Search Results

Search found 16192 results on 648 pages for 'programming terms'.

Page 537/648 | < Previous Page | 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544  | Next Page >

  • Code refactoring with Visual Studio 2010 Part-1

    - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama
    Visual studio 2010 is a Great IDE(Integrated Development Environment) and we all are using it in day by day for our coding purpose. There are many great features provided by Visual Studio 2010 and Today I am going to show one of great feature called for code refactoring. This feature is one of the most unappreciated features of Visual Studio 2010 as lots of people still not using that and doing stuff manfully. So to explain feature let’s create a simple console application which will print first name and last name like following. And following is code for that. using System; namespace CodeRefractoring { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { string firstName = "Jalpesh"; string lastName = "Vadgama"; Console.WriteLine(string.Format("FirstName:{0}",firstName)); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("LastName:{0}", lastName)); Console.ReadLine(); } } } So as you can see this is a very basic console application and let’s run it to see output. So now lets explore our first feature called extract method in visual studio you can also do that via refractor menu like following. Just select the code for which you want to extract method and then click refractor menu and then click extract method. Now I am selecting three lines of code and clicking on refactor –> Extract Method just like following. Once you click menu a dialog box will appear like following. As you can I have highlighted two thing first is Method Name where I put Print as Method Name and another one Preview method signature where its smart enough to extract parameter also as We have just selected three lines with  console.writeline.  One you click ok it will extract the method and you code will be like this. using System; namespace CodeRefractoring { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { string firstName = "Jalpesh"; string lastName = "Vadgama"; Print(firstName, lastName); } private static void Print(string firstName, string lastName) { Console.WriteLine(string.Format("FirstName:{0}", firstName)); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("LastName:{0}", lastName)); Console.ReadLine(); } } } So as you can see in above code its has created a static method called Print and also passed parameter for as firstname and lastname. Isn’t that great!!!. It has also created static print method as I am calling it from static void main.  Hope you liked it.. Stay tuned for more..Till that Happy programming.

    Read the article

  • Building a Data Mart with Pentaho Data Integration Video Review by Diethard Steiner, Packt Publishing

    - by Compudicted
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Compudicted/archive/2014/06/01/building-a-data-mart-with-pentaho-data-integration-video-review.aspx The Building a Data Mart with Pentaho Data Integration Video by Diethard Steiner from Packt Publishing is more than just a course on how to use Pentaho Data Integration, it also implements and uses the principals of the Data Warehousing (and I even heard the name of Ralph Kimball in the video). Indeed, a video watcher should be familiar with its concepts as the Star Schema, Slowly Changing Dimension types, etc. so I suggest prior to watching this course to consider skimming through the Data Warehouse concepts (if unfamiliar) or even better, read the excellent Ralph’s The Data Warehouse Tooolkit. By the way, the author expands beyond using Pentaho along to MySQL and MonetDB which is a real icing on the cake! Indeed, I even suggest the name of the course should be ‘Building a Data Warehouse with Pentaho’. To successfully complete the course one needs to know some Linux (Ubuntu used in the course), the VI editor and the Bash command shell, but it seems that similar requirements would also apply to the Weindows OS. Additionally, knowing some basic SQL would not hurt. As I had said, MonetDB is used in this course several times which seems to be not anymore complex than say MySQL, but based on what I read is very well suited for fast querying big volumes of data thanks to having a columnstore (vertical data storage). I don’t see what else can be a barrier, the material is very digestible. On this note, I must add that the author does not cover how to acquire the software, so here is what I found may help: Pentaho: the free Community Edition must be more than anyone needs to learn it. Or even go into a POC. MonetDB can be downloaded (exists for both, Linux and Windows) from http://goo.gl/FYxMy0 (just see the appropriate link on the left). The author seems to be using Eclipse to run SQL code, one can get it from http://goo.gl/5CcuN. To create, or edit database entities and/or schema otherwise one can use a universal tool called SQuirreL, get it from http://squirrel-sql.sourceforge.net.   Next, I must confess Diethard is very knowledgeable in what he does and beyond. However, there will be some accent heard to the user of the course especially if one’s mother tongue language is English, but it I got over it in a few chapters. I liked the rate at which the material is being presented, it makes me feel I paid for every second Eventually, my impressions are: Pentaho is an awesome ETL offering, it is worth learning it very much (I am an ETL fan and a heavy user of SSIS) MonetDB is nice, it tickles my fancy to know it more Data Warehousing, despite all the BigData tool offerings (Hive, Scoop, Pig on Hadoop), using the traditional tools still rocks Chapters 2 to 6 were the most fun to me with chapter 8 being the most difficult.   In terms of closing, I highly recommend this video to anyone who needs to grasp Pentaho concepts quick, likewise, the course is very well suited for any developer on a “supposed to be done yesterday” type of a project. It is for a beginner to intermediate level ETL/DW developer. But one would need to learn more on Data Warehousing and Pentaho, for such I recommend the 5 star Pentaho Data Integration 4 Cookbook. Enjoy it! Disclaimer: I received this video from the publisher for the purpose of a public review.

    Read the article

  • Building a Data Mart with Pentaho Data Integration Video Review by Diethard Steiner, Packt Publishing

    - by Compudicted
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Compudicted/archive/2014/06/01/building-a-data-mart-with-pentaho-data-integration-video-review-again.aspx The Building a Data Mart with Pentaho Data Integration Video by Diethard Steiner from Packt Publishing is more than just a course on how to use Pentaho Data Integration, it also implements and uses the principals of the Data Warehousing (and I even heard the name of Ralph Kimball in the video). Indeed, a video watcher should be familiar with its concepts as the Star Schema, Slowly Changing Dimension types, etc. so I suggest prior to watching this course to consider skimming through the Data Warehouse concepts (if unfamiliar) or even better, read the excellent Ralph’s The Data Warehouse Tooolkit. By the way, the author expands beyond using Pentaho along to MySQL and MonetDB which is a real icing on the cake! Indeed, I even suggest the name of the course should be ‘Building a Data Warehouse with Pentaho’. To successfully complete the course one needs to know some Linux (Ubuntu used in the course), the VI editor and the Bash command shell, but it seems that similar requirements would also apply to the Windows OS. Additionally, knowing some basic SQL would not hurt. As I had said, MonetDB is used in this course several times which seems to be not anymore complex than say MySQL, but based on what I read is very well suited for fast querying big volumes of data thanks to having a columnstore (vertical data storage). I don’t see what else can be a barrier, the material is very digestible. On this note, I must add that the author does not cover how to acquire the software, so here is what I found may help: Pentaho: the free Community Edition must be more than anyone needs to learn it. Or even go into a POC. MonetDB can be downloaded (exists for both, Linux and Windows) from http://goo.gl/FYxMy0 (just see the appropriate link on the left). The author seems to be using Eclipse to run SQL code, one can get it from http://goo.gl/5CcuN. To create, or edit database entities and/or schema otherwise one can use a universal tool called SQuirreL, get it from http://squirrel-sql.sourceforge.net.   Next, I must confess Diethard is very knowledgeable in what he does and beyond. However, there will be some accent heard to the user of the course especially if one’s mother tongue language is English, but it I got over it in a few chapters. I liked the rate at which the material is being presented, it makes me feel I paid for every second Eventually, my impressions are: Pentaho is an awesome ETL offering, it is worth learning it very much (I am an ETL fan and a heavy user of SSIS) MonetDB is nice, it tickles my fancy to know it more Data Warehousing, despite all the BigData tool offerings (Hive, Scoop, Pig on Hadoop), using the traditional tools still rocks Chapters 2 to 6 were the most fun to me with chapter 8 being the most difficult.   In terms of closing, I highly recommend this video to anyone who needs to grasp Pentaho concepts quick, likewise, the course is very well suited for any developer on a “supposed to be done yesterday” type of a project. It is for a beginner to intermediate level ETL/DW developer. But one would need to learn more on Data Warehousing and Pentaho, for such I recommend the 5 star Pentaho Data Integration 4 Cookbook. Enjoy it! Disclaimer: I received this video from the publisher for the purpose of a public review.

    Read the article

  • Patching and PCI Compliance

    - by Joel Weise
    One of my friends and master of the security universe, Darren Moffat, pointed me to Dan Anderson's blog the other day.  Dan went to Toorcon which is a security conference where he went to a talk on security patching titled, "Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance".  I realize that often times speakers will use a headline grabbing title to create interest in their talk and this one certainly got my attention.  I did not go to the conference and did not see the presentation, so I can only go by what is in the Toorcon agenda summary and on Dan's blog, but the general statement to stop patching for stronger PCI compliance seems a bit misleading to me.  Clearly patching is important to all systems management and should be a part of any organization's security hygiene.  Further, PCI does require the patching of systems to maintain compliance.  So it's important to mention that organizations should not simply stop patching their systems; and I want to believe that was not the speakers intent. So let's look at PCI requirement 6: "Unscrupulous individuals use security vulnerabilities to gain privileged access to systems. Many of these vulnerabilities are fixed by vendor- provided security patches, which must be installed by the entities that manage the systems. All critical systems must have the most recently released, appropriate software patches to protect against exploitation and compromise of cardholder data by malicious individuals and malicious software." Notice the word "appropriate" in the requirement.  This is stated to give organizations some latitude and apply patches that make sense in their environment and that target the vulnerabilities in question.  Haven't we all seen a vulnerability scanner throw a false positive and flag some module and point to a recommended patch, only to realize that the module doesn't exist on our system?  Applying such a patch would obviously not be appropriate.  This does not mean an organization can ignore the fact they need to apply security patches.  It's pretty clear they must.  Of course, organizations have other options in terms of compliance when it comes to patching.  For example, they could remove a system from scope and make sure that system does not process or contain cardholder data.  [This may or may not be a significant undertaking.  I just wanted to point out that there are always options available.] PCI DSS requirement 6.1 also includes the following note: "Note: An organization may consider applying a risk-based approach to prioritize their patch installations. For example, by prioritizing critical infrastructure (for example, public-facing devices and systems, databases) higher than less-critical internal devices, to ensure high-priority systems and devices are addressed within one month, and addressing less critical devices and systems within three months." Notice there is no mention to stop patching one's systems.  And the note also states organization may apply a risk based approach. [A smart approach but also not mandated].  Such a risk based approach is not intended to remove the requirement to patch one's systems.  It is meant, as stated, to allow one to prioritize their patch installations.   So what does this mean to an organization that must comply with PCI DSS and maintain some sanity around their patch management and overall operational readiness?  I for one like to think that most organizations take a common sense and balanced approach to their business and security posture.  If patching is becoming an unbearable task, review why that is the case and possibly look for means to improve operational efficiencies; but also recognize that security is important to maintaining the availability and integrity of one's systems.  Likewise, whether we like it or not, the cyber-world we live in is getting more complex and threatening - and I dont think it's going to get better any time soon.

    Read the article

  • Reminder: Benefícios da Virtualização para ISVs - 14/Dez/10, Porto

    - by Paulo Folgado
    Esta formação aborda as principais dificuldades com que os Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) se confrontam quando têm de escolher as plataformas sobre as quais irão certificar, instalar e suportar as suas aplicações, e como o Oracle VM (e o Oracle Enterprise Linux) os podem ajudar a ultrapassar essas dificuldades. O modelo de negócio clássico de um ISV - desenvolver uma solução aplicacional para resolver um determinado problema de negócio, analizar o mercado para determinar quais os sistemas operativos e o hardware que os clientes do seu mercado alvo usam, e decidir suportar as plataformas hardware e software que 80% dos seus clientes do seu mercado alvo usam (e tratar como excepções outras configurações que lhe sejam solicitadas por alguns clientes importantes) - funcionou bem no anos 80 e princípios dos anos 90, quando havia uma menor diversidade de plataformas. Contudo, com o aparecimentos nos últimos anos de múltiplas versões de sistemas operativos e de "sabores" Linux, este modelo começou a tornar-se um pesadelo. Cada cliente tem a sua plataforma de eleição e espera dos ISV que suportem essas suas opções, o que constitui um sorvedouro dos recursos e dos custos dos ISVs. As tecnologias de virtualização da Oracle, ao permitirem "simular" uma determinada configuração de hardware, fazendo com que o sistema operativo "pense" que está correr numa configuração de hardware pré-definida e normalizada, na qual correm as aplicações, constituem um veículo excelente para os ISVs que procuram uma solução simples, fácil de instalar e fácil de suportar para instalação das suas aplicações, permitindo obter grandes economias de custos em termos de desenvolvimento, teste e suporte dessas aplicações. Quem deve assistir? Esta formação dirige-se sobretudo a quem que tomar decisões sobre as plataformas tecnológicas que o ISV tem de suportar, assim como a quem lida com a estrutura de custos da suas operações, com uma visão dos custos associados ao desenvolvimento, certificação, instalação e suporte de múltiplas plataformas. Se quer saber mais sobre o Oracle VM e como ele pode ajudar a reduzir drasticamente os sues custos, não perca esta formação. AGENDA: 09:00 Welcome & Introduction  ISV Partner View... Why Use Virtualization?   The ISV Deployment Dilemma: The Problem of Supporting Multiple Platforms  How can Virtualization Help?  The use of Templates What is a Template?  How are Templates Created?  Customer's Point of View  Assembly Builder  Weblogic Virtual Edition Managing Oracle VM Best Practices for Virtualizing Oracle Database 11g  Managing Virtual Environments  Coffee Break   Oracle Complete and Integrated Virtualization Portfolio From Datacenter to Desktop  The Next Generation Virtualization  Private Cloud with Middleware Virtualization  Benefits of Using Oracle VM (and Oracle Enterprise Linux) Support Advantages  Production Ready Virtual Machines  Licensing Terms  Partner Resources and OPN Benefits  12:45 Q&A and Wrap-up  Data: 14 de Dezembro - 09h00 / 13h00Local: Oracle Portugal, Av. da Boavista, 1837- Edifício Burgo - Escritório 13.4, 4100-133 PORTO Audiência: Responsáveis de Desenvolvimento, de Tecnologia e Serviços dos parceiros ISV da Oracle Formação realizada pela Altimate

    Read the article

  • SQLAuthority News – Updates on Contests, Books and SQL Server

    - by pinaldave
    There are lots of things happening on this blog and I feel sometime it is difficult to keep up. One of the suggestion I keep on receiving if there is a single page where one can visit and know the updates. I did consider of the same at some point but in era of RSS Feed it is difficult to have proper audience to that page. Here are few updates on various contest and books give away in recent time. Combo set of 5 Joes 2 Pros Book – 1 for YOU and 1 for Friend – I have received so many entries for this contest. Many have sent me email asking if this contest can be extended by couple of days. For the same the deadline for this contest is now Nov 10th 7 AM. You can send your entries by that time. The prize is 2 combo set of Joes 2 Pros is of USD 444. If you have not take part in the contest please take part now. Guess What is in the box? – There were many entry for this contest. We played this contest on blog as well, facebook. The answer of this contest was announced in 2 days in blog post announcing my new book. The winner was Manas Dash from Bangalore. He answered “The box will contain SQL book authored by Vinod and Pinal”. This was the closest answer we received. Win 5 SQL Programming Book Contest will have winner announced by Nov 15th and winners will be sent email. Win 5 SQL Wait Stats Book Contest is closed and winners have been sent their award. My third book SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers have run out of stock in India in 36 hours of its launch. We are working very hard to make it available again. Thank you again for excellent support! Without your participation all the give away have no significance. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

    Read the article

  • Silverlight Cream for February 05, 2011 -- #1041

    - by Dave Campbell
    In this Issue: Peter Kuhn, Mike Ormond(-2-, -3-), WindowsPhoneGeek, Daniel N. Egan, Phil Middlemiss(-2-), Max Paulousky, Michael Washington. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Designing for Browser-Zoom: Part 2" Phil Middlemiss WP7: "Talking about Converters in WP7 | Coding4fun toolkit converters in depth" WindowsPhoneGeek Lightswitch: "LightSwitch: Can We Handle The Truth?" Michael Washington Shoutouts: András Velvárt has a video up of some awesome changes he has planned for SurfCube, check it out: SurfCube V2 - 3D Web Browser for Windows Phone 7, now with tabs! From SilverlightCream.com: Silverlight for keyboard junkies Peter Kuhn has a post up talking about the issues surrounding trying to use the tab key to navigate between controls... and follows it up with a behavior that resolves it. Windows Phone 7 Content On Demand Mike Ormond has a batch of WP7 Videos up... this first is "Windows Phone 7: A Different Kind of Phone" with Andrej Radinger. Windows Phone 7 Content on Demand Pt 2 Mike Ormond's 2nd WP7 video is "Understanding the Windows Phone 7 Development Tools and Getting Started" with Maarten Struys Windows Phone 7 Content on Demand Pt 3 Mike Ormond's 3rd WP7 Content on Demand is "Games Programming on Windows Phone 7 with Silverlight and XNA" with Rob Miles Talking about Converters in WP7 | Coding4fun toolkit converters in depth WindowsPhoneGeek is discussing value converters in his latest post... value converters for WP7... and the ones in the Coding4Fun toolkit to be exact... everything you wanted to know about them but didn't know to ask :) WP7 Developer Tools–Jan Update Daniel N. Egan has information up about the new WP7 Developer Tools release. Designing for Browser-Zoom: Part 1 Phil Middlemiss has both parts of a series on Browser Zoom up... this first part covers the zoom and different pieces involved. Designing for Browser-Zoom: Part 2 Phil Middlemiss's part 2 shows us some design considerations and visual states, including an attached behavior you can use in Blend to respond to the zoom event. Windows Phone Copy-Paste: How It Looks and Works Max Paulousky has the first post I've seen on WP7 Copy/Paste up... of course it's still in the emulator, but hey... that's better than nothing, right? LightSwitch: Can We Handle The Truth? Have you been playing with Lightswitch? Well... Michael Washington has, and it's got his interest up far enough that he's waving the flags trying to attract everyone else over there as well... see if you agree. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

    Read the article

  • ASP.NET 4.0- Menu control enhancement.

    - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama
    Till asp.net 3.5 asp.net menu control was rendered through table. And we all know that it is very hard to have CSS applied to table. For a professional look of our website a CSS is must required thing. But in asp.net 4.0 Menu control is table less it will loaded with UL and LI tags which is easier to manage through CSS. Another problem with table is it will create a large html which will increase your asp.net page KB and decrease your performance. While with UL and LI Tags its very easy very short. So You page KB Size will also be down. Let’s take a simple example. Let’s Create a menu control in asp.net with four menu item like following. <asp:Menu ID="myCustomMenu" runat="server" > <Items> <asp:MenuItem Text="Menu1" Value="Menu1"></asp:MenuItem> <asp:MenuItem Text="Menu2" Value="Menu2"></asp:MenuItem> <asp:MenuItem Text="Menu3" Value="Menu3"></asp:MenuItem> <asp:MenuItem Text="Menu4" Value="Menu4"></asp:MenuItem> </Items></asp:Menu> It will render menu in browser like following. Now If we render this menu control with tables then HTML as you can see via view page source like following.   Now If in asp.net 4.0 It will be loaded with UL and LI tags and if you now see page source then it will look like following. Which will have must lesser HTML then it was earlier like following. So isn’t that great performance enhancement?.. It’s very cool. If you still like old way doing with tables then in asp.net 4.0 there is property called ‘RenderingMode’ is given. So you can set RenderingMode=Table then it will load menu control with table otherwise it will load menu control with UL and LI Tags. That’s it..Stay tuned for more..Happy programming.. Technorati Tags: Menu,Asp.NET 4.0

    Read the article

  • How To Uninstall, Disable, and Remove Windows Defender. Also, How Turn it Off

    - by The Geek
    If you’re already running a full anti-malware suite, you might not even realize that Windows Defender is already installed with Windows, and is probably wasting precious resources. Here’s how to get rid of it. Now, just to be clear, we’re not saying that we hate Windows Defender. Some spyware protection is better than none, and it’s built in and free! But… if you are already running something that provides great anti-malware protection, there’s no need to have more than one application running at a time. Disable Windows Defender Unfortunately, Windows Defender is completely built into Windows, and you’re not going to actually uninstall it. What we can do, however, is disable it. Open up Windows Defender, go to Tools on the top menu, and then click on Options. Now click on Administrator on the left-hand pane, uncheck the box for “Use this program”, and click the Save button. You will then be told that the program is turned off. Awesome! If you really, really want to make sure that it never comes back, you can also open up the Services panel through Control Panel, or by typing services.msc into the Start Menu search or run boxes. Find Windows Defender in the list and double-click on it… And then you can change Startup type to Disabled. Now again, we’re not necessarily advocating that you get rid of Windows Defender. Make sure you keep yourself protected from malware! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stop an Application from Running at Startup in Windows VistaRemove "Map Network Drive" Menu Item from Windows Vista or XPManually Remove Skype Extension from FirefoxUninstall, Disable, or Delete Internet Explorer 8 from Windows 7Still Useful in Vista: Startup Control Panel TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista

    Read the article

  • What type of interview questions should you ask for "legacy" programmers?

    - by Marcus Swope
    We have recently been receiving lots of applicants for our open developer positions from people who I like to refer to as "legacy" programmers. I don't like the term "old" because it seems a little prejudiced (especially to HR!) and it doesn't accurately reflect what I mean. We are a company that does primarily .NET development using TDD in an Agile environment, we use Git as a source control system, we make heavy use of OSS tools and projects and we contribute to them as well, we have a strong bias towards adhering to strong Object-Oriented principles, SOLID, etc, etc, etc... Now, the normal list of questions that we ask doesn't really seem to apply to applicants that are fresh out of school, nor does it seem to apply to these "legacy" programmers. Here is how I (loosely) define a "legacy" programmer. Spent a significant amount of their career working almost exclusively with Assembly/Machine Languages. Primary accomplishments include work done with TANDEM systems. Has extensive experience with technologies like FoxPro and ColdFusion It's not that we somehow think that what we do is "better" than what they do, on the contrary, we respect these types of applicants and we are scared that we may be missing a good candidate. It is just very difficult to get a good read on someone who is essentially speaking a different language than you. To someone like this, it seems a little strange to ask a question like: What is the difference between an abstract class and an interface? Because, I would think that they would almost never know the answer or even what I'm talking about. However, I don't want to eliminate someone who could be a very good candidate in their own right and could be able to eventually learn the stuff that we do. But, I also don't want to just ask a bunch of behavioral questions, because I want to know about their technical background as well. Am I being too naive? Should "legacy" programmers like this already know about things like TDD, source control strategies, and best practices for object-oriented programming? If not, what questions should we ask to get a good representation about whether or not they are still able to learn them and be able to keep up in our fast-paced environment? EDIT: I'm not concerned with whether or not applicants that meet these criteria are in general capable or incapable, as I have already stated that I believe that they can be 100% capable. I am more interested in figuring out how to evaluate their talents, as I am having a hard time figuring out how to determine if they are an A+ "legacy" programmer or if they are a D- "legacy" programmer. I've worked with both.

    Read the article

  • Book review (Book 6) - Wikinomics

    - by BuckWoody
    This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here. The book I chose for November 2011 was: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott   Why I chose this Book: I’ve heard a lot about this book - was one of the “must read” kind of business books (many of which are very “fluffy”) and supposedly deals with collaborating using technology - so I want to see what it says about collaborative efforts and how I can leverage them. What I learned: I really disliked this book. I’ve never been a fan of the latest “business book”, and sadly that’s what this felt like to me. A “business book” is what I call a work that has a fairly simple concept to get across, and then proceeds to use various made-up terms, analogies and other mechanisms to fill hundreds of pages doing it. This perception is at my own – the book is pretty old, and these things go stale quickly. The author’s general point (at least what I took away from it) was: Open Source is good, proprietary is bad. Collaboration is the hallmark of successful companies. In my mind, you can save yourself the trouble of reading this work if you get these two concepts down. Don’t get me wrong – open source is awesome, and collaboration is a good thing, especially in places where it fits. But it’s not a panacea as the author seems to indicate. For instance, he continuously uses the example of MySpace to show a “2.0” company, which I think means that you can enter text as well as read it on a web page. All well and good. But we all know what happened to MySpace, and of course he missed the point entirely about this new web environment: low barriers to entry often mean low barriers to exit. And the open, collaborative company being the best model – well, I think we all know a certain computer company famous for phones and music that is arguably quite successful, and is probably one of the most closed, non-collaborative (at least with its customers) on the planet. So that sort of takes away that argument. The reality of business is far more complicated. Collaboration is an amazing tool, and should be leveraged heavily. However, at the end of the day, after you do your research you need to pick a strategy and stick with it. Asking thousands of people to assist you in building your product probably will not work well. Open Source is great – but some proprietary products are quite functional as well, have a long track record, are well supported, and will probably be upgraded. Everything has its place, so use what works where it is needed. There is no single answer, sadly. So did I waste my time reading the book? Did I make a bad choice? Not at all! Reading the opinions and thoughts of others is almost always useful, and it’s important to consider opinions other than your own. If nothing else, thinking through the process either convinces you that you are wrong, or helps you understand better why you are right.

    Read the article

  • Talking JavaOne with Rock Star Adam Bien

    - by Janice J. Heiss
    Among the most celebrated developers in recent years, especially in the domain of Java EE and JavaFX, is consultant Adam Bien, who, in addition to being a JavaOne Rock Star for Java EE sessions given in 2009 and 20011, is a Java Champion, the winner of Oracle Magazine’s 2011 Top Java Developer of the Year Award, and recently won a 2012 JAX Innovation Award as a top Java Ambassador. Bien will be presenting the following sessions: TUT3907 - Java EE 6/7: The Lean Parts CON3906 - Stress-Testing Java EE 6 Applications Without Stress CON3908 - Building Serious JavaFX 2 Applications CON3896 - Interactive Onstage Java EE Overengineering I spoke with Bien to get his take on Java today. He expressed excitement that the smallest companies and startups are showing increasing interest in Java EE. “This is a very good sign,” said Bien. “Only a few years ago J2EE was mostly used by larger companies -- now it becomes interesting even for one-person shows. Enterprise Java events are also extremely popular. On the Java SE side, I'm really excited about Project Nashorn.” Nashorn is an upcoming JavaScript engine, developed fully in Java by Oracle, and based on the Da Vinci Machine (JSR 292) which is expected to be available for Java 8.   Bien expressed concern about a common misconception regarding Java's mediocre productivity. “The problem is not Java,” explained Bien, “but rather systems built with ancient patterns and approaches. Sometimes it really is ‘Cargo Cult Programming.’ Java SE/EE can be incredibly productive and lean without the unnecessary and hard-to-maintain bloat. The real problems are ‘Ivory Towers’ and not Java’s lack of productivity.” Bien remarked that if there is one thing he wanted Java developers to understand it is that, "Premature optimization is the root of all evil. Or at least of some evil. Modern JVMs and application servers are hard to optimize upfront. It is far easier to write simple code and measure the results continuously. Identify the hotspots first, then optimize.” He advised Java EE developers to, “Rethink everything you know about Enterprise Java. Before you implement anything, ask the question: ‘Why?’ If there is no clear answer -- just don't do it. Most well known best practices are outdated. Focus your efforts on the domain problem and not the technology.” Looking ahead, Bien said, “I would like to see open source application servers running directly on a hypervisor. Packaging the whole runtime in a single file would significantly simplify the deployment and operations.”Check out a recent Java Magazine interview with Bien about his Java EE 6 stress monitoring tool here. Originally published on blogs.oracle.com/javaone.

    Read the article

  • Software Architecture verses Software Design

    Recently, I was asked what the differences between software architecture and software design are. At a very superficial level both architecture and design seem to mean relatively the same thing. However, if we examine both of these terms further we will find that they are in fact very different due to the level of details they encompass. Software Architecture can be defined as the essence of an application because it deals with high level concepts that do not include any details as to how they will be implemented. To me this gives stakeholders a view of a system or application as if someone was viewing the earth from outer space. At this distance only very basic elements of the earth can be detected like land, weather and water. As the viewer comes closer to earth the details in this view start to become more defined. Details about the earth’s surface will start to actually take form as well as mane made structures will be detected. The process of transitioning a view from outer space to inside our earth’s atmosphere is similar to how an architectural concept is transformed to an architectural design. From this vantage point stakeholders can start to see buildings and other structures as if they were looking out of a small plane window. This distance is still high enough to see a large area of the earth’s surface while still being able to see some details about the surface. This viewing point is very similar to the actual design process of an application in that it takes the very high level architectural concept or concepts and applies concrete design details to form a software design that encompasses the actual implementation details in the form of responsibilities and functions. Examples of these details include: interfaces, components, data, and connections. In review, software architecture deals with high level concepts without regard to any implementation details. Software design on the other hand takes high level concepts and applies concrete details so that software can be implemented. As part of the transition between software architecture to the creation of software design an evaluation on the architecture is recommended. There are several benefits to including this step as part of the transition process. It allows for projects to ensure that they are on the correct path as to meeting the stakeholder’s requirement goals, identifies possible cost savings and can be used to find missing or nonspecific requirements that cause ambiguity in a design. In the book “Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies”, they define key benefits to adding an architectural review process to ensure that an architecture is ready to move on to the design phase. Benefits to evaluating software architecture: Gathers all stakeholders to communicate about the project Goals are clearly defined in regards to the creation or validation of specific requirements Goals are prioritized so that when conflicts occur decisions will be made based on goal priority Defines a clear expectation of the architecture so that all stakeholders have a keen understanding of the project Ensures high quality documentation of the architecture Enables discoveries of architectural reuse  Increases the quality of architecture practices. I can remember a few projects that I worked on that could have really used an architectural review prior to being passed on to developers. This project was to create some new advertising space on the company’s website in order to sell space based on the location and some other criteria. I was one of the developer selected to lead this project and I was given a high level design concept and a long list of ever changing requirements due to the fact that sales department had no clear direction as to what exactly the project was going to do or how they were going to bill the clients once they actually agreed to purchase the Ad space. In my personal opinion IT should have pushed back to have the requirements further articulated instead of forcing programmers to code blindly attempting to build such an ambiguous project.  Unfortunately, we had to suffer with this project for about 4 months when it should have only taken 1.5 to complete due to the constantly changing and unclear requirements. References  Clements, P., Kazman, R., & Klein, M. (2002). Evaluating Software Architectures. Westford, Massachusetts: Courier Westford. 

    Read the article

  • Code refactoring with Visual Studio 2010-Part 3

    - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama
    I have been writing few post about Code refactoring features of visual studio 2010 and This blog post is also one of them. In this post I am going to show you reorder parameters features in visual studio 2010. As a developer you might need to reorder parameter of a method or procedure in code for better readability of the the code and if you do this task manually then it is tedious job to do. But Visual Studio Reorder Parameter code refactoring feature can do this stuff within a minute. So let’s see how its works. For this I have created a simple console application which I have used earlier posts . Following is a code for that. using System; namespace CodeRefractoring { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { string firstName = "Jalpesh"; string lastName = "Vadgama"; PrintMyName(firstName, lastName); } private static void PrintMyName(string firstName, string lastName) { Console.WriteLine(string.Format("FirstName:{0}", firstName)); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("LastName:{0}", lastName)); Console.ReadLine(); } } } Above code is very simple. It just print a firstname and lastname via PrintMyName method. Now I want to reorder the firstname and lastname parameter of PrintMyName. So for that first I have to select method and then click Refactor Menu-> Reorder parameters like following. Once you click a dialog box appears like following where it will give options to move parameter with arrow navigation like following. Now I am moving lastname parameter as first parameter like following. Once you click OK it will show a preview option where I can see the effects of changes like following. Once I clicked Apply my code will be changed like following. using System; namespace CodeRefractoring { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { string firstName = "Jalpesh"; string lastName = "Vadgama"; PrintMyName(lastName, firstName); } private static void PrintMyName(string lastName, string firstName) { Console.WriteLine(string.Format("FirstName:{0}", firstName)); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("LastName:{0}", lastName)); Console.ReadLine(); } } } As you can see its very easy to use this feature. Hoped you liked it.. Stay tuned for more.. Till that happy programming.

    Read the article

  • Welcome 2011

    - by WeigeltRo
    Things that happened in 2010 MIX10 was absolutely fantastic. Read my report of MIX10 to see why.   The dotnet Cologne 2010, the community conference organized by the .NET user group Köln and my own group Bonn-to-Code.Net became an even bigger success than I dared to dream of.   There was a huge discrepancy between the efforts by Microsoft to support .NET user groups to organize public live streaming events of the PDC keynote (the dotnet Cologne team joined forces with netug  Niederrhein to organize the PDCologne) and the actual content of the keynote. The reaction of the audience at our event was “meh” and even worse I seriously doubt we’ll ever get that number of people to such an event (which on top of that suffered from technical difficulties beyond our control).   What definitely would have deserved the public live streaming event treatment was the Silverlight Firestarter (aka “Silverlight Damage Control”) event. And maybe we would have thought about organizing something if it weren’t for the “burned earth” left by the PDC keynote. Anyway, the stuff shown at the firestarter keynote was the topic of conversations among colleagues days later (“did you see that? oh yeah, that was seriously cool”). Things that I have learned/observed/noticed in 2010 In the long run, there’s a huge difference between “It works pretty well” and “it just works and I never have to think about it”. I had to get rid of my USB graphics adapter powering the third monitor (read about it in this blog post). Various small issues (desktop icons sometimes moving their positions after a reboot for no apparent reasons, at least one game I couldn’t get run at all, all three monitors sometimes simply refusing to wake up after standby) finally made me buy a PCIe 1x graphics adapter. If you’re interested: The combination of a NVIDIA GTX 460 and a GT 220 is running in “don’t make me think” mode for a couple of months now.   PowerPoint 2010 is a seriously cool piece of software. Not only the new hardware-accelerated effects, but also features like built-in background removal and picture processing (which in many cases are simply “good enough” and save a lot of time) or the smart guides.   Outlook 2010 crashes on me a lot. I haven’t been successful in reproducing these crashes, they just happen when every couple of days on different occasions (only thing in common: I clicked something in the main window – yeah, very helpful observation)   Visual Studio 2010 reminds me of Visual Studio 2005 before SP1, which is actually not a good thing to say about a piece of software. I think it’s telling that Microsoft’s message regarding the beta of SP1 has been different from earlier service pack betas (promising an upgrade path for a beta to the RTM sounds to me like “please, please use it NOW!”).   I have a love/hate relationship with ReSharper. I don’t want to develop without it, but at the same time I can’t fail to notice that ReSharper is taking a heavy toll in terms of performance and sometimes stability. Things I’m looking forward to in 2011 Obviously, the dotnet Cologne 2011. We already have been able to score some big name sponsors (Microsoft, Intel), but we’re still looking for more sponsors. And be assured that we’ll make sure that our partners get the most out of their contribution, regardless of how big or small.   MIX11, period.    Silverlight 5 is going to be great. The only thing I’m a bit nervous about is that I still haven’t read anything official on whether C# next version’s async/await will be in it. Leaving that out would be really stupid considering the end-of-2011 release of SL5 (moving the next release way into the future).

    Read the article

  • Voxel Engine in Multiplayer?

    - by Oliver Schöning
    This is a question more out of Interest for now, because I am not even near to the point that I could create this project at the moment. I really like the progress on the Atomontage Engine. A Voxel engine that is WIP at the moment. I would like to create a Voxel SERVER eventually. First in JavaScript (That's what I am learning right now) later perhaps in C++ for speed. Remember, I am perfectly aware that this is very hard! This is a brainstorm for the next 10 years as for now. What I would like to achieve one day is a Multiplayer Game in the Browser where the voxels positions are updated by XYZ input from the server. The Browser Does only 3 things: sending player input to the server, updating Voxel positions send from the server and rendering the world. I imagine using something like the Three.js libary on the client side. So that would be my programming dream right there... Now to something simpler for the near future. Right now I am learning javascript. And I am making games with Construct2. (A really cool JavaScript "game maker") The plan is to create a 2D Voxel enviorment (Block Voxels) on the Socket.IO Server* and send the position of the Voxels and Players to the Client side which then positions the Voxel Blocks to the Server Output coordinates. I think that is a bit more manageable then the other bigger idea. And also there should be no worries about speed with this type of project in JavaScript (I hope). Extra Info: *I am using nodejs (Without really knowing what it does besides making Socket.IO work) So now some questions: Is the "dream project" doable in JavaScript? Or is C++ just the best option because it does not take as long to be interpreted at run time like JavaScript? What are the limitations? I can think of some: Need of a Powerful server depending on how much information the server has to process. Internet Speed; Sending the data of the Voxel positions to every player could add up being very high! The browser FPS might go down quickly if rendering to many objects. One way of fixing reducing the packages Could be to let the browser calculate some of the Voxel positions from Several Values. But that would slow down the Client side too. What about the more achievable project? I am almost 100% convinced that this is possible in JavaScript, and that there are several ways of doing this. This is just XY position Updating for now.. Hope this did make some sense. Please comment if you got something to say :D

    Read the article

  • “Play Now” via website vs. download & install

    - by Inside
    I've spent some time looking over the various threads here on GDSE and also on the regular Stackoverflow site, and while I saw a lot of posts and threads regarding various engines that could be used in game development, I haven't seen very much discussion regarding the various platforms that they can be used on. In particular, I'm talking about browser games vs. desktop games. I want to develop a simple 3D networked multiplayer game - roughly on the graphics level of Paper Mario and gameplay with roughly the same level of interaction as a hack & slash action/adventure game - and I'm having a hard time deciding what platform I want to target with it. I have some experience with using C++/Ogre3D and Python/Panda3D (and also some synchronized/networked programming), but I'm wondering if it's worth it to spend the extra time to learn another language and another engine/toolkit just so that the game can be played in a browser window (I'm looking at jMonkeyEngine right now). Is it worth it to go with engines that are less-mature, have less documentation, have fewer features, and smaller communities* just so that a (possibly?) larger audience can be reached? Does it make sense to even go with a web-environment for the kind of game that I want to make? Does anyone have any experiences with decisions like this? (* With the exception of Flash-based engines it seems like most of the other approaches have downsides when compared to what is available for desktop-based environments. I'd go with Flash, but I'm worried that Flash's 3D capabilities aren't mature enough right now to do what I want easily. There's also Unity3D, but I'm not sure how I feel about that at all. It seems highly polished, but requires a plugin to be downloaded for the game to be played -- at that rate I might as well have players download my game.) For simple & short games the Newgrounds approach (go to the site, click "play now", instant gratification) seems to work well. What about for more complex games? Is there a point where the complexity of a game is enough for people to say "OK, I'm going to download and play that"?

    Read the article

  • The enterprise vendor con - connecting SSD's using SATA 2 (3Gbits) thus limiting there performance

    - by tonyrogerson
    When comparing SSD against Hard drive performance it really makes me cross when folk think comparing an array of SSD running on 3GBits/sec to hard drives running on 6GBits/second is somehow valid. In a paper from DELL (http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pvaul/en/PowerEdge-PowerVaultH800-CacheCade-final.pdf) on increasing database performance using the DELL PERC H800 with Solid State Drives they compare four SSD drives connected at 3Gbits/sec against ten 10Krpm drives connected at 6Gbits [Tony slaps forehead while shouting DOH!]. It is true in the case of hard drives it probably doesn’t make much difference 3Gbit or 6Gbit because SAS and SATA are both end to end protocols rather than shared bus architecture like SCSI, so the hard drive doesn’t share bandwidth and probably can’t get near the 600MiBytes/second throughput that 6Gbit gives unless you are doing contiguous reads, in my own tests on a single 15Krpm SAS disk using IOMeter (8 worker threads, queue depth of 16 with a stripe size of 64KiB, an 8KiB transfer size on a drive formatted with an allocation size of 8KiB for a 100% sequential read test) I only get 347MiBytes per second sustained throughput at an average latency of 2.87ms per IO equating to 44.5K IOps, ok, if that was 3GBits it would be less – around 280MiBytes per second, oh, but wait a minute [...fingers tap desk] You’ll struggle to find in the commodity space an SSD that doesn’t have the SATA 3 (6GBits) interface, SSD’s are fast not only low latency and high IOps but they also offer a very large sustained transfer rate, consider the OCZ Agility 3 it so happens that in my masters dissertation I did the same test but on a difference box, I got 374MiBytes per second at an average latency of 2.67ms per IO equating to 47.9K IOps – cost of an 240GB Agility 3 is £174.24 (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/240gb-ocz-agility-3-ssd-25-sata-6gb-s-sandforce-2281-read-525mb-s-write-500mb-s-85k-iops), but that same drive set in a box connected with SATA 2 (3Gbits) would only yield around 280MiBytes per second thus losing almost 100MiBytes per second throughput and a ton of IOps too. So why the hell are “enterprise” vendors still only connecting SSD’s at 3GBits? Well, my conspiracy states that they have no interest in you moving to SSD because they’ll lose so much money, the argument that they use SATA 2 doesn’t wash, SATA 3 has been out for some time now and all the commodity stuff you buy uses it now. Consider the cost, not in terms of price per GB but price per IOps, SSD absolutely thrash Hard Drives on that, it was true that the opposite was also true that Hard Drives thrashed SSD’s on price per GB, but is that true now, I’m not so sure – a 300GByte 2.5” 15Krpm SAS drive costs £329.76 ex VAT (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/300gb-seagate-st9300653ss-savvio-15k3-25-hdd-sas-6gb-s-15000rpm-64mb-cache-27ms) which equates to £1.09 per GB compared to a 480GB OCZ Agility 3 costing £422.10 ex VAT (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/480gb-ocz-agility-3-ssd-25-sata-6gb-s-sandforce-2281-read-525mb-s-write-410mb-s-30k-iops) which equates to £0.88 per GB. Ok, I compared an “enterprise” hard drive with a “commodity” SSD, ok, so things get a little more complicated here, most “enterprise” SSD’s are SLC and most commodity are MLC, SLC gives more performance and wear, I’ll talk about that another day. For now though, don’t get sucked in by vendor marketing, SATA 2 (3Gbit) just doesn’t cut it, SSD need 6Gbit to breath and even that SSD’s are pushing. Alas, SSD’s are connected using SATA so all the controllers I’ve seen thus far from HP and DELL only do SATA 2 – deliberate? Well, I’ll let you decide on that one.

    Read the article

  • Big Data – Beginning Big Data Series Next Month in 21 Parts

    - by Pinal Dave
    Big Data is the next big thing. There was a time when we used to talk in terms of MB and GB of the data. However, the industry is changing and we are now moving to a conversation where we discuss about data in Petabyte, Exabyte and Zettabyte. It seems that the world is now talking about increased Volume of the data. In simple world we all think that Big Data is nothing but plenty of volume. In reality Big Data is much more than just a huge volume of the data. When talking about the data we need to understand about variety and volume along with volume. Though Big data look like a simple concept, it is extremely complex subject when we attempt to start learning the same. My Journey I have recently presented on Big Data in quite a few organizations and I have received quite a few questions during this roadshow event. I have collected all the questions which I have received and decided to post about them on the blog. In the month of October 2013, on every weekday we will be learning something new about Big Data. Every day I will share a concept/question and in the same blog post we will learn the answer of the same. Big Data – Plenty of Questions I received quite a few questions during my road trip. Here are few of the questions. I want to learn Big Data – where should I start? Do I need to know SQL to learn Big Data? What is Hadoop? There are so many organizations talking about Big Data, and every one has a different approach. How to start with big Data? Do I need to know Java to learn about Big Data? What is different between various NoSQL languages. I will attempt to answer most of the questions during the month long series in the next month. Big Data – Big Subject Big Data is a very big subject and I no way claim that I will be covering every single big data concept in this series. However, I promise that I will be indeed sharing lots of basic concepts which are revolving around Big Data. We will discuss from fundamentals about Big Data and continue further learning about it. I will attempt to cover the concept so simple that many of you might have wondered about it but afraid to ask. Your Role! During this series next month, I need your one help. Please keep on posting questions you might have related to big data as blog post comments and on Facebook Page. I will monitor them closely and will try to answer them as well during this series. Now make sure that you do not miss any single blog post in this series as every blog post will be linked to each other. You can subscribe to my feed or like my Facebook page or subscribe via email (by entering email in the blog post). Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

    Read the article

  • JavaOne Rock Star – Adam Bien

    - by Janice J. Heiss
    Among the most celebrated developers in recent years, especially in the domain of Java EE and JavaFX, is consultant Adam Bien, who, in addition to being a JavaOne Rock Star for Java EE sessions given in 2009 and 2011, is a Java Champion, the winner of Oracle Magazine’s 2011 Top Java Developer of the Year Award, and recently won a 2012 JAX Innovation Award as a top Java Ambassador. Bien will be presenting the following sessions: TUT3907 - Java EE 6/7: The Lean Parts CON3906 - Stress-Testing Java EE 6 Applications Without Stress CON3908 - Building Serious JavaFX 2 Applications CON3896 - Interactive Onstage Java EE Overengineering I spoke with Bien to get his take on Java today. He expressed excitement that the smallest companies and startups are showing increasing interest in Java EE. “This is a very good sign,” said Bien. “Only a few years ago J2EE was mostly used by larger companies -- now it becomes interesting even for one-person shows. Enterprise Java events are also extremely popular. On the Java SE side, I'm really excited about Project Nashorn.” Nashorn is an upcoming JavaScript engine, developed fully in Java by Oracle, and based on the Da Vinci Machine (JSR 292) which is expected to be available for Java 8.    Bien expressed concern about a common misconception regarding Java's mediocre productivity. “The problem is not Java,” explained Bien, “but rather systems built with ancient patterns and approaches. Sometimes it really is ‘Cargo Cult Programming.’ Java SE/EE can be incredibly productive and lean without the unnecessary and hard-to-maintain bloat. The real problems are ‘Ivory Towers’ and not Java’s lack of productivity.” Bien remarked that if there is one thing he wanted Java developers to understand it is that, "Premature optimization is the root of all evil. Or at least of some evil. Modern JVMs and application servers are hard to optimize upfront. It is far easier to write simple code and measure the results continuously. Identify the hotspots first, then optimize.”   He advised Java EE developers to, “Rethink everything you know about Enterprise Java. Before you implement anything, ask the question: ‘Why?’ If there is no clear answer -- just don't do it. Most well known best practices are outdated. Focus your efforts on the domain problem and not the technology.” Looking ahead, Bien remarked, “I would like to see open source application servers running directly on a hypervisor. Packaging the whole runtime in a single file would significantly simplify the deployment and operations.” Check out a recent Java Magazine interview with Bien about his Java EE 6 stress monitoring tool here.

    Read the article

  • PHP and Ruby: how to leverage both? and, is it worth it?

    - by dukeofgaming
    As you might have noticed from the title, this is not a "PHP or Ruby", or a "PHP vs. Ruby" question. This is a question on how to leverage PHP + Ruby in the same business. I myself am a PHP developer, I love the language because of its convenience and I specially love the ecosystem of resources that surround it: Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, Symfony2, Doctrine2, etc. However, the language itself can be a little disappointing sometimes. OTOH, Ruby looks like a very beautiful language and —from studying it superficially in several aspects— I could say it is leaner than Python as a language per se. However, from what I've seen there is pretty much only RoR making noise, and I don't like RoR so much (mainly because its model layer). As Co-CEO and CTO at my company I'm trying to think outside of the box since I want to start to focus on the human side of technology and see if its sane to use both PHP and Ruby. Here are some random thoughts: Ruby folk seem to be generally better suited programmers than PHP folk (in terms of averages), I know the previous statement is somewhat baloney because very good and well architected PHP can be written, but I'd say the Ruby programmer culture is better than PHP's. The thing about Ruby is that it seems better suited for rapid development, I don't really know if this is only the case for RoR, but I do know that there are certain practices (perhaps not so good) like monkey patching that let business needs be satified quicker. From a marketing point of view (yep, sometimes you need to leverage the marketing BS for the sake of your company) Ruby seems better while PHP carries some stigmas. PHP 5.4 is bringing traits, and that is better/cleaner than mixins. That could really make PHP as lean as Ruby —or more— for certain stuff. Now, concretely, my questions: Would a PHP programmer want to learn Ruby?, I know I do, but conversely, would a Ruby programmer want to learn PHP?. What kinds of projects or situations would be better suited for Ruby that are not suited for PHP?. What is the actual ecosystem of Ruby?, aside from RoR, I have not seen other hyped technologies/frameworks (I've seen RSpec, but I confess being a total noob on what BDD really consists of and its implications). Supposing there are a certain type of projects ideal for Ruby, would there be a moment that its better to move it to PHP?. I know PHP can handle lots of stuff, but I've read that Ruby has its limitations when scaling (or is that RoR?, or is that baloney for both?). Finally and most importantly, would it be sane to maintain projects in two languages?, or is that just stupid. As I said, it looks like Ruby is leaner on the short term and that can make a project happen and succeed, but I'm not so sure about that on the long run. I'm looking for insights mainly from people that know well the strengths and weaknesses of the languages —preferably both of them— and Ruby's ecosystem in real practice, meaning: frameworks and applications like the ones I quoted from PHP's ecosystem. Best regards and thanks for your time.

    Read the article

  • Reasons to Use a VM For Development

    - by George Stocker
    Background: I work at a start-up company, where one team uses Virtual Machines to connect to a remote server to do their development, and another team (the team I'm on) uses local IIS/SQL Server 2005/Visual Studio installations to conduct work. Team VM is located about 1000 miles from Team Non-VM, and the servers the VMs run off of are located near Team VM (Latency, for those that are wondering, is about 50ms). A person high in the company is pushing for Team Non-VM to use virtual machines for programming, development, and testing. The latter point we agree on -- we want Virtual Machines to test configurations and various aspects of the web application in a 'clean' state. The Problem: What we don't agree on is having developers using RDP to connect to a desktop remotely that contains Visual Studio, SQL Server, and IIS to do the same development we could do locally on our laptops. I've tried the VM set-up, and besides the color issue, there is a latency issue that is rather noticeable, not to mention that since we're a start-up, a good number of employees work from home on occasion with our work laptops, and this move would cut off the laptops. They'd be turned in. Reasons to Use Remote VMs for Development (Not Testing!): Here are the stated reasons that this person wants us to use VMs: They work for TeamVM. They keep the source code "safe". If we want to work from home, we could just use our home PCs. Licenses (I don't know what the argument is, only that it's been used). Reasons not to use Remote VMs for Development: Here are the stated reasons why we don't want to use VMs: We like working from home. We get a lot done on our own time. We're not going to use our Home PCs to do work related stuff. The Latency is noticeable. Support for the VMs (if they go down, or if we need a new VM) takes a while. We don't have administrative privileges on the VM, and are unable to change settings as needed. What I'm looking for from the community is this: What reasons would you give for not using VMs for development? Keep in mind these are remote VMs -- this isn't a VM running on a local desktop. It's using the laptop (or a desktop) as a thin client for a remote VM. Also, on the other side of the coin: Is there something we're missing that makes VMs more palatable for development? Edit: I think 'safe' is used in term of corporate espionage, or more correctly if the Laptop gets stolen, the person who stole would have access to our source code. The former (as we've pointed out, is always going to be a possibility -- companies stop that with litigation, there isn't a technical solution (so far as I can see)). The latter point is ( though I don't know its usefulness in a corporate scenario) mitigated by Truecrypt'ing the entire volume.

    Read the article

  • Big Data – Basics of Big Data Architecture – Day 4 of 21

    - by Pinal Dave
    In yesterday’s blog post we understood how Big Data evolution happened. Today we will understand basics of the Big Data Architecture. Big Data Cycle Just like every other database related applications, bit data project have its development cycle. Though three Vs (link) for sure plays an important role in deciding the architecture of the Big Data projects. Just like every other project Big Data project also goes to similar phases of the data capturing, transforming, integrating, analyzing and building actionable reporting on the top of  the data. While the process looks almost same but due to the nature of the data the architecture is often totally different. Here are few of the question which everyone should ask before going ahead with Big Data architecture. Questions to Ask How big is your total database? What is your requirement of the reporting in terms of time – real time, semi real time or at frequent interval? How important is the data availability and what is the plan for disaster recovery? What are the plans for network and physical security of the data? What platform will be the driving force behind data and what are different service level agreements for the infrastructure? This are just basic questions but based on your application and business need you should come up with the custom list of the question to ask. As I mentioned earlier this question may look quite simple but the answer will not be simple. When we are talking about Big Data implementation there are many other important aspects which we have to consider when we decide to go for the architecture. Building Blocks of Big Data Architecture It is absolutely impossible to discuss and nail down the most optimal architecture for any Big Data Solution in a single blog post, however, we can discuss the basic building blocks of big data architecture. Here is the image which I have built to explain how the building blocks of the Big Data architecture works. Above image gives good overview of how in Big Data Architecture various components are associated with each other. In Big Data various different data sources are part of the architecture hence extract, transform and integration are one of the most essential layers of the architecture. Most of the data is stored in relational as well as non relational data marts and data warehousing solutions. As per the business need various data are processed as well converted to proper reports and visualizations for end users. Just like software the hardware is almost the most important part of the Big Data Architecture. In the big data architecture hardware infrastructure is extremely important and failure over instances as well as redundant physical infrastructure is usually implemented. NoSQL in Data Management NoSQL is a very famous buzz word and it really means Not Relational SQL or Not Only SQL. This is because in Big Data Architecture the data is in any format. It can be unstructured, relational or in any other format or from any other data source. To bring all the data together relational technology is not enough, hence new tools, architecture and other algorithms are invented which takes care of all the kind of data. This is collectively called NoSQL. Tomorrow Next four days we will answer the Buzz Words – Hadoop. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

    Read the article

  • What is Database Continuous Integration?

    - by SQLDev
    Although not everyone is practicing continuous integration, many have at least heard of the concept. A recent poll on www.simple-talk.com indicates that 40% of respondents are employing the technique. It is widely accepted that the earlier issues are identified in the development process, the lower the cost to the development process. The worst case scenario, of course, is for the bug to be found by the customer following the product release. A number of Agile development best practices have evolved to combat this problem early in the development process, including pair programming, code inspections and unit testing. Continuous integration is one such Agile concept that tackles the problem at the point of committing a change to source control. This can alternatively be run on a regular schedule. This triggers a sequence of events that compiles the code and performs a variety of tests. Often the continuous integration process is regarded as a build validation test, and if issues were to be identified at this stage, the testers would simply not 'waste their time ' and touch the build at all. Such a ‘broken build’ will trigger an alert and the development team’s number one priority should be to resolve the issue. How application code is compiled and tested as part of continuous integration is well understood. However, this isn’t so clear for databases. Indeed, before I cover the mechanics of implementation, we need to decide what we mean by database continuous integration. For me, database continuous integration can be implemented as one or more of the following: 1)      Your application code is being compiled and tested. You therefore need a database to be maintained at the corresponding version. 2)      Just as a valid application should compile, so should the database. It should therefore be possible to build a new database from scratch. 3)     Likewise, it should be possible to generate an upgrade script to take your already deployed databases to the latest version. I will be covering these in further detail in future blogs. In the meantime, more information can be found in the whitepaper linked off www.red-gate.com/ci If you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly or post a comment to this blog post.

    Read the article

  • What is Database Continuous Integration?

    - by David Atkinson
    Although not everyone is practicing continuous integration, many have at least heard of the concept. A recent poll on www.simple-talk.com indicates that 40% of respondents are employing the technique. It is widely accepted that the earlier issues are identified in the development process, the lower the cost to the development process. The worst case scenario, of course, is for the bug to be found by the customer following the product release. A number of Agile development best practices have evolved to combat this problem early in the development process, including pair programming, code inspections and unit testing. Continuous integration is one such Agile concept that tackles the problem at the point of committing a change to source control. This can alternatively be run on a regular schedule. This triggers a sequence of events that compiles the code and performs a variety of tests. Often the continuous integration process is regarded as a build validation test, and if issues were to be identified at this stage, the testers would simply not 'waste their time ' and touch the build at all. Such a ‘broken build’ will trigger an alert and the development team’s number one priority should be to resolve the issue. How application code is compiled and tested as part of continuous integration is well understood. However, this isn’t so clear for databases. Indeed, before I cover the mechanics of implementation, we need to decide what we mean by database continuous integration. For me, database continuous integration can be implemented as one or more of the following: 1)      Your application code is being compiled and tested. You therefore need a database to be maintained at the corresponding version. 2)      Just as a valid application should compile, so should the database. It should therefore be possible to build a new database from scratch. 3)     Likewise, it should be possible to generate an upgrade script to take your already deployed databases to the latest version. I will be covering these in further detail in future blogs. In the meantime, more information can be found in the whitepaper linked off www.red-gate.com/ci If you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly or post a comment to this blog post.

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544  | Next Page >