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• How do you compare programming job offers from companies in different countries?

  - by Danny Tuppeny

  This isn't really a programmer-specific question, but I'm not sure of a more appropriate place, and I think the users of this site are best able to answer the question in the context of programmers. Relocating to the US seems fairly common in the programming industry. I live in the UK, and maybe one day, I might do it too. So, if that day comes - how would you go about comparing job offers? Benefits are fairly easy to compare, but given the differences in cost of living, how would you go about comparing salaries and the quality of living you'll have? In a country where the cost of living is lower, you might be able to accept a lower salary (based on exchange rate) and still have the same quality of living. But what can you do to ensure this? In some cases, you may even take a "pay rise" in terms of exchange rate, but end up far worse off. How can you compare job offers across different countries to get an idea of the salary you would need in order to not feel you've gone "backwards"?

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• Is this a ridiculous way to structure a DB schema, or am I completely missing something?

  - by Jim

  I have done a fair bit of work with relational databases, and think I understand the basic concepts of good schema design pretty well. I recently was tasked with taking over a project where the DB was designed by a highly-paid consultant. Please let me know if my gut intinct - "WTF??!?" - is warranted, or is this guy such a genius that he's operating out of my realm? DB in question is an in-house app used to enter requests from employees. Just looking at a small section of it, you have information on the users, and information on the request being made. I would design this like so: User table: UserID (primary Key, indexed, no dupes) FirstName LastName Department Request table RequestID (primary Key, indexed, no dupes) <...> various data fields containing request details UserID -- foreign key associated with User table Simple, right? Consultant designed it like this (with sample data): UsersTable UserID FirstName LastName 234 John Doe 516 Jane Doe 123 Foo Bar DepartmentsTable DepartmentID Name 1 Sales 2 HR 3 IT UserDepartmentTable UserDepartmentID UserID Department 1 234 2 2 516 2 3 123 1 RequestTable RequestID UserID <...> 1 516 blah 2 516 blah 3 234 blah The entire database is constructed like this, with every piece of data encapsulated in its own table, with numeric IDs linking everything together. Apparently the consultant had read about OLAP and wanted the 'speed of integer lookups' He also has a large number of stored procedures to cross reference all of these tables. Is this valid design for a small to mid-sized SQL DB? Thanks for comments/answers...

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• Pair Programming, for or against? [on hold]

  - by user1037729

  I believe it has many advantages over individual programming: Pros By pairing senior with relatively junior staff, the more junior can get up to speed with both project and computing experience, and the senior will re-think the problem in order to communicate with the junior, thus re-checking his own thinking (rubber duck principle!). At least 2 people will know about any single piece of work, if one person is away the other can cover, or if some one leaves a project knowledge transfer is easier. Two brains on a complex task is more effective, communication keeps the work free flowing and provides redundancy in decision making. Code is effectively reviewed as its being written, no need for a separate reviewing phase which requires a context switch as someone who has not been working on the piece in question would be required to understand and review the related code. Reviewing code on your own which you haven't written or architected is not fun, hence counter productive. Cons Less bandwith for performing tasks, lets say we have 4 devs, pair programming requires 2 devs per task, so we would be doing 2 tasks concurrently as a posed to 4. I believe this "Con" does not stand up as the pair programmed task would complete sooner and comes with a review built in for free! Ie the pair programming task would be more efficient and thus free up resources earlier. Less flexibility to chop and change tasks as two developers are tied into a task, when flexibility is required this could be a problem.

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• For a large website developed in PHP, is it necessary to have a framework?

  - by Martin

  I am wondering if it is necessary to have a framework or if it is a must-have if I plan to make a large website. Large website could mean a lot of things: in other words, multiple dynamic web pages (40-50 dynamic pages, mysql content) and a lot of visitors (+- a million hits per month). The site will be hosted in a dedicated server environment. I know that it could simplify coding for a developer team, that it includes libraries and a lot of advantages. But I just feel that I don't need that. I think that learning how it works, managing it and installing it would take more time and I could use that time to code. I write PHP the simplest way I could (with performance in mind) and I try to reuse my code/functions/classes most of the time and I make sure that if another developer joins the team, that he won't be lost in the code. I am also planning to use MemCached or another Cache for PHP. As I said, the site will be hosted in a dedicated server environment but will be entirely managed by the hosting company. I am pretty sure the control panel for me to control the basic stuff will be Cpanel. For a developer like me that only knows PHP, Javascript, HTML, CSS, MYSQL and really basic server management, I feel that it seems to complicated to have a framework. Am I wrong? Is it worth the time to learn all about it? Thank you for your opinions and suggestions.

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• Semantic coupling vs. large class

  - by user106587

  I have hardware I communicate with via TCP. This hardware accepts ~40 different commands/requests with about 20 different responses. I've created a HardwareProxy class which has a TcpClient to send and receive data. I didn't like the idea of having 40 different methods to send the commands/requests, so I started down the path of having a single SendCommand method which takes an ICommand and returns an IResponse, this results in 40 different SpecificCommand classes. The problem is this requires semantic coupling, i.e. the method that invokes SendCommand receives an IResponse which it has to downcast to SpecificResponse, I use a future map which I believe ensures the appropriate SpecificResponse, but I get the impression this code smells. Besides the semantic coupling, ICommand and IResponse are essentially empty abstract classes (Marker Interfaces) and this seems suspicious to me. If I go with the 40 methods I don't think I have broken the single responisbility principle as the responsibility of the HardwareProxy class is to act as the hardware, which has all of these commands. This route is just ugly, plus I'd like to have Asynchronous versions, so there'd be about 80 methods. Is it better to bite the bullet and have a large class, accept the coupling and MarkerInterfaces for a smaller soultuion, or am I missing a better way? Thanks.

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• Should I sell video tutorials on my own or via publishers like lynda.com? [closed]

  - by Derfder

  I am asking this because I am deciding between two models right now. One way is to create video tutorials on my own (make some short free videos and long pay per download/stream videos) or sell them to lynda.com or tutsplus. The 2nd way is easier, because they will do all the boring business stuff, will host the files to download etc. In that case, everything I need is a good microphone and obey their guidelines. On the other side if I do it on my own, I have to do all the unwanted business stuff, pay the server and other stuff. This is quite a big downside, however, I will have all the videos under my control in the future. I know that lynda.com has bigger attention and marketing that I am capable, but if you take e.g. phpvideotutrials.com (r.i.p ;), I think Leigh was very successful with relatively small budget. The interesting question will be the cost or how much will they pay me. Would it be less than if I sell it myself+monthly server hosting+other expenses? Any advice from people who actively sell their videos to some companies or do it on they own is highly appreciated.

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• Is now the right time to move to .NET 4?

  - by bconlon

  The reason I pose this question is that I'm looking at WPF development and so using the latest version seems sensible. However, this means rolling out the .NET 4 runtime to PCs on old versions of the framework. Windows XP is still the number one O/S (estimated 40%+ market share). To run .NET 4 on XP requires Service Pack 3, and although it is good practice to move to the latest service packs, often large companies are slow to keep up due to the extensive testing involved. In fact, .NET 4 is not installed as standard with any Windows O/S as yet - Windows 7 and 2008 Server R2 have 3.5 installed. This is not quite as big an issue as it was for .NET 3.5 as .NET 4 is significantly smaller as it doesn't include the older runtimes - .NET 3.5 SP1 included .NET 3 and .NET 2 and was 250MB, although this was reduced by doing a web install. The size is also reduced a bit if you target the .NET 4 Client Profile, which should be OK for many WPF applications, and I think this may be rolled out as part of Windows service packs soon. But still, if your application is only 4-5 MB and you need 40-50 MB of Framework it is worth consideration before jumping in and using the new shiny features. #

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• Add an entry for Ubuntu on Windows 8 boot loader

  - by John

  I have installed Ubuntu 12.10 by creating free space in Windows 8 and then using that space to create 3 partitions, one for SWAP, one for GRUB (mounting point is /boot) and one for the actual OS. I did this so the Windows 8 boot loader wouldn't be overwritten in case I ever wanted to remove Ubuntu. I can still boot into Ubuntu if I select the boot loader from the BIOS. I want to add Ubuntu to the Windows 8 boot loader and I've been told to use EasyBCD. The issue with that is it doesn't actually direct Windows to the GRUB file, but rather to something like autogrub0.mri. I have found another programme called Visual BCD which will allow me to actually set the bootloader paths and drives. From here, I don't quite know what to do. I believe I have it set to the correct drive but I don't know if I'm directing to the right file. I think it's /boot/grub/x86_64-efi/grub.efi. I don't know if that's the right file, if I need to remove /boot or if the / need to be \ as that's what Windows uses. Sorry for such a lengthy post, please help!

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• How can I design my classes to include calendar events stored in a database?

  - by Gianluca78

  I'm developing a web calendar in php (using Symfony2) inspired by iCal for a project of mine. At this moment, I have two classes: a class "Calendar" and a class "CalendarCell". Here you are the two classes properties and method declarations. class Calendar { private $month; private $monthName; private $year; private $calendarCellList = array(); private $translator; public function __construct($month, $year, $translator) {} public function getCalendarCellList() {} public function getMonth() {} public function getMonthName() {} public function getNextMonth() {} public function getNextYear() {} public function getPreviousMonth() {} public function getPreviousYear() {} public function getYear() {} private function calculateDaysPreviousMonth() {} private function calculateNumericDayOfTheFirstDayOfTheWeek() {} private function isCurrentDay(\DateTime $dateTime) {} private function isDifferentMonth(\DateTime $dateTime) {} } class CalendarCell { private $day; private $month; private $dayNameAbbreviation; private $numericDayOfTheWeek; private $isCurrentDay; private $isDifferentMonth; private $translator; public function __construct(array $parameters) {} public function getDay() {} public function getMonth() {} public function getDayNameAbbreviation() {} public function isCurrentDay() {} public function isDifferentMonth() {} } Each calendar day can includes many calendar events (such as appointments or schedules) stored in a database. My question is: which is the best way to manage these calendar events in my classes? I think to add a eventList property in CalendarCell and populate it with an array of CalendarEvent objects fetched by the database. This kind of solution doesn't allow other coders to reuse the classes without db (because I should inject at least a repository services also) just to create and visualize a calendar... so maybe it could be better to extend CalendarCell (for instance in CalendarCellEvent) and add the database features? I feel like I'm missing some crucial design pattern! Any suggestion will be very appreciated!

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• Getting rank for keywords that I don't want to appear on my website [duplicate]

  - by Rober

  This question already has an answer here: Which keyword should I use. colors or colours or a combination of both? 2 answers One of my products has two names. One of them is what I consider correct and thus it is what I want to appear on my website. The other name is incorrect for me, so I would like to avoid it. But I know that many people will search my product using the "bad" name. How could I get the "bad" name indexed for my site on search engines even if nobody can read it there? Of course, I want to do it "legally" so that no engine will ban my site considering it as cloaking, black hat SEO, etc... EDIT: Having that "bad" name on my backlinks is not an option. For example I would perceive user reviews connecting my site to that word as a negative point. Maybe having my site as a search result for that word could be negative as well, but I think it is worth it.

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• System in low graphics, deleted linux, grub rescue, can't access windows

  - by First timer

  So I'm pretty new to Ubuntu but I managed to install it with no big problems on both my desktop and netbook. When I installed it on my brother's netbook everything went horribly wrong and now I fear the system is close to beyond repair. The problem was first that it said it did not have any space left (seemed ridiculous since it had a lot). Then Ubuntu began booting into a "System is running in low graphics mode error" which I then tried to fix, using all the tips I could find in here but nothing helped. I think the graphics error and lack of space might have been related but I can't be sure. Finally I gave up repairing Ubuntu and went for a reinstall. Shouldn't have done that! I read that I should simply open Ubuntu through a live usb and choose GParted to delete the Linux partitions so I did and rebooted accordingly. Next, I was to install Ubuntu but now I am only given the option to wipe the whole disk for Ubuntu, not install along with windows 7. If I access GParted I can still see the ntfs partitions that hold windows 7 (there are 2: one labeled RECOVERY and another labeled OS and boot) so why can't I access them? Btw. the OS and boot has a little red mark with a warning that 1 cluster is referenced to multiple times, don't know what that means. If I boot without the live usb I am sent directly into a grub rescue "black screen of the computer will follow no orders". Please, I know that the easiest might be to simply wipe the whole thing clean but there are important files and programs on windows 7. Is there a way to just access windows? It is a dell inspiron 1018 mini netbook, so I have no cd input and no windows 7 installation cd.

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• How to highlight non-rectengular hotspots?

  - by HuseyinUslu

  So my question is highly related to Creating non-rectangular hotspots and detecting clicks. Yet again, I've irregular hot-spots (think the game Risk). So basically, we can detect clicks on these hot-spots easily using color key mapping as discussed in above question which I don't have any problems implementing (which is also covered here in details). The problem is about highlighting these irreguar hotspots. So let me explain the question a bit more - the above color key mapping guide uses this as a world map; then the author color-maps the imaginary countries; which we can now detect the country the pointer is over. In the same article author mentions outlining countries on mouse-over; though to get the effect, he creates unique border assets for each country - like; So for the game I'm working on I'm using the same color-key mapping idea to detect hot-spots, but I didn't like the way of highlighting hot-spots. Coloring all the hot-spots is already a great work for me - as I've 25+ hot-spots for each map - further more the need to have 25 unique border/highlight asset per hot-spot doesn't sound right. Anyone have a better idea/suggestion on highlighting these hot-spots?

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• Is Akka a good solution for a concurrent pipeline/workflow problem?

  - by herpylderp

  Disclaimer: I am brand new to Akka and the concept of Actors/Event-Driven Architectures in general. I have to implement a fairly complex problem where users can configure a "concurrent pipeline": Pipeline: consists of 1+ Stages; all Stages execute sequentially Stage: consists of 1+ Tasks; all Tasks execute in parallel Task: essentially a Java Runnable As you can see above, a Task is a Runnable that does some unit of work. Tasks are organized into Stages, which execute their Tasks in parallel. Stages are organized into the Pipeline, which executes its Stages sequentially. Hence if a user specifies the following Pipeline: CrossTheRoadSafelyPipeline Stage 1: Look Left Task 1: Turn your head to the left and look for cars Task 2: Listen for cars Stage 2: Look right Task 1: Turn your head to the right and look for cars Task 2: Listen for cars Then, Stage 1 will execute, and then Stage 2 will execute. However, while each Stage is executing, it's individual Tasks are executing in parallel/at the same time. In reality Pipelines will become very complicated, and with hundreds of Stages, dozens of Tasks per Stage (again, executing at the same time). To implement this Pipeline I can only think of several solutions: ESB/Apache Camel Guava Event Bus Java 5 Concurrency Actors/Akka Camel doesn't seem right because its core competency is integration not synchrony and orchestration across worker threads. Guava is great, but this doesn't really feel like a subscriber/publisher-type of problem. And Java 5 Concurrency (ExecutorService, etc.) just feels too low-level and painful. So I ask: is Akka a strong candidate for this type of problem? If so, how? If not, then why, and what is a good candidate?

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• Neural network input preprocessing

  - by TND

  It's clear that the effectiveness of a neural network depends strongly on the format you give it to work with. You want to preprocess it into the most convenient form you can algorithmically get to, so that the neural network doesn't have to account for that itself. I'm working on a little project that (surprise!) is going to be using neural networks. My future goal is to eventually use NEAT, which I'm really excited about. Anyway, one of my ideas involves moving entities in continuous 2D space, from a top-down perspective (this would be a really cool game AI). Of course, unless these guys are blind, they're going to be able to see the world around them. There's a lot of different ways this information could be fed into the network. One interesting but expensive way is to simply render a top-down "view" of things, with the entities as dots on the picture, and feed that in. I was hoping for something much simpler to use (at least at first), such as a list of the x (maybe 7 or so) nearest entities and their position in relative polar coordinates, orientation, health, etc., but I'm trying to think of the best way to do it. My first instinct was to order them by distance, which would inherently also train the neural network to consider those more "important". However, I was thinking- what if there's two entities that are nearly the same distance away? They could easily alternate indexes in that list, confusing the network. My question is, is there a better way of representing this? Essentially, the issue is the network needs a good way of keeping track of who's who, while knowing (by being inputted) relevant information about the list of entities it can see. Thanks!

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• During interviews, how do I gauge a company's respect for my position?

  - by Bluu

  I'm a web developer who previously joined a software company not knowing their value and respect went to big data analysis, not their website. Sure, they needed a public-facing website, but I eventually found that the most exciting, valued projects there went to data teams. Realizing this, members of the web team were picked off and switched teams, making it hard for those left behind to keep up the work load, and making us look bad. At times it seemed the company culture sneered at us, wondering, "What does that team even do here?" A friend of mine had the opposite problem at another software company. All he wanted to do was crunch big numbers. However he complained that the rest of the company wouldn't shut up about developing the usability of their website. Meanwhile his analytics team languished. I've also heard of salespeople getting love at a company, while engineering as a whole is undervalued, or vice versa. As for my story, if I could have known the company was like that, I might have avoided the job in the first place. So, before I join a new company, how do I gauge its actual respect for my programming role? For its other roles? I want to avoid companies that aren't serious about my particular focus in programming, or, perhaps bigger picture, companies that don't value everybody who works there. (Note I think gauging the company's attitude toward the basic needs of its programmers is covered by these related questions.)

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• LiveCD/USB boot issues with Ubuntu 12.04 on blank drive

  - by Richek

  Not sure how common this issue is, or even how badly I may be missing something simple, but I am a first time usuer having some serious problems. Some background: old HDD running Windows 7 developed too many bad sectors and is bricked. I'm attempting to install Ubuntu 12.04 on a fresh 1TB drive by booting from a liveCD USB flash drive. I've not been able to get past the initial menu screen, however, as the process stalls out shortly after selecting an option (both boot from drive and install to drive). I've tried multiple USB drives as well as CDs, modified the boot order, flashed BIOS, and even tried booting with only the flash drive and the keyboard connected with the same results.Typically what I observe is that the OS begins what I think is compliling, listing drivers and components before freezing on one. When the keyboard is plugged in, its the keyboard driver, before I flashed BIOS, it was a BIOS related item, now its an unknown entry. The computer seems to be reading the drive (idicated by USB light flashing or CD drive reving) for roughly 10 minutes with no progress, followed by the drives going quiet. Some spec info: Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Pro, BIOS version 2102 (latest version), Intel chipset CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz help would be appriciated!

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• functional requirements - use wording based on verbs?

  - by yas

  Question: Should the functional requirements in a requirements doc use wording based on verbs? Context: School assignment, working in a team, working through the SDLC. The requirements doc has been done and we are now into design. Problem: The requirements doc has an enumerated list of what I'd call features of the app - the functional requirements. In that list are things that I'd think of as "how's" rather than "what's" and now, trying to work on design, I feel like a part of design has been prematurely dictated. I've not done this before! To me, I should be dealing strictly with things that describe "what." Example of current: Pretend that the job is to make an omelet. Listing: crack the egg, break into bowl, scramble, etc.; crosses over the line into the territory of how. Along that track, so does wording like: create, generate, list, calculate, determine, validate, etc. - verbs, basically. Right now, I have a list of requirements that are partially rooted in verbs. My idea of a requirements doc for an omelet would be more like: has two eggs, x ounces of ham, x ounces of bacon, x ounces of montery-jack cheese, x ounces of cilantro, etc. - nothing but what (nouns). I might have, and could have, spoken up before finalizing the requirements doc if I'd had any experience.

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• What are some techniques I can use to refactor Object Oriented code into Functional code?

  - by tieTYT

  I've spent about 20-40 hours developing part of a game using JavaScript and HTML5 canvas. When I started I had no idea what I was doing. So it started as a proof of concept and is coming along nicely now, but it has no automated tests. The game is starting to become complex enough that it could benefit from some automated testing, but it seems tough to do because the code depends on mutating global state. I'd like to refactor the whole thing using Underscore.js, a functional programming library for JavaScript. Part of me thinks I should just start from scratch using a Functional Programming style and testing. But, I think refactoring the imperative code into declarative code might be a better learning experience and a safer way to get to my current state of functionality. Problem is, I know what I want my code to look like in the end, but I don't know how to turn my current code into it. I'm hoping some people here could give me some tips a la the Refactoring book and Working Effectively With Legacy Code. For example, as a first step I'm thinking about "banning" global state. Take every function that uses a global variable and pass it in as a parameter instead. Next step may be to "ban" mutation, and to always return a new object. Any advice would be appreciated. I've never taken OO code and refactored it into Functional code before.

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• How to visualize code?

  - by gablin

  I've mostly only had to read my own code. As such, I've had no need to visualize the code as I already know how each and every class and module communicate with one another. But the few times I've had to read someone else's code - let us now assume we are talking about at least one larger module which contains several internal classes - I've almost always found myself wishing "This would have been so much easier to understand if I could just visualize it!" So what are the common methods or tools for enabling this? Which do you use, and why do you prefer them over the others? I've heard stuff like UML, module and class diagrams, but I imagine there are more. Furthermore, any of these is most likely better than anything I can devise on my own. EDIT: For those who answer with "Use pen and paper and just draw it": This isn't very helpful unless you explain this further. What exactly am I supposed to draw? A box for each class? Should I include the public methods? What about its fields? How should I draw connections that explain how one class uses another? What about modules? What if the language isn't object-oriented but functional or logical, or even just imperative (C, for instance)? What about global variables and functions? Is there an already-standardized way of drawing this, or do I need to think up of a method of my own? You get the drift.

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• Unit testing to prove balanced tree

  - by Darrel Hoffman

  I've just built a self-balancing tree (red-black) in Java (language should be irrelevant for this question though), and I'm trying to come up with a good means of testing that it's properly balanced. I've tested all the basic tree operations, but I can't think of a way to test that it is indeed well and truly balanced. I've tried inserting a large dictionary of words, both pre-sorted and un-sorted. With a balanced tree, those should take roughly the same amount of time, but an unbalanced tree would take significantly longer on the already-sorted list. But I don't know how to go about testing for that in any reasonable, reproducible way. (I've tried doing millisecond tests on these, but there's no noticeable difference - probably because my source data is too small.) Is there a better way to be sure that the tree is really balanced? Say, by looking at the tree after it's created and seeing how deep it goes? (That is, without modifying the tree itself by adding a depth field to each node, which is just wasteful if you don't need it for anything other than testing.)

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• For an ORM supporting data validation, should constraints be enforced in the database as well?

  - by Ramnique Singh

  I have always applied constraints at the database level in addition to my (ActiveRecord) models. But I've been wondering if this is really required? A little background I recently had to unit test a basic automated timestamp generation method for a model. Normally, the test would create an instance of the model and save it without validation. But there are other required fields that aren't nullable at the in the table definition, meaning I cant save the instance even if I skip the ActiveRecord validation. So I'm thinking if I should remove such constraints from the db itself, and let the ORM handle them? Possible advantages if I skip constraints in db, imo - Can modify a validation rule in the model, without having to migrate the database. Can skip validation in testing. Possible disadvantage? If its possible that ORM validation fails or is bypassed, howsoever, the database does not check for constraints. What do you think? EDIT In this case, I'm using the Yii Framework, which generates the model from the database, hence database rules are generated also (though I could always write them post-generation myself too).

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• Computer suddenly won't boot - stops at a flashing prompt

  - by Dave M G

  I have been running Ubuntu on my computer for a long time, and I have been using 11.10 since it became available in October. Suddenly, this morning, when I rebooted, the computer would not reach the log in screen. I go through the standard POST boot sequence, and I also get a splash screen for my Nvidia graphics card, so at least most of the hardware seems to be working. After that, all I get is a flashing text prompt - one blinking white underline character on a screen that is otherwise completely blank. I don't think it is even reaching GRUB. No key input is possible. I have tried various key combinations to try and initiate some kind of interface, be it command line or anything else. The only key combination that works is [CTRL]+[ALT]+[Delete] to reboot. I realize this is likely to be a hardware problem, but it could be an Ubuntu problem(?), so I'm hoping for a specific set of troubleshooting steps so I can diagnose and repair this issue. My current suspicion is that one of the drives in my 2 disk software RAID has failed (even though they should be too new for that). However, this computer is critical to my work, so I'd like to invite advice on any possibilities so as to waste as little time as possible in fixing this machine.

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• What will be the better way for data retrieval on application that needs to handle limited amount of data?

  - by Milanix

  Just moved this question from Stack Overflow. Since, adding my code snippets itself would make this question really long. Instead, I am pretty interested in knowing a better ways for data retrieval on application that needs to handle limited amount of data which isn't updated regularly. Let's take this example: I am writing an application which gets a schedule as an XML from server. I have written a logic in order to parse XML version and update database only if the version is newer than the local version. Although the update is checked automatically/manually on daily basis based on user preference, the actual version update happens only once per few months or so. Since, this is done by some other authority which doesn't provide API but, rather inform publicly on their changes. The actual XML contains a "(n number of groups)(days in a week) (n number of schedule)" . The group is usually 6 and the number of schedule is usually 2. So basically there would usually be only around 100 strings. Now although I have used SQLite at the moment. I want to know how to make update on database. Should I show progress dialog that the application is updating and exit the app when it's done? Since, my updates are infrequent i don't think this will really harm user experience but, is there any better ways to do it? Because I don't want update to be made when user is searching which is done using database. This will cause an database already open exception. At least I have faced this problem before. Is it better to rather parse XML every time when user wants to view certain things or to use SQLite? Since, I make lots of use of adapter in my app to create lists, will that degrade the performance?

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• Is there a (family of) monotonically non-decreasing noise function(s)?

  - by Joe Wreschnig

  I'd like a function to animate an object moving from point A to point B over time, such that it reaches B at some fixed time, but its position at any time is randomly perturbed in a continuous fashion, but never goes backwards. The objects move along straight lines, so I only need one dimension. Mathematically, that means I'm looking for some continuous f(x), x ? [0,1], such that: f(0) = 0 f(1) = 1 x < y ? f(x) = f(y) At "most" points f(x + d) - f(x) bears no obvious relation to d. (The function is not uniformly increasing or otherwise predictable; I think that's also equivalent to saying no degree of derivative is a constant.) Ideally, I would actually like some way to have a family of these functions, providing some seed state. I'd need at least 4 bits of seed (16 possible functions), for my current use, but since that's not much feel free to provide even more. To avoid various issues with accumulation errors, I'd prefer the function not require any kind of internal state. That is, I want it to be a real function, not a programming "function".

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• How do I remove the tool tips on the launch bar?

  - by Sephethus

  The title is the question. These tool tips stay until I try to click past them. They're annoying since they constantly pop up and block the view of what I'm trying to do. Unfortunately I need the launch bar because Ubuntu is running on VMware and the console does not allow me to use the keyboard for switching tasks (to my knowledge). How do I disable them? I'd post an image as an example, but this site will not let me. UPDATE: unity 5.16.0 UPDATE 2: I discovered that this may only be a problem with users who run Ubuntu on a full screen VMware console that is situated on the right monitor. When the mouse is moved to the left monitor the tooltips popup and remain until the mouse is clicked twice in the VMware console window to make it active. Unfortunately my problem is one involving a rare situation I think. However, I'd love to be able to disable these tool tips if possible. It would also be nice if new features were added that can allow further customization of the launch bar.

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