Search Results

Search found 1997 results on 80 pages for 'early'.

Page 51/80 | < Previous Page | 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58  | Next Page >

• Should I be an algorithm developer, or java web frameworks type developer?

  - by Derek

  So - as I see it, there are really two kinds of developers. Those that do frameworks, web services, pretty-making front ends, etc etc. Then there are developers that write the algorithms that solve the problem. That is, unless the problem is "display this raw data in some meaningful way." In that case, the framework/web developer guy might be doing both jobs. So my basic problem is this. I have been an algorithms kind of software developer for a few years now. I double majored in Math and Computer science, and I have a master's in systems engineering. I have never done any web-dev work, with the exception of a couple minor jobs, and some hobby level stuff. I have been job interviewing lately, and this is what happens: Job is listed as "programmer- 5 years of experience with the following: C/C++, Java,Perl, Ruby, ant, blah blah blah" Recruiter calls me, says they want me to come in for interview In the interview, find out they have some webservices development, blah blah blah When asked in the interview, talk about my experience doing algorithms, optimization, blah blah..but very willing to learn new languages, frameworks, etc Get a call back saying "we didn't think you were a fit for the job you interviewed wtih, but our algorithm team got wind of you and wants to bring you on" This has happened to me a couple times now - see a vague-ish job description looking for a "programmer" Go in, find out they are doing some sort of web-based tool, maybe with some hardcore algorithms running in the background. interview with people for the web-based tool, but get an offer from the algorithms people. So the question is - which job is the better job? I basically just want to get a wide berth of experience at this level of my career, but are algorithm developers so much in demand? Even more so than all these supposed hot in demand web developer guys? Will I be ok in the long run if I go into the niche of math based algorithm development, and just little to no, or hobby level web-dev experience? I basically just don't want to pigeon hole myself this early. My salary is already starting to get pretty high - and I can see a company later on saying "we really need a web developer, but we'll hire this 50k/year college guy, instead of this 100k/year experience algorithm guy" Cliffs notes: I have been doing algorithm development. I consider myself to be a "good programmer." I would have no problem picking up web technologies and those sorts of frameworks. During job interviews, I keep getting "we think you've got a good skillset - talk to our algorithm team" instead of wanting me to learn new skills on the job to do their web services or whhatever other new technology they are doing. Edit: Whenever I am talking about algorithm development here - I am talking about the code that produces the answer. Typically I think of more math-based algorithms: solving a financial problem, solving a finite element method, image processing, etc

  Read the article

• Friday Fun: Snowball

  - by Asian Angel

  It is Christmas Eve and hopefully you are enjoying the start of an early weekend away from work. This week we have a snowball throwing game for you to try out, so bundle up and get ready to let those snowballs fly! Snowball The object of the game is to use your snowball ammo to harass the drunk businessman and send him flying along distance-wise as far as you can. Simply use your mouse to aim and click the left button to throw snowballs. You can monitor your stats on the silver bar towards the top of the window. The sound can also be disabled if the music is bothering you, but keep in mind that all sound will be disabled if you use the option. Time to get those snowballs flying through the air!! Keep hitting the businessman with your snowballs as you chase after him. Make certain that your aim is good or you will quickly run out of snowballs! You can really get him moving along at a good rate and he can even go high enough in the air to disappear off the screen for a few moments. There is a also chance that your aim will be so wicked with the snowballs that you will literally knock the drunk businessman’s head off! Weird but possible… The game ends when one of these two events occur: 1.) you run out of snowballs or 2.) the businessman literally bounces back at and then drops behind you as seen in the screenshot here. The moment either happens your score will pop up and then you have the opportunity to try again. Have fun! Note: The bounce back event can happen when encountering cars. Play Snowball Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? HTG Explains: Why Does Photo Paper Improve Print Quality? An Alternate Star Wars Christmas Special [Video] Sunset in a Tropical Paradise Wallpaper Natural Wood Grain Icons for Your Desktop and App Launcher Docks My Blackberry Is Not Working! The Apple Too?! [Funny Video] Hidden Tracks Your Stolen Mac; Free Until End of January Why the Other Checkout Line Always Moves Faster

  Read the article

• Career Advice: finding challenging work in software and web development

  - by dianovich

  Having left my physics degree early, I started out in the realm of web design / front end web development and was able to get work quite quickly. I moved on to spend a chunk of my time on servers and gained experience with frameworks like Wordpress and Drupal, then the likes of Codeigniter and CakePHP and became comfortable in Debian-based and RHEL/CentOS environments. I ventured in to iOS development and published a couple of native apps to the app store too! I have started to spend a good deal of my time writing Python and have invested a little time in Django. The problem is, I still spend a fair chunk of my time doing more front end web development (writing markup and CSS for site themes, design-lead JavaScript, small applications for which application architecture and software engineering are relatively unimportant or too time consuming to invest in) in my job. What I want to do is really exercise the systematic/logical portion of my brain and tackle challenging problems on a daily basis. I want to have to care about big-oh running times, modularity in software, DRY, performance tuning and development methodologies. I want to work for a firm whose clients say: "Yes, these things are important to us and we'll pay you to get them right." But it is difficult: I have no formal training and am potentially becoming a jack of all trades. Not that being a jack of many trades is necessarily a bad thing, but the scope of work I find myself involved in is far too broad. And, there are only so many hours in a day outside of work! My question is: where do I go from here? I am starting to work on a few open source projects and have started to publish content to my blog. But this isn't likely to make it past the recruitment consultants and HR departments of many-a-firm. And I do not, for example, work in a team that practices agile methodologies, so how do I get work in such a team to gain experience? While I have been responsible for implementing version control and some solid working practices into our current environment, there is only so far I can go in this context. What would convince you that i'm worth taking a risk? What would convince you that i'll have caught up the other guys in your employ in next to no time?

  Read the article

• How can story and gameplay be artfully merged?

  - by NauticalMile

  Let me give some context. Three of my friends and I have a pretty good game idea cooking. It's based off of a prototype I made that's evolving into a cool game mechanic. The mechanic itself is a toy that's fun on its own, but we haven't designed any puzzles around it yet. We have a design document going, and we are answering a lot of questions about what's in the game. It's become clear early on that everyone (including myself) likes the characters and the story a lot. Considering what our favorite games are, this is unsurprising. A story driven game makes sense to me. I like the emphasis that Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year-Door, Portal 2, and Tomb Raider place on story, and I imagine our game will have a similar feel (lots of dialogue, plot twists, lovable characters). However, one team member raised this point in the design doc: I am feeling like [fleshing out the story] is our biggest hurdle right now for making more design decisions - like more specific decisions about levels etc. Is this true? I am uncertain about working on the story extensively before gameplay, and my uneasiness was reinforced when I read this question about story vs. gameplay. What I want to say is: "Let's continue to work on the story, but also start brainstorming and prototyping abstract puzzles and combat sequences, and we'll creatively match them together later." Is this a reasonable approach? If so, how much of the development of these elements should be done independently? Should I try and create a whole bunch of puzzles while my other teammates focus on story and aesthetics? Then when we have a lot of story and game 'chunks' we can match them with eachother to build something meaningful. Or should we focus on iterating individual levels as distinct units where puzzles, story, etc... are designed together? Or maybe we need to put our excitement about the story on hold and just focus on gameplay. Is there another approach to design that we can take? Am I missing something crucial? I have discussed story and gameplay because they seem the most likely to be at odds with each other, but we also have to consider user interface, music, art direction, etc... Can we design these independently as well?

  Read the article

• Why is Spritebatch drawing my Textures out of order?

  - by Andrew

  I just started working with XNA Studio after programming 2D games in java. Because of this, I have absolutely no experience with Spritebatch and sprite sorting. In java, I could just layer the images by calling the draw methods in order. For a while, my Spritebatch was working fine in deferred sorting mode, but when I made a change to one of my textures, it suddenly started drawing them out of order. I have searched for a solution to this problem, but nothing seems to work. I have tried adding layer depths to the sprites and changing the sort mode to BackToFront or FrontToBack or even immediate, but nothing seems to work. Here is my drawing code: protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Gray); Game1.spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Deferred, BlendState.AlphaBlend, SamplerState.PointClamp, null, null); for (int x = 0; x < 5; x++) { for (int y = 0; y < 5; y++) { region[x, y].draw(((float)w / aw)); // Draws the Tile-Based background } } player.draw(spriteBatch, ((float)w / aw));//draws the character (This method is where the problem occurs) enemy.draw(spriteBatch, (float)w/aw); // draws a basic enemy Game1.spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } player.draw method: public void draw(SpriteBatch sb, float ratio){ //draws the player base (The character without hair or equipment) sb.Draw(playerbase[0], new Rectangle((int)(pos.X - (24 * ratio)), (int)(pos.Y - (48 * ratio)), (int)(48 * ratio), (int)(48 * ratio)), new Rectangle(orientation * 48, animFrame * 48, 48, 48), Color.White,0,Vector2.Zero,SpriteEffects.None,0); //draws the player's hair sb.Draw(playerbase[3], new Rectangle((int)(pos.X - (24 * ratio)), (int)(pos.Y - (48 * ratio)), (int)(48 * ratio), (int)(48 * ratio)), new Rectangle(orientation * 48, animFrame * 48, 48, 48), Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, SpriteEffects.None, 0); //draws the player's shirt sb.Draw(equipment[0], new Rectangle((int)(pos.X - (24 * ratio)), (int)(pos.Y - (48 * ratio)), (int)(48 * ratio), (int)(48 * ratio)), new Rectangle(orientation * 48, animFrame * 48, 48, 48), Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, SpriteEffects.None, 0); //draws the player's pants sb.Draw(equipment[1], new Rectangle((int)(pos.X - (24 * ratio)), (int)(pos.Y - (48 * ratio)), (int)(48 * ratio), (int)(48 * ratio)), new Rectangle(orientation * 48, animFrame * 48, 48, 48), Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, SpriteEffects.None, 0); //draws the player's shoes sb.Draw(equipment[2], new Rectangle((int)(pos.X - (24 * ratio)), (int)(pos.Y - (48 * ratio)), (int)(48 * ratio), (int)(48 * ratio)), new Rectangle(orientation * 48, animFrame * 48, 48, 48), Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, SpriteEffects.None, 0); } the game has a top-down perspective much like the early legend of zelda games. It draws sections of the texture depending on which direction the character is facing and the animation frame. However, instead of drawing the character in the order the draw methods are called, it ends up drawing the character out of order. Please help me with this problem.

  Read the article

• CRM vs VRM

  - by David Dorf

  In a previous post, I discussed the potential power of combining social, interest, and location graphs in order to personalize marketing and shopping experiences for consumers.  Marketing companies have been trying to collect detailed information for that very purpose, a large majority of which comes from tracking people on the internet.  But their approaches stem from the one-way nature of traditional advertising.  With TV, radio, and magazines there is no opportunity to truly connect to customers, which has trained marketing companies to [covertly] collect data and segment customers into easily identifiable groups.  To a large extent, we think of this as CRM. But what if we turned this viewpoint upside-down to accommodate for the two-way nature of social media?  The notion of marketing as conversations was the basis for the Cluetrain, an early attempt at drawing attention to the fact that customers are actually unique humans.  A more practical implementation is Project VRM, which is a reverse CRM of sorts.  Instead of vendors managing their relationships with customers, customers manage their relationships with vendors. Your shopping experience is not really controlled by you; rather, its controlled by the retailer and advertisers.  And unfortunately, they typically don't give you a say in the matter.  Yes, they might tailor the content for "female age 25-35 interested in shoes" but that's not really the essence of you, is it?  A better approach is to the let consumers volunteer information about themselves.  And why wouldn't they if it means a better, more relevant shopping experience?  I'd gladly list out my likes and dislikes in exchange for getting rid of all those annoying cookies on my harddrive. I really like this diagram from Beyond SocialCRM as it captures the differences between CRM and VRM. The closest thing to VRM I can find is Buyosphere, a start-up that allows consumers to track their shopping history across many vendors, then share it appropriately.  Also, Amazon does a pretty good job allowing its customers to edit their profile, which includes everything you've ever purchased from Amazon.  You can mark items as gifts, or explicitly exclude them from their recommendation engine.  This is a win-win for both the consumer and retailer. So here is my plea to retailers: Instead of trying to infer my interests from snapshots of my day, please just ask me.  We'll both have a better experience in the long-run.

  Read the article

• StreamInsight 1.0 Released

  - by Roman Schindlauer

  One piece in the set of products offered in SQL Server 2008 R2 that has generated a lot of buzz and interest during its CTP phase is StreamInsight, Microsoft’s platform for Complex Event Processing. Microsoft’s information platform vision provides enterprises with a “complete approach” to managing information assets, enabling all businesses to gain strategic value from information from the desktop to the datacenter to the cloud. And StreamInsight V1 is one essential piece in this spectrum. After more than a year of blood, sweat, tears, and insane amounts of coffee we are proud to release the first version of our Complex Event Processing Framework.   Those of you who have been following our Community Technology Previews (CTPs) throughout last year have already had the possibility to familiarize themselves with the product. Early feedback was not only incredibly positive, but also very constructive and strongly influenced the final feature set. Four notable increments over our last public CTP are: Count windows Non-occurrence detection (Anti-Join) Dynamic query composition at runtime Synchronize time across input streams Additionally, many smaller issues and bugs were addressed. A few APIs slightly changed with respect to the November CTP, but porting your application to RTM should not require a lot of effort.   Here are the (english) bits - choosing the evaluation license during setup lets you already play with this version. Before you install, make sure to uninstall any previous CTP version:   StreamInsight X86StreamInsight X64   Within a few days, we will update our product page and add download links and instructions there as well.   The StreamInsight documentation is provided through a help file as part of the installation as well as through Books Online on MSDN. We also invite you to visit the StreamInsight Blog and the StreamInsight Forum, which is a great place to discuss questions and issues with the community and the development team.   Regards,Roman Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• Game Review: God of Light

  Luckily I came across this title at a very early stage. If I remember correctly, I took notice of God of Light on Twitter right on the weekend it has been published on the Play Store. "Sit back and become immersed into the world of God of Light, the game that rethinks the physics puzzle genre with its unique environment exploration gameplay, amazing graphics and exclusive soundtrack created by electronic music icon UNKLE. Join cute game mascot, Shiny, on his way to saving the universe from the impending darkness. Play through a variety of exciting game worlds and dozens of levels with mind-blowing puzzles. Your goal is to explore game levels, seek for game objects that reflect, split, combine, paint, bend and teleport rays of light energy to activate the Sources of Life and bring light back to the universe." Mastering the various reflection items in God of Light is very easy to learn and new elements are introduced during the game. Amazing puzzle game Here's the initial review I posted on the Play Store: "Great change in puzzles Fantastic and refreshing concept of puzzle solving. The effects and the music match very well, putting the player in the right mood to game. Get enlightened and grow your skills until you are a true God of Light." And it remains true, even after completing the first realm completely. Similar to Quell it took me only a couple of hours during the evening to complete all levels in the available three realms, unfortunately. God of Light currently consists of 75 levels, well it's 25 in each realm to be precise, and the challenges are increasing. Compared to the iOS version from the AppStore, God of Light is available for free on Android - at least the first realm (25 levels). Unlocking the other two remaining realms is done through an in-app purchase. The visual appearance, the sound effects and the background music provided by UNKLE makes God of Light a superb package for any puzzle gamer. Whether it is simply reflecting light over multiple mirrors, or later on bending the rays of light with black holes, or using prisms to either split, enforce, or colourise your beam, God of Light is great fun and offers a good amount of joy. Check out the following screenshots for some impressions. God of Light: Astonishing graphics and visual appeal throughout the game God of Light - Introduction to the game during the first levels. New light items are introduced at each stage during the game play God of Light: Increasing complexity and puzzle fun Hopefully, Playmous is going to provide more astonishing looking realms and interesting gimmicks in future versions. Play Store: God of Light Also, check out the latest game updates on the official web site of Playmous

  Read the article

• Java EE 7 turns one today!

  - by delabassee

  "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." (Benjamin Franklin) Today marks the first year anniversary of Java EE 7. The JSR 342 specification was finalised on May 28, 2013 with the official launch taking place on June 12, 2013 (original press release). As of today, there are already 3 Java EE 7 compatible Application Servers, coming from different 'vendors' (Oracle, TmaxSoft and Red Hat). Two of those Java EE 7 Application Servers are free and open source. We expect the list of Java EE 7 compatible Application Servers to grow over the coming months. Source: RebelLabs - 'Java Tools and Technologies Landscape for 2014' According to a recent independent survey, one third of the Java EE users who participated in that survey is already using Java EE 7. This is a good sign but it also means that a lot of people are not yet on Java EE 7. So if you haven't yet embarked on Java EE 7, now is really the time to do so! There are various ways to learn Java EE 7, in no particular order ... Continue to read The Aquarium. Through this blog, we are relaying Java EE news but we are also doing our best to highlight relevant technical contents such as articles, community tutorials, etc. Watch the GlassFish YouTube channel. Amongst others, it contains the different videos of the Java EE 7 launch, those videos will give you good technical update on Java EE and its different components specifications (JMS 2.0, JAX-RS 2.0, EJB 3.2, etc.) Take a formal training. Oracle University is starting to roll-out Java EE 7 trainings like the 'Java EE 7: New Features' class.  Attend conferences and JUGs sessions. On that note, we have spent a lot of time to create a strong JavaOne 'Server-Side Java' track. It's still possible to benefit from the early bird JavaOne pricing but don't wait too much! Read books. There are more than 25 (!) books related to Java EE 7 or to one of the Java EE 7 component specification.  There are many more ways to learn Java EE but if I have to suggest one and only one way, I would recommend the Java EE 7 Tutorial. It's exhaustive and clear, it's free and it continues to evolve. And finally as the introductory quote suggest, participation is key to learning. Participate in JUGs,  participate in Adopt-a-JSR, get involved in the different open source communities evolving around Java EE, participate in the JCP... in one word, participate!

  Read the article

• Agile PLM Highlights from Oracle OpenWorld 2012

  - by Kerrie Foy

  Thank you to everyone who joined us at Oracle OpenWorld this year, either in person or virtually (thanks for tweeting #oowplm)!  From customer presentations to after-hours networking opportunities, there was a lot to see and do during the entire conference. Sessions It was our pleasure to feature several customer speakers during our PLM sessions at OpenWorld from such companies as Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Eli Lilly, and many more.  Each had a unique perspective to share and fascinating insight into how they successfully leverage Agile PLM to facilitate profitable innovation, protect brand integrity, streamline operations, manage compliance, launch faster, etc.  For example, during the Product Value Chain keynote session, CIO Chris Bedi of JDSU shared how they implemented Agile PLM to support business imperatives around rapid innovation, centralizing product information, collaboration, and eliminate the “Excel gymnastics” required to obtain global portfolio visibility. In just 120 days after implementing, JDSU employees reported significant improvements around product record management, new product introduction, engineering collaboration and more, which created a better work environment to enable critical innovation. I could write on and on about the almost 20 sessions! So to spare yourselves, please visit launch.oracle.com/?plmopenworld2012; it’s a curated selection of PLM presentations from the OpenWorld Content Catalog and available on-demand. Enjoy! Agile Innovation Management During OpenWorld, we announced an exciting new addition to the Agile PLM applications called Innovation Management that redefines the industry’s scope of product lifecycle management.  Our broad vision of complete enterprise PLM for the entire Product Value Chain already broke new ground by helping organizations extend PLM disciplines downstream by connecting product design to commercialization processes; now we are helping executives look farther upstream in the early innovation phases to ultimately close the gap between strategy and execution that so commonly nags innovation initiatives.  More on this coming soon so stay tuned! Unique Networking Opportunities  We know it can be challenging during OpenWorld to find time to productively connect and network with your industry peers, so we hosted an Agile PLM “Birds of a Feather” networking brunch for the second year in a row.  At a fine restaurant close to Moscone we hosted nine tables, each with only ten seats to encourage active conversation.  Furthermore, guests could select from a list of predetermined table topics sponsored by a specialized PLM partner to guarantee – even more so – that they were seated with like-minded company and optimizing their time at the conference.  Everyone enjoyed the opportunity to easily connect with other PLM users during OpenWorld in a more casual setting. What’s Next? Thank you again to all who joined us!  If you haven't yet, mark your calendar to join us for the next Oracle Agile PLM conference at the Value Chain Summit in San Francisco, February 4-6 in 2013!  We’ll have 40 sessions of PLM content in four tracks. Don’t miss it! You can sign up to be notified when official registration opens by visiting www.oracle.com/goto/vcs. 

  Read the article

• Suggestions for connecting .NET WPF GUI with Java SE Server

  - by Sam Goldberg

  BACKGROUND We are building a Java (SE) trading application which will be monitoring market data and sending trade messages based on the market data, and also on user defined configuration parameters. We are planning to provide the user with a thin client, built in .NET (WPF) for managing the parameters, controlling the server behavior, and viewing the current state of the trading. The client doesn't need real-time updates; it will instead update the view once every few seconds (or whatever interval is configured by the user). The client has about 6 different operations it needs to perform with the server, for example: CRUD with configuration parameters query subset of the data receive updates of current positions from server It is possible that most of the different operations (except for receiving data) are just different flavors of managing the configuration parameters, but it's too early in our analysis for us to be sure. To connect the client with the server, we have been considering using: SOAP Web Service RESTful service building a custom TCP/IP based API (text or xml) (least preferred - but we use this approach with other applications we have) As best as I understand, pros and cons of the different web service flavors are: SOAP pro: totally automated in .NET (and Java), modifying server side interface require no code changes in communication layer, just running refresh on Web Service reference to regenerate the classes. con: more overhead in the communication layer sending more text, etc. We're not using J2EE container so maybe doesn't work so well with J2SE REST pro: lighter weight, less data. Has good .NET and Java support. (I don't have any real experience with this, so don't know what other benefits it has.) con: client will not be automatically aware if there are any new operations or properties added (?), so communication layer needs to be updated by developer if server interface changes. con: (both approaches) Server cannot really push updates to the client at regular intervals (?) (However, we won't mind if client polls the server to get updates.) QUESTION What are your opinions on the above options or suggestions for other ways to connect the 2 parts? (Ideally, we don't want to put much work into the communication layer, because it's not the significant part of the application so the more off-the-shelf and automated the better.)

  Read the article

• Connect Team Foundation Service/TFS 2012 with Visual Studio 2010 &amp; Visual Studio 2008

  - by Vishal

  Hello, Microsoft finally released the Team Foundation Service in late October 2012 after its long time in the preview phase. I was already using the TFS Preview which was free but I was happy to see Microsoft releasing the Team Foundation Service also FREE for upto 5 users. Isn't that great news? I know there are bunch of other free source control repositories (Github, Bitbucket, SVN etc.) out there but I somehow like TFS better. Also the other good thing about the final release was that I didn’t had to do any kind of migration of my code from preview to final release version. Just changed the TFS connection URL and it worked like a charm. Anyways, if you are a startup with small team and need some awesome Source Control along with all the good Project Management, Continuous Integration (Build, Test, Deploy), Team Collaboration, Agile/Scrum planning etc. features than Team Foundation Service is your answer. Microsoft has not yet released their pricing for more than 5 users and will be releasing it sometime in early 2013. What if as of now you have a team more than 5 users and you want to use Team Foundation Service, the good news is you can use it for FREE but when they release the final pricing, you will have to transition to the paid plan. Lot of story, getting to the point, connecting to Team Foundation Service with Visual Studio 2012 is straight forward and would work out of the box but it wont for previous versions of Visual Studio. You will have to upgrade to the latest service pack first and than install the forward compatibility pack. (1st : Service Packs & 2nd: Forward Compatibility packs) For Visual Studio 2010: Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1. Visual Studio 2010 forward compatibility for TFS 2012 and Team Foundation Service.         For Visual Studio 2008: Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1. Visual Studio 2008 forward compatibility for TFS 2012 & Team Foundation Service. Restart your system. Visual Studio 2008 will not work if you only put https://xxx.visualstudio.com. You will have to put your collection name too as shown below.       By the way, it doesn’t matter if you are an Apple Application Developer or Android App Developer, you can still use Team Foundation Service as your source control. Below are few links to connect to Team Foundation Service with other IDEs: Connect Eclipse to Team Foundation Service. Connect XCode to Team Foundation Service. Happy coding. Vishal Mody

  Read the article

• 25 reasons to attend JavaOne 2012

  - by arungupta

  17th JavaOne is just around the corner, less than 3 weeks away! If you are still thinking about registering for the conference, here are my top 25 reasons to attend the conference: Biggest gathering of Java geeks in the world Latest and greatest content with 475 technical sessions/Birds of Feathers/Hands-on labs sessions (about 20% more from last year) Reduced number of keynotes to accommodate room for more technical content No product pitches, exclusive focus on technology (I can tell you that from my experience as a track lead) Sessions are divided in different in-depth technical tracks to focus on Java technology that most interests you Reruns of several popular sessions Experts and Practitioners-led HOLs and tutorials Rock star speakers, panelists, faculties, and instructors. Meet several Java Champions and JUG leaders from all around the world Engage with speakers and discuss with fellow developers in a casual setting with lots of networking space A complete conference dedicated for Java Embedded Extensive and fast-paced hands-on University Sessions on Sunday, learn while you are at the conference. You can register for Java University only or attend with the conference. Dukes Choice Awards recognize and celebrate the most innovative usage of the Java platform DEMOgrounds and Exhibition Hall provide extensive opportunities for networking and engagement with the biggest names in Java (dedicated hours on each day as well) Dedicated day for Java User Groups and Communities (GlassFish Community Event and NetBeans Community Day) Multiple registration packages to meet your needs Pay for 4 full conference passes and get a fifth one free Students and Bloggers get a free pass Geek Bike Ride with fellow speakers and attendees in a casual setting Greenest conference on the plane Enjoy different cuisines in the San Francisco city, take a trip to Alcatraz or Napa Valley or go running on the crooked street ;-) There are tons of tourist opportunities in/around San Francisco. Tons of parties during the conference, in the evening, late night, and early mornings. Don't forget Thirsty Bear Party! Pearl Jam and Kings of Leon at Appreciation Party Oracle Music Festival at Yerba Buena Gardens Grab the bragging rights "I have attended JavaOne"! Learn a new skill, build new connections, conceive a new idea and push the boundaries of Java in the most important educational and networking event of the year for Java developers and enthusiasts. With so much geekgasm going on during the 5 days of JavaOne, is there a reason for you to wait ? Register for the conference now! Grab your buttons, banners, and other collateral at JavaOne Toolkit. You can also send an email to [email protected]. And reach out to us using different social media channels ... As a 13 year veteran of the conference, I can tell this is some thing every Java developer must experience! I will be there, will you ?

  Read the article

• Are there deprecated practices for multithread and multiprocessor programming that I should no longer use?

  - by DeveloperDon

  In the early days of FORTRAN and BASIC, essentially all programs were written with GOTO statements. The result was spaghetti code and the solution was structured programming. Similarly, pointers can have difficult to control characteristics in our programs. C++ started with plenty of pointers, but use of references are recommended. Libraries like STL can reduce some of our dependency. There are also idioms to create smart pointers that have better characteristics, and some version of C++ permit references and managed code. Programming practices like inheritance and polymorphism use a lot of pointers behind the scenes (just as for, while, do structured programming generates code filled with branch instructions). Languages like Java eliminate pointers and use garbage collection to manage dynamically allocated data instead of depending on programmers to match all their new and delete statements. In my reading, I have seen examples of multi-process and multi-thread programming that don't seem to use semaphores. Do they use the same thing with different names or do they have new ways of structuring protection of resources from concurrent use? For example, a specific example of a system for multithread programming with multicore processors is OpenMP. It represents a critical region as follows, without the use of semaphores, which seem not to be included in the environment. th_id = omp_get_thread_num(); #pragma omp critical { cout << "Hello World from thread " << th_id << '\n'; } This example is an excerpt from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenMP Alternatively, similar protection of threads from each other using semaphores with functions wait() and signal() might look like this: wait(sem); th_id = get_thread_num(); cout << "Hello World from thread " << th_id << '\n'; signal(sem); In this example, things are pretty simple, and just a simple review is enough to show the wait() and signal() calls are matched and even with a lot of concurrency, thread safety is provided. But other algorithms are more complicated and use multiple semaphores (both binary and counting) spread across multiple functions with complex conditions that can be called by many threads. The consequences of creating deadlock or failing to make things thread safe can be hard to manage. Do these systems like OpenMP eliminate the problems with semaphores? Do they move the problem somewhere else? How do I transform my favorite semaphore using algorithm to not use semaphores anymore?

  Read the article

• Getting Started with Kinect for Windows.

  - by Vishal

  Hello folks,      Recently I got involved in a project for building a demo application for one of our customers with Kinect for Windows. Yes, something similar what Tom Cruise did in the movie Minority Report. Waving arms, moving stuff around, swipes, speech recognition, manipulating computer screens without even touching it. Pretty cool!!! The idea in the movie showed us how technology would be after 50 years from that day.   Minority Report Movie clip.           Well, that 50 years of time frame got squeezed and recently on Feb 1st 2012, Microsoft released the official Kinect for Windows SDK. That’s just 10 years from the movie release. Although, the product is in it early stages but with developer creativity and continuously improving hardware, those features shown in the movie are not very far away from becoming a reality. Soon after releasing the SDK, Microsoft again announced in March the release of its new Kinect for Windows SDK version 1.5 which is coming out in sometime May. More history about Kinect. Anyways, so for a newbie with Kinect, where would you start. Here is what I would suggest you can do. Watch the Kinect for Windows Quick start Series by Den Fernandez. Download the Kinect for Windows SDK and start playing around with the demos in it. It also comes with some basic Kinect documentation. Coding4Fun Kinect Projects | Lot many more videos and open sources projects information. Kinect for Windows Session at Techdays NL demo by Jesus Rodriguez. Book: Beginning Kinect Programming with the Microsoft Kinect SDK.  | I did go through few of the chapters in this book and based on that, it does talk deeply about core Kinect concepts but in very easy to understand way. I would definitely suggest this book for any Kinect developers. I liked the way it explained the Gestures recognition in Chapter 6. Buy your Kinect device from either Amazon or NewEgg. You will get it cheaper then buying it from Microsoft Store. Personally, I love Newegg.com as I never had any order related or shipping issues with them. I always hate developing UI application but well, you would need to get your hands dirty with WPF too in order to work with Kinect. So get started with WPF concepts too. I will keep adding stuff to the list once I come across them but so far the above list would definitely get you started building your first Kinect apps. Till then Happy Kinecting…!!!!! Thanks, Vishal Mody

  Read the article

• Suggestions for connecting .NET WPF GUI with Java SE Server aoo

  - by Sam Goldberg

  BACKGROUND We are building a Java (SE) trading application which will be monitoring market data and sending trade messages based on the market data, and also on user defined configuration parameters. We are planning to provide the user with a thin client, built in .NET (WPF) for managing the parameters, controlling the server behavior, and viewing the current state of the trading. The client doesn't need real-time updates; it will instead update the view once every few seconds (or whatever interval is configured by the user). The client has about 6 different operations it needs to perform with the server, for example: CRUD with configuration parameters query subset of the data receive updates of current positions from server It is possible that most of the different operations (except for receiving data) are just different flavors of managing the configuration parameters, but it's too early in our analysis for us to be sure. To connect the client with the server, we have been considering using: SOAP Web Service RESTful service building a custom TCP/IP based API (text or xml) (least preferred - but we use this approach with other applications we have) As best as I understand, pros and cons of the different web service flavors are: SOAP pro: totally automated in .NET (and Java), modifying server side interface require no code changes in communication layer, just running refresh on Web Service reference to regenerate the classes. con: more overhead in the communication layer sending more text, etc. We're not using J2EE container so maybe doesn't work so well with J2SE REST pro: lighter weight, less data. Has good .NET and Java support. (I don't have any real experience with this, so don't know what other benefits it has.) con: client will not be automatically aware if there are any new operations or properties added (?), so communication layer needs to be updated by developer if server interface changes. con: (both approaches) Server cannot really push updates to the client at regular intervals (?) (However, we won't mind if client polls the server to get updates.) QUESTION What are your opinions on the above options or suggestions for other ways to connect the 2 parts? (Ideally, we don't want to put much work into the communication layer, because it's not the significant part of the application so the more off-the-shelf and automated the better.)

  Read the article

• WebLogic Server Weekly for March 26th, 2012: WLS 1211 Update, Java 7 Certification, Galleria, WebLogic for DBAs, REST and Enterprise Architecture, Singleton Services

  - by Steve Button

  WebLogic Server 12c Certified with Java 7 for Production Use WebLogic Server 12c (12.1.1) has been certified with JDK 7 for development usage since December and we have now completed JDK 7 certification for use with production systems. In doing so, we have updated the WebLogic Server 12c (12.1.1) distributions incorporating fixes associated with JDK 7 support as well as some bundled patches that address several issues that have been discovered since the initial release. These updated distributions are available for download from OTN and will be beneficial for all WebLogic Server 12c (12.1.1) users in general. What's New Release Notes Download Here! Updated Oracle WebLogic Server 12.1.1.0 distribution Never one to miss a trick, Markus Eisele was one of the first to notice the WebLogic Server 12c update and post a blog about it. Sources told me that as of Friday last week you have an updated version of WebLogic Server 12c on OTN. http://blog.eisele.net/2012/03/updated-oracle-weblogic-server-12110.html Using WebLogic Server 12c with Java 7 - Video To illustrate the use of Java 7 with WebLogic Server 12c, I put together a screen cam showing the creation of a domain using Java 7 and then build and deploy a simple web application that uses Java 7 syntax to show it working. Ireland OUG Presentation: WebLogic for DBAs Simon Haslam posted his slides from a presentation he gave Dublin on 21/3/12 at the OUG Ireland conference. In this presentation, he explains the core concepts and ideas behind WebLogic Server, walks through an installation and offers some tips and common gotcha's to avoid. Simon also covers some aspects of installing and use Enterprise Manager 12c. Note: I usually install the JVM and use the generic .jar installer rather than using an installer bundled with a JVM. http://www.slideshare.net/Veriton/weblogic-for-dbas-10h Slightly Retro: Jeff West on Enterprise Architecure and REST In this weeks flashback, we look at Jeff West's blog from early 2011 where he provides some thoughtful opinions on enterprise architecture and innovation, then jumps into his views on REST. After I progressed in my career and did more team-leading and architecture type roles I was ‘educated’ on what it meant to have Asynchronous and Long-Running processes as part of your Enterprise Application architecture. If I had a synchronous process then I needed a thread available to service the request and then provide the response. https://blogs.oracle.com/jeffwest/entry/weblogic_integration_wli_web_services_and_soap_and_rest_part_1 Starting Managed Servers without an Administration Server using Node Manager and WLST Blogger weblogic-tips shows how to start a managed server without going through the Administration Server, using the Node Manager and WLST. Connect WLST to a Node Manager by entering the nmConnect command. http://www.weblogic-tips.com/2012/02/18/starting-managed-servers-without-an-administration-server-using-node-manager-and-wlst/ Using WebLogic Server Singleton Services WebLogic Server has supported the notion of a Singleton Service for a number of releases, in which WebLogic Server will maintain a single instance of a configured singleton service on one managed server within a cluster. This blog demonstrates how the singleton service can be accessed and used from applications deployed on the cluster. http://buttso.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/weblogic-server-singleton-services.html

  Read the article

• Library to fake intermittent failures according to tester-defined policy?

  - by crosstalk

  I'm looking for a library that I can use to help mock a program component that works only intermittently - usually, it works fine, but sometimes it fails. For example, suppose I need to read data from a file, and my program has to avoid crashing or hanging when a read fails due to a disk head crash. I'd like to model that by having a mock data reader function that returns mock data 90% of the time, but hangs or returns garbage otherwise. Or, if I'm stress-testing my full program, I could turn on debugging code in my real data reader module to make it return real data 90% of the time and hang otherwise. Now, obviously, in this particular example I could just code up my mock manually to test against a random() routine. However, I was looking for a system that allows implementing any failure policy I want, including: Fail randomly 10% of the time Succeed 10 times, fail 4 times, repeat Fail semi-randomly, such that one failure tends to be followed by a burst of more failures Any policy the tester wants to define Furthermore, I'd like to be able to change the failure policy at runtime, using either code internal to the program under test, or external knobs or switches (though the latter can be implemented with the former). In pig-Java, I'd envision a FailureFaker interface like so: interface FailureFaker { /** Return true if and only if the mocked operation succeeded. Implementors should override this method with versions consistent with their failure policy. */ public boolean attempt(); } And each failure policy would be a class implementing FailureFaker; for example there would be a PatternFailureFaker that would succeed N times, then fail M times, then repeat, and a AlwaysFailFailureFaker that I'd use temporarily when I need to simulate, say, someone removing the external hard drive my data was on. The policy could then be used (and changed) in my mock object code like so: class MyMockComponent { FailureFaker faker; public void doSomething() { if (faker.attempt()) { // ... } else { throw new RuntimeException(); } } void setFailurePolicy (FailureFaker policy) { this.faker = policy; } } Now, this seems like something that would be part of a mocking library, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's been done before. (In fact, I got the idea from Steve Maguire's Writing Solid Code, where he discusses this exact idea on pages 228-231, saying that such facilities were common in Microsoft code of that early-90's era.) However, I'm only familiar with EasyMock and jMockit for Java, and neither AFAIK have this function, or something similar with different syntax. Hence, the question: Do such libraries as I've described above exist? If they do, where have you found them useful? If you haven't found them useful, why not?

  Read the article

• SQLAuthority News – Download Whitepaper – SQL Server Analysis Services to Hive

  - by pinaldave

  The SQL Server Analysis Service is a very interesting subject and I always have enjoyed learning about it. You can read my earlier article over here. Big Data is my new interest and I have been exploring it recently. During this weekend this blog post caught my attention and I enjoyed reading it. Big Data is the next big thing. The growth is predicted to be 60% per year till 2016. There is no single solution to the growing need of the big data available in the market right now as well there is no one solution in the business intelligence eco-system available as well. However, the need of the solution is ever increasing. I am personally Klout user. You can see my Klout profile over. I do understand what Klout is trying to achieve – a single place to measure the influence of the person. However, it works a bit mysteriously. There are plenty of social media available currently in the internet world. The biggest problem all the social media faces is that everybody opens an account but hardly people logs back in. To overcome this issue and have returned visitors Klout has come up with the system where visitors can give 5/10 K+ to other users in a particular area. Looking at all the activities Klout is doing it is indeed big consumer of the Big Data as well it is early adopter of the big data and Hadoop based system.  Klout has to 1 trillion rows of data to be analyzed as well have nearly thousand terabyte warehouse. Hive the language used for Big Data supports Ad-Hoc Queries using HiveQL there are always better solutions. The alternate solution would be using SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) along with HiveQL. As there is no direct method to achieve there are few common workarounds already in place. A new ODBC driver from Klout has broken through the limitation and SQL Server Relation Engine can be used as an intermediate stage before SSAS. In this white paper the same solutions have been discussed in the depth. The white paper discusses following important concepts. The Klout Big Data solution Big Data Analytics based on Analysis Services Hadoop/Hive and Analysis Services integration Limitations of direct connectivity Pass-through queries to linked servers Best practices and lessons learned This white paper discussed all the important concepts which have enabled Klout to go go to the next level with all the offerings as well helped efficiency by offering a few out of the box solutions. I personally enjoy reading this white paper and I encourage all of you to do so. SQL Server Analysis Services to Hive Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• 0xC0017011 and other error messages - what is the error message text?

  Recently there was a bug raised against BIDS Helper which originated in my Expression Editor control. Thankfully the person that raised it kindly included a screenshot, so I had the error code (HRESULT 0xC0017011) and a stack trace that pointed the finger firmly at my control, but no error message text. The code itself looked fine so I searched on the error code but got no results. I’d expected to get a hit from Books Online with the Integration Services Error and Message Reference topic at the very least, but no joy. There is however a more accurate and definitive reference, namely the header file that defines all these codes dtsmsg.h which you can find at- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\SDK\Include\dtsmsg.h Looking the code up in the header file gave me a much more useful error message. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // The parameter is sensitive // // MessageId: DTS_E_SENSITIVEPARAMVALUENOTALLOWED // // MessageText: // // Accessing value of the parameter variable for the sensitive parameter "%1!s!" is not allowed. Verify that the variable is used properly and that it protects the sensitive information. // #define DTS_E_SENSITIVEPARAMVALUENOTALLOWED ((HRESULT)0xC0017011L) Unfortunately I’d forgotten all about this. By the time I had remembered about it, the person who raised the issue had managed to narrow it down to something to do with having  sensitive parameter. Putting that together with the error message I’d finally found, a quick poke around in the code and I found the new GetSensitiveValue method which seemed to do the trick. The HResult fields are also listed online but it only shows the short error message, and it doesn’t include that all so important HRESULT value itself. So let this be a lesson to you (and me!), if you need to check  SSIS error go straight to the horses mouth - dtsmsg.h. This is particularly true when working with early builds, or CTP releases when we expect the documentation to be a bit behind. There is also a programmatic approach to getting better SSIS error messages. I should to take another look at the error handling in the control, or the way it is hosted in BIDS Helper. I suspect that if I use an implementation of Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.Wrapper.IDTSInfoEvents100 I could catch the error itself and get the full error message text which I could then report back. This would obviously be a better user experience and also make it easier to diagnose any issues like this in the future. See ExprssionEvaluator.cs for an example of this in use in the Expression Editor control.

  Read the article

• Android Touch Event Collision Detection

  - by chrissb

  I'm relatively new to both Java and Android, so hopefully the problem I'm having is stemming from something pretty minor that I've overlooked. I've got a (very early stage) game that I've started working on, for Android using Java. At this stage, when the user touches the screen, if they touched a point at which there is an enemy, the enemies health is decreased and they become immobile (for the current implementation at least). The issue that I'm having is that the touch detection doesn't always seem to work. I've got a testing sprite set up that goes to the eventX and eventY coordinates of the touch down event, and it always seems to collide with the enemy object. Yet, the enemy doesn't always register as being hit, and sometimes a hit is registered when the sprite indicates the touch coordinates were outside of the enemies bounding box. I realise that this probably doesn't mean much without any code, so here's what I've got so far. Be gentle, as this is literally my first attempt at something more than basic movement etc. First off, the MainGamePanel class registers the touch event, and informs the levelmanager class (which is what I set up to monitor/handle enemies) public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) { if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN){ levelManager.handleActionDown((int)event.getX(), (int)event.getY()); targetX=event.getX(); targetY=event.getY(); } if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE) { //the gestures } if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) { //touch was released } return true; } From there, in the levelmanager class the touch event is passed on to all of the enemies within a list array: public static void handleActionDown(int eventX,int eventY){ hit=false; for (enemy1 en : enemy1array){ en.handleActionDown(eventX, eventY); } } The rest of the collision code is handled within the enemies handleActionDown function: public void handleActionDown(int eventX, int eventY) { if(eventX>this.x-enemy1bitmap.getWidth() && eventX<this.x+enemy1bitmap.getWidth() && eventY>this.y-enemy1bitmap.getHeight() && eventY<this.x+enemy1bitmap.getHeight()){ takeDamage(1); levelmanager.setHit(); } } I should probably be using getWidth()/2 and getHeight()/2 for it to be more accurate, but I expanded the area to test this - although I've noticed no improvement. At this stage, the games detection over whether or not the enemy is hit is spotty at best. Generally it takes two or three attempts before a collision is successfully registered, even though the sprite that is being used for testing and set to the eventX and eventY coordinates always indicates that the collision should have worked. Hopefully someone can steer me in the right direction here, and if more information is needed, ask away! Cheers, -Chris

  Read the article

• Referencing a picture in another DLL in Silverlight and Windows Phone 7

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  This one has burned me a few times, so here is how it works for future reference: Usually, when I add an Image control into a Silverlight application, and the picture it shows is local (as opposed to loaded from the web), I set the picture’s Build Action to Content, and the Copy to Output Directory to Copy if Newer. What the compiler does then is to copy the picture to the bin\Debug folder, and then to pack it into the XAP file. In XAML, the syntax to refer to this local picture is: <Image Source="/Images/mypicture.jpg" Width="100" Height="100" /> And in C#: return new BitmapImage(new Uri( "/Images/mypicture.jpg", UriKind.Relative)); One of the features of Silverlight is to allow referencing content (pictures, resource dictionaries, sound files, movies etc…) located in a DLL directly. This is very handy because just by using the right syntax in the URI, you can do this in XAML directly, for example with: <Image Source="/MyApplication;component/Images/mypicture.jpg" Width="100" Height="100" /> In C#, this becomes: return new BitmapImage(new Uri( "/MyApplication;component/Images/mypicture.jpg", UriKind.Relative)); Side note: This kind of URI is called a pack URI and they have been around since the early days of WPF. There is a good tutorial about pack URIs on MSDN. Even though it refers to WPF, it also applies to Silverlight Side note 2: With the Build Action set to Content, you can rename the XAP file to ZIP, extract all the files, change the picture (but keep the same name), rezip the whole thing and rename again to XAP. This is not possible if the picture is embedded in an assembly! So what’s the catch? Well the catch is that this does not work if you set the Build Action to Content. It’s actually pretty simple to explain: The pack URI above tells the Silverlight runtime to look within an assembly named MyOtherAssembly for a file named MyPicture.jpg in the Images folder. If the file is included as Content, however, it is not in the assembly. Silverlight does not find it, and silently returns nothing. The image is not displayed. And the fix? The fix, for class libraries, is to set the Build Action to Resource. With this, the picture will gets packed into the DLL itself. Of course, this will increase the size of the DLL, and any change to the picture will require recompiling the class library, which is not ideal. But in the cases where you want to distribute pictures (icons etc) together with a plug-in assembly, well, this is a good way to have everything in the same place Happy coding, Laurent   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

  Read the article

• NuGet JustMock

  - by mehfuzh

  As most of us already know JustMock got  a free edition. The free edition is not a stripped down of the features of the full edition but I would rather say its a strip down of the type you can mock. Technically, free version runs on  proxy as full version runs on proxy + profiler. In full version, It switches to profiler when you are mocking final methods or sealed class or anything else that can not be done using inheritance. Like in full version you can mock non public methods , in free version you can still do it but it has to be virtual for protected or must be done through InternalsVisibleTo attribute for internal virtual methods (If you have access to the source and can apply the attribute). Now, you can get a copy of free edition from the product page. Install it and off you go. But it is also exposed to NuGet. Those of you are not familiar with NuGet (that will be odd). But still NuGet is the centralized package manager from Microsoft that cuts the workflow of manual inclusion of  libraries in your project. I think NuGet in future will limit the scope of  “.vsi” packages and installers because of its ease (except in some cases). Its similar to ruby gems. In ruby, virtually you can install any library in this way “gems  install <target_library>” and you are off to go. It will check the dependencies, install them or less prompt with the steps you need to do.   Now sticking to the post, to get started you first need to install NuGet package manager. Once you have completed the step pressing “Ctrl + W, Ctrl + Z” it will bring up an console like one below:   Once you are here, you just have to type “install-package justmock” Next, it will should print the confirmation when the installation is complete: Moving to visual studio solution explorer, you will now see:   Finally, NuGet is still in its early ages and steps that are shown here may not remain the same in coming releases, but feel free to enjoy what is out there right now. Regarding JustMock free edition, there is a nice post by Phil Japikse at Introducing JustMock Free Edition. I think its worth checking if not already.   Have fun and happy holidays!

  Read the article

• Principles of an extensible data proxy

  - by Wesley

  There is a growing industry now with more than 30 companies playing in the Backend-As-A-Service (BaaS) market. The principle is simple: give companies a secure way of exposing data housed on premises and behind the firewall publicly. This can include database data, as well as Legacy PC data through established connectors; SAP for example provides a connector for transacting with their legacy systems. Early attempts were fixed providers for specific systems like SAP, IBM or Oracle, but the new breed is extensible, allowing Channel Partners and Consultants to build robust integration applications that can consume whatever data sources the client wants to expose. I just happen to be close to finishing a Cloud Based HTML5 application platform that provides robust integration services, and I would like to break ground on an extensible data proxy to complete the system. From what I can gather, I need to provide either an installable web service of some kind, or a Cloud service which the client can configure with VPN for interactions. Then I can build in connectors, which can be activated with a service account, and expose those transactions via web services of some kind (JSON, SOAP, etc). I can also provide a framework that allows people to build in their own connectors, and use some kind of schema to hook those connectors into the proxy. The end result is some kind of public facing web service that could securely be consumed by applications to show data through HTML5 on any device. My gut is, this isn't as hard as it sounds. Almost all of the 30+ companies (With more popping up almost weekly) have all come into existence in the last 18 months or so, which tells me either the root technology, or the skillset to create the technology is in abundance right now. Where should I start on this? Are there some open source projects I can leverage? A specific group of developers I can hire? I'm confident someone here can set me on the right path and save me some time. You don't see this many companies spring up this rapidly if they are all starting from scratch with proprietary technology. The Register: WTF is BaaS One Minute Video from Kony on their BaaS

  Read the article

• Introducing Agile development after traditional project inception

  - by Riggy

  About a year and a half ago, I entered a workplace that claimed to do Agile development. What I learned was that this place has adopted several agile practices (such as daily standups, sprint plannings and sprint reviews) but none of the principles (just in time / just good enough mentality, exposing failure early, rich communication). I've now been tasked with making the team more agile and I've been assured that I have complete buy-in from the devs and the business team. As a pilot program, they've given me a project that just completed 15 months of requirements gathering, has a 110 page Analysis & Design document (to be considered as "written in stone"), and where I have no access to the end users (only to the committee made up of the users' managers who won't actually be using the product). I started small, giving them a list of expected deliverables for the first 5 sprints (leaving the future sprints undefined), a list of goals for the first sprint, and I dissected the A&D doc to get enough user stories to meet the first sprint's goals. Since then, they've asked why we don't have all the requirements for all the sprints, why I haven't started working on stuff for the third sprint (which they consider more important but is based off of the deliverables of the first 2 sprints) and are pressing for even more documentation that my entire IT team considers busy-work or un-related to us (such as writing the user manual up-front, documenting all the data fields from all the sprints up front, and more "up-front" work). This has been pretty rough for me as a new project manager, but there are improvements I have effectively implemented such as scrumban for story management, pair programming, and having the business give us customer acceptance tests up front (as part of the requirements documentation). So my questions are: What can I do to more effectively introduce change to a resistant business? Are there other practices that I can introduce on the IT side to help show the business the benefits of agile? The burden of documentation is strangling us - the business still sees it as a risk management strategy instead of as a risk. What can we do to alleviate their documentation concerns and demands (specifically the quantity of documentation and their need for all of it up front)? We are in a separate building from our business, about 3 blocks away and they refuse to have their people on the project co-habitate b/c that person "won't be able to work on their other projects while they're at our building." They expect us to always go over there and to bundle our questions so that we can ask them all at once and not waste that person's time with "constant interruptions." What can we do to get richer communication from them? Any additional advice would also be appreciated. Thanks!

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58  | Next Page >