Search Results

Search found 14376 results on 576 pages for 'interaction design'.

Page 57/576 | < Previous Page | 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64  | Next Page >

• Pattern for UI configuration

  - by TERACytE

  I have a Win32 C++ program that validates user input and updates the UI with status information and options. Currently it is written like this: void ShowError() { SetIcon(kError); SetMessageString("There was an error"); HideButton(kButton1); HideButton(kButton2); ShowButton(kButton3); } void ShowSuccess() { SetIcon(kError); std::String statusText (GetStatusText()); SetMessageString(statusText); HideButton(kButton1); HideButton(kButton2); ShowButton(kButton3); } // plus several more methods to update the UI using similar mechanisms I do not likes this because it duplicates code and causes me to update several methods if something changes in the UI. I am wondering if there is a design pattern or best practice to remove the duplication and make the functionality easier to understand and update. I could consolidate the code inside a config function and pass in flags to enable/disable UI items, but I am not convinced this is the best approach. Any suggestions and ideas?

  Read the article

• Using an ORM with a database that has no defined relationships?

  - by Ahmad

  Consider a database(MSSQL 2005) that consists of 100+ tables which have primary keys defined to a certain degree. There are 'relationships' between tables, however these are not enforced with foreign key constraints. Consider the following simplified example of typical types of tables I am dealing with. The are clear relations between the User and City and Province tables. However, they key issues is the inconsistent data types in the tables and naming conventions. User: UserRowId [int] PK Name [varchar(50)] CityId [smallint] ProvinceRowId [bigint] City: CityRowId [bigint] PK CityDescription [varchar(100)] Province: ProvinceId [int] PK ProvinceDesc [varchar(50)] I am considering a rewrite of the application (in ASP.net MVC) that uses this data source as is similar in design to MVC storefront. However I am going through a proof of concept phase and this is one of the stumbling blocks I have come across. What are my options in terms of ORM choice that can be easily used and why? Should I even be considering an ORM? (The reason I ask this is that most explanations and tutorials all work with relatively cleanly designed existing databases, or newly created ones when compared to mine. I am thus having a very hard time trying to find a way forward with this problem) There is a huge amount of existing SQL queries, would a datamappper(eg IBatis.net) be more suitable since we could easily modify them to work and reuse the investment already made? I have found this question on SO which indicates to me that an ORM can be used - however I get the impression that this a question of mapping? Note: at the moment, the object model is not clearly defined as it was non-existent. The existing system pretty much did almost everything in SQL or consisted of overly complicated, and numerous queries to complete fucntionality. I am pretty much a noob and have zero experience around ORMs and MVC - so this an awesome learning curve I am on.

  Read the article

• When is factory method better than simple factory and vice versa?

  - by Bruce

  Hi all Working my way through the Head First Design Patterns book. I believe I understand the simple factory and the factory method, but I'm having trouble seeing what advantages factory method brings over simple factory. If an object A uses a simple factory to create its B objects, then clients can create it like this: A a = new A(new BFactory()); whereas if an object uses a factory method, a client can create it like this: A a = new ConcreteA(); // ConcreteA contains a method for instantiating the same Bs that the BFactory above creates, with the method hardwired into the subclass of A, ConcreteA. So in the case of the simple factory, clients compose A with a B factory, whereas with the factory method, the client chooses the appropriate subclass for the types of B it wants. There really doesn't seem to be much to choose between them. Either you have to choose which BFactory you want to compose A with, or you have to choose the right subclass of A to give you the Bs. Under what circumstances is one better than the other? Thanks all!

  Read the article

• Why does C# not provide the C++ style 'friend' keyword?

  - by Ash

  The C++ friend keyword allows a class A to designate class B as it's friend. This allows Class B to access the private/protected members of class A. I've never read anything as to why this was left out of C# (and VB.NET). Most answers to this earlier StackOverflow question seem to be saying it is a useful part of C++ and there are good reasons to use it. In my experience I'd have to agree. Another question seems to me to be really asking how to do something similar to friend in a C# application. While the answers generally revolve around nested classes, it doesn't seem quite as elegant as using the friend keyword. The original Design Patterns book uses the friend keyword regularly throughout its examples. So in summary, why is friend missing from C#, and what is the "best practice" way (or ways) of simulating it in C#? (By the way, the "internal" keyword is not the same thing, it allows ALL classes within the entire assembly to access internal members, friend allows you to give access to a class to just one other class.)

  Read the article

• DDD: Enum like entities

  - by Chris

  Hi all, I have the following DB model: **Person table** ID | Name | StateId ------------------------------ 1 Joe 1 2 Peter 1 3 John 2 **State table** ID | Desc ------------------------------ 1 Working 2 Vacation and domain model would be (simplified): public class Person { public int Id { get; } public string Name { get; set; } public State State { get; set; } } public class State { private int id; public string Name { get; set; } } The state might be used in the domain logic e.g.: if(person.State == State.Working) // some logic So from my understanding, the State acts like a value object which is used for domain logic checks. But it also needs to be present in the DB model to represent a clean ERM. So state might be extended to: public class State { private int id; public string Name { get; set; } public static State New {get {return new State([hardCodedIdHere?], [hardCodeNameHere?]);}} } But using this approach the name of the state would be hardcoded into the domain. Do you know what I mean? Is there a standard approach for such a thing? From my point of view what I am trying to do is using an object (which is persisted from the ERM design perspective) as a sort of value object within my domain. What do you think? Question update: Probably my question wasn't clear enough. What I need to know is, how I would use an entity (like the State example) that is stored in a database within my domain logic. To avoid things like: if(person.State.Id == State.Working.Id) // some logic or if(person.State.Id == WORKING_ID) // some logic

  Read the article

• What is the difference between Workcenters, Dashboards, and the Interaction Hub?

  - by Matthew Haavisto

  Oracle Open World has just concluded.  Over the course of the conference, we presented several sessions covering different aspects of the PeopleSoft user experience, including Workcenters, Dashboards, and the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub (formerly known as the PeopleSoft Applications Portal).  Although we've produced collateral on these features and covered them in sessions, it became apparent at the conference that customers still have many questions about the these products, including how they are licensed, how they are installed, what their various purposes are, and how they can be used together synergistically. Let's Start with Licensing and Installation As you may know, we've extended the restricted use license (RUL) for the Interaction Hub.  This grants customers with PeopleTools 8.52 licenses the right to install the Interaction Hub for free for use as specified in the Tools license notes.  Note that this means customers receive a restricted use license for the Interaction Hub that doesn't cost them an additional license fee, but it is a separate product, not part of PeopleTools or PeopleSoft applications, and is a separate installation.  This means customers must provide the infrastructure to install and run the Hub, just like any other application.  The benefits of using the Hub to unify your PeopleSoft user experience can be great.  PeopleSoft applications have not yet delivered instances of the Hub with their products, though they may in the future. Workcenters and Dashboards, on the other hand, are frameworks provided by PeopleTools.  No other license is required, and no additional installation of a separate product is needed (apart from PeopleTools and PeopleSoft applications).  PeopleSoft applications are delivering instances of the workcenters and dashboards with their products.  Some are available now, and more are coming in future releases.  These delivered workcenter and dashboard instances require no additional licenses, and no additional installations beyond Tools and the applications that provide them.  In addition, the workcenter and dashboard frameworks provided by PeopleTools can be used by customers to build their own workcenters and dashboards, and it's quite easy and simple to do so. What are Their Differences?  What Purposes do they Serve? Workcenters, Dashboards and the Interaction Hub appear somewhat similar.  They all contain pagelets, and have some visual characteristics in common.  However, their strengths and purposes are very different, and they were designed to provide different benefits to your PeopleSoft ecosystem. Workcenters and Dashboards have the following characteristics: Designed for specific roles Focus on the daily tasks of those roles Help to streamline the work performed most often Personal view of my work world Makes navigation and search easier and quicker, particularly for transactions and decision support Reports and data needed for day-to-day work Personalizable, but minimal Delivered by PS Apps, but can be altered by customer for their requirements Customers can create their own Workcenters can be used for guided processes  The Interaction Hub is designed to aggregate content from multiple applications, and is is used to unify the user experience of those applications.  It offers a rich, web site-based user experience, and is often used to provide access to infrequently performed activities like benefits enrollment, payroll inquiries, life event changes, onboarding, and so on. Full-featured and robust Centrally administered Pushed to large audience Broad info like Company News Infrequent activities like benefits, not day-to-day tasks Self-service, access to employer info Central launch point for other activities and can navigate to workcenters and dashboards Deployed by customers or consultants, instances not delivered by PeopleSoft (at this time) Content management Unified PS application navigation Although these products are quite different and serve different purposes in your PeopleSoft environment, they can be used together to provide a richer, more efficient and engaging user experience for your all your user communities.

  Read the article

• Question About Example In Robert C Martin's _Clean Code_

  - by Jonah

  This is a question about the concept of a function doing only one thing. It won't make sense without some relevant passages for context, so I'll quote them here. They appear on pgs 37-38: To say this differently, we want to be able to read the program as though it were a set of TO paragraphs, each of which is describing the current level of abstraction and referencing subsequent TO paragraphs at the next level down. To include the setups and teardowns, we include setups, then we include the test page content, and then we include the teardowns. To include the setups, we include the suite setup if this is a suite, then we include the regular setup. It turns out to be very dif?cult for programmers to learn to follow this rule and write functions that stay at a single level of abstraction. But learning this trick is also very important. It is the key to keeping functions short and making sure they do “one thing.” Making the code read like a top-down set of TO paragraphs is an effective technique for keeping the abstraction level consistent. He then gives the following example of poor code: public Money calculatePay(Employee e) throws InvalidEmployeeType { switch (e.type) { case COMMISSIONED: return calculateCommissionedPay(e); case HOURLY: return calculateHourlyPay(e); case SALARIED: return calculateSalariedPay(e); default: throw new InvalidEmployeeType(e.type); } } and explains the problems with it as follows: There are several problems with this function. First, it’s large, and when new employee types are added, it will grow. Second, it very clearly does more than one thing. Third, it violates the Single Responsibility Principle7 (SRP) because there is more than one reason for it to change. Fourth, it violates the Open Closed Principle8 (OCP) because it must change whenever new types are added. Now my questions. To begin, it's clear to me how it violates the OCP, and it's clear to me that this alone makes it poor design. However, I am trying to understand each principle, and it's not clear to me how SRP applies. Specifically, the only reason I can imagine for this method to change is the addition of new employee types. There is only one "axis of change." If details of the calculation needed to change, this would only affect the submethods like "calculateHourlyPay()" Also, while in one sense it is obviously doing 3 things, those three things are all at the same level of abstraction, and can all be put into a TO paragraph no different from the example one: TO calculate pay for an employee, we calculate commissioned pay if the employee is commissioned, hourly pay if he is hourly, etc. So aside from its violation of the OCP, this code seems to conform to Martin's other requirements of clean code, even though he's arguing it does not. Can someone please explain what I am missing? Thanks.

  Read the article

• Patterns for dynamic CMS components (event driven?)

  - by CitrusTree

  Sorry my title is not great, this is my first real punt at moving 100% to OO as I've been procedural for more years than I can remember. I'm finding it hard to understand if what I'm trying to do is possible. Depending on people's thoughts on the 2 following points, I'll go down that route. The CMS I'm putting together is quote small, however focuses very much on different types of content. I could easily use Drupal which I'm very comfortable with, but I want to give myself a really good reasons to move myself into design patterns / OO-PHP 1) I have created a base 'content' class which I wish to be able to extend to handle different types of content. The base class, for example, handles HTML content, and extensions might handle XML or PDF output instead. On the other hand, at some point I may wish to extend the base class for a given project completely. I.e. if class 'content-v2' extended class 'content' for that site, any calls to that class should actually call 'content-v2' instead. Is that possible? If the code instantiates an object of type 'content' - I actually want it to instantiate one of type 'content-v2'... I can see how to do it using inheritance, but that appears to involve referring to the class explicitly, I can't see how to link the class I want it to use instead dynamically. 2) Secondly, the way I'm building this at the moment is horrible, I'm not happy with it. It feels very linear indeed - i.e. get session details get content build navigation theme page publish. To do this all the objects are called 1-by-1 which is all very static. I'd like it to be more dynamic so that I can add to it at a later date (very closely related to first question). Is there a way that instead of my orchestrator class calling all the other classes 1-by-1, then building the whole thing up at the end, that instead each of the other classes can 'listen' for specific events, then at the applicable point jump in and do their but? That way the orchestrator class would not need to know what other classes were required, and call them 1-by-1. Sorry if I've got this all twisted in my head. I'm trying to build this so it's really flexible.

  Read the article

• Is this kind of Design by Contract useless?

  - by Charlie Pigarelli

  I've just started informatics university and I'm attending a programming course about C(++). The programming professor prefers to teach very few things (in 3 month we have just reached the functions topic) and connect every topic with a type of programming design that somehow is similar to the Design by Contract design. Basically what he ask us to do is to write every exercise with comments Pre-conditions, Post-conditions and Invariants that should prove the correctness of each program we write. But this doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, ok: maybe writing down your thoughts prevent you from doing some mistakes, but if this is all an abstract thing, then if your program intuition is wrong you'll write your program wrong and then you'll also write pre and post conditions wrong probably auto convincing your self about its correctness. Most of the time, both me and other students have written programs that seemed ok and that had correct pre and post condition too. But at the moment of testing it was just completely wrong. I had some experience before this course of programming and I had written a lot of line of code before and I found myself comfortably with just writing a program and unit test it. It take less time to accomplish and is less "abstract" than just thinking about what every single piece of your program should do in every case (which is kinda like mentally testing it). Finally, all this pre and post conditions takes me like 80% of the total time of the exercise. It's harder to think about putting down this pre and post correct than to write the program itself. Since we are like the only course of the only university probably in the entire world that makes this things, could someone please tell me how should I manage this thing? Am I right thinking that this doesn't worth anything? Should I change university? (there are like double of the people attending that course and it seems that usually very few people passes the exam the first year). Should I convince myself it's method is right?

  Read the article

• The Endeca UI Design Pattern Library Returns

  - by Joe Lamantia

  I'm happy to announce that the Endeca UI Design Pattern Library - now titled the Endeca Discovery Pattern Library - is once again providing guidance and good practices on the design of discovery experiences.  Launched publicly in 2010 following several years of internal development and usage, the Endeca Pattern Library is a unique and valued source of industry-leading perspective on discovery - something I've come to appreciate directly through  fielding the consistent stream of inquiries about the library's status, and requests for its rapid return to public availability. Restoring the library as a public resource is only the first step!  For the next stage of the library's evolution, we plan to increase the scope of the guidance it offers beyond user interface design to the broader topic of discovery.  This could include patterns for architecture at the systems, user experience, and business levels; information and process models; analytical method and activity patterns for conducting discovery; and organizational and resource patterns for provisioning discovery capability in different settings.  We'd like guidance from the community on the kinds of patterns that are most valuable - so make sure to let us know. And we're also considering ways to increase the number of patterns the library offers, possibly by expanding the set of contributors and the authoring mechanisms. If you'd like to contribute, please get in touch. Here's the new address of the library: http://www.oracle.com/goto/EndecaDiscoveryPatterns And I should say 'Many thanks' to the UXDirect team and all the others within the Oracle family who helped - literally - keep the library alive, and restore it as a public resource.

  Read the article

• Software design of a browser-based strategic MMO game

  - by Mehran

  I wonder if there are any known tested software designs for Travian-like browser-based strategic MMO games? I mean how would they implement the server of such games or what is stored in database and what is stored in RAM? Is the state of the world stored in one piece or is it distributed among a number of storage? Does anyone know a resource to study the problems and solutions of creating such games? [UPDATE] Suggested in comments, I'm going to give an example how would I design such a project. Even though I'm not sure if I'm proposing the right one. Having stored the world state in a MongoDB, I would implement an event collection in which all the changes to the world will register. Changes that are meant to happen in the future will come with an action date set to the future and those that are to be carried out immediately will be set to now. Having this datastore as the central point of the system, players will issue their actions as events inserted in datastore. At the other end of the system, I'll have a constant-running software taking out events out of the datastore which are due to be carried out and not done yet. Executing an event means apply some update on the world's state and thus the datastore. As scalable as this design sounds, I'm not sure if it will be worth implementing. For one, it is pointless to cache the datastore as most of updates happen once without any follow ups. For instance if you have the growth of resources in your game, you'll be updating the whole world state periodically in which case, having incorporated a cache, you are keeping the whole world in RAM (which most likely is impossible). So can someone come up with a better design?

  Read the article

• Good design for a simple site that contains a blog

  - by bporter

  What is a good design for a simple web site with mostly static pages and a blog? I am helping a friend build this for their small business. We are looking for a simple approach that can be implemented fairly quickly. (I am a programmer and can help with coding, hosting, etc.) One option is to use a site like virb, which lets you choose from one of their themes and build a site pretty easily. You can also include a blog. They host the site for a pretty low monthly rate. I recommended this option, but my friend wants a design that is unique and custom. So, I took one of the themes and started modifying the HTML and CSS. This might still be a good option, but... ...If we are going to greatly modify it, why not just create the static pages from scratch and use something like Wordpress for the blog. Is this a good option? It looks fairly easy to integrate Wordpress with a site so that the design and behavior are really cohesive. Is this a good idea? Do you recommend any other approaches?

  Read the article

• Plug-in based software design

  - by gekod

  I'm a software developer who is willing to improve his software design skills. I think software should not only work but have a solid and elegant design too to be reusable and extensive to later purposes. Now I'm in search of some help figuring out good practices for specific problems. Actually, I'm trying to find out how to design a piece of software that would be extensible via plug-ins. The questions I have are the following: Should plug-ins be able to access each others functionality? This would bring dependencies I guess. What should the main application offer to the plug-ins if I want to let's say develop a multimedia software which would play videos and music but which could later on get functionality added over plug-ins that would let's say be able to read video status (time, bps, ...) and display it. Would this mean that the player itself would have to be part of the main program and offer services to plug-ins to get such information or would there be a way to develop the player as a plug-in also but offer in some way the possibility to other plug-ins to interact with it? As you see, my questions are mainly for learning purposes as I strive to improve my software development skills. I hope to find help here and apologize if something is wrong with my question.

  Read the article

• Balancing dependency injection with public API design

  - by kolektiv

  I've been contemplating how to balance testable design using dependency injection with providing simple fixed public API. My dilemma is: people would want to do something like var server = new Server(){ ... } and not have to worry about creating the many dependencies and graph of dependencies that a Server(,,,,,,) may have. While developing, I don't worry too much, as I use an IoC/DI framework to handle all that (I'm not using the lifecycle management aspects of any container, which would complicate things further). Now, the dependencies are unlikely to be re-implemented. Componentisation in this case is almost purely for testability (and decent design!) rather than creating seams for extension, etc. People will 99.999% of the time wish to use a default configuration. So. I could hardcode the dependencies. Don't want to do that, we lose our testing! I could provide a default constructor with hard-coded dependencies and one which takes dependencies. That's... messy, and likely to be confusing, but viable. I could make the dependency receiving constructor internal and make my unit tests a friend assembly (assuming C#), which tidies the public API but leaves a nasty hidden trap lurking for maintenance. Having two constructors which are implicitly connected rather than explicitly would be bad design in general in my book. At the moment that's about the least evil I can think of. Opinions? Wisdom?

  Read the article

• A fix for the design time error in MVVM Light V4.1

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  For those of you who installed V4.1 of MVVM Light and created a project for Windows Phone 8, you will have noticed an error showing up in the design surface (either in Visual Studio designer, or in Expression Blend). The error says: “Could not load type ‘System.ComponentModel.INotifyPropertyChanging’ from assembly ‘mscorlib.extensions’” with additional information about version numbers. The error is caused by an incompatibility between versions of System.Windows.Interactivity. Because this assembly is strongly named, any version incompatibility is causing the kind of error shown here (for an interesting discussion on the strong naming issue, see this thread on Codeplex). I managed to resolve the issue for Windows Phone 8 and will publish a cleaned up installer next week. In the mean time, in order to allow you to continue development, please follow the steps: Download the new DLLs zip package (MVVMLight_V4_1_25_WP8). Right click on the Zip file and select Properties from the context menu. Press the “Unblock” button (if available) and then OK. Right click again on the zip package and select “Extract all…”. Select a known location for the new DLLs. Open the MVVM Light project with the design time error in Visual Studio 2012. Open the References folder in the Solution Explorer. Select the following DLLs: GalaSoft.MvvmLight.dll, GalaSoft.MvvmLight.Extras.dll, Microsoft.Practices.ServiceLocation.dll and System.Windows.Interactivity.dll. Press “delete” and confirm to remove the DLLs from your project. Right click on References and select Add Reference from the context menu. Browse to the folder with the new DLLs. Select the four new DLLs and press OK. Rebuild your application, and open it again in Blend or in the Visual Studio designer. The error should be gone now. In the next few days, as time allows, I will publish a new MSI containing a fixed version of the DLLs as well as a few other improvements. This quick fix should however allow you to continue working on your Windows Phone 8 projects in design mode too.   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

  Read the article

• Website Design; SEO Dilemma

  - by lemonpole

  Okay so I designed a website for a restaurant and the design is aimed mostly to entice the viewer by using images of the restaurant's platters and foods. Not to say that text is totally non-existent but the design makes it hard to have enough keywords. Most keywords are found in the ALT attribute of image tags and a couple of headers. The reason as to why I am in this dilemma? I'm still new to web development and at the time I made the design, I didn't really know much about SEO. So I come here in search of help because I have an idea... Would it be good practice to have hidden SPAN blocks that would help me fill with keywords? For example a hidden SPAN would have text in bold to help with SEO. Of course, I will play it safe and not exploit this technique if it works. I have searched that this may be considered spamming by search engines and some companies are taking measures to prevent this. Thanks in advance!

  Read the article

• Can a loosely typed language be considered true object oriented?

  - by user61852

  Can a loosely typed programming language like PHP be really considered object oriented? I mean, the methods don't have returning types and method parameters has no declared type either. Doesn't class design require methods to have a return type? Don't methods signatures have specifically-typed parameters? How can OOP techniques help you code in PHP if you always have to check the types of parameters received because the language doesn't enforce types? Please, if I'm wrong, explain it to me. When you design things using UML, then code classes in PHP with no return-typed methods and no-type parameters... Is the code really compliant with the UML design? You spend time designing the architecture of your software, then the compiler doesn't force the programmer to follow your design while coding, letting he/she assign any object variable to any other variable with no "type-mismatch" warning.

  Read the article

• Designing persistence schema for BigTable on AppEngine

  - by Vitalij Zadneprovskij

  I have tried to design the datastore schema for a very small application. That schema would have been very simple, if not trivial, using a relational database with foreign keys, many-to-many relations, joins, etc. But the problem was that my application was targeted for Google App Engine and I had to design for a database that was not relational. At the end I gave up. Is there a book or an article that describes design principles for applications that are meant for such databases? The books that I have found are about programming for App Engine and they don't spend many words about database design principles.

  Read the article

• 15 Stylish Navigation Menus For Inspiration

  - by Jyoti

  A site’s navigation menu is one of the most prominent things that users see when they first visit. There are many ways to design a navigation menu  and since almost all websites have some form of navigation designers have to push their creative limits to build one that’s remarkable and outstanding. In this article, you’ll find a showcase of beautiful, creative, and stylish navigation menus for your inspiration. Tennessee Vacation: Alpine Meadows: White House: The Hole In Our Gospel: Navigant Consulting: The Lippincott: Torrance Web Design: Viget Extend: David Hellmann: Candes: Brad Colbow: Cheesetique : Satsu Design: Blue Moon: Africa Oasis Project

  Read the article

• TechEd 2010 Day Three: The Database Designer (Isn't)

  - by BuckWoody

  Yesterday at TechEd 2010 here in New Orleans I worked the front-booth, answering general SQL Server questions for the masses. I was actually a little surprised to find most of the questions I got were from folks that wanted to know more about Stream Insight and Master Data Services. In past conferences I've been asked a lot of "free consulting" questions, about problems folks have had from older products. I don't mind that a bit - in fact, I'm always happy to help in any way I can. But this time people are really interested in the new features in the product, and I like that they are thinking ahead, not just having to solve problems in production. My presentation was on "Database Design in an Hour". We had the usual fun, and SideShow Bob made an appearance - I kid you not. The guy in the back of the room looked just like Sideshow Bob, so I quickly held a "bes thair" contest, and he won. Duing the presentation, I explain the tools you can use to design databases. I also explain that the "Database Designer" tool in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) isn't truly a desinger - it uses non-standard notation, doesn't have a meta-data dictionary, and worst of all, it works at the physical level. In other words, whatever you do in SSMS will automatically change the field/table/relationship structures in the database. We fixed this in SSMS 2008 and higher by adding an option to block that, but the tool is not a good design function nonetheless. To be fair, no one I know of at Microsoft recommends that it is - but I was shocked to hear so many developers in the room defending it as a good tool. I think the main issue for someone who doesn't have to work with Relational Systems a great deal is that it can be difficult to figure out Foreign Keys. The syntax makes them look "backwards", so it's just easier to grab a field and place it on the table you want to point to. There are options. You can download a couple of free tools (CA has a community edition of ER-WIN, Quest has one, and Embarcadero also has one) and if you design more than one or two databases a year, it may be worth buying a true design tool. For years I used Visio, but we changed it so that it doesn't forward-engineer (create the DDL) any more, so it isn't a true design tool either. So investigate those free and not-so-free tools. You'll find they help you in your job - but stay away from the Database Designer in SSMS. Or I'll send Sideshow Bob over there to straighten you out. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• Car Modelling for race game

  - by Mert Toka

  I am taking Computer Graphics course this semester and we have a video game competition. I am making racing game with simulated dynamics. Our professor told us that we don't have to do much of a modelling but since we haven't started the gaming part and since I have free time I want to model the car. My question is firstly which software do you recommend to design game components? I know Maya right now. Secondly, if I design the car or any other part, what should its polygon count in order to run game smoothly? I can design pretty much everything but I assume that it is hard to design low-poly models.

  Read the article

• Tips about how to spread Object Oriented practices

  - by Augusto

  I work for a medium company that has around 250 developers. Unfortunately, lots of them are stuck in a procedural way of thinking and some teams constantly deliver big Transactional Script applications, when in fact the application contains rich logic. They also fail to manage the design dependencies, and end up with services which depend on another large number of services (a clean example of Big Ball of Mud). My question is: Can you suggest how to spread this type of knowledge? I know that the surface of the problem is that these applications have a poor architecture and design. Another issue is that there are some developers who are against writing any kind of test. A few things I'm doing to change this (but I'm either failing or the change is too small are) Running presentations about design principles (SOLID, clean code, etc). Workshops about TDD and BDD. Coaching teams (this includes using sonar, findbugs, jdepend and other tools). IDE & Refactoring talks. A few things I'm thinking to do in the future (but I'm concern that they might not be good) Form a team of OO evangelists, who disseminate an OO way of thinking in differet teams (these people would need to change teams every few months). Running design review sessions, to criticise the design and suggest improvements (even if the improvements are not done because of time constraints, I think this might be useful) . Something I found with the teams I coach, is that as soon as I leave them, they revert back to the old practices. I know I don't spend a lot of time with them, usually just one month. So whatever I'm doing, it doesn't stick. I'm sorry this question is spattered with frustration, but the alterative to write this was to hit my head on the wall until I pass out.

  Read the article

• TechEd 2010 Day Three: The Database Designer (Isn't)

  - by BuckWoody

  Yesterday at TechEd 2010 here in New Orleans I worked the front-booth, answering general SQL Server questions for the masses. I was actually a little surprised to find most of the questions I got were from folks that wanted to know more about Stream Insight and Master Data Services. In past conferences I've been asked a lot of "free consulting" questions, about problems folks have had from older products. I don't mind that a bit - in fact, I'm always happy to help in any way I can. But this time people are really interested in the new features in the product, and I like that they are thinking ahead, not just having to solve problems in production. My presentation was on "Database Design in an Hour". We had the usual fun, and SideShow Bob made an appearance - I kid you not. The guy in the back of the room looked just like Sideshow Bob, so I quickly held a "bes thair" contest, and he won. Duing the presentation, I explain the tools you can use to design databases. I also explain that the "Database Designer" tool in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) isn't truly a desinger - it uses non-standard notation, doesn't have a meta-data dictionary, and worst of all, it works at the physical level. In other words, whatever you do in SSMS will automatically change the field/table/relationship structures in the database. We fixed this in SSMS 2008 and higher by adding an option to block that, but the tool is not a good design function nonetheless. To be fair, no one I know of at Microsoft recommends that it is - but I was shocked to hear so many developers in the room defending it as a good tool. I think the main issue for someone who doesn't have to work with Relational Systems a great deal is that it can be difficult to figure out Foreign Keys. The syntax makes them look "backwards", so it's just easier to grab a field and place it on the table you want to point to. There are options. You can download a couple of free tools (CA has a community edition of ER-WIN, Quest has one, and Embarcadero also has one) and if you design more than one or two databases a year, it may be worth buying a true design tool. For years I used Visio, but we changed it so that it doesn't forward-engineer (create the DDL) any more, so it isn't a true design tool either. So investigate those free and not-so-free tools. You'll find they help you in your job - but stay away from the Database Designer in SSMS. Or I'll send Sideshow Bob over there to straighten you out. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• PASS Summit 2010 Presentation Feedback

  - by andyleonard

  Introduction It's always an honor to present anywhere. Presenting at the PASS Summit is a special honor. I delivered three presentations last month: Database Design for Developers SSIS Design Patterns, Part 2 A Lightning Talk on SSIS Database Design for Developers First, a bit of explanation (defense): I submitted this abstract to the PASS Abstracts folks by mistake . I kid you not. Inspired by Adam Machanic ( Blog | @AdamMachanic ) I maintain a document of current presentations. I've recently published...(read more)

  Read the article

• Presenting to the New England SQL Server Users Group 10 Jun 2010!

  - by andyleonard

  I am honored to present Applied SSIS Design Patterns to the New England SQL Server Users Group on 10 Jun 2010! This is a reprise of the spotlight session presented at the PASS Summit 2009. Abstract "Design Patterns" is more than a trendy buzz phrase; design patterns are a way of breaking down complex development projects into manageable tasks. They lend themselves to several development methodologies and apply to SSIS development. Chances are you're using your own design patterns now! In this spotlight...(read more)

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64  | Next Page >