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• How can you achieve and maintain flow while pair programming?

  - by bizso09

  Flow is a concept introduced by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; in short, it means to get into the "zone". You feel immersed in your task, focused; the task can be difficult but challenging at the same time. When people achieve flow their productivity shoots up. Programming requires a great deal of mental focus because we often need to juggle several things in our minds at once. Many like to work in a quiet environment where they can direct their full attention to the task. If they are interrupted, it may take several minutes or even hours to get back into flow. I understand there's a practice in agile development and extreme programming called pair programming. It means you put the whole software development team in one room so that communication is seamless. You do write code with your pair because this way you get instant code reviews and fewer bugs get through. I've always had problems achieving flow while doing pair programming because of constant interruptions. I'm thinking deep about an issue then all of sudden someone asks me a question from another pair. My train of thought is lost. How can you achieve and maintain flow while pair programming?

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• Standards & compliances for secure web application development?

  - by MarkusK

  I am working with developers right now that write code the way they want and when i tell them to do it other way they respond that its just matter of preference how to do it and they have their way and i have mine. I am not talking about the formatting of code, but rather of way site is organized in classes and the way the utilize them. and the way they create functions and process forms etc. Their coding does not match my standards, but again they argue that its matter of preference and as long as goal achieved the can be different way's to do it. I agree but their way is proven to have bugs and we spend a lot of time going back and forth with them to fix all problems security or functionality, yet they still write same code no matter how many times i asked them to stop doing certain things. Now i am ready to dismiss them but friend of mine told me that he has same exact problem with freelance developers he work with. So i don't want to trade one bad apple for another. Question is is there some world wide (or at least europe and usa) accepted standard or compliance on how write secure web based applications. What application architecture should be for maintainable application. Is there are some general standard that can be used for any language ruby php or java govern security and functionality and quality of code? Or at least for PHP and MySQL i use for my website. So i can make them follow this strict standard and stop making excuses.

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• Pandaboard crash on startup or freeze after minutes

  - by Meach

  I just received my Pandaboard ES (rev B) and I am having trouble after installing ubuntu-omap4-addons. Once I copied the image ubuntu-12.04-preinstalled-desktop-armhf+omap4.img on my sd card and boot the pandaboard with it, I run the following commands: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tiomap-dev/release sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade sudo apt-get install ubuntu-omap4-extras At the end of the installation of ubuntu-omap4-extras, Ubuntu tells me that a problem occurs when the console displays: ldconfig deferred processing now taking place Clicking on "report the problem" tell me that the problem concerns pvr-omap4-dkms. I read somewhere that this can happen and it is better to reinstall pvr-omap4-dkms. Which I am doing by running: sudo apt-get install --reinstall pvr-omap4-dkms I reboot. Then the board has sometimes difficulties to start Ubuntu: it freezes during the loading page, only action I can do is unplugging the board to start it again. Some other times, Ubuntu load successfully but then freeze at another random time, in the range 20 - 40 minutes. I searched on internet for similar bug and found this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-ti-omap4/+bug/971091 So I typed this in: update-rc.d ondemand disable apt-get -y install cpufrequtils echo 'ENABLE="true" GOVERNOR="performance" MAX_SPEED="0" MIN_SPEED="0"' > /etc/default/cpufrequtils cpufreq-set -r -g performance reboot But it doesn't seems to fix the bug. Another detail: on startup, before the loading screen of Ubuntu (when there is the two penguins displayed :)), it shows this: [0.297271] CPU1: Unknown IPI message 0x1 [0.308990] omap_hwmod: mcpdm: _wait_target_ready error: -16 [0.354705] omap_mux_get_by_name: Could not find signal uart1_cts.uart1_cts [0.354766] omap_hwmod_mux_init: Could not allocate device mux entry [2.107086] thermal_get_slope:Getting slope is not supported for domain gpu [2.107116] thermal_get_offset:Getting offset is not supported for domain gpu [2.107299] stm_fw: vendor driver stm_ti1.0 registered [8.725555] OMAPRPC: Registration of OMAPRPC rpmsg service returned 0! debug=0 Any idea what can be wrong? I am not that good with Ubuntu so any help will be appreciated. Cheers! Meach

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• Sucking Less Every Year ?

  - by AdityaGameProgrammer

  Sucking Less Every Year A trail of thought that had been on my mind for a while Quoting directly from the post I've often thought that sucking less every year is how humble programmers improve. You should be unhappy with code you wrote a year ago. If you aren't, that means either A) you haven't learned anything in a year, B) your code can't be improved, or C) you never revisit old code. All of these are the kiss of death for software developers. How often does this happen or not happen to you? How long before you see an actual improvement in your coding ? month, year? Do you ever revisit Your old code? How often does your old code plague you? or how often do you have to deal with your technical debt. It is definitely very painful to fix old bugs n dirty code that we may have done to quickly meet a deadline and those quick fixes ,some cases we may have to rewrite most of the application/code. No arguments about that. Some of the developers i had come across argued that they were already at the evolved stage where their coding doesn't need improvement or cant get improved anymore. Does this happen? If so how many years into coding on a particular language does one expect this to happen?

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• What is the value to checking in broken unit tests?

  - by Adam W.

  While there are ways of keeping unit tests from being executed, what is the value of checking in broken unit tests? I will use a simple example. Case sensitivity. The current code is Case Sensitive. A valid input into the method is "Cat" and it would return an enum of Animal.Cat. However, the desired functionality of the method should not be case sensitive. So if the method described was passed "cat" it could possibly return something like Animal.Null instead of Animal.Cat and the unit test would fail. Though a simple code change would make this work, a more complex issue may take weeks to fix, but identifying the bug with a unit test could be a less complex task. The application currently being analyzed has 4 years of code that "works". However, recent discussions regarding unit tests has found flaws in the code. Some just need explicit implementation documentation (ex. case sensitive or not), or code that does not execute the bug based on how it is currently called. But unit tests can be created executing specific scenarios that will cause the bug to be seen and are valid inputs. What is the value of checking in unit tests that exercise the bug until someone can get around to fixing the code? Should this unit test be flagged with ignore, priority, category etc, to determine whether a build was successful based on tests executed? Eventually the unit test should be created to execute the code once someone fixes it. On one hand it shows that identified bugs have not been fixed. On the other, there could be hundreds of failed unit tests showing up in the logs and weeding through the ones that should fail vs. failures due to a code check-in would be difficult to find.

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• When module calling gets ugly

  - by Pete

  Has this ever happened to you? You've got a suite of well designed, single-responsibility modules, covered by unit tests. In any higher-level function you code, you are (95% of the code) simply taking output from one module and passing it as input to the next. Then, you notice this higher-level function has turned into a 100+ line script with multiple responsibilities. Here is the problem. It is difficult (impossible) to test that script. At least, it seems so. Do you agree? In my current project, all of the bugs came from this script. Further detail: each script represents a unique solution, or algorithm, formed by using different modules in different ways. Question: how can you remedy this situation? Knee-jerk answer: break the script up into single-responsibility modules. Comment on knee-jerk answer: it already is! Best answer I can come up with so far: create higher-level connector objects which "wire" modules together in particular ways (take output from one module, feed it as input to another module). Thus if our script was: FooInput fooIn = new FooInput(1, 2); FooOutput fooOutput = fooModule(fooIn); Double runtimevalue = getsomething(fooOutput.whatever); BarInput barIn = new BarInput( runtimevalue, fooOutput.someOtherValue); BarOutput barOut = barModule(BarIn); It would become with a connector: FooBarConnectionAlgo fooBarConnector = new fooBarConnector(fooModule, barModule); FooInput fooIn = new FooInput(1, 2); BarOutput barOut = fooBarConnector(fooIn); So the advantage is, besides hiding some code and making things clearer, we can test FooBarConnectionAlgo. I'm sure this situation comes up a lot. What do you do?

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• How to proceed when a bug in open source libraries is suspected?

  - by Suma

  We are using some open source libraries in our projects. Sometimes there are some issues found in some of them (most likely library bugs, but it may also be a wrong usage from our side, especially when sometimes documentation is not exactly 100 % complete). As the libraries are often quite complex, debugging them to pinpoint the source of the problem is sometimes quite hard. Can you help me to summarize what other options are there and how to exactly proceed with them? I have just recently hit some strange problems when using TCMalloc (Google scalable memory allocator) on Windows, so I would most welcome answers which would apply to this particular library, but more general answers are good as well. 1) Ask the maintainer/owner of the project for assistance. How can this be done? 2) Hire someone to identify and fix the issue. How to do this? How can I find someone with enough expertise in some particular library? ... any other options?

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• Count function on tree structure (non-binary)

  - by Spevy

  I am implementing a tree Data structure in c# based (largely on Dan Vanderboom's Generic implementation). I am now considering approach on handling a Count property which Dan does not implement. The obvious and easy way would be to use a recursive call which Traverses the tree happily adding up nodes (or iteratively traversing the tree with a Queue and counting nodes if you prefer). It just seems expensive. (I also may want to lazy load some of my nodes down the road). I could maintain a count at the root node. All children would traverse up to and/or hold a reference to the root, and update a internally settable count property on changes. This would push the iteration problem to when ever I want to break off a branch or clear all children below a given node. Generally less expensive, and puts the heavy lifting what I think will be less frequently called functions. Seems a little brute force, and that usually means exception cases I haven't thought of yet, or bugs if you prefer. Does anyone have an example of an implementation which keeps a count for an Unbalanced and/or non-binary tree structure rather than counting on the fly? Don't worry about the lazy load, or language. I am sure I can adjust the example to fit my specific needs. EDIT: I am curious about an example, rather than instructions or discussion. I know this is not technically difficult...

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• How to stay creative when going through tough emotional times (divorce, family death, etc)? [closed]

  - by gaearon

  Hi everyone. I believe this is not a duplicate of motivation question because I want to especially emphasize the emotional breakdown. You may conquer lack of motivation by working harder and getting through the dip, however this was not the case when I was separating with my girlfriend. I actually liked the project, it was (and it still is!) my first programming job at an amazing workplace and I wasn't being pressured in any way but I found myself absolutely unable to code, blankly staring at the screen, my thoughts disorganized, the feeling of emptiness all in my chest. I could perform some straightforward coding but anything that involves creative thinking, designing abstractions, solving new problems and, worst of all, fixing bugs in legacy code, completely wiped out my brain to the point I started avoiding work, which I never have done before. Coffee only used to make it worse. Eventually I got over that, and I remember the happy day I solved a problem elegantly and thought—hell, first time in a month! Thankfully the project wasn't top priority and I had the time to catch up. I wonder now, was there any other way to boost my productivity back then? I bet people would say I should've taken a break—and I think I really should have—but what if I needed the money? Didn't want to lose my job? Are there any ways to trick your brain into being creative despite emotional losses? From your experience, would it be worth talking to my boss, collegues?

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• How to convince a client to switch to a framework *now*; also examples of great, large-scale php applications.

  - by cbrandolino

  Hi everybody. I'm about to start working on a very ambitious project that, in my opinion, has some great potential for what concerns the basic concept and the implementation ideas (implementation as in how this ideas will be implemented, not as in programming). The state of the code right now is unluckily subpar. It's vanilla php, no framework, no separation between application and visualization logic. It's been done mostly by amateur students (I know great amateur/student programmers, don't get me wrong: this was not the case though). The clients are really great, and they know the system won't scale and needs a redesign. The problem is, they would like to launch a beta ASAP and then think of rebuilding. Since just the basic functionalities are present now, I suggested it would be a great idea if we (we're a three-people shop, all very proficient) ported that code to some framework (we like CodeIgniter) before launching. We would reasonably be able to do that in < 10 days. Problem is, they don't think php would be a valid long-term solution anyway, so they would prefer to just let it be and fix the bugs for now (there's quite a bit) and then directly switch to some ruby/python based system. Porting to CI now will make future improvements incredibly easier, the current code more secure, changing the style - still being discussed with the designers - a breeze (reminder: there are database calls in template files right now); the biggest obstacle is the lack of trust in php as a valid, scalable technology. So well, I need some examples of great php applications (apart from facebook) and some suggestions on how to try to convince them to port soon. Again, they're great people - it's not like they would like ruby cause it's so hot right now; they just don't trust php since us cool programmers like bashing it, I suppose, but I'm sure going on like this for even one more day would be a mistake. Also, we have some weight in the decision process.

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• General List of Common Programming Errors

  - by javamonkey79

  As one journey's from apprentice to journeyman to master I've noticed that one accumulates a list of best practices for things they've been bitten by. Personally, I write most of my stuff in java & SQL so my list tends to be slated towards them. I've accumulated the following: When doing list removal, always reverse iterate Avoid adding items to a list you are currently iterating on Watch out for NullPointerExceptions Now, I know there are language specific "common errors" links out there like this one. And I'm also aware of the pragmatic programmer tips, Martin Fowler's "code smells". Does anyone know of any good lists out there of things like I've listed above (re: list removal, adding items, etc). My guess is that there are some good QA folks out there that can probably throw me a bone here. I'm not looking for things the compiler can catch - I'm looking for common things that cause bugs. In the event that there isn't a list out there already then I welcome posting your own findings here. Thanks in advance!

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• How to force Multiple Monitors correct resolutions for LightDM?

  - by Hanynowsky

  I am affected by the BUG: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-greeter/+bug/874241 Otherwise, if like me you have a laptop connected to a second monitor of higher resolution, LIGHTDM at the login stage, mirrors the displays in both screens and assign to them a common resolution (1024X768) in my case, instead of extending the desktop (Primary screen with the greeter and secondary with just a logo as mentioned in the Multiple Monitors UX specifications book for 12.04). Here is my xrandr -q @L502X:~$ xrandr -q Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1848, maximum 8192 x 8192 LVDS1 connected 1366x768+309+1080 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 193mm 1366x768 60.0*+ 1360x768 59.8 60.0 1024x768 60.0 800x600 60.3 56.2 640x480 59.9 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) HDMI1 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 510mm x 287mm 1920x1080 60.0*+ 1600x1200 60.0 1680x1050 60.0 1280x1024 60.0 1440x900 59.9 1280x960 60.0 1280x800 59.8 1024x768 60.0 800x600 60.3 56.2 640x480 60.0 DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) I tried to force lightdm to execute some xrandr commands in order to set the right resolution for each monitor and extend the desktop, but I get a LOW GRAPHICS MODE ERROR (You're running in low graphics mode, your screen, input devices...did not get detected..) I created a simple script named lightdmxrand.sh: #!/bin/sh xrandr --output HDMI1 --primary --mode 1920x1080 --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768 --below HDMI1 And told lightdm to run it : /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf [SeatDefaults] greeter-session=unity-greeter user-session=ubuntu greeter-setup-script=/usr/bin/numlockx on display-setup-script=/home/hanynowsky/lightdmxrandr.sh Someone knows what is wrong!? Thanks in advance.

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• How do I separate model positions from view positions in MVC?

  - by tieTYT

  Using MVC in games (as opposed to web apps) always confuses me when it comes to the view. How am I supposed to keep the model agnostic of how the view is presenting things? I always end up giving the Model a position that holds x and y but invariably, these values end up being in units of pixels and that feels wrong. I can see the advantage* of avoiding that but how am I supposed to? This idea was suggested: Don't think of it in units of pixels, think of them in arbitrary distance units that just happen map to pixels at a 1:1 ratio. Oh, the resolution is half of what it was? We are now taking the x/y coordinates at 50% value for screen display, and your spells casting range is still 300 units long, which now is 150 pixels. But those numbers conveniently work out. What do I do if the numbers divide in such a way that I get decimal places? Floating points are unsafe. I think allowing decimal places would eventually cause really weird bugs in my game. *It'd let me write the model once and write different views depending on the device.

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• CodeStock 2012 Review: Eric Landes( @ericlandes ) - Automated Tests in to automated Builds! How to put the right type of automated tests in to the right automated builds.

  Automated Tests in to automated Builds! How to put the right type of automated tests in to the right automated builds.Speaker: Eric LandesTwitter: @ericlandesBlog: http://ericlandes.com/ This was one of the first sessions I attended during CodeStock 2012. Eric’s talk focused mostly on unit testing, and that the lack of proper unit testing can be compared to stealing from an employer. His point was that if you’re not doing proper unit testing then all of the time wasted on fixing issues that could have been detected with unit tests is like stealing money from employer. He makes the assumption that that time spent on fixing these issues could have been better spent developing new features that drive the business. To a point I can agree with Eric’s argument regarding unit testing and stealing from a company’s perspective. I can see how he relates resources being shifted from new development to bug fixes as stealing based on the fact that the resources used to fix bugs are directly taken from other projects. He also states that Boring/Redundant and Build/Test tasks should be automated because it reduces the changes of errors and frees up developer to do what they do best, DEVELOP! When he refers to testing, he breaks testing down in to four distinct types. Unit Test Acceptance Test (This also includes Integration Tests) Performance Test UI Test With this he also recommends that developers should not go buck wild striving for 100% code coverage because some test my not provide a great return on investment. In his experience he recommends that 70% test coverage was a very acceptable rate.

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• MySQL Workbench 5.2.43 GA released

  - by Alfredo Kojima

  The MySQL developer tools team announces the availability of version 5.2.43 of the MySQL Workbench GUI tool. This version contains various fixes and minor enhancements and includes 53 resolved bugs. With this version, Fedora 15 packages are replaced with Fedora 17. Also, Gatekeeper in Mac OS X Mountain Lion is now properly handled. For a full list of issues fixed in this release, see http://dev.mysql.com/doc/workbench/en/changes-5.2.x.html Please get your copy from our Downloads site. In Windows, you can also use the MySQL Windows Installer to update Workbench. Sources and binary packages are available for several platforms, including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/workbench/ Workbench Documentation can be found here. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/workbench/en/index.html Utilities Documentation can be found here. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/workbench/en/mysql-utilities.html If you need any additional info or help please get in touch with us. Post in our forums or leave comments on our blog pages. - The MySQL Workbench Team

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• Develop in trunk and then branch off, or in release branch and then merge back?

  - by Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

  Say that we've decided on following a "release-based" branching strategy, so we'll have a branch for each release, and we can add maintenance updates as sub-branches from those. Does it matter whether we: develop and stabilize a new release in the trunk and then "save" that state in a new release branch; or first create that release branch and only merge into the trunk when the branch is stable? I find the former to be easier to deal with (less merging necessary), especially when we don't develop on multiple upcoming releases at the same time. Under normal circumstances we would all be working on the trunk, and only work on released branches if there are bugs to fix. What is the trunk actually used for in the latter approach? It seems to be almost obsolete, because I could create a future release branch based on the most recent released branch rather than from the trunk. Details based on comment below: Our product consists of a base platform and a number of modules on top; each is developed and even distributed separately from each other. Most team members work on several of these areas, so there's partial overlap between people. We generally work only on 1 future release and not at all on existing releases. One or two might work on a bugfix for an existing release for short periods of time. Our work isn't compiled and it's a mix of Unix shell scripts, XML configuration files, SQL packages, and more -- so there's no way to have push-button builds that can be tested. That's done manually, which is a bit laborious. A release cycle is typically half a year or more for the base platform; often 1 month for the modules.

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• What is the value of checking in failing unit tests?

  - by Adam W.

  While there are ways of keeping unit tests from being executed, what is the value of checking in failing unit tests? I will use a simple example: Case Sensitivity. The current code is case sensitive. A valid input into the method is "Cat" and it would return an enum of Animal.Cat. However, the desired functionality of the method should not be case sensitive. So if the method described was passed "cat" it could possibly return something like Animal.Null instead of Animal.Cat and the unit test would fail. Though a simple code change would make this work, a more complex issue may take weeks to fix, but identifying the bug with a unit test could be a less complex task. The application currently being analyzed has 4 years of code that "works". However, recent discussions regarding unit tests have found flaws in the code. Some just need explicit implementation documentation (ex. case sensitive or not), or code that does not execute the bug based on how it is currently called. But unit tests can be created executing specific scenarios that will cause the bug to be seen and are valid inputs. What is the value of checking in unit tests that exercise the bug until someone can get around to fixing the code? Should this unit test be flagged with ignore, priority, category etc, to determine whether a build was successful based on tests executed? Eventually the unit test should be created to execute the code once someone fixes it. On one hand it shows that identified bugs have not been fixed. On the other, there could be hundreds of failed unit tests showing up in the logs and weeding through the ones that should fail vs. failures due to a code check-in would be difficult to find.

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• How do I remove a malformed line from my sources.list?

  - by eminencejae

  I have unistalled and reinstalled the Ubuntu Software Center as per info I found in a similar thread and I got the same response about line 91 or something like that. I just tried to upload a screen shot but since I'm new it won't allow me to. I also can not figure out how to cut and paste anything so I have to hand type what the error screen says, both when I attempt to open the software center and nothing happens, when I try to enter commands into the terminal to uninstall, reinstall, whatever I get the same following: COULD NOT INTITIALIZE THE PACKAGE INFORMATION An unresolvable problem occured while initializing the package information Please report t:his bug against the 'update-manager' package and include the following error message: 'E: Malformed line 91 in source list/etc/apt/sources.list (dist parse) E: The list of sources could not be read., E: The package list of status file could not be parsed or opened. How do I report bugs? What can be done about this. I have searched and everything everyone says to do leads me back to the same line error message. So, I don't know how to get to line 91 in the source list; to tell you what it says. Sorry, I'm really new to this. That is what I need is to find out how to get there and fix what it says. I would really like to NOT have to re partition my hard drive and start from scratch, so I'm really looking forward to getting this problem solved. I need to be able to install new software.

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• ReSharper 7.1 update

  - by TATWORTH

  Jet Brains have announced ReSharper 7.1: a considerable update to the powerful .NET developer productivity tool for Visual Studio. They invite you to download ReSharper 7.1 and take it for a free 30-day trial. I urge you to try this excellent Visual Studio add-on. Here is their announcement: Following this update, ReSharper 7 brings even more value to all .NET developers, such as more ways to refactor, inspect, clean up, review and generate code. Feature highlights of ReSharper 7 now include: Full integration with Visual Studio 2012 while maintaining support for Visual Studio 2005, 2008, and 2010.Performance and bug fixes: Since releasing version 7.0 this summer, we have fixed over 300 performance problems and bugs.New code inspections and contract annotations for a more robust .NET code quality analysis. Sharing ReSharper code inspection results with teammates has been streamlined as well for the purposes of code review.Improved tooling for .NET code maintenance including the top requested Extract Class refactoring that helps decrease code complexity, as well as a way to remove unused assembly references across the entire solution.Enhanced code formatter: We have implemented some of the most demanded code formatter improvements so far. For example, ReSharper 7.1 is able to format XML doc comments and chained method calls.Additional code exploration features helping visualize hierarchies of polymorphic members and CSS styles.An extended and fine-tuned code generation toolset. In terms of support for specific technologies and frameworks, ReSharper 7 is on the cutting edge as well, providing: Support for VB.NET refined with the Extract Class refactoring, new quick-fixes and improved IntelliSense.XAML support considerably enhanced in terms of code completion, typing assistance, naming style control, and code generation.An extensive pack of functionality for developers looking to create Windows Store applications for Windows 8.INotifyPropertyChanged interface support pack to improve productivity of Windows Forms, WPF and Silverlight application developers.Extended web development toolset, including improvements to JavaScript support, and initial support for ASP.NET 4.5 and ASP.NET MVC 4.Addition of two previously unsupported Microsoft development technologies: LightSwitch and SharePoint. For details on features and improvements in ReSharper 7 and a 30-day free trial, please read What's New in ReSharper 7.

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• Should I avoid or embrace asking questions of other developers on the job?

  - by T.K.

  As a CS undergraduate, the people around me are either learning or are paid to teach me, but as a software developer, the people around me have tasks of their own. They aren't paid to teach me, and conversely, I am paid to contribute. When I first started working as a software developer co-op, I was introduced to a huge code base written in a language I had never used before. I had plenty of questions, but didn't want to bother my co-workers with all of them - it wasted their time and hurt my pride. Instead, I spent a lot of time bouncing between IDE and browser, trying to make sense of what had already been written and differentiate between expected behavior and symptoms of bugs. I'd ask my co-workers when I felt that the root of my lack of understanding was an in-house concept that I wouldn't find on the internet, but aside from that, I tried to confine my questions to lunch hours. Naturally, there were occasions where I wasted time trying to understand something in code on the internet that had, at its heart, an in-house concept, but overall, I felt I was productive enough during my first semester, contributing about as much as one could expect and gaining a pretty decent understanding of large parts of the product. I was wondering what senior developers felt about that mindset. Should new developers ask more questions to get to speed faster, or should they do their own research for themselves? I see benefits to both mindsets, and anticipate a large variety of responses, but I figure new developers might appreciate your answers without thinking to ask this question.

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• I'm a SubVersion geek, why I should consider or not consider Mercurial or Git or any other DRCS?

  - by Pierre 303

  I tried to understand the benefits of DRCS. I must recognize I still doesn't get it. Here are my current beliefs. I'm ready to destroy them thanks to your expertise. I know I'm probably resisting to change. I just want to evaluate how much that change will cost me. Merging hell can be solved by just applying good practices such as continuous integration. There is no such good practice than having a private branch for a few days when you are in a self managing team with real collaboration. I use branching for that for very rare cases, and I keep a branch for every major version, in which I fix bugs merged from the trunk. I see the value of committing offline then pushing online. But continuous integration can help on this too. I work on very large projects, and I never noticed SubVersion to be slow even when the server is 5000km away on the internet and my small connection (less than 1024D/128U). Harddisk space is cheap, so having a copy of source code locally doesn't look like a problem to me. I already have a full copy of the last version on my disk. I don't understand the distributed thing there (maybe THIS IS the key to my understanding?) I not new in the industry, and judging by my difficulty to understand, I don't think DRCS are easier to understand than SubVersion like. If fact, I don't understand... Doctor, give me your diagnostic.

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• At the end of my rope

  - by hvgotcodes

  I am a contractor to a big company. Currently, there are three developers on the project, myself included. The problem is the other 2 developers don't really get it. By "it" i mean the following: They don't understand the best practices for the technology we are using. After 6 months of me and others giving them examples there are terrible anti-patterns being used. They are "copy and paste" programmers that produce primarily spaghetti code. They constantly break things, implementing changes but not doing a basic smoke test to see if all is good They refuse/rarely to ask for code-reviews. They refuse/rarely even do basic things like formatting code. No documentation on any classes (jsdocs) Afraid to delete code that doesn't do anything Leave commented code blocks everywhere even though we have version control. I find myself getting more and more frustrated as I format others code, fix bugs, discover functionality that is broken, and create abstractions to remove the spaghetti. I really don't know what to do. I try not to get to frustrated, but it's just a mess. I like these people as people, but I feel like the coding situation is so bad that I could move faster if they simply browsed the web all day. Would it be out of line to ask our manager to review the others svn commit access; commits can only be done after a review by someone who is knowledgeable in what we are doing? As a contractor, I'm not sure if that's the best move. Is there a subtle/not so subtle way of making it clear how many things I am fixing?

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• How to start a Software Company

  - by MeshMan

  I've always been interested in wondering how software companies happen. I find it extremely difficult once you're tied down with car, house, life etc. Funding is always the biggest concern. To make this a bit more specific, I see two types. Those offering a product/service or those offering a consultancy company. One things that bugs me about the product/service kind is that we all know how burning the candle at both ends is extremely exhausting. Coding for 8-10 hours in the day and then code in the evenings on your own stuff, doesn't last long. No matter how passionate you are about your idea, simply put, coding day and night is a recipe for burn out. Is this a defeatist attitude though? Can it be balanced? A consultancy kind isn't as tricky in my honest opinion. I think once you have spent years and years in the industry building up relationships, contacts from contracting or moving around, and of course, being involved in the community, then landing your first project as a consultant I'm sure is easier than the product/service kind. I'd imagine friends then could join you as you take on bigger company projects, like an Agile implementation or TDD training, then off you go gaining bigger things. Could you please specify which company type you're answering if you can't contribute to both. I'd like to hear everyone's experiences or ideas on any level for software company start-ups.

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• Need efficient way to keep enemy from getting hit multiple times by same source

  - by TenFour04

  My game's a simple 2D one, but this probably applies to many types of scenarios. Suppose my player has a sword, or a gun that shoots a projectile that can pass through and hit multiple enemies. While the sword is swinging, there is a duration where I am checking for the sword making contact with any enemy on every frame. But once an enemy is hit by that sword, I don't want him to continue getting hit over and over as the sword follows through. (I do want the sword to continue checking whether it is hitting other enemies.) I've thought of a couple different approaches (below), but they don't seem like good ones to me. I'm looking for a way that doesn't force cross-referencing (I don't want the enemy to have to send a message back to the sword/projectile). And I'd like to avoid generating/resetting multiple array lists with every attack. Each time the sword swings it generates a unique id (maybe by just incrementing a global static long). Every enemy keeps a list of id's of swipes or projectiles that have already hit them, so the enemy knows not to get hurt by something multiple times. Downside is that every enemy may have a big list to compare to. So projectiles and sword swipes would have to broadcast their end-of-life to all enemies and cause a search and remove on every enemy's array list. Seems kind of slow. Each sword swipe or projectile keeps its own list of enemies that it has already hit so it knows not to apply damage. Downsides: Have to generate a new list (probably pull from a pool and clear one) every time a sword is swung or a projectile shot. Also, this breaks down modularity, because now the sword has to send a message to the enemy, and the enemy has to send a message back to the sword. Seems to me that two-way streets like this are a great way to create very difficult-to-find bugs.

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• When NOT to use a framework

  - by Chris

  Today, one can find a framework for just about any language, to suit just about any project. Most modern frameworks are fairly robust (generally speaking), with hour upon hour of testing, peer reviewed code, and great extensibility. However, I think there is a downside to ANY framework in that programmers, as a community, may become so reliant upon their chosen frameworks that they no longer understand the underlying workings, or in the case of newer programmers, never learn the underlying workings to begin with. It is easy to become specialized to a degree that you are no longer a 'PHP programmer' (for example), but a "Drupal programmer", to the exclusion of anything else. Who cares, right? We have the framework! We don't need to know how to "do it by hand"! Right? The result of this loss of basic skills (sometimes to the extent that programmers who don't use frameworks are viewed as "outdated") is that it becomes common practice to use a framework where it is not required or appropriate. The features the framework facilitates wind up confused with what the base language is capable of. Developers start using frameworks to accomplish even the most basic of tasks, so that what once was considered a rudimentary process now involves large libraries with their own quirks, bugs, and dependencies. What was once accomplished in 20 lines is now accomplished by including a 20,000 line framework AND writing 20 lines to use the framework. Conversely, one does not want to reinvent the wheel. If I'm writing code to accomplish some basic, common little task, I might feel like I am wasting my time when I know that framework XYZ offers all the features I am after, and a whole lot more. The "whole lot more" part still has me worried, but it doesn't seem that many even consider it anymore. There has to be a good metric to determine when it is appropriate to use a framework. What do you consider the threshold to be, how do you decide when to use a framework, or, when not.

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