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• if else-if making code look ugly any cleaner solution?

  - by Vishal

  I have around 20 functions (is_func1, is_fucn2, is_func3...) returning boolean I assume there is only one function which returns true and I want that! I am doing: if is_func1(param1, param2): # I pass 1 to following abc(1) # I pass 1 some_list.append(1) elif is_func2(param1, param2): # I pass 2 to following abc(2) # I pass 1 some_list.append(2) ... . . elif is_func20(param1, param2): ... Please note: param1 and param2 are different for each, abc and some_list take parameters depending on the function. The code looks big and there is repetition in calling abc and some_list, I can pull this login in a function! but is there any other cleaner solution? I can think of putting functions in a data structure and loop to call them.

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• [org-mode]: repeating task in every Mon, Wed, Fri at 18:00, need help with sexp.

  - by zeroDivisible

  Hello, As I had written in title, I need a little help with improvement of this sexp: * TODO remeber about thingie. SCHEDULED: <%%(or (= 1 (calendar-day-of-week date)) (= 3 (calendar-day-of-week date)) (= 5 (calendar-day-of-week date)))> Now it shows itself in the following days, but I would like to change two things about it: How can I also schedule on specific hours (i.e. 18:00 - 20:00) in the following days How can I made this task repeat itself, just like it repeats itself with <2010-05-13 Wed +1w> (by repetition I mean something like it automatically logs the closing date and time and comes back to the TODO state). I will be grateful for any help. Best regards, Mike.

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• MATLAB help required function root

  - by programmeur

  Dear All, I have made an program, function bisection; x1=input('enter the first value=') x2=input('enter the second value=') %f3=[]; for x=1:20 %x=1; x3=(x1+x2)/2; while x3-x1 >= 0.001 f3(x)=x3^3 + x3^2 - 3*x3 - 3; f1(x)=x1^3 + x1^2 - 3*x1 - 3; if ((f3(x)*f1(x)) < 0) x2=x3; else x1=x3; end break end format long f3' disp('The root is found to be ='); x3 end . . . . . program calculate function of interval (x1, x2) given by user, my program compile and execute but little stupid repetition until for loop complete, i want to stop further printing loop when desired value is achieved with while condition is used.

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• Why do we need Web-Api? [closed]

  - by user437973

  I was just wondering what the deal is with Asp.net Web-Api. Why did we need a separate type of controller in order to facilitate varying content types for action results? Why wasn't this capability just baked into the ASP.Net MVC base controller? Anyway, I was just wondering if there was a compelling reason to use both types of controllers within the same project, assuming that the project was being freshly created, or if this project structure was due to an inherent technical limitation. Would it be possible to have ApiControllers fulfill the purpose of an MVC Controller in all cases by just serving HTML when that is the specified accept type? It just seems to me like a lot of unnecessary repetition to have to re-implement the same types of actions using both types of controllers if you want those actions to be available to your web application through the API and through the web interface.

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• Looping in filemaker using a local variable

  - by Mike Davis

  Been programming in C# for a little bit - trying to use file maker and I cant believe it but I cant even get a simple for loop to work. What I want to do is simple: loop through for the amount of entries in my "amountOfRooms" field and create an entry in a table for each room. Sounds so simple, but I cant get it to work. Right now I have this: Set Variable[$cnt[Customers::AmountOfRooms]; value:1] Go to Layout["rooms"(Rooms)] Loop Exit Loop If[$cnt = Customers::AmountOfRooms] New Record / Request Set Variable[$cnt; Value: $cnt + 1] End Loop Exit Script No new records are created. I know the script is running because it does go to my layout, but doesnt create any new records. There is a "Repetition" field for my local variable - not sure how to use that or what it means? Any thoughts on how to do this simple loop? Thanks.

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• django - where to clean extra whitespace from form field inputs?

  - by Westerley

  I've just discovered that Django doesn't automatically strip out extra whitespace from form field inputs, and I think I understand the rationale ('frameworks shouldn't be altering user input'). I think I know how to remove the excess whitespace using python's re: #data = re.sub('\A\s+|\s+\Z', '', data) data = data.strip() data = re.sub('\s+', ' ', data) The question is where should I do this? Presumably this should happen in one of the form's clean stages, but which one? Ideally, I would like to clean all my fields of extra whitespace. If it should be done in the clean_field() method, that would mean I would have to have a lot of clean_field() methods that basically do the same thing, which seems like a lot of repetition. If not the form's cleaning stages, then perhaps in the model that the form is based on? Thanks for your help! W.

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• Solve Physics exercise by brute force approach..

  - by Nils

  Being unable to reproduce a given result. (either because it's wrong or because I was doing something wrong) I was asking myself if it would be easy to just write a small program which takes all the constants and given number and permutes it with a possible operators (* / - + exp(..)) etc) until the result is found. Permutations of n distinct objects with repetition allowed is n^r. At least as long as r is small I think you should be able to do this. I wonder if anybody did something similar here..

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• Using temporary arrays to cut down on code - inefficient?

  - by tommaisey

  I'm new to c++ (and SO) so sorry if this is obvious. I've started using temporary arrays in my code to cut down on repetition and to make it easier to do the same thing to multiple objects. So instead of: MyObject obj1, obj2, obj3, obj4; obj1.doSomming(arg); obj2.doSomming(arg); obj3.doSomming(arg); obj4.doSomming(arg); I'm doing: MyObject obj1, obj2, obj3, obj4; MyObject* objs[] = {&obj1, &obj2, &obj3, &obj4}; for (int i = 0; i !=4; ++i) objs[i]->doSomming(arg); Is this detrimental to performance? Like, does it cause unnecessary memory allocation? Is it good practice? Thanks.

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• Improving CSS With .LESS

  Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, is a syntax used to describe the look and feel of the elements in a web page. CSS allows a web developer to separate the document content - the HTML, text, and images - from the presentation of that content. Such separation makes the markup in a page easier to read, understand, and update; it can result in reduced bandwidth as the style information can be specified in a separate file and cached by the browser; and makes site-wide changes easier to apply. For a great example of the flexibility and power of CSS, check out CSS Zen Garden. This website has a single page with fixed markup, but allows web developers from around the world to submit CSS rules to define alternate presentation information. Unfortunately, certain aspects of CSS's syntax leave a bit to be desired. Many style sheets include repeated styling information because CSS does not allow the use of variables. Such repetition makes the resulting style sheet lengthier and harder to read; it results in more rules that need to be changed when the website is redesigned to use a new primary color. Specifying inherited CSS rules, such as indicating that a elements (i.e., hyperlinks) in h1 elements should not be underlined, requires creating a single selector name, like h1 a. Ideally, CSS would allow for nested rules, enabling you to define the a rules directly within the h1 rules. .LESS is a free, open-source port of Ruby's LESS library. LESS (and .LESS, by extension) is a parser that allows web developers to create style sheets using new and improved language features, including variables, operations, mixins, and nested rules. Behind the scenes, .LESS converts the enhanced CSS rules into standard CSS rules. This conversion can happen automatically and on-demand through the use of an HTTP Handler, or done manually as part of the build process. Moreover, .LESS can be configured to automatically minify the resulting CSS, saving bandwidth and making the end user's experience a snappier one. This article shows how to get started using .LESS in your ASP.NET websites. Read on to learn more! Read More >

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• Improving CSS With .LESS

  Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, is a syntax used to describe the look and feel of the elements in a web page. CSS allows a web developer to separate the document content - the HTML, text, and images - from the presentation of that content. Such separation makes the markup in a page easier to read, understand, and update; it can result in reduced bandwidth as the style information can be specified in a separate file and cached by the browser; and makes site-wide changes easier to apply. For a great example of the flexibility and power of CSS, check out CSS Zen Garden. This website has a single page with fixed markup, but allows web developers from around the world to submit CSS rules to define alternate presentation information. Unfortunately, certain aspects of CSS's syntax leave a bit to be desired. Many style sheets include repeated styling information because CSS does not allow the use of variables. Such repetition makes the resulting style sheet lengthier and harder to read; it results in more rules that need to be changed when the website is redesigned to use a new primary color. Specifying inherited CSS rules, such as indicating that a elements (i.e., hyperlinks) in h1 elements should not be underlined, requires creating a single selector name, like h1 a. Ideally, CSS would allow for nested rules, enabling you to define the a rules directly within the h1 rules. .LESS is a free, open-source port of Ruby's LESS library. LESS (and .LESS, by extension) is a parser that allows web developers to create style sheets using new and improved language features, including variables, operations, mixins, and nested rules. Behind the scenes, .LESS converts the enhanced CSS rules into standard CSS rules. This conversion can happen automatically and on-demand through the use of an HTTP Handler, or done manually as part of the build process. Moreover, .LESS can be configured to automatically minify the resulting CSS, saving bandwidth and making the end user's experience a snappier one. This article shows how to get started using .LESS in your ASP.NET websites. Read on to learn more! Read More >

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• Are SQL Injection vulnerabilities in a PHP application acceptable if mod_security is enabled?

  - by Austin Smith

  I've been asked to audit a PHP application. No framework, no router, no model. Pure PHP. Few shared functions. HTML, CSS, and JS all mixed together. I've discovered numerous places where SQL injection would be easily possible. There are other problems with the application (XSS vulnerabilities, rampant inline CSS, code copy-pasted everywhere) but this is the biggest. Sometimes they escape inputs, not using a prepared query or even mysql_real_escape_string(), mind you, but using addslashes(). Often, though, their queries look exactly like this (pasted from their code but with columns and variable names changed): $user = mysql_query("select * from profile where profile_id='".$_REQUEST["profile_id"]."'"); The developers in question claimed that they were unable to hack their application. I tried, and found mod_security to be enabled, resulting in HTTP 406 for some obvious SQL injection attacks. I believe there to be sophisticated workarounds for mod_security, but I don't have time to chase them down. They claim that this is a "conceptual" matter and not a "practical" one since the application can't easily be hacked. Their internal auditor agreed that there were problems, but emphasized the conceptual nature of the issues. They also use this conceptual/practical argument to defend against inline CSS and JS, absence of code organization, XSS vulnerabilities, and massive amounts of repetition. My client (rightly so, perhaps) just wants this to go away so they can launch their product. The site works. You can log in, do what you need to do, and things are visibly functional, if slow. SQL Injection would indeed be hard to do, given mod_security. Further, their talk of "conceptual vs. practical" is rhetorically brilliant, considering that my client doesn't understand web application security. I worry that they've succeeded in making me sound like an angry puritan. In many ways, this is a problem of politics, not technology, but I am at a loss. As a developer, I want to tell them to toss the whole project and start over with a new team, but I face a strong defense from the team that built it and a client who really needs to ship their product. Is my position here too harsh? Even if they fix the SQL Injection and XSS problems can I ever endorse the release of an unmaintainable tangle of spaghetti code?

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• What are some reasonable stylistic limits on type inference?

  - by Jon Purdy

  C++0x adds pretty darn comprehensive type inference support. I'm sorely tempted to use it everywhere possible to avoid undue repetition, but I'm wondering if removing explicit type information all over the place is such a good idea. Consider this rather contrived example: Foo.h: #include <set> class Foo { private: static std::set<Foo*> instances; public: Foo(); ~Foo(); // What does it return? Who cares! Just forward it! static decltype(instances.begin()) begin() { return instances.begin(); } static decltype(instances.end()) end() { return instances.end(); } }; Foo.cpp: #include <Foo.h> #include <Bar.h> // The type need only be specified in one location! // But I do have to open the header to find out what it actually is. decltype(Foo::instances) Foo::instances; Foo() { // What is the type of x? auto x = Bar::get_something(); // What does do_something() return? auto y = x.do_something(*this); // Well, it's convertible to bool somehow... if (!y) throw "a constant, old school"; instances.insert(this); } ~Foo() { instances.erase(this); } Would you say this is reasonable, or is it completely ridiculous? After all, especially if you're used to developing in a dynamic language, you don't really need to care all that much about the types of things, and can trust that the compiler will catch any egregious abuses of the type system. But for those of you that rely on editor support for method signatures, you're out of luck, so using this style in a library interface is probably really bad practice. I find that writing things with all possible types implicit actually makes my code a lot easier for me to follow, because it removes nearly all of the usual clutter of C++. Your mileage may, of course, vary, and that's what I'm interested in hearing about. What are the specific advantages and disadvantages to radical use of type inference?

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• Harnessing Business Events for Predictive Decision Making - part 1 / 3

  - by Sanjeev Sharma

  Businesses have long relied on data mining to elicit patterns and forecast future demand and supply trends. Improvements in computing hardware, specifically storage and compute capacity, have significantly enhanced the ability to store and analyze mountains of data in ever shrinking time-frames. Nevertheless, the reality is that data growth is outpacing storage capacity by a factor of two and computing power is still very much bounded by Moore's Law, doubling only every 18 months.Faced with this data explosion, businesses are exploring means to develop human brain-like capabilities in their decision systems (including BI and Analytics) to make sense of the data storm, in other words business events, in real-time and respond pro-actively rather than re-actively. It is more like having a little bit of the right information just a little bit before hand than having all of the right information after the fact. To appreciate this thought better let's first understand the workings of the human brain.Neuroscience research has revealed that the human brain is predictive in nature and that talent is nothing more than exceptional predictive ability. The cerebral-cortex, part of the human brain responsible for cognition, thought, language etc., comprises of five layers. The lowest layer in the hierarchy is responsible for sensory perception i.e. discrete, detail-oriented tasks whereas each of the above layers increasingly focused on assembling higher-order conceptual models. Information flows both up and down the layered memory hierarchy. This allows the conceptual mental-models to be refined over-time through experience and repetition. Secondly, and more importantly, the top-layers are able to prime the lower layers to anticipate certain events based on the existing mental-models thereby giving the brain a predictive ability. In a way the human brain develops a "memory of the future", some sort of an anticipatory thinking which let's it predict based on occurrence of events in real-time. A higher order of predictive ability stems from being able to recognize the lack of certain events. For instance, it is one thing to recognize the beats in a music track and another to detect beats that were missed, which involves a higher order predictive ability.Existing decision systems analyze historical data to identify patterns and use statistical forecasting techniques to drive planning. They are similar to the human-brain in that they employ business rules very much like mental-models to chunk and classify information. However unlike the human brain existing decision systems are unable to evolve these rules automatically (AI still best suited for highly specific tasks) and  predict the future based on real-time business events. Mistake me not,  existing decision systems remain vital to driving long-term and broader business planning. For instance, a telco will still rely on BI and Analytics software to plan promotions and optimize inventory but tap into business events enabled predictive insight to identify specifically which customers are likely to churn and engage with them pro-actively. In the next post, i will depict the technology components that enable businesses to harness real-time events and drive predictive decision making.

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• Dadaism and Agility

  - by alexhildyard

  We all have our little bugbears, and something that has given me particular pause over the years is the place of Agility in the software development life cycle. While I have seen it used successfully on both small and Enterprise-level projects, I have also seen many instances in which long-standing technical debt has also originated under its watch. Ironically the problem in such cases seems to me not that the practitioners in question have failed to follow due process (Test, Develop, Refactor -- a common "what" of Agile), but basically that they have missed the point (the "why" of Agile). It's probably a sign of my age that I'm much more interested in the "why" than the "what", since I feel that the latter falls out naturally from the former, but that this is not a reciprocal relationship.Consider Dadaism, precursor to the Surrealist movement in the early part of the twentieth century. Anyone could stand up and proclaim he or she was Dada; anyone could write cut-ups, or pull words out a hat, or produce gibberish on duelling typewriters under the inspiration of Dada. And all that took place at such performances was a manifestation of Dada, and all the artefacts that resulted were also Dada. Hence one commentator's engimatic observation that 'when one speaks of Dada, then one speaks of Dada. But when one does not speak of Dada, one still speaks of Dada.'What is Dada? Literally, Dada is what you say it is. But that's also missing the point. Dada is about erecting a framework within which utterances like this are valid; Dada is about preparing a stage for itself. Dadaism exemplifies the purity of a process-driven ideology -- in fact an ideology that is almost pure process, with nothing extraneous in the way of formal method, and while perhaps Agile delivery should not embrace the liberties of Dadaism too literally, some of the similarities nevertheless are salutary.Agile -- like Dada -- is an attitude; it is about *being* agile; it is not really about doing a specific set of things that are somehow *part* of being Agile. It is an abstract base rather than an implementation, a characteristic rather than a factor. It is the pragmatic response to the need for change in the face of partial information, ephemeral requirements and a healthy dose of systematic uncertainty. In practice this will usually mean repeatedly making the smallest useful changes to a system, recognising that systems evolve, and that all change carries risk. It will usually mean that instead of investing effort in future-proofing a system against a known technology roadmap, one instead invests one's energies in the daily repetition and incremental development of processes best designed to accommodate change quickly. But though it may mean these things in practice, it isn't actually *about* either of these things; it's about the mindset, the attitude that conceives of such responses as sensible solutions given the larger and ultimately unclassifiable thing that constitutes the development lifecycle of a specific project.

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• Play the Microsoft Game “Are You Certifiable?”

  - by Mysticgeek

  Want to know if you have what it takes to be certified by Microsoft? Today we check out an enjoyable way to practice and test your IT knowledge of Microsoft products.  There are two modes, one where you log in with your Live account so you can save your progress, and play additional levels.   If you log in with your Live account, it’s obvious that Microsoft wants to sell you some certification courses, so just be aware of that. Or Guest Play where you can only play one episode and scores are not saved.   Playing the Game We’ll take a look at the Guest Play just so you get a sense of what the game is about. Enter in a username and pick an avatar… Then read the instructions…we won’t go over them all here, there are a lot of options and points are scored by correct answers, amount of time it takes to answer them, you get vouchers to play a question before answers are shown…etc. Once you start playing, you get certification questions, you can take as much time to read the question as you want, then hit the Answer button when you’re ready. Now you have four answers to choose from…notice the time clicking down, so you want to try to answer as quickly as possible. After selecting the answer, you’re told if it is correct or not, then given an answer explaination, along with your score. You can flag the topic so it comes up again, which is a good way to get repetition of various topics, which really helps when taking the cert tests. If you get an answer wrong, you still get an answer explanation which is cool, so you can learn and better understand the topic. Conclusion This game is definitely not for everyone, only those who are curious or want a fun way to practice for Microsoft certifications. If you are interested in a cert from Microsoft, it’s a fun way to practice up. Play Are You Certifiable? Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Fun: Play Alien Arena the Free FPS GameFriday Fun: Get Your Mario OnFriday Fun: Play Bubble QuodFriday Fun: 13 Days in HellFriday Fun: Open Doors TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar Manage Photos Across Different Social Sites With Dropico Test Drive Windows 7 Online Download Wallpapers From National Geographic Site Spyware Blaster v4.3

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• Is this a pattern? Should it be?

  - by Arkadiy

  The following is more of a statement than a question - it describes something that may be a pattern. The question is: is this a known pattern? Or, if it's not, should it be? I've had a situation where I had to iterate over two dissimilar multi-layer data structures and copy information from one to the other. Depending on particular use case, I had around eight different kinds of layers, combined in about eight different combinations: A-B-C B-C A-C D-E A-D-E and so on After a few unsuccessful attempts to factor out the repetition of per-layer iteration code, I realized that the key difficulty in this refactoring was the fact that the bottom level needed access to data gathered at higher levels. To explicitly accommodate this requirement, I introduced IterationContext class with a number of get() and set() methods for accumulating the necessary information. In the end, I had the following class structure: class Iterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const = 0; }; class RecursingIterator : public Iterator { RecursingIterator(const Iterator &below); }; class IterateOverA : public RecursingIterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // Iterate over members in dataStructure1 // locate corresponding item in dataStructure2 (passed via context) // and set it in the context // invoke the sub-iterator }; class IterateOverB : public RecursingIterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // iterate over members dataStructure2 (form context) // set dataStructure2's item in the context // locate corresponding item in dataStructure2 (passed via context) // invoke the sub-iterator }; void main() { class FinalCopy : public Iterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // copy data from structure 1 to structure 2 in the context, // using some data from higher levels as needed } } IterationContext ctx(dateStructure2); IterateOverA(IterateOverB(FinalCopy())).iterate(dataStructure1, ctx); } It so happens that dataStructure1 is a uniform data structure, similar to XML DOM in that respect, while dataStructure2 is a legacy data structure made of various structs and arrays. This allows me to pass dataStructure1 outside of the context for convenience. In general, either side of the iteration or both sides may be passed via context, as convenient. The key situation points are: complicated code that needs to be invoked in "layers", with multiple combinations of layer types possible at the bottom layer, the information from top layers needs to be visible. The key implementation points are: use of context class to access the data from all levels of iteration complicated iteration code encapsulated in implementation of pure virtual function two interfaces - one aware of underlying iterator, one not aware of it. use of const & to simplify the usage syntax.

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• Is there an high quality natural text reader for the mac?

  - by Another Registered User

  I'm reading about 150 pages of text on screen, every day. I will have to read about 15.000 in the next upcoming months. No joke. Well, the problem is this: I suffer from a sort of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder which forces me to read every sentence up to 10 times until I really get it. Mac OS X Snow Leopard has a built-in text reader with the name "Alex". Although it is already pretty good quality, I know there are far better natural sounding voices out there. I have heard already voices that are absolutely amazing compared to Alex. They're so good, that you can't tell anymore the difference between a real person or a computer. Alex still has this "metal factor" in its voice, which makes my ears hurt after 8 hours of listening. The next problem with Alex is, that he never makes a break after a sentence. Also, it's not possible to think about a sentence and then continue reading. It's also not possible to have him repeat a sentence, without tedious text selection and shortcut usage. Actually, the best tool I can imagine would have the option to read a sentence and move on to the next one after pressing a special key, OR repeating the previously one after pressing a special key. That would help so much! And if that's even with one of those bell lab / AT&T / whatever super-natural voices, even better! But it would be already a great relief if there was just a better tool to control Alex. To let him make breaks after sentences or let him speak big chunks of text sentence-by-sentence with fine-grained control over repetition and moving on. Is there anything?

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• Printing a PDF results in garbled text (sometimes)

  - by Scott Whitlock

  We have a system that renders a report as a PDF, and displays it in the browser for the user. In the browser, the document always appears to display fine, but when printed on one machine, it sometimes changes some of the data in the report to seemingly random characters. Here are some examples of the strings it inserts: Ebuf; Bvhvt ul1: -!3122 Ti jqqf e!Wjb; Nfttf ohf s!Tf swjdf Additionally, the inter-character spacing is weird. It sometimes writes characters overlapping each other. I noticed some repetition in the garbled text, so I typed a few of them into Google, and surprisingly got a lot of hits. Here is the string I searched for: pdf cjmp ebuf nftf up! The Google search summaries contain the garbled text. However, when I click on those links in Google, I get perfectly readable PDF files. It's as if Google's PDF crawler has the same bug. Has anyone figured this out? Is this an Acrobat Reader bug?

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• vi and emacs: comparison? (not flamebait!)

  - by jared

  So, I've been enjoying learning and using vi for the last couple of years. The beauty of vi, for me, is that its UI is a language of movement and action with a very uniform, simple grammar, and which is terse enough that the requisite memorization pays ample dividends in how much more I enjoy working with text (by avoiding boring repetition and eliminating micro-hassles, like that half-second annoying wait while you scroll down the screen). (Note--I don't claim to have expert knowledge of vi, but I get around decently well: comfortable with limited '@' macros and regexp search-and-replace within files; frequently use multiple buffers, tabs, and windows; get around pretty well in the file browser; understand the grammar of actions + movement + subject (as described so aptly in this beautiful SO answer); and had some pretty sweet debugger and ctags integration going with PHP.) I wonder if some emacs folks could take a swing at explaining what emacs does brilliantly, or sum its strengths up in a phrase or two. Spare me the talk about productivity; I'm more interested in conceptual clarity. Lisp-centric answers are okay; I'm learning Scheme on the weekends, and would pick up emacs for that alone (have been using Racket).

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• CSV Anyone?

  - by Tim Dexter

  CSV, a dead format? With today's abilities to generate Excel output (Im working on some posts for the shiny new Excel templates) and the sophistication of the eText outputs, do you really need CSV? I guess so seeing as it was added after the base product was released as an enhancement. But I'd be interested in hearing use cases? I used to think the same of text output. But now Im working in the public sector where older technologies abound I can see a use for text output. Its also used as a machine readable format, etc. BIP still does not support a text format from its RTF templates but its very doable using XSL templates. Back to CSV, I noticed an enhancement in the big list of new stuff in the 10.1.3.4.1 rollup. You can now generate CSV from structured data ie a data template or a SQL XML query. This piqued my interest so I ran off a data template to CSV. Its interesting, in a geeky kinda way, I guess Im that way inclined.Here's my data structure:<EMPLOYEES> <LIST_G_DEPT> <G_DEPT>  <DEPARTMENT_ID>10</DEPARTMENT_ID>  <DEPARTMENT_NAME>Administration</DEPARTMENT_NAME>  <LIST_G_EMP>   <G_EMP>     <EMPLOYEE_ID>200</EMPLOYEE_ID>     <EMP_NAME>Jennifer Whalen</EMP_NAME>     <EMAIL>JWHALEN</EMAIL>     <PHONE_NUMBER>515.123.4444</PHONE_NUMBER>     <HIRE_DATE>1987-09-17T00:00:00.000-06:00</HIRE_DATE>     <SALARY>4400</SALARY>    </G_EMP>   </LIST_G_EMP>  <TOTAL_EMPS>1</TOTAL_EMPS>  <TOTAL_SALARY>4400</TOTAL_SALARY>  <AVG_SALARY>4400</AVG_SALARY>  <MAX_SALARY>4400</MAX_SALARY>  <MIN_SALARY>4400</MIN_SALARY> </G_DEPT>Poor ol Jennifer, she needs some help in the Admin department :0)Pushing this to CSV and BP completely flattens the data out so you get a completely denormalized data output in the CSV.TOTAL_SALARY,DEPARTMENT_ID,DEPARTMENT_NAME,MIN_SALARY,AVG_SALARY,MAX_SALARY,EMPLOYEE_ID,SALARY,PHONE_NUMBER,HIRE_DATE,EMP_NAME,EMAIL,TOTAL_EMPS4400,10,Administration,4400,4400,4400,200,4400,515.123.4444,1987-09-17T00:00:00.000-06:00,"Jennifer Whalen",JWHALEN,119000,20,Marketing,6000,9500,13000,201,13000,515.123.5555,1996-02-17T00:00:00.000-07:00,"Michael Hartstein",MHARTSTE,219000,20,Marketing,6000,9500,13000,202,6000,603.123.6666,1997-08-17T00:00:00.000-06:00,"Pat Fay",PFAY,2Useful? Its a little confusing to start with but it is completely de-normalized so there is lots of repetition. But if it floats your boat, you got it!

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• AppKata - Enter the next level of programming exercises

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Doing CodeKatas is all the rage lately. That´s great since widely accepted exercises are important to further the art. They provide a means of communication across platforms and allow to compare results which is part of any deliberate practice. But CodeKatas suffer from their size. They are intentionally small, so they can be done again and again. Repetition helps to build habit and to dig deeper. Over time ever new nuances of the problem or one´s approach become visible. On the other hand, though, their small size limits the methods, techniques, technologies that can be applied. To improve your TDD skills doing CodeKatas might be enough. But what about other skills? Developing on a software in a team, designing larger pieces of software, iteratively releasing software… all this and more is kinda hard to train using the tiny CodeKata problems. That´s why I´d like to present here another kind of kata I call Application Kata (or just AppKata). AppKatas are larger programming problems. They require the development of “whole” applications, i.e. not just one class or method, but bunches of classes accessible through a user interface. Also AppKata problems always are split into iterations. To get the most out of them, just look at the requirements of one iteration at a time. This way you´re closer to reality where requirements evolve in unexpected ways. So if you´re looking for more of a challenge for your software development skills, check out these AppKatas – or invent your own. AppKatas are platform independent like CodeKatas. Use whatever programming language and IDE you like. Also use whatever approach to software development you like. Just be sensitive to how easy it is to evolve your code across iterations. Reflect on what went well and what not. Compare your solutions with others. Or – for even more challenge – go for the “Coding Carousel” (see below). CSV Viewer An application to view CSV files. Sounds easy, but watch out! Requirements sometimes drastically change if the customer is happy with what you delivered. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5 (to come) Questionnaire If you like GUI programming, this AppKata might be for you. It´s about an app to let people fill out questionnaires. Also this problem might be interestin for you, if you´re into DDD. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Tic Tac Toe For developers who like game programming. Although Tic Tac Toe is a trivial game, this AppKata poses some interesting infrastructure challenges. The GUI, however, stays simple; leave any 3D ambitions at home ;-) Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Iteration 5 (to come) Coding Carousel There are many ways you can do AppKatas. Work on them alone or in a team, pitch several devs against each other in an AppKata contest – or go around in a Coding Carousel. For the Coding Carousel you need at least 3 dev teams (regardless of size). All teams work on the same iteration at the same time. But here´s the trick: After each iteration the teams swap their code. Whatever they did for iteration n will be the basis for changes another team has to apply in iteration n+1. The code is going around the teams like in a carousel. I promise you, that´s gonna be fun! :-)

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• Hidden features of Perl?

  - by Adam Bellaire

  What are some really useful but esoteric language features in Perl that you've actually been able to employ to do useful work? Guidelines: Try to limit answers to the Perl core and not CPAN Please give an example and a short description Hidden Features also found in other languages' Hidden Features: (These are all from Corion's answer) C# Duff's Device Portability and Standardness Quotes for whitespace delimited lists and strings Aliasable namespaces Java Static Initalizers JavaScript Functions are First Class citizens Block scope and closure Calling methods and accessors indirectly through a variable Ruby Defining methods through code PHP Pervasive online documentation Magic methods Symbolic references Python One line value swapping Ability to replace even core functions with your own functionality Other Hidden Features: Operators: The bool quasi-operator The flip-flop operator Also used for list construction The ++ and unary - operators work on strings The repetition operator The spaceship operator The || operator (and // operator) to select from a set of choices The diamond operator Special cases of the m// operator The tilde-tilde "operator" Quoting constructs: The qw operator Letters can be used as quote delimiters in q{}-like constructs Quoting mechanisms Syntax and Names: There can be a space after a sigil You can give subs numeric names with symbolic references Legal trailing commas Grouped Integer Literals hash slices Populating keys of a hash from an array Modules, Pragmas, and command-line options: use strict and use warnings Taint checking Esoteric use of -n and -p CPAN overload::constant IO::Handle module Safe compartments Attributes Variables: Autovivification The $[ variable tie Dynamic Scoping Variable swapping with a single statement Loops and flow control: Magic goto for on a single variable continue clause Desperation mode Regular expressions: The \G anchor (?{}) and '(??{})` in regexes Other features: The debugger Special code blocks such as BEGIN, CHECK, and END The DATA block New Block Operations Source Filters Signal Hooks map (twice) Wrapping built-in functions The eof function The dbmopen function Turning warnings into errors Other tricks, and meta-answers: cat files, decompressing gzips if needed Perl Tips See Also: Hidden features of C Hidden features of C# Hidden features of C++ Hidden features of Java Hidden features of JavaScript Hidden features of Ruby Hidden features of PHP Hidden features of Python

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• Compression algorithm for IEEE-754 data

  - by David Taylor

  Anyone have a recommendation on a good compression algorithm that works well with double precision floating point values? We have found that the binary representation of floating point values results in very poor compression rates with common compression programs (e.g. Zip, RAR, 7-Zip etc). The data we need to compress is a one dimensional array of 8-byte values sorted in monotonically increasing order. The values represent temperatures in Kelvin with a span typically under of 100 degrees. The number of values ranges from a few hundred to at most 64K. Clarifications All values in the array are distinct, though repetition does exist at the byte level due to the way floating point values are represented. A lossless algorithm is desired since this is scientific data. Conversion to a fixed point representation with sufficient precision (~5 decimals) might be acceptable provided there is a significant improvement in storage efficiency. Update Found an interesting article on this subject. Not sure how applicable the approach is to my requirements. http://users.ices.utexas.edu/~burtscher/papers/dcc06.pdf

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• Adding titles and descriptions to images in Refinerycms-Portfolio

  - by John Deely

  I'm using the Refinery content management system with a the Portfolio plugin see http://github.com/resolve/refinerycms I wanted to create a title and description for images uploaded to Refinery using Refinerycms-Portfolio so far I have done the following; added the columns to the images table $script/generate migration AddTitleToImages title:string $script/generate migration AddBodyToImages body:text $rake db:migrate modified the field div in this file, * highlighted vendor/plugins/images/app/views/admin/images/_form.html.erb Use current image or, replace it with this one... ***** ***** ***** ***** "wymeditor", :rows = 7 % Added these lines to the main image partial in vendor/plugins/refinerycms-portolio/app/views/portfolio/ _main_image.html.erb <%= @image.body % This works in the back-end except for a few visual bugs. The problem with this is when i click through the thumbnails in the front-end the titles and descriptions keep stacking on top of the previous titles and descriptions. The main image changes fine, but instead of refreshing the title and description, it adds the new one above the previous titles and descriptions. How can i stop this repetition so that only one title and description will show at a time? I'm new to Rails and I am using Rails-2.3.5 and I suspect this can be solved using Java Script thanks in advance, John

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• Beginner SQL question: querying gold and silver tag badges in Stack Exchange Data Explorer

  - by polygenelubricants

  I'm using the Stack Exchange Data Explorer to learn SQL, but I think the fundamentals of the question is applicable to other databases. I'm trying to query the Badges table, which according to Stexdex (that's what I'm going to call it from now on) has the following schema: Badges Id UserId Name Date This works well for badges like [Epic] and [Legendary] which have unique names, but the silver and gold tag-specific badges seems to be mixed in together by having the same exact name. Here's an example query I wrote for [mysql] tag: SELECT UserId as [User Link], Date FROM Badges Where Name = 'mysql' Order By Date ASC The (slightly annotated) output is: as seen on stexdex: User Link Date --------------- ------------------- // all for silver except where noted Bill Karwin 2009-02-20 11:00:25 Quassnoi 2009-06-01 10:00:16 Greg 2009-10-22 10:00:25 Quassnoi 2009-10-31 10:00:24 // for gold Bill Karwin 2009-11-23 11:00:30 // for gold cletus 2010-01-01 11:00:23 OMG Ponies 2010-01-03 11:00:48 Pascal MARTIN 2010-02-17 11:00:29 Mark Byers 2010-04-07 10:00:35 Daniel Vassallo 2010-05-14 10:00:38 This is consistent with the current list of silver and gold earners at the moment of this writing, but to speak in more timeless terms, as of the end of May 2010 only 2 users have earned the gold [mysql] tag: Quassnoi and Bill Karwin, as evidenced in the above result by their names being the only ones that appear twice. So this is the way I understand it: The first time an Id appears (in chronological order) is for the silver badge The second time is for the gold Now, the above result mixes the silver and gold entries together. My questions are: Is this a typical design, or are there much friendlier schema/normalization/whatever you call it? In the current design, how would you query the silver and gold badges separately? GROUP BY Id and picking the min/max or first/second by the Date somehow? How can you write a query that lists all the silver badges first then all the gold badges next? Imagine also that the "real" query may be more complicated, i.e. not just listing by date. How would you write it so that it doesn't have too many repetition between the silver and gold subqueries? Is it perhaps more typical to do two totally separate queries instead? What is this idiom called? A row "partitioning" query to put them into "buckets" or something?

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