&ndash;Prizes Announced

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Do you have what it takes to meet the challenge? We’ll make it worth it. You may have noticed at the end of my last post I threw down the community challenge to get from zero to deployed faster than me. The Challenge My time was 13:48 to be from zero to deployed. Beat my time and show it in a video response. The person with the best time by March 15th @ 11:59PM CST will receive a prize. Here are the links to the videos: #1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZIUVfHWsbc #2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7WluaXIya0 #3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqPh7wbWsLc The Rules Let’s revisit those ground rules before I tell you what the prizes will be: Ground rules: .NET Application with a valid database connection Start from Zero Deployed with AppHarbor or an alternative A timer displayed in the video that runs during the entire process Video response published on YouTube or acceptable alternative Video(s) must be published by March 15th at 11:59PM CST. Either post the link here as a comment or on YouTube as a response (also by 11:59PM CST March 15th) The Prizes The prize package for the best time is:                      $50 Gift Card or equivalent – Provided by yours truly. AppHarbor $100 service credit – AppHarbor will provide a $100 credit for their services once they launch payments. Thank you to the folks at AppHarbor! ReSharper - Jetbrains will provide a FULL license of ReSharper Personal. This license is a $199 value. Thank you to the folks at Jetbrains! Telerik Ultimate Collection for .NET – Telerik will provide a license to pretty much every .NET tool they offer. This license is a $1999 value. A big thank you to the folks at Telerik!! This is a total value of $2348!!! The prize package for the person that has the most creative video(s) with a time better than mine (if there are at least 5 responses):           $20 Gift card or equivalent – Provided by this guy. AppHarbor $50 service credit – same deal as above. Thank you AppHarbor! Twilio T-Shirt - Twilio has donated a shirt and will ship your size to you (this may be subject to US residents only). This is a $25 value. Thank you to the folks at Twilio!

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• Deciding On Features For Open Source

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Open source feature selection is subjective. An interesting question was posed to me recently at a presentation - “How do you decide what features to include in the [open source] projects you manage?” Is It Objective? I’d like to say that it’s really objective and that we vote on features and look at what carries the most interest of the populace. Actually no I wouldn’t. I don’t think I would enjoy working on open source (OSS) as much if it someone else decided on what features I should include. It already works that way at work. I don’t want to come home from work and work on things that others decide for me unless they are paying me for those features. So how do I decide on features for our open source projects? I think there are at least three paths to feature selection and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Feature Selection IS the Set of Features For the Domain Your product, in whatever domain it is in, needs to have the basic set of features that make it answer the needs of that domain. That is different for every product, but if you take for example a build tool, at the very least it needs to be able to compile source. And these basic needed features are not always objective either. Two people could completely disagree what makes for a required feature to meet a domain need for a product. Even one person may disagree with himself/herself about what features are needed based on different timeframes. So that leads us down to subjective. Feature Selection IS An Answer To Competition Some features go in because the competition adds a feature that may draw others away from your product offering. With OSS, there are all free alternatives, so if your competition adds a killer feature and you don’t, there isn’t much other than learning (how to use the other product) to move your customers off to the competition. If you want to keep your customers, you need to be ready to answer the questions of adding the features your competition has added.  Sometimes it’s about adding a feature that your competition charges for, but you add it for free. That draws people to the free alternative – so sometimes that adds a motivation to select a feature. Sometimes it’s because you want those features in your product, either to learn how you can answer the question of how to do something and/or because you have a need for that feature and you want it in your product. That also leads us down the road to subjective. Feature Selection IS Subjective I decide on features based on what I want to see in the product I am working on. Things I am interested in or have the biggest need for usually get picked first, with things that do not interest me either coming later or not at all. Most people get interested in an area of OSS because it solves a need for them and/or they find it interesting. If one of these two things is not happening and they are not being paid, it’s likely that person will move on to something else they find interesting or just stop OSS altogether. OSS feature selection is just that – subjective. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be opinionated and it wouldn’t have a personality about it. Most people like certain OSS because they like where the product is going or the personalities behind the product. For me, I want my products to be easy to use and solve an important problem. If it takes you more than 5-10 minutes to learn how to use my product, I know you are probably going somewhere else. So I pick features that make the product easy to use and learn, and those are not always the simplest features to work on. I work for conventions and make the product opinionated, because I think that is what makes using a product easier, if it already works with little setup. And I like to provide the ability for power users to get in and change the conventions to suit their needs. So those are required features for me above and beyond the domain features. I like to think I do a pretty good job at this. Usually when I present on something I’ve created, I like seeing people’s eyes light up when they see how simple it is to set up a powerful product like UppercuT. Patches And/Or Donations But remember before you say I’m a bad person or won’t use my product, I’ll always accept patches or I might like the feature that you suggest. If you like using the products I provide and they solve a problem for you the two biggest compliments you can provide are either a patch or a donation.  If you think the product is great, but if it could do this one other thing, it would be awesome(!), then consider contacting me and providing a patch, or consider contacting me with a donation and a request to put the feature in. And alternatively, if it’s a big feature, you could hire me to work on the product to make it even better. What If There Are Multiple Committers? In the question of multiple committers, I choose that someone always makes the ultimate decision to select whether a feature should be part of a product or not. But for other OSS project maybe this is not the case. If there is not an ultimate decision maker, then there is the possibility of either adding every feature suggested or having a deadlock on two conflicting features.   So let me pose this question. If you work on Open Source, how do you decide on what features to put in your open source projects? How do you decide what doesn’t belong? What do you do when there are conflicting features?

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