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• What are QUICK interview questions for the Microsoft stack development jobs?

  - by Dubmun

  I'm looking for your best "quick answer" technical interview questions. We are a 100% Microsoft shop and do the majority of our development on the ASP.NET web stack in C# and have a custom SOA framework also written in C#. We use a combination of Web Forms, MVC, Web Services, WCF, Entity Framework, SQL Server, TSQL, jQuery, LINQ, and TFS in a SCRUM environment. We are currently on .NET 3.5 with a very near transition to .NET 4.0. Our interviewing process includes a 55 minute interview with two technical people (usually an architect and a senior developer). The two interviewers have to share the time for questions. That isn't enough time for very many true programming problems so I'm looking for more good questions that have quick, yet meaningful, answers. We are mainly interviewing for Senior Dev positions right now but may interview for some Juniors in the future. Please help?

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• How should I make progress further as a programmer?

  - by mushfiq

  Hello, I have just left my college after doing graduation in computer engineering,during my college life I tried to do some freelancing in local market.I succeeded in the last year and earned some small amounts based on joomla,wordpress and visual basic based job.I had some small projects on php,mysql also. After finishing my undergrad life,I sat for an written test for post of python programmer and luckily I got the job and is working there(Its a small software firm do most of the task in python).Day by day I have gained some experience with core python. Meanwhile an USA based web service firm called me for the interview and after finishing three steps(oral+mini coding project+final oral)they selected me(i was wondered!).And I am going to join their with in few days.There I have to work in python(based on Django framework,I know only basic of this framework). My problem is when I started to work with python simultaneously I worked in Odesk as a wordpress,joomla,drupal,php developer. Now a days I am feeling that I am getting "Jack of all trades master of none". My current situation is i am familiar with several popular web technologies but not an expert.I want to make myself skilled. How should I organize myself to be a skilled web programmer?

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• My Last "Catch-Up" Post for 2010 Content

  - by KKline

  I did a lot of writing in 2010. Unfortunately, I didn't do a good job of keeping all of that writing equally distributed throughout all of the channels where I'm active. So here are a few more posts from my blog, put on-line during the months of November and December 2010, that I didn't get posted here on SQLBlog.com: 1. It's Time to Upgrade! So many of my customers and many of you, dear readers, are still on SQL Server 2005. Join Kevin Kline , SQL Server MVP and SQL Server Technology Strategist...(read more)

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• Naming: objectAction or actionObject?

  - by DocSalvage

  The question, Stored procedure Naming conventions?, and Joel's excellent Making Wrong Code Look Wrong article come closest to addressing my question, but I'm looking for a more general set of criteria to use in deciding how to name modules containing code (classes, objects, methods, functions, widgets, or whatever). English (my only human language) is structured as action-object (i.e closeFile, openFile, saveFile) and since almost all computer languages are based on English, this is the most common convention. However, in trying to keep related code close together and still be able to find things, I've found object-action (i.e. fileClose, fileOpen, fileSave) to be very attractive. Quite a number of non-English human languages follow this structure as well. I doubt that one form is universally superior, but when should each be used in the pursuit of helping to make sure bad code looks bad?

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• Software development magazines [closed]

  - by Sebastian

  Ive spent the last hour or so browsing the web for professional development magazines. I am mostly interested in the java platform, agile methods, "programming in general" (tutorials on languages or whatever, "hot new stuff" etc) and software craftmanship. My best finding yet was pragpub and maybe MSDN magazine. I am willing to pay and have a Zinio account if anyone knows a magazine about programming that is distributed by them. Ive already browsed a couple of related threads here on stackexchange. ACM and IEEE does not seem relevant, as Im not interested in research articles. Maybe conferences like OOPSLA as somebody mentioned in another thread. PS. I prefer if they are in pdf or readable on kindle or a tablet. DS. BR Sebastian

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• What is the best way to track / record the current programming project you work on? [duplicate]

  - by user2424160

  This question already has an answer here: Methodology for Documenting Existing Code Base 6 answers When do you start documenting the code? 13 answers Where should a programmer explain the extended logic behind the code? 5 answers I have been in this problem for long time and I want to know how it's done in real / big companies project? Suppose I have the project to build a website. Now I divide the project into sub tasks and do it. But you know that suppose I have task1 in hand like export the page to pdf. Now I spend 3 days to do that , came across various problems, many Stack Overflow questions and in the end I solve it. Now 4 months after someone told me that there is some error in the code. Now by that I completely forgot about (60%) of how I did it and why I do this way. I document the code but I can't write the whole story of that in the code. Then I have to spend much time on code to find what was the problem so that I added this line etc. I want to know that is there any way that i can log steps in completing the project. So that I can see how I end up with code, what errors I got, what questions I asked on SO and etc. How people do it in real time? Which software to use? I know in our project management software called JIRA we have tasks but that does not cover what steps I took to solve that tasks. What is the best way so that when I look back at my 2 year old project, I know how I solve particular task?

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• Getting solutions off the internet. Bad or Good? [closed]

  - by Prometheus87

  I was looking on the internet for common interview questions. I came upon one that was about finding the occurrences of certain characters in an array. The solution written right below it was in my opinion very elegant. But then another thought came to my mind that, this solution is way better than what came to my mind. So even though I know the solution (that most probably someone with a better IQ had provided) my IQ was still the same. So that means that even though i may know the answer, it still wasn't mine. hence if that question was asked and i was hired upon my answer to that question i couldn't reproduce that same elegance in my other ventures within the organization My question is what do you guys think about such "borrowed intelligence"? Is it good? Do you feel that if solutions are found off the internet, it makes you think in that same more elegant way?

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• Trying to detect collision between two polygons using Separating Axis Theorem

  - by Holly

  The only collision experience i've had was with simple rectangles, i wanted to find something that would allow me to define polygonal areas for collision and have been trying to make sense of SAT using these two links Though i'm a bit iffy with the math for the most part i feel like i understand the theory! Except my implementation somewhere down the line must be off as: (excuse the hideous font) As mentioned above i have defined a CollisionPolygon class where most of my theory is implemented and then have a helper class called Vect which was meant to be for Vectors but has also been used to contain a vertex given that both just have two float values. I've tried stepping through the function and inspecting the values to solve things but given so many axes and vectors and new math to work out as i go i'm struggling to find the erroneous calculation(s) and would really appreciate any help. Apologies if this is not suitable as a question! CollisionPolygon.java: package biz.hireholly.gameplay; import android.graphics.Canvas; import android.graphics.Color; import android.graphics.Paint; import biz.hireholly.gameplay.Types.Vect; public class CollisionPolygon { Paint paint; private Vect[] vertices; private Vect[] separationAxes; CollisionPolygon(Vect[] vertices){ this.vertices = vertices; //compute edges and separations axes separationAxes = new Vect[vertices.length]; for (int i = 0; i < vertices.length; i++) { // get the current vertex Vect p1 = vertices[i]; // get the next vertex Vect p2 = vertices[i + 1 == vertices.length ? 0 : i + 1]; // subtract the two to get the edge vector Vect edge = p1.subtract(p2); // get either perpendicular vector Vect normal = edge.perp(); // the perp method is just (x, y) => (-y, x) or (y, -x) separationAxes[i] = normal; } paint = new Paint(); paint.setColor(Color.RED); } public void draw(Canvas c, int xPos, int yPos){ for (int i = 0; i < vertices.length; i++) { Vect v1 = vertices[i]; Vect v2 = vertices[i + 1 == vertices.length ? 0 : i + 1]; c.drawLine( xPos + v1.x, yPos + v1.y, xPos + v2.x, yPos + v2.y, paint); } } /* consider changing to a static function */ public boolean intersects(CollisionPolygon p){ // loop over this polygons separation exes for (Vect axis : separationAxes) { // project both shapes onto the axis Vect p1 = this.minMaxProjection(axis); Vect p2 = p.minMaxProjection(axis); // do the projections overlap? if (!p1.overlap(p2)) { // then we can guarantee that the shapes do not overlap return false; } } // loop over the other polygons separation axes Vect[] sepAxesOther = p.getSeparationAxes(); for (Vect axis : sepAxesOther) { // project both shapes onto the axis Vect p1 = this.minMaxProjection(axis); Vect p2 = p.minMaxProjection(axis); // do the projections overlap? if (!p1.overlap(p2)) { // then we can guarantee that the shapes do not overlap return false; } } // if we get here then we know that every axis had overlap on it // so we can guarantee an intersection return true; } /* Note projections wont actually be acurate if the axes aren't normalised * but that's not necessary since we just need a boolean return from our * intersects not a Minimum Translation Vector. */ private Vect minMaxProjection(Vect axis) { float min = axis.dot(vertices[0]); float max = min; for (int i = 1; i < vertices.length; i++) { float p = axis.dot(vertices[i]); if (p < min) { min = p; } else if (p > max) { max = p; } } Vect minMaxProj = new Vect(min, max); return minMaxProj; } public Vect[] getSeparationAxes() { return separationAxes; } public Vect[] getVertices() { return vertices; } } Vect.java: package biz.hireholly.gameplay.Types; /* NOTE: Can also be used to hold vertices! Projections, coordinates ect */ public class Vect{ public float x; public float y; public Vect(float x, float y){ this.x = x; this.y = y; } public Vect perp() { return new Vect(-y, x); } public Vect subtract(Vect other) { return new Vect(x - other.x, y - other.y); } public boolean overlap(Vect other) { if( other.x <= y || other.y >= x){ return true; } return false; } /* used specifically for my SAT implementation which i'm figuring out as i go, * references for later.. * http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/game-programming/2d-rotated-rectangle-collision-r2604 * http://www.codezealot.org/archives/55 */ public float scalarDotProjection(Vect other) { //multiplier = dot product / length^2 float multiplier = dot(other) / (x*x + y*y); //to get the x/y of the projection vector multiply by x/y of axis float projX = multiplier * x; float projY = multiplier * y; //we want to return the dot product of the projection, it's meaningless but useful in our SAT case return dot(new Vect(projX,projY)); } public float dot(Vect other){ return (other.x*x + other.y*y); } }

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• How to present a stable data model in a public API that allows internal data structures to be changed without breaking the public view of the data?

  - by Max Palmer

  I am in the process of developing an application that allows users to write C# scripts. These scripts allow users to call selected methods and to access and manipulate data in a document. This works well, however, in the development version, scripts access the document's (internal) data structures directly. This means that if we were to change the internal data model/structure, there is a good chance that someone's script will no longer compile. We obviously want to prevent this breaking change from happening, but still want to allow the user to write sensible C# code (whilst not restricting how we develop our internal data model as a result). We therefore need to decouple our scripting API and its data structures from our internal methods and data structures. We've a few ideas as to how we might allow the user to access a what is effectively a stable public version of the document's internal data*, but I wanted to throw the question out there to someone who might have some real experience of this problem. NB our internal document's data structure is quite complex and it could be quite difficult to wrap. We know we want to expose as little as possible in our public API, especially as once it's out there, it's out there for good. Can anyone help? How do scripting languages / APIs decouple their public API and data structures from their internal data structures? Is there no real alternative to having to write a complex interaction layer? If we need to do this, what's a good approach or pattern for wrapping complex data structures that include nested objects, including collections? I've looked at the API facade pattern, which looks like it's trying to address these kinds of issues, but are there alternatives? *One idea is to build a data facade that is kept stable across versions of our application. The facade exposes a set of facade data objects that are used in the script code. These maintain backwards compatibility and wrap access to our internal document's data model.

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• Better solution then simple factory method when concrete implementations have different attributes

  - by danip

  abstract class Animal { function eat() {..} function sleep() {..} function isSmart() } class Dog extends Animal { public $blnCanBark; function isSmart() { return $this->blnCanBark; } } class Cat extends Animal { public $blnCanJumpHigh; function isSmart() { return $this->blnCanJumpHigh; } } .. and so on up to 10-20 animals. Now I created a factory using simple factory method and try to create instances like this: class AnimalFactory { public static function create($strName) { switch($strName) { case 'Dog': return new Dog(); case 'Cat': return new Cat(); default: break; } } } The problem is I can't set the specific attributes like blnCanBark, blnCanJumpHigh in an efficient way. I can send all of them as extra params to create but this will not scale to more then a few classes. Also I can't break the inheritance because a lot of the basic functionality is the same. Is there a better pattern to solve this?

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• How do I handle priority and propagation in an event system?

  - by Peeter

  Lets say I have a simple event system with the following syntax: object = new Object(); object.bind("my_trigger", function() { print "hello"; }); object.bind("my_trigger", function() { print "hello2"; }); object.trigger("my_trigger"); How could I make sure hello2 is printed out first (I do not want my code to depend on which order the events are binded). Ontop of that, how would I prevent my events from propagating (e.g. I want to stop every other event from being executed)

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• Is it OK to use dynamic typing to reduce the amount of variables in scope?

  - by missingno

  Often, when I am initializing something I have to use a temporary variable, for example: file_str = "path/to/file" file_file = open(file) or regexp_parts = ['foo', 'bar'] regexp = new RegExp( regexp_parts.join('|') ) However, I like to reduce the scope my variables to the smallest scope possible so there is less places where they can be (mis-)used. For example, I try to use for(var i ...) in C++ so the loop variable is confined to the loop body. In these initialization cases, if I am using a dynamic language, I am then often tempted to reuse the same variable in order to prevent the initial (and now useless) value from being used latter in the function. file = "path/to/file" file = open(file) regexp = ['...', '...'] regexp = new RegExp( regexp.join('|') ) The idea is that by reducing the number of variables in scope I reduce the chances to misuse them. However this sometimes makes the variable names look a little weird, as in the first example, where "file" refers to a "filename". I think perhaps this would be a non issue if I could use non-nested scopes begin scope1 filename = ... begin scope2 file = open(filename) end scope1 //use file here //can't use filename on accident end scope2 but I can't think of any programming language that supports this. What rules of thumb should I use in this situation? When is it best to reuse the variable? When is it best to create an extra variable? What other ways do we solve this scope problem?

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• Is there a Design Pattern for preventing dangling references?

  - by iFreilicht

  I was thinking about a design for custom handles. The thought is to prevent clients from copying around large objects. Now a regular handle class would probably suffice for that, but it doesn't solve the "dangling reference problem"; If a client has multiple handles of the same object and deletes the object via one of them, all the others would be invalid, but not know it, so the client could write or read parts of the memory he shouldn't have access to. Is there a design pattern to prevent this from happening? Two ideas: An observer-like pattern where the destructor of an object would notify all handles. "Handle handles" (does such a thing even exist?). All the handles don't really point to the object, but to another handle. When the object gets destroyed, this "master-handle" invalidates itself and therefore all that point to it.

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• Default values - are they good or evil?

  - by Andrew

  The question about default values in general - default return function values, default parameter values, default logic for when something is missing, default logic for handling exceptions, default logic for handling the edge conditions etc. For a long time I considered default values to be a "pure evil" thing, something that "cloaks the catastrophe" and results in a very hard do find bugs. But recently I started to think about default values as some sort of a technical debt ... which is not a straight bad thing but something that could provide some "short term financing" get us to survive the project (how many of us could afford to buy a house without taking out the mortgage?). When I say a "short term" - I don't mean - "do something quickly first and do refactor it out later before it hits the production". No - I am talking about relying on a hardcoded default values in a production software. Granted - it could cause some issues, but what if it only going to cause a single trouble in a whole year. Again - I am talking about the "average" mainstream software here (not a software for a nuclear power station) - the average web site or a UI application for the accounting software, meaning that people lives are not at stake, nor millions of dollars. Again, from my experience, business users would rather live with the software which "works somehow", rather then wait for a perfect one. And the use of default values helps a lot if you develop a software in a RAD style. But again - the longest debug sessions I have spent were because of the bugs introduced by a default value which either stopped being "a default" along the way or because a small subsystem has recently been upgraded and as a result of this upgrade it does not handle the default correctly (e.g. empty list vs null, or null string vs empty string). So my question is - are the default values good or evil. And if they are a technical debt - how do measure up how much you can borrow so you can afford the repayments? Would really appreciate any input. Cheers. EDIT: If I am using the default values as a way to cut the corners during the development - and if the corners cutting results in a bugs and issues - what is the methodology to recover from these issues?

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• Best Creational Pattern for loggers in a multi-threaded system?

  - by Dipan Mehta

  This is a follow up question on my past questions : Concurrency pattern of logger in multithreaded application As suggested by others, I am putting this question separately. As the learning from the last question. In a multi-threaded environment, the logger should be made thread safe and probably asynchronous (where in messages are queued while a background thread does writing releasing the requesting object thread). The logger could be signleton or it can be a per-group logger which is a generalization of the above. Now, the question that arise is how does logger should be assigned to the object? There are two options I can think of: 1. Object requesting for the logger: Should each of the object call some global API such as get_logger()? Such an API returns "the" singleton or the group logger. However, I feel this involves assumption about the Application environment to implement the logger -which I think is some kind of coupling. If the same object needs to be used by other application - this new application also need to implement such a method. 2. Assign logger through some known API The other alternative approach is to create a kind of virtual class which is implemented by application based on App's own structure and assign the object sometime in the constructor. This is more generalized method. Unfortunately, when there are so many objects - and rather a tree of objects passing on the logger objects to each level is quite messy. My question is there a better way to do this? If you need to pick any one of the above, which approach is would you pick and why? Other questions remain open about how to configure them: How do objects' names or ID are assigned so that will be used for printing on the log messages (as the module names) How do these objects find the appropriate properties (such as log levels, and other such parameters) In the first approach, the central API needs to deal with all this varieties. In the second approach - there needs to be additional work. Hence, I want to understand from the real experience of people, as to how to write logger effectively in such an environment.

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• Grading an algorithm: Readability vs. Compactness

  - by amiregelz

  Consider the following question in a test \ interview: Implement the strcpy() function in C: void strcpy(char *destination, char *source); The strcpy function copies the C string pointed by source into the array pointed by destination, including the terminating null character. Assume that the size of the array pointed by destination is long enough to contain the same C string as source, and does not overlap in memory with source. Say you were the tester, how would you grade the following answers to this question? 1) void strcpy(char *destination, char *source) { while (*source != '\0') { *destination = *source; source++; destionation++; } *destionation = *source; } 2) void strcpy(char *destination, char *source) { while (*(destination++) = *(source++)) ; } The first implementation is straightforward - it is readable and programmer-friendly. The second implementation is shorter (one line of code) but less programmer-friendly; it's not so easy to understand the way this code is working, and if you're not familiar with the priorities in this code then it's a problem. I'm wondering if the first answer would show more complexity and more advanced thinking, in the tester's eyes, even though both algorithms behave the same, and although code readability is considered to be more important than code compactness. It seems to me that since making an algorithm this compact is more difficult to implement, it will show a higher level of thinking as an answer in a test. However, it is also possible that a tester would consider the first answer not good because it's not readable. I would also like to mention that this is not specific to this example, but general for code readability vs. compactness when implementing an algorithm, specifically in tests \ interviews.

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• Relative encapsulation design

  - by taher1992

  Let's say I am doing a 2D application with the following design: There is the Level object that manages the world, and there are world objects which are entities inside the Level object. A world object has a location and velocity, as well as size and a texture. However, a world object only exposes get properties. The set properties are private (or protected) and are only available to inherited classes. But of course, Level is responsible for these world objects, and must somehow be able to manipulate at least some of its private setters. But as of now, Level has no access, meaning world objects must change its private setters to public (violating encapsulation). How to tackle this problem? Should I just make everything public? Currently what I'm doing is having a inner class inside game object that does the set work. So when Level needs to update an objects location it goes something like this: void ChangeObject(GameObject targetObject, int newX, int newY){ // targetObject.SetX and targetObject.SetY cannot be set directly var setter = new GameObject.Setter(targetObject); setter.SetX(newX); setter.SetY(newY); } This code feels like overkill, but it doesn't feel right to have everything public so that anything can change an objects location for example.

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• Programming Interview Question [duplicate]

  - by user136494

  This question already has an answer here: How to prepare yourself for programming interview questions? [duplicate] 6 answers I have an upcoming interview in a couple of days and had a question for you guys. I've heard that programming interviews have whiteboard problems where you solve a simple problem on a whiteboard. My question to you is? How many whiteboard problems do you have to solve? Is there more than 1? What are examples of whiteboard problems? Is FizzBuzz one of them? Where can I find practice problems for them? Anyone know of any good web sites?

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• Is it good practice to use functions just to centralize common code?

  - by EpsilonVector

  I run across this problem a lot. For example, I currently write a read function and a write function, and they both check if buf is a NULL pointer and that the mode variable is within certain boundaries. This is code duplication. This can be solved by moving it into its own function. But should I? This will be a pretty anemic function (doesn't do much), rather localized (so not general purpose), and doesn't stand well on its own (can't figure out what you need it for unless you see where it is used). Another option is to use a macro, but I want to talk about functions in this post. So, should you use a function for something like this? What are the pros and cons?

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• Convenient practice for where to place images?

  - by Baumr

  A lot of developers place all image files inside a central directory, for example: /i/img/ /images/ /img/ Isn't it better (e.g. content architecture, on-page SEO, code maintainability, filename maintainability, etc.) to place them inside the relevant directories in which they are used? For example: example.com/logo.jpg example.com/about/photo-of-me.jpg example.com/contact/map.png example.com/products/category1-square.png example.com/products/category2-square.png example.com/products/category1/product1-thumb.jpg example.com/products/category1/product2-thumb.jpg example.com/products/category1/product1/product1-large.jpg example.com/products/category1/product1/product2-large.jpg example.com/products/category1/product1/product3-large.jpg What is the best practice here regarding all possible considerations (for static non-CMS websites)? N.B. The names product1-large and product1-thumb are just examples in this context to illustrate what kind of images they are. It is advised to use descriptive filenames for SEO benefit.

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• How to handle compensation issue

  - by Ali

  I consider myself an expert Software Developer. Recently, I noticed my current company posted a new job through a recruting firm requiring half experience than I have and even lesser set of skills. However, they are offering the same salary as my current salary. When I joined my current company a year ago, they declined to pay my asking salary. My evaluations are good and there are critical projects in the pipeline where my involvement is crucial for their success. I'm little confused on how to handle this situation. I don't want to come across threatning or any thing like that.

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• Relationship DAO, Servlet, JSP and POJO

  - by John Hendrik

  I want to implement a JSP, POJO, DAO and Servlet in my J2EE program. However, I don't fully understand how the relationship between these elements should be. Is the following (MVC) setup the right way to do it? Main class creates servlet(controller) Servlet has a DAO defined in its class DAO has a POJO defined in its class Servlet communicates with the view (JSP page) Please give your feedback.

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• How do I know when should I package my classes in Ruby?

  - by Omega

  In Ruby, I'm creating a small game development framework. Just some personal project - a very small group of friends helping. Now I am in need of handling geometric concepts. Rectangles, Circles, Polygons, Vectors, Lines, etc. So I made a class for each of these. I'm stuck deciding whether I should package such classes in a module, such as Geometry. So I'd access them like Geometry::Rectangle, or just Rectangle if I include the module. Now then, my question isn't about this specific scenario. I'd like to know, when is it suitable to package similar classes into one module in Ruby? What factors should I consider? Amount of classes? Usage frequency? Complexity?

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• Can you point me to a nontrivial strategy pattern implementation?

  - by Eugen Martynov

  We are faced implementing a registration workflow with many branches. There are three main flows which in some conditions lead to one another. Each flow has at least four different steps; some steps interact with the server, and every step adds more information to the state. Also the requirement is to have it persistent between sessions, so if the user closes the app (this is a mobile app), it will restore the process from the last completed step with the state from the previous session. I think this could benefit from the use of the strategy pattern, but I've never had to implement it for such a complex case. Does anyone know of any examples in open source or articles from which I could find inspiration? Preferably the examples would be from a live/working/stable application. I'm interested in Java implementation mostly; we are developing for Java mobile phones: android, blackberry and J2ME. We have an SDK which is quite well separated from platform specific implementations, but examples in C++, C#, Objective-C or Python would be acceptable.

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• How can a solo programmer become a good team player?

  - by Nick

  I've been programming (obsessively) since I was 12. I am fairly knowledgeable across the spectrum of languages out there, from assembly, to C++, to Javascript, to Haskell, Lisp, and Qi. But all of my projects have been by myself. I got my degree in chemical engineering, not CS or computer engineering, but for the first time this fall I'll be working on a large programming project with other people, and I have no clue how to prepare. I've been using Windows all of my life, but this project is going to be very unix-y, so I purchased a Mac recently in the hopes of familiarizing myself with the environment. I was fortunate to participate in a hackathon with some friends this past year -- both CS majors -- and excitingly enough, we won. But I realized as I worked with them that their workflow was very different from mine. They used Git for version control. I had never used it at the time, but I've since learned all that I can about it. They also used a lot of frameworks and libraries. I had to learn what Rails was pretty much overnight for the hackathon (on the other hand, they didn't know what lexical scoping or closures were). All of our code worked well, but they didn't understand mine, and I didn't understand theirs. I hear references to things that real programmers do on a daily basis -- unit testing, code reviews, but I only have the vaguest sense of what these are. I normally don't have many bugs in my little projects, so I have never needed a bug tracking system or tests for them. And the last thing is that it takes me a long time to understand other people's code. Variable naming conventions (that vary with each new language) are difficult (__mzkwpSomRidicAbbrev), and I find the loose coupling difficult. That's not to say I don't loosely couple things -- I think I'm quite good at it for my own work, but when I download something like the Linux kernel or the Chromium source code to look at it, I spend hours trying to figure out how all of these oddly named directories and files connect. It's a programming sin to reinvent the wheel, but I often find it's just quicker to write up the functionality myself than to spend hours dissecting some library. Obviously, people who do this for a living don't have these problems, and I'll need to get to that point myself. Question: What are some steps that I can take to begin "integrating" with everyone else? Thanks!

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