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• Educational, well-written FOSS projects to read, study or discuss

  - by Godot

  Before you say it: yes, this "question" has been asked other times. However, I could not fine many of such questions and not that easily, and those I found had similar results. What I'm trying to say that there are no comprehensive lists of well written Open Source projects, so I decided to set some requirements for the entries (one or possibly more): Idiomatic use of the language in which they are written The project should be lightweight. Not as in "a few kbs", as in "clean" and possibly following the UNIX philosophy, making an efficient use of resources and performing its duty and nothing more. No code bloat, most importantly. Projects like Firefox and GNOME wouldn't qualify, for example. Minimal reliance on external, non-standard libraries, with exceptions for some common FOSS libraries (curses, Xlib, OpenGL and possibly "usual suspects" like gtk+, webkit and Boost). Reliance on well-written libraries is welcome. No reliance on proprietary software - for obvious reasons (programs that rely on XNA, DirectX, Cocoa and similar, for example). Well-documented code is welcome. Include link to web interfaces to their repositories if possible. Here are some sample projects that often pop up in these threads: Operating Systems Plan 9 from Bell Labs: More or less, the official "sequel" to UNIX. Written in C by the same people who invented C! NetBSD: The most portable BSD implementation, written in C and also a good example of portable and organized code. Network and Databases Sqlite: Extremely lightweight and extremely efficient, one of the best pieces of C software I've seen. Count the lines yourself! Lighttpd: A small but pretty reliable web server written in C. Programming languages and VMs Lua: extremely lightweight multi-paradigm programming language. Written in C. Tiny C Compiler: Really tiny C compiler. Not really comparable to GCC or Clang but does its job. PyPy: A Python implementation written in Python. Pharo: OK, I admit it, I'm not really a Smalltalk expert but Pharo is a fork of Squeak and looked rather interesting. Stackless Python - An implementation of Python that doesn't rely on the C call stack - written in C (with some parts in Python) Games and 3D: Angband: One of the most accessible roguelike codebases around here, written in C. Ogre3D: Cross-platform 3D engine. Gets bloated if you don't skip the platform-specific implementation code, otherwise is a pretty solid example of good C++ OO. Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection: Title says it all. Other - dwm: Lightweight window manager. Written in C. Emulation and Reverse Engineering - Bochs: x86 emulator, written in C++ and tiny enough. - MAME: If you want to see C at one of its lowest levels, MAME is for you. May not be as clean as the other projects but it can teach you A LOT. Before you ask: I didn't mention Linux because it has become quite bloated in the last few years, Linus has also confirmed it. Nonetheless, it'd be a great educational read the same, even if for other reasons. Same for GCC. Feel free to edit or wikify my post. I hope you won't lock my question, I'm only trying to organize a little community effort for the good of all those people who want to enhance their coding skills.

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• Shadows shimmer when camera moves

  - by Chad Layton

  I've implemented shadow maps in my simple block engine as an exercise. I'm using one directional light and using the view volume to create the shadow matrices. I'm experiencing some problems with the shadows shimmering when the camera moves and I'd like to know if it's an issue with my implementation or just an issue with basic/naive shadow mapping itself. Here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyprATt5BBg&feature=youtu.be Here's the code I use to create the shadow matrices. The commented out code is my original attempt to perfectly fit the view frustum. You can also see my attempt to try clamping movement to texels in the shadow map which didn't seem to make any difference. Then I tried using a bounding sphere instead, also to no apparent effect. public void CreateViewProjectionTransformsToFit(Camera camera, out Matrix viewTransform, out Matrix projectionTransform, out Vector3 position) { BoundingSphere cameraViewFrustumBoundingSphere = BoundingSphere.CreateFromFrustum(camera.ViewFrustum); float lightNearPlaneDistance = 1.0f; Vector3 lookAt = cameraViewFrustumBoundingSphere.Center; float distanceFromLookAt = cameraViewFrustumBoundingSphere.Radius + lightNearPlaneDistance; Vector3 directionFromLookAt = -Direction * distanceFromLookAt; position = lookAt + directionFromLookAt; viewTransform = Matrix.CreateLookAt(position, lookAt, Vector3.Up); float lightFarPlaneDistance = distanceFromLookAt + cameraViewFrustumBoundingSphere.Radius; float diameter = cameraViewFrustumBoundingSphere.Radius * 2.0f; Matrix.CreateOrthographic(diameter, diameter, lightNearPlaneDistance, lightFarPlaneDistance, out projectionTransform); //Vector3 cameraViewFrustumCentroid = camera.ViewFrustum.GetCentroid(); //position = cameraViewFrustumCentroid - (Direction * (camera.FarPlaneDistance - camera.NearPlaneDistance)); //viewTransform = Matrix.CreateLookAt(position, cameraViewFrustumCentroid, Up); //Vector3[] cameraViewFrustumCornersWS = camera.ViewFrustum.GetCorners(); //Vector3[] cameraViewFrustumCornersLS = new Vector3[8]; //Vector3.Transform(cameraViewFrustumCornersWS, ref viewTransform, cameraViewFrustumCornersLS); //Vector3 min = cameraViewFrustumCornersLS[0]; //Vector3 max = cameraViewFrustumCornersLS[0]; //for (int i = 1; i < 8; i++) //{ // min = Vector3.Min(min, cameraViewFrustumCornersLS[i]); // max = Vector3.Max(max, cameraViewFrustumCornersLS[i]); //} //// Clamp to nearest texel //float texelSize = 1.0f / Renderer.ShadowMapSize; //min.X -= min.X % texelSize; //min.Y -= min.Y % texelSize; //min.Z -= min.Z % texelSize; //max.X -= max.X % texelSize; //max.Y -= max.Y % texelSize; //max.Z -= max.Z % texelSize; //// We just use an orthographic projection matrix. The sun is so far away that it's rays are essentially parallel. //Matrix.CreateOrthographicOffCenter(min.X, max.X, min.Y, max.Y, -max.Z, -min.Z, out projectionTransform); } And here's the relevant part of the shader: if (CastShadows) { float4 positionLightCS = mul(float4(position, 1.0f), LightViewProj); float2 texCoord = clipSpaceToScreen(positionLightCS) + 0.5f / ShadowMapSize; float shadowMapDepth = tex2D(ShadowMapSampler, texCoord).r; float distanceToLight = length(LightPosition - position); float bias = 0.2f; if (shadowMapDepth < (distanceToLight - bias)) { return float4(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); } } The shimmer is slightly better if I drastically reduce the view volume but I think that's mostly just because the texels become smaller and it's harder to notice them flickering back and forth. I'd appreciate any insight, I'd very much like to understand what's going on before I try other techniques.

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• Custom Templates: Using user exits

  - by Anthony Shorten

  One of the features of Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4.1 is the ability to use templates and user exits to extend the base configuration files. The configuration files used by the product are based upon a set of templates shipped with the product. When the configureEnv utility asks for configuration settings they are stored in a configuration file ENVIRON.INI which outlines the environment settings. These settings are then used by the initialSetup utility to populate the various configuration files used by the product using templates located in the templates directory of the installation. Now, whilst the majority of the installations at any site are non-production and the templates provided are generally adequate for that need, there are circumstances where extension of templates are needed to take advantage of more advanced facilities (such as advanced security and environment settings). The issue then becomes that if you alter the configuration files manually (directly or indirectly) then you may lose all your custom settings the next time you run initialSetup. To counter this we allow customers to either override templates with their own template or we now provide user exits in the templates to add fragments of configuration unique to that part of the configuration file. The latter means that the base template is still used but additions are included to provide the extensions. The provision of custom templates is supported but as soon as you use a custom template you are then responsible for reflecting any changes we put in the base template over time. Not a big task but annoying if you have to do it for multiple copies of the product. I prefer to use user exits as they seem to represent the least effort solution. The way to find the user exits available is to either read the Server Administration Guide that comes with your product or look at individual templates and look for the lines: #ouaf_user_exit <user exit name> Where <user exit name> is the name of the user exit. User exits are not always present but are in places that we feel are the most likely to be changed. If a user exit does not exist the you can always use a custom template instead. Now lets show an example. By default, the product generates a config.xml file to be used with Oracle WebLogic. This configuration file has the basic setting contained in it to manage the product. If you want to take advantage of the Oracle WebLogic advanced settings, you can use the console to make those changes and it will be reflected in the config.xml automatically. To retain those changes across invocations of initialSetup, you need to alter the template that generates the config.xml or use user exits. The technique is this. Make the change in the console and when you save the change, WebLogic will reflect it in the config.xml for you. Compare the old version and new version of the config.xml and determine what to add and then find the user exit to put it in by examining the base template. For example, by default, the console is not automatically deployed (it is deployed on demand) in the base config.xml. To make the console deploy, you can add the following line to the templates/CM_config.xml.win.exit_3.include file (for windows) or templates/CM_config.xml.exit_3.include file (for linux/unix): <internal-apps-deploy-on-demand-enabled>false</internal-apps-deploy-on-demand-enabled> Now run initialSetup to reflect the change and if you check the splapp/config/config.xml file you will see the change applied for you. Now how did I know which include file? I check the template for config.xml and found there was an user exit at the right place. I prefixed my include filename with "CM_" to denote it as a custom user exit. This will tell the upgrade tools to leave that file alone whenever you decide to upgrade (or even apply fixes). User exits can be powerful and allow customizations to be added for advanced configuration. You will see products using Oracle Utilities Application Framework use this exits themselves (usually prefixed with the product code). You are also taking advantage of them.

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• Impressions on jQuery Mobile

  - by Jeff

  For the uninitiated, jQuery Mobile is a sweet little client framework that turns regular HTML into something more touch and mobile friendly. It results in a user interface that has bigger targets, rounded corners and simple skinning capability. When it was announced that ASP.NET MVC 4 would include support for a mobile-sensitive view engine, offering up alternate views for clients that fit the mobile profile, I was all over that. Combined with jQuery Mobile, it brought a chance to do some experimentation. I blitzed through the views in POP Forums and converted them all to mobile views. (For the curious, this first pass can be found here on CodePlex, while a more recent update that uses RC 2 of jQuery Mobile v1.1.0 is running on the demo site.) Initially, it was kind of a mixed bag. The jQuery demo site also acts as documentation, and it’s reasonably complete. I had no problem getting up a lot of basic views quickly, splitting out portions of some pages as subpages that they quickly load in. The default behavior in the older version was to slide the pages in, which looked a little weird when you were using a back button. They’ve since changed it so the default transition is a fade in/out. Because you’re dealing with Web pages, I don’t think anyone is really under the illusion that you’re not using a native app, so I don’t know that this matters. I’ve tested extensively on iPad and Windows Phone, and to be honest, I’ve encountered a lot of issues. On Windows Phone, there is some kind of inconsistency that prevents the proper respect for the viewport settings. The text background on text fields (for labeling) doesn’t work, either. On both platforms, certain in-DOM page navigation links work only half of the time. Is this an issue of user error? Probably, but that’s what’s frustrating about it. Most of what you accomplish with this framework involves decorating various elements with CSS classes. There isn’t any design-time safety to speak of to make sure that you’re doing it right. I think the issues can be overcome, but there are some trade-offs to consider. The first is download size. Yes, the scripts and CSS do get cached, but that first hit will cost nearly 40k for the mobile parts. That’s still a lot when you’re on some crappy AT&T EDGE network, or hotel Wi-Fi. Then you have to ask yourself, do you really want your app to look like it’s native to iOS? I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, because consistent UI is good, but you will end up feeling a whole lot of sameness, and maybe you don’t want that. I did some experimentation to try and Metro-ize the jQuery Mobile theme, and it’s kind of a mixed bag. It mostly works, but you get some weirdness on badges and with buttons that I’m not crazy about. It probably just means you need to keep tweaking. At this point, I’m a little torn about whether or not I’ll use it for POP Forums or one of the sites I’m working on. The benefits are pretty strong, but figuring out where I’m doing it wrong is proving a little time consuming.

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• Book Review: Oracle ADF 11gR2 Development Beginner's Guide

  - by Grant Ronald

  Packt Publishing asked me to review Oracle ADF 11gR2 Development Beginner's Guide by Vinod Krishnan, so on a couple of long flights I managed to get through the book in a couple of sittings. One point to make clear before I go into the review.  Having authored "The Quick Start Guide to Fusion Development: JDeveloper and Oracle ADF", I've written a book which covers the same topic/beginner level.  I also think that its worth stating up front that I applaud anyone who has gone  through the effort of writing a technical book. So well done Vinod.  But on to the review: The book itself is a good break down of topic areas.  Vinod starts with a quick tour around the IDE, which is an important step given all the work you do will be through the IDE.  The book then goes through the general path that I tend to always teach: a quick overview demo, ADF BC, validation, binding, UI, task flows and then the various "add on" topics like security, MDS and advanced topics.  So it covers the right topics in, IMO, the right order.  I also think the writing style flows nicely as well - Its a relatively easy book to read, it doesn't get too formal and the "Have a go hero" hands on sections will be useful for many. That said, I did pick out a number of styles/themes to the writing that I found went against the idea of a beginners guide.  For example, in writing my book, I tried to carefully avoid talking about topics not yet covered or not yet relevant at that point in someone's learning.  So, if I was a new ADF developer reading this book, did I really need to know about ADFBindingFilter and DataBindings.cpx file on page 58 - I've only just learned how to do a drag and drop simple application so showing me XML configuration files relevant to JSF/ADF lifecycle is probably going to scare me off! I found this in a couple of places, for example, the security chapter starts on page 219 but by page 222 (and most of the preceding pages are hands-on steps) we're diving into the web.xml, weblogic.xml, adf-config.xml, jsp-config.xml and jazn-data.xml.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldn't know this, but I feel you have to get people on a strong grounding of the concepts before showing them implementation files.  If having just learned what ADF Security is will "The initialization parameter remove.anonymous.role is set to false for the JpsFilter filter as this filter is the first filter defined in the file" really going to help me? The other theme I found which I felt didn't work was that a couple of the chapters descended into a reference guide.  For example page 159 onwards basically lists UI components and their properties.  And page 87 onwards list the attributes of ADF BC in pretty much the same way as the on line help or developer guide, and I've a personal aversion to any sort of help that says pretty much what the attribute name is e.g. "Precision Rule: this option is used to set a strict precision rule", or "Property Set: this is the property set that has to be applied to the attribute". Hmmm, I think I could have worked that out myself, what I would want to know in a beginners guide are what are these for, what might I use them for...and if I don't need to use them to create an emp/dept example them maybe it’s better to leave them out. All that said, would the book help me - yes it would.  It’s obvious that Vinod knows ADF and his style is relatively easy going and the book covers all that it has to, but I think the book could have done a better job in the educational side of guiding beginners.

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• Is Oracle Policy Automation a Fit for My Agency? I'll bet it is.

  - by jeffrey.waterman

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Recently, I stumbled upon a new(-ish) whitepaper now posted on the Oracle Technology Network around Oracle Policy Automation (OPA). This paper is certain to become a must read for any customer interested in rules automation. What is OPA?  If you are not sitting in your favorite Greek restaurant waiting for that order of Saganaki to appear, OPA is Oracle’s solution for automated streamlining, standardizing, and the maintenance of policy. It is a specialized rules platform that simplifies the automation of rules and policies, putting the analysis in the hands of the analysts, not the IT organization. In other words, OPA allows the organization to be more efficient by eliminating (or at a minimum, reducing the engagement of) the middle man from the process. The whitepaper I mention above is titled, “Is Oracle Policy Automation a Good Fit for My Business?”. This short document walks the reader through use cases and advice for the reader to consider when deciding if OPA is right for their agency. The paper outlines many different scenarios, different uses of OPA in production today and, where OPA may not be a good fit. Many of the use case examples revolve around end user questionnaires or analyst research. What is often overlooked is OPA’s ability to act as a rules engine behind the scenes. That is, take inputs from one source (e.g., personnel data), process that data in OPA and send the output (e.g., pay data with benefits deductions) to a second source. The rules have been automated, no necessary human intervention to perform analysis. A few of my customers have used the embedded OPA solution to improve transaction processing and reduce the time spent analyzing exceptions. I suggest any reader whose organization is reliant on or deals with high complexity, volume or volatility in rules that are based on documentation – or which need to be documented – take a look at Oracle Policy Automation. You can find the white paper on Oracle Technology Network. You can find the white paper in the Oracle Policy Automation of the OTN. You can find more information around OPA on oracle.com. Finally, you can send me a question any time at [email protected] Thank you for reading. If you have any topics around Oracle Applications in the Federal or Public Sector industries you would like to see addressed in this blog, please leave suggestions in the comments section and I will do my best to address in a future post.

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• links for 2010-12-23

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Oracle VM Virtualbox 4.0 extension packs (Wim Coekaerts Blog) Wim Coekaerts describes the the new extension pack in Oracle VM Virtualbox 4.0 and how it's different from 3.2 and earlier releases. (tags: oracle otn virtualization virtualbox) Oracle Fusion Middleware Security: Creating OES SM instances on 64 bit systems "I've already opened a bug on this against OES 10gR3 CP5, but in case anyone else runs into it before it gets fixed I wanted to blog it too. (NOTE: CP5 is when official support was introduced for running OES on a 64 bit system with a 64 bit JVM)" - Chris Johnson (tags: oracle otn fusionmiddleware security) Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control: Shared loader directory, RAC and WebLogic Clustering "RAC is optional. Even the load balancer is optional. The feed from the agents also goes to the load balancer on a different port and it is routed to the available management server. In normal case, this is ok." - Porus Homi Havewala (tags: WebLogic oracle otn grid clustering) Magic Web Doctor: Thought Process on Upgrading WebLogic Server to 11g "Upgrading to new versions can be challenging task, but it's done for linear scalability, continuous enhanced availability, efficient manageability and automatic/dynamic infrastructure provisioning at a low cost." - Chintan Patel (tags: oracle otn weblogic upgrading) InfoQ: Using a Service Bus to Connect the Supply Chain Peter Paul van de Beek presents a case study of using a service bus in a supply channel connecting a wholesale supplier with hundreds of retailers, the overall context and challenges faced – including the integration of POS software coming from different software providers-, the solution chosen and its implementation, how it worked out and the lessons learned along the way. (tags: ping.fm) Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0 is released! - The Fat Bloke Sings The Fat Bloke spreads the news and shares some screenshots.  (tags: oracle otn virtualization virtualbox) Leaks on Wikis: "Corporations...You're Next!" Oracle Desktop Virtualization Can Help. (Oracle's Virtualization Blog) "So what can you do to guard against these types of breaches where there is no outsider (or even insider) intrusion to detect per se, but rather someone with malicious intent is physically walking out the door with data that they are otherwise allowed to access in their daily work?" - Adam Hawley (tags: oracle otn virtualization security) OTN ArchBeat Podcast Guest Roster As the OTN ArchBeat Podcast enters its third year, it's time to acknowledge the invaluable contributions of the guests who have participated in ArchBeat programs. Check out this who's who of ArchBeat podcast panelists, with links to their respective interviews and more. (tags: oracle otn oracleace podcast archbeat) Show Notes: Architects in the Cloud (ArchBeat) Now available! Part 2 (of 4) of the ArchBeat interview with Stephen G. Bennett and Archie Reed, the authors of "Silver Clouds, Dark Linings: A Concise Guide to Cloud Computing." (tags: oracle otn podcast cloud) A Cautionary Tale About Multi-Source JNDI Configuration (Scott Nelson's Portal Productivity Ponderings) "I ran into this issue after reading that p13nDataSource and cgDataSource-NonXA should not be configured as multi-source. There were some issues changing them to use the basic JDBC connection string and when rolling back to the bad configuration the server went 'Boom.'" - Scott Nelson (tags: weblogic jdbc oracle jndi)

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• Microsoft Build 2012 Day 1 Keynote Summary

  - by Tim Murphy

  So I have finally dried the tears after watching the Keynote for Build 2012.  This wasn’t because it was an emotional presentation, but because for the second year I missed the goodies.  Each on site attendee got a Surface RT, a Lumia 920 and a voucher for 100GB of SkyDrive storage. The event was opened with the announcement that in the three days since the launch of Windows 8 over 4 million upgrades have been sold.  I don’t care who you are that is an impressive stat.  Ballmer then spent a fair amount of time remaking the case for the Windows and Windows Phone platforms similar to what we have heard over the last to launch events. There were some cool, but non-essential demos.  The one that was the most fun was the Perceptive Pixel 82” slate device.  At first glance I wondered why I would ever want such a device, but then Ballmer explained it’s possible use for schools and boardrooms.  The actually made sense. Then things got strange.  Steve started explaining features that developers could leverage.  Usually this type of information is left to the product leads.  He focused on the integration with the Charms features such as Search and Share. Steve “Guggs” Guggenheim showed off an app that would appeal to my kids from Disney called “Agent P” which is base on Phineas and Ferb.  Then he got to the meat of the presentation.  We found out that you could add a tile that can be used to sell ad space.  In the same vein we also found out that you could use Microsoft’s, Paypal’s or any commerce engine of your own creation or choosing. For those who are interested in sports and especially developing sports apps you would have found the small presentation from Michael Bayle of ESPN.  He introduced the ESPN app which has tons of features.  For the developers in the crowd he also mentioned that ESPN has an API available at developer.espn.com. During the launch events we were told apps were coming.  In this presentation we were actually shown a scrolling list of logos and told about a couple of them.  Ballmer mentioned specifically Twitter, SAP and DropBox.  These are impressive names that were just a couple of the list impressive names. Steve Ballmer addressed the question of why you should develop for the Windows 8 platform.  He feels that Microsoft has the best commercial terms for developers, a better way to build apps than other platforms and a variety of form factors.  His key point though was the available volume of customers given the current Windows install base and assuming even a flat growth of the platform.  This he backed with a promise that Microsoft is going to do better at marketing and you won’t be able to avoid the ads that they are bringing out. The last section of the key note was present by Kevin Gallo from the Windows Phone team.  This was the real reason I tuned into the webcast.  He impressed upon those watching that the strength of developing for the Microsoft platform is the common programming model that now exist.  While there are difference between form factor implementations you can leverage code across them. He claimed that 90% of developer requests for Windows Phone 8 had been implemented.  These include: More controls with better performance Better live tiles including lock screen integration Speech support in custom apps Easier submission to the market place App camera integration VOIP and chat support Bluetooth and NFC support Native C++ development Direct 3D development   The quote from Kevin that stood out for me was that “Take your Dramamine and buckle your seatbelt type of games are coming to Windows Phone 8”.  He back this up by displaying a list of game development frameworks and then having Unity come out and do a demo. Ok, almost done … The last two things of note for me were the announcement that the SDK is immediately available at dev.windowsphone.com and that they were reducing the cost of an individual developer account to $8 for the next 8 days. Let the development commence. del.icio.us Tags: Build 2012,Windows 8,Windows Phone 8,Windows Phone

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• Cloud Backup: Getting the Users' Backs Up

  - by Tony Davis

  On Wednesday last week, Microsoft announced that as of July 1, all data transfers into its Microsoft Azure cloud will be free (though you have to pay for transferring data out). On Thursday last week, SQL Azure in Western Europe went down. It was a relatively short outage, but since SQL Azure currently provides no easy way to take a standard backup of a database and store it locally, many people had no recourse but to wait patiently for their cloud-based app to resume. It seems that Microsoft are very keen encourage developers to move their data onto their cloud, but are developers ready to do it, given that such basic backup capabilities are lacking? Recently on Simple-Talk, Mike Mooney described a perfect use case for the Microsoft Cloud. They had a simple web-based application with a SQL Server backend; they could move the application to Windows Azure, and the data into SQL Azure and in the process free themselves from much of the hassle surrounding management and scaling of the hardware, network and so on. It was a great fit and yet it nearly didn't happen; lack of support for the BACKUP command almost proved a show-stopper. Of course, backups of Azure databases are always and have always been taken automatically, for disaster recovery purposes, but these are strictly on-cloud copies and as of now it is not possible to use them to them to restore a database to a particular point in time. It seems that none of those clever Microsoft people managed to predict the need to perform basic backups of Azure databases so that copies could be stored locally, outside the Azure universe. At the very least, as Mike points out, performing a local backup before a new deployment is more or less mandatory. Microsoft did at least note the sound of gnashing teeth and, as a stop-gap measure, offered SQL Azure Database Copy which basically allows you to create an online clone of your database, but this doesn't allow for storing local archives of the data. To that end MS has provided SQL Azure Import/Export, to package up and export a database and its data, using BACPACs. These BACPACs do not guarantee transactional consistency; for example, if a child table is modified after the parent is copied, then the copied database will be in inconsistent state (meaning, to add to the fun, BACPACs need to be created from a database copy). In any event, widespread problems with BACPAC's evil cousin, the DACPAC have been well-documented, and it seems likely that many will also give BACPAC the bum's rush. Finally, in a TechEd 2011 presentation tagged "SQL Azure Advanced Administration", it was announced that "backup and restore" were coming in the next SQL Azure CTP. And yet this still doesn't mean that we'll get simple backups as DBAs know and love them. What it does mean, at least, is the ability to restore any given database to a point in time within a 2-week window. For the time being, if you want a local copy of your data and don't want to brave the BACPAC, one is left with SSIS or BCP, creative use of schema and data comparison tools, or use of SQL Azure Backup (currently in beta) in order to perform this simple but vital task. Cheers, Tony.

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• Workflow versioning

  - by Nitra

  I believe I have a fundamental misunderstanding when it comes to workflow engines which I would appreciate if you could help me sort out. I'm not sure if my misunderstanding is specific to the workflow engine I'm using, or if it's a general misunderstanding. I happen to use Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF). TLDR-version WWF allows you to implement business processes in long-running workflows (think months or even years). When started, the workflows can't be changed. But what business process can't change at any time? And if a business process changes, wouldn't you want your software to reflect this change for already started 'instances' of the business process? What am I missing? Background In WWF you define a workflow by combining a set of activites. There are different types of activities - some of them are for flow control, such as the IfElseActivity and the WhileActivty while others allows you to perform actual tasks, such as the CodeActivity wich allows you to run .NET code and the InvokeWebServiceActivity which allows you to call web services. The activites are combined to a workflow using a visual designer. You pretty much drag-and-drop activities from a toolbox to a designer area and connect the activites to each other. The workflow and activities have input paramters, output parameters and variables. We have a single workflow which sometimes runs in a matter of a few days, but it may run for 5-6 months. WWF takes care of persisting the workflow state (what activity are we currently executing, what are the variable values and so on). So far I think WWF makes sense. Some people will prefer to implement a software representation of a business process using a visual designer over writing all of it in code. So what's the issue then? What I don't really get is the following: WWF is designed to take care of long-running workflows. But at the same time, WWF has no built-in functionality which allows you to modify the running workflows. So if you model a business process using a workflow and run that for 6 months, you better hope that the business process does not change. Because if it do, you'll have to have multiple versions of the workflow executing at the same time. This seems like a fundamental design mistake to me, but at the same time it seems more likely that I've misunderstood something. For us, this has had some real-world effects: We release new versions every month, but some workflows may run for a year. This means that we have several versions of the workflow running in parallell, in other words several versions of the business logics. This is the same as having many differnt versions of your code running in production in the same system at the same time, which becomes a bit hard to understand for users. (depending on on whether they clicked a 'Start' button 9 or 10 months ago, the software will behave differently) Our workflow refers to different types of entities and since WWF now has persisted and serialized these we can't really refactor the entities since then existing workflows can't be resumed (deserialization will fail We've received some suggestions on how to handle this When we create a new version of the workflow, cancel all running workflows and create new ones. But in our workflows there's a lot of manual work involved and if we start from scratch a lot of people has to re-do their work. Track what has been done in the workflow and when you create a new one skip activites which have already been executed. I feel that this alternative may work for simple workflows, but it becomes hairy to automatically figure out what activities to skip if there's major refactoring done to a workflow. When we create a new version of the workflow, upgrade old versions using the new WWF 4.5 functionality for upgrading workflows. But then we would have to skip using the visual designer and write code to inject activities in the right places in the workflow. According to MSDN, this upgrade functionality is only intended for minor bug fixes and not larger changes. What am I missing?

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• WPF: Running code when Window rendering is completed

  - by Ilya Verbitskiy

  WPF is full of surprises. It makes complicated tasks easier, but at the same time overcomplicates easy  task as well. A good example of such overcomplicated things is how to run code when you’re sure that window rendering is completed. Window Loaded event does not always work, because controls might be still rendered. I had this issue working with Infragistics XamDockManager. It continued rendering widgets even when the Window Loaded event had been raised. Unfortunately there is not any “official” solution for this problem. But there is a trick. You can execute your code asynchronously using Dispatcher class.   Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(new Action(() => Trace.WriteLine("DONE!", "Rendering")), DispatcherPriority.ContextIdle, null);   This code should be added to your Window Loaded event handler. It is executed when all controls inside your window are rendered. I created a small application to prove this idea. The application has one window with a few buttons. Each button logs when it has changed its actual size. It also logs when Window Loaded event is raised, and, finally, when rendering is completed. Window’s layout is straightforward.   1: <Window x:Class="OnRendered.MainWindow" 2: xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 3: xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 4: Title="Run the code when window rendering is completed." Height="350" Width="525" 5: Loaded="OnWindowLoaded"> 6: <Window.Resources> 7: <Style TargetType="{x:Type Button}"> 8: <Setter Property="Padding" Value="7" /> 9: <Setter Property="Margin" Value="5" /> 10: <Setter Property="HorizontalAlignment" Value="Center" /> 11: <Setter Property="VerticalAlignment" Value="Center" /> 12: </Style> 13: </Window.Resources> 14: <StackPanel> 15: <Button x:Name="Button1" Content="Button 1" SizeChanged="OnSizeChanged" /> 16: <Button x:Name="Button2" Content="Button 2" SizeChanged="OnSizeChanged" /> 17: <Button x:Name="Button3" Content="Button 3" SizeChanged="OnSizeChanged" /> 18: <Button x:Name="Button4" Content="Button 4" SizeChanged="OnSizeChanged" /> 19: <Button x:Name="Button5" Content="Button 5" SizeChanged="OnSizeChanged" /> 20: </StackPanel> 21: </Window>   SizeChanged event handler simply traces that the event has happened.   1: private void OnSizeChanged(object sender, SizeChangedEventArgs e) 2: { 3: Button button = (Button)sender; 4: Trace.WriteLine("Size has been changed", button.Name); 5: }   Window Loaded event handler is slightly more interesting. First it scheduler the code to be executed using Dispatcher class, and then logs the event.   1: private void OnWindowLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 2: { 3: Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(new Action(() => Trace.WriteLine("DONE!", "Rendering")), DispatcherPriority.ContextIdle, null); 4: Trace.WriteLine("Loaded", "Window"); 5: }   As the result I had seen these trace messages.   1: Button5: Size has been changed 2: Button4: Size has been changed 3: Button3: Size has been changed 4: Button2: Size has been changed 5: Button1: Size has been changed 6: Window: Loaded 7: Rendering: DONE!   You can find the solution in GitHub.

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• database design help for game / user levels / progress

  - by sprugman

  Sorry this got long and all prose-y. I'm creating my first truly gamified web app and could use some help thinking about how to structure the data. The Set-up Users need to accomplish tasks in each of several categories before they can move up a level. I've got my Users, Tasks, and Categories tables, and a UserTasks table which joins the three. ("User 3 has added Task 42 in Category 8. Now they've completed it.") That's all fine and working wonderfully. The Challenge I'm not sure of the best way to track the progress in the individual categories toward each level. The "business" rules are: You have to achieve a certain number of points in each category to move up. If you get the number of points needed in Cat 8, but still have other work to do to complete the level, any new Cat 8 points count toward your overall score, but don't "roll over" into the next level. The number of Categories is small (five currently) and unlikely to change often, but by no means absolutely fixed. The number of points needed to level-up will vary per level, probably by a formula, or perhaps a lookup table. So the challenge is to track each user's progress toward the next level in each category. I've thought of a few potential approaches: Possible Solutions Add a column to the users table for each category and reset them all to zero each time a user levels-up. Have a separate UserProgress table with a row for each category for each user and the number of points they have. (Basically a Many-to-Many version of #1.) Add a userLevel column to the UserTasks table and use that to derive their progress with some kind of SUM statement. Their current level will be a simple int in the User table. Pros & Cons (1) seems like by far the most straightforward, but it's also the least flexible. Perhaps I could use a naming convention based on the category ids to help overcome some of that. (With code like "select cats; for each cat, get the value from Users.progress_{cat.id}.") It's also the one where I lose the most data -- I won't know which points counted toward leveling up. I don't have a need in mind for that, so maybe I don't care about that. (2) seems complicated: every time I add or subtract a user or a category, I have to maintain the other table. I foresee synchronization challenges. (3) Is somewhere in between -- cleaner than #2, but less intuitive than #1. In order to find out where a user is, I'd have mildly complex SQL like: SELECT categoryId, SUM(points) from UserTasks WHERE userId={user.id} & countsTowardLevel={user.level} groupBy categoryId Hmm... that doesn't seem so bad. I think I'm talking myself into #3 here, but would love any input, advice or other ideas. P.S. Sorry for the cross-post. I wrote this up on SO and then remembered that there was a game dev-focused one. Curious to see if I get different answers one place than the other....

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• Open source adventures with... wait for it... Microsoft

  - by Jeff

  Last week, Microsoft announced that it was going to open source the rest of the ASP.NET MVC Web stack. The core MVC framework has been open source for a long time now, but the other pieces around it are also now out in the wild. Not only that, but it's not what I call "big bang" open source, where you release the source with each version. No, they're actually committing in real time to a public repository. They're also taking contributions where it makes sense. If that weren't exciting enough, CodePlex, which used to be a part of the team I was on, has been re-org'd to a different part of the company where it is getting the love and attention (and apparently money) that it deserves. For a period of several months, I lobbied to get a PM gig with that product, but got nowhere. A year and a half later, I'm happy to see it finally treated right. In any case, I found a bug in Razor, the rendering engine, before the beta came out. I informally sent the bug info to some people, but it wasn't fixed for the beta. Now, with the project being developed in the open, I was able to submit the issue, and went back and forth with the developer who wrote the code (I met him once at a meet up in Bellevue, I think), and he committed a fix. I tried it a day later, and the bug was gone. There's a lot to learn from all of this. That open source software is surprisingly efficient and often of high quality is one part of it. For me the win is that it demonstrates how open and collaborative processes, as light as possible, lead to better software. In other words, even if this were a project being developed internally, at a bank or something, getting stakeholders involved early and giving people the ability to respond leads to awesomeness. While there is always a place for big thinking, experience has shown time and time again that trying to figure everything out up front takes too long, and rarely meets expectations. This is a lesson that probably half of Microsoft has yet to learn, including the team I was on before I split. It's the reason that team still hasn't shipped anything to general availability. But I've seen what an open and iterative development style can do for teams, at Microsoft and other places that I've worked. When you can have a conversation with people, and take ideas and turn them into code quickly, you're winning. So why don't people like winning? I think there are a lot of reasons, and they can generally be categorized into fear, skepticism and bad experiences. I can't give the Web stack teams enough credit. Not only did they dream big, but they changed a culture that often seems immovable and hopelessly stuck. This is a very public example of this culture change, but it's starting to happen at every scale in Microsoft. It's really interesting to see in a company that has been written off as dead the last decade.

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• Platform jumping problems with AABB collisions

  - by Vee

  See the diagram first: When my AABB physics engine resolves an intersection, it does so by finding the axis where the penetration is smaller, then "push out" the entity on that axis. Considering the "jumping moving left" example: If velocityX is bigger than velocityY, AABB pushes the entity out on the Y axis, effectively stopping the jump (result: the player stops in mid-air). If velocityX is smaller than velocitY (not shown in diagram), the program works as intended, because AABB pushes the entity out on the X axis. How can I solve this problem? Source code: public void Update() { Position += Velocity; Velocity += World.Gravity; List<SSSPBody> toCheck = World.SpatialHash.GetNearbyItems(this); for (int i = 0; i < toCheck.Count; i++) { SSSPBody body = toCheck[i]; body.Test.Color = Color.White; if (body != this && body.Static) { float left = (body.CornerMin.X - CornerMax.X); float right = (body.CornerMax.X - CornerMin.X); float top = (body.CornerMin.Y - CornerMax.Y); float bottom = (body.CornerMax.Y - CornerMin.Y); if (SSSPUtils.AABBIsOverlapping(this, body)) { body.Test.Color = Color.Yellow; Vector2 overlapVector = SSSPUtils.AABBGetOverlapVector(left, right, top, bottom); Position += overlapVector; } if (SSSPUtils.AABBIsCollidingTop(this, body)) { if ((Position.X >= body.CornerMin.X && Position.X <= body.CornerMax.X) && (Position.Y + Height/2f == body.Position.Y - body.Height/2f)) { body.Test.Color = Color.Red; Velocity = new Vector2(Velocity.X, 0); } } } } } public static bool AABBIsOverlapping(SSSPBody mBody1, SSSPBody mBody2) { if(mBody1.CornerMax.X <= mBody2.CornerMin.X || mBody1.CornerMin.X >= mBody2.CornerMax.X) return false; if (mBody1.CornerMax.Y <= mBody2.CornerMin.Y || mBody1.CornerMin.Y >= mBody2.CornerMax.Y) return false; return true; } public static bool AABBIsColliding(SSSPBody mBody1, SSSPBody mBody2) { if (mBody1.CornerMax.X < mBody2.CornerMin.X || mBody1.CornerMin.X > mBody2.CornerMax.X) return false; if (mBody1.CornerMax.Y < mBody2.CornerMin.Y || mBody1.CornerMin.Y > mBody2.CornerMax.Y) return false; return true; } public static bool AABBIsCollidingTop(SSSPBody mBody1, SSSPBody mBody2) { if (mBody1.CornerMax.X < mBody2.CornerMin.X || mBody1.CornerMin.X > mBody2.CornerMax.X) return false; if (mBody1.CornerMax.Y < mBody2.CornerMin.Y || mBody1.CornerMin.Y > mBody2.CornerMax.Y) return false; if(mBody1.CornerMax.Y == mBody2.CornerMin.Y) return true; return false; } public static Vector2 AABBGetOverlapVector(float mLeft, float mRight, float mTop, float mBottom) { Vector2 result = new Vector2(0, 0); if ((mLeft > 0 || mRight < 0) || (mTop > 0 || mBottom < 0)) return result; if (Math.Abs(mLeft) < mRight) result.X = mLeft; else result.X = mRight; if (Math.Abs(mTop) < mBottom) result.Y = mTop; else result.Y = mBottom; if (Math.Abs(result.X) < Math.Abs(result.Y)) result.Y = 0; else result.X = 0; return result; }

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• Wisdom Lies in Collaborative Power and Intelligence

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  By Alakh Verma, Director, Platform Technology Solutions   In my recent blog posts, I shared insights on Predictive Analytics (Will Predictive Analytics at 'Speed of Thoughts' Help Businesses?), Real Time Decisions (How critical are Real Time decisions in business today?) and their significance in our lives in general and in businesses today. In the current business paradigm shift- with evolutionary social business, it is paramount that businesses look for wisdom in collaborative power and intelligence and equip their employees with the tools to engage with one another. There is an old time saying that 5 sticks tied together are stronger and unable to break as opposed to an individual stick. We have recently witnessed the power of ordinary people uniting together and fought collaboratively using Facebook and Twitter to topple down dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya—and are threatening absolute rule in Syria. And an India one man’s (Anna Hazare) campaign against corruption went viral, bringing thousands to the streets in support. As anyone who has worked in a sizeable organization knows, there is no guarantee that the organization as a whole will perform efficiently and achieve its goals, even if each employee is individually efficient and every team has a high level of productivity. To achieve enterprise productivity, it is necessary not only for individuals and groups to “do things right” by working productively but also for the enterprise as a whole to “do the right things” - form the right teams, make the right decisions, allocate resources correctly, and effectively coordinate activities across the entire organization. Most organizations fall short of the optimal level of enterprise productivity because of one or more of these reasons, all at a great cost to the business.  They are disconnected from themselves with various parts of the organization unintentionally working at cross-purposes with each other.  Information that exists is not getting shared or reused.  Human talent is not being applied where it is most needed.  The same problems are being solved repeatedly by multiple groups. Intelligent collaboration through automated business processes has the ability to alter the course of any important business activity, with a potentially dramatic impact on the financial performance of the business. Whether it is a simple email exchange, a physical or virtual meeting, a task force, or a large-scale project, the activity is inherently collaborative.  In fact, collaboration can be defined as the work that takes place among people when a business process is not pre-determining how the work should take place. Collaboration is many things: information sharing, brainstorming, problem solving, best practice negotiation, innovation, coordination of activity, alignment of purpose, and so forth.  Collaboration is the “white space” between the business processes; it is the glue that holds an organization together, and the lubricant that allows the machinery to keep running.  Real time search and collaborative capabilities of the right people with the right content supported by defined processes will provide unparallel wisdom in the organization in the most competitive business environment today. Interestingly, technologies such as Oracle WebCenter offer these capabilities in our Web based business transactions and compliment in the overall collaborative intelligence and power to truly transform organizations to social businesses. Looking to learn more about engaging your employees to collaborate together and providing a complete user experience for your customers? You won't want to miss our webcast today! Drive Online Engagement with Intuitive Portals and Websites

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• Don't Forget To Enjoy Life

  - by Justin

  I have a pretty clear stance on posting personal information in my blogs. I tend to avoid it almost instinctively. Part of that is because I am a somewhat private person. And the other is because I know how easy it is for personal information to be gathered and collected from sources such as blogs. So, this has remained a tech only blog for me. I've only posted topics mostly related to issues I have encountered at work. In a way this blog is a 'bookmark' for me. If I post something here and run into the issue again it allows me to refer back to a convenient place where the 'fix' is documented in a way that I understand. But today, I am posting something that speaks to everyone. Something PERSONAL. Honestly, I expect this entry to receive zero views. But if nothing else, I can come back to this blog one day when I'm having a bad day or something and run across this post. And I will be reminded... DON'T FORGET TO ENJOY LIFE. Say this to yourself out loud, right now. People, we can get caught up in some rather mundane details as we trek through life. It's so easy to lose track of what really matters that it should be no surprise to find yourself reading something like this and thinking to yourself 'Yeah. You are right, man. Some of this crap I'm clinging on to right now is so small in the grand scheme of things'. I have no reservation, no shame, in saying that I am more often than not caught up in the ever evolving world of 'shit that does not matter'. When you work in technology, you are surrounded by deadlines, upgrades, new versions, support 'end of life', etc. And by time you get done with your 8 hours you go home and put in a few more because you are STILL CAUGHT UP in the things you dealt with at work all day. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR. DO YOUR FAMILY AND FRIEND A FAVOR. When you are done for the day, and you drive home, get those work-related things out of your head before you pull into the driveway. If you are still thinking on them when you park the car, leave the engine running, close your eyes and take a deep breath. If you believe in God, pray. If you don't then meditate for a second with the INTENTION of letting go of the day and becoming the 'real you'. You may have forgotten who the real you is so I'll remind you.... THE REAL YOU IS THAT GUY OR GAL THAT LAUGHS, LOVES, AND LIVES. Be the real you as often as possible. If you can't do it during your 9 - 5, do it at home. YOUR RELATIONSHIPS AND YOUR PERSONAL HAPPINESS DEPEND ON IT. I am going to make you a promise right now. If you do what I've just said, your days will be longer and your joy will be exponential. I can't explain why I know this to be true. But I do know it. And if you are there reading this right now, you know it is true too. We both know it is true because it COMES FROM WITHIN EVERY MAN, WOMAN and CHILD. We are born into love and happiness. Lets not fade away into the darkness so easily found in this world. Lets keep the flame burning. The flame of passion. Passion for LIFE. Peace be with you.

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• Process Is The New App by Leon Smiers

  - by JuergenKress

  Process-on-the-Fly #2 - Process is the New App The next generation of business process management and business rules management tools is so powerful that it actually can be seen as the successor to custom-built applications. Being able to define detailed process, flows, decision trees and business helps on both the business and IT side to create powerful, differentiating solutions that would have required extensive custom coding in the past. Now much of the definition can be done ‘on the fly,’ using visual models and (semi) natural language in the nearest proximity to the business. Over the years, ERP systems have been customized to enter organization-specific functionality into the ERP application. This leads to better support for the business, but at the same time involves higher costs for maintenance, high dependency on the personnel involved in this customization, long timelines to deliver change to the system and increased risk involved in upgrading the ERP system. However, the best of both worlds can be created by bringing back the functionality to out-of-the-box usage of the ERP system and at the same time introducing change and flexibility by means of externalized 'Process Apps' in direct connection with the ERP system. The ERP system (or legacy bespoke system, for that matter) is used as originally intended and designed, resulting in more predictable behavior of the system related to usage and performance, and clearly can be maintained in a more standardized and cost-effective way. The Prrocess App externalizes the needed functionality into a highly customizable application outside the ERP for which it is supported by rules engines, task inboxes and can be delivered to different channels. The reasons for needing Process Apps may include the following: The ERP system just doesn't deliver this functionality in a specific industry; the volatility of changing certain functionality is high; or an umbrella type of functionality across (ERP) silos is needed. An example of bringing all this together is around the hiring process for a new employee at a university. Oracle PeopleSoft HCM could be used as the HR system to store all employee details. In the hiring process, an authorization scheme is involved for getting the approval to create a contract for the employee-to-be. In the university world, this authorization scheme is complex and involves faculties/colleges (with different organizational structures) and cross-faculty organizational structures. Including such an authorization scheme into PeopleSoft would require a lot of customization. By adding a handle inside PeopleSoft towards an externalized authorization Process App, the execution of the authorization of the employee is done outside the ERP: in a tool that is aimed to deliver approval schemes via a worklist-type of application. The Process App here works as an add-on to the PeopleSoft system, but can also be extended to support the full lifecycle of the end-to-end hiring process with the possibility to involve multiple applications. The actual core functionality is kept in the supporting ERP systems, while at the same time the Process App acts as an umbrella function to control the end-to-end flow and give insight into the efficiency of the end-to-end process. How to get there? Read the complete article here. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Technorati Tags: Capgemini,Leon Smiers,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• Handling "related" work within a single agile work item

  - by Tesserex

  I'm on a project team of 4 devs, myself included. We've been having a long discussion on how to handle extra work that comes up in the course of a single work item. This extra work is usually things that are slightly related to the task, but not always necessary to accomplish the goal of the item (that may be an opinion). Examples include but are not limited to: refactoring of the code changed by the work item refactoring code neighboring the code changed by the item re-architecting the larger code area around the ticket. For example if an item has you changing a single function, you realize the entire class now could be redone to better accommodate this change. improving the UI on a form you just modified When this extra work is small we don't mind. The problem is when this extra work causes a substantial extension of the item beyond the original feature point estimation. Sometimes a 5 point item will actually take 13 points of time. In one case we had a 13 point item that in retrospect could have been 80 points or more. There are two options going around in our discussion for how to handle this. We can accept the extra work in the same work item, and write it off as a mis-estimation. Arguments for this have included: We plan for "padding" at the end of the sprint to account for this sort of thing. Always leave the code in better shape than you found it. Don't check in half-assed work. If we leave refactoring for later, it's hard to schedule and may never get done. You are in the best mental "context" to handle this work now, since you're waist deep in the code already. Better to get it out of the way now and be more efficient than to lose that context when you come back later. We draw a line for the current work item, and say that the extra work goes into a separate ticket. Arguments include: Having a separate ticket allows for a new estimation, so we aren't lying to ourselves about how many points things really are, or having to admit that all of our estimations are terrible. The sprint "padding" is meant for unexpected technical challenges that are direct barriers to completing the ticket requirements. It is not intended for side items that are just "nice-to-haves". If you want to schedule refactoring, just put it at the top of the backlog. There is no way for us to properly account for this stuff in an estimation, since it seems somewhat arbitrary when it comes up. A code reviewer might say "those UI controls (which you actually didn't modify in this work item) are a bit confusing, can you fix that too?" which is like an hour, but they might say "Well if this control now inherits from the same base class as the others, why don't you move all of this (hundreds of lines of) code into the base and rewire all this stuff, the cascading changes, etc.?" And that takes a week. It "contaminates the crime scene" by adding unrelated work into the ticket, making our original feature point estimates meaningless. In some cases, the extra work postpones a check-in, causing blocking between devs. Some of us are now saying that we should decide some cut off, like if the additional stuff is less than 2 FP, it goes in the same ticket, if it's more, make it a new ticket. Since we're only a few months into using Agile, what's the opinion of all the more seasoned Agile veterans around here on how to handle this?

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• SQL SERVER – Last Two Days to Get FREE Book – Joes 2 Pros Certification 70-433

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier this week we announced that we will be giving away FREE SQL Wait Stats book to everybody who will get SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Combo Kit. We had a fantastic response to the contest. We got an overwhelming response to the offer. We knew there would be a great response but we want to honestly say thank you to all of you for making it happen. Rick and I want to make sure that we express our special thanks to all of you who are reading our books. The offer is still on and there are two more days to avail this offer. We want to make sure that everybody who buys our most selling combo kits, we will send our other most popular SQL Wait Stats book. Please read all the details of the offer here. The books are great resources for anyone who wants to learn SQL Server from fundamentals and eventually go on the certification path of 70-433. Exam 70-433 contains following important subject and the book covers the subject of fundamental. If you are taking the exam or not taking the exam – this book is for every SQL Developer to learn the subject from fundamentals.  Create and alter tables. Create and alter views. Create and alter indexes. Create and modify constraints. Implement data types. Implement partitioning solutions. Create and alter stored procedures. Create and alter user-defined functions (UDFs). Create and alter DML triggers. Create and alter DDL triggers. Create and deploy CLR-based objects. Implement error handling. Manage transactions. Query data by using SELECT statements. Modify data by using INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements. Return data by using the OUTPUT clause. Modify data by using MERGE statements. Implement aggregate queries. Combine datasets. INTERSECT, EXCEPT Implement subqueries. Implement CTE (common table expression) queries. Apply ranking functions. Control execution plans. Manage international considerations. Integrate Database Mail. Implement full-text search. Implement scripts by using Windows PowerShell and SQL Server Management Objects (SMOs). Implement Service Broker solutions. Track data changes. Data capture Retrieve relational data as XML. Transform XML data into relational data. Manage XML data. Capture execution plans. Collect output from the Database Engine Tuning Advisor. Collect information from system metadata. Availability of Book USA - Amazon | India - Flipkart | Indiaplaza Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Simple MVVM Walkthrough – Refactored

  - by Sean Feldman

  JR has put together a good introduction post into MVVM pattern. I love kick start examples that serve the purpose well. And even more than that I love examples that also can pass the real world projects check. So I took the sample code and refactored it slightly for a few aspects that a lot of developers might raise a brow. Michael has mentioned model (entity) visibility from view. I agree on that. A few other items that don’t settle are using property names as string (magical strings) and Saver class internal casting of a parameter (custom code for each Saver command). Fixing a property names usage is a straight forward exercise – leverage expressions. Something simple like this would do the initial job: class PropertyOf<T> { public static string Resolve(Expression<Func<T, object>> expression) { var member = expression.Body as MemberExpression; return member.Member.Name; } } With this, refactoring of properties names becomes an easy task, with confidence that an old property name string will not get left behind. An updated Invoice would look like this: public class Invoice : INotifyPropertyChanged { private int id; private string receiver; public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; private void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName) { if (PropertyChanged != null) { PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName)); } } public int Id { get { return id; } set { if (id != value) { id = value; OnPropertyChanged(PropertyOf<Invoice>.Resolve(x => x.Id)); } } } public string Receiver { get { return receiver; } set { receiver = value; OnPropertyChanged(PropertyOf<Invoice>.Resolve(x => x.Receiver)); } } } For the saver, I decided to change it a little so now it becomes a “view-model agnostic” command, one that can be used for multiple commands/view-models. Updated Saver code now accepts an action at construction time and executes that action. No more black magic internal class Command : ICommand { private readonly Action executeAction; public Command(Action executeAction) { this.executeAction = executeAction; } public bool CanExecute(object parameter) { return true; } public event EventHandler CanExecuteChanged; public void Execute(object parameter) { // no more black magic executeAction(); } } Change in InvoiceViewModel is instantiation of Saver command and execution action for the specific command. public ICommand SaveCommand { get { if (saveCommand == null) saveCommand = new Command(ExecuteAction); return saveCommand; } set { saveCommand = value; } } private void ExecuteAction() { DisplayMessage = string.Format("Thanks for creating invoice: {0} {1}", Invoice.Id, Invoice.Receiver); } This way internal knowledge of InvoiceViewModel remains in InvoiceViewModel and Command (ex-Saver) is view-model agnostic. Now the sample is not only a good introduction, but also has some practicality in it. My 5 cents on the subject. Sample code MvvmSimple2.zip

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• Problems with 3D Array for Voxel Data

  - by Sean M.

  I'm trying to implement a voxel engine in C++ using OpenGL, and I've been working on the rendering of the world. In order to render, I have a 3D array of uint16's that hold that id of the block at the point. I also have a 3D array of uint8's that I am using to store the visibility data for that point, where each bit represents if a face is visible. I have it so the blocks render and all of the proper faces are hidden if needed, but all of the blocks are offset by a power of 2 from where they are stored in the array. So the block at [0][0][0] is rendered at (0, 0, 0), and the block at 11 is rendered at (1, 1, 1), but the block at [2][2][2] is rendered at (4, 4, 4) and the block at [3][3][3] is rendered at (8, 8, 8), and so on and so forth. This is the result of drawing the above situation: I'm still a little new to the more advanced concepts of C++, like triple pointers, which I'm using for the 3D array, so I think the error is somewhere in there. This is the code for creating the arrays: uint16*** _blockData; //Contains a 3D array of uint16s that are the ids of the blocks in the region uint8*** _visibilityData; //Contains a 3D array of bytes that hold the visibility data for the faces //Allocate memory for the world data _blockData = new uint16**[REGION_DIM]; for (int i = 0; i < REGION_DIM; i++) { _blockData[i] = new uint16*[REGION_DIM]; for (int j = 0; j < REGION_DIM; j++) _blockData[i][j] = new uint16[REGION_DIM]; } //Allocate memory for the visibility _visibilityData = new uint8**[REGION_DIM]; for (int i = 0; i < REGION_DIM; i++) { _visibilityData[i] = new uint8*[REGION_DIM]; for (int j = 0; j < REGION_DIM; j++) _visibilityData[i][j] = new uint8[REGION_DIM]; } Here is the code used to create the block mesh for the region: //Check if the positive x face is visible, this happens for every face //Block::VERT_X_POS is just an array of non-transformed cube verts for one face //These checks are in a triple loop, which goes over every place in the array if (_visibilityData[x][y][z] & 0x01 > 0) { _vertexData->AddData(&(translateVertices(Block::VERT_X_POS, x, y, z)[0]), sizeof(Block::VERT_X_POS)); } //This is a seperate method, not in the loop glm::vec3* translateVertices(const glm::vec3 data[], uint16 x, uint16 y, uint16 z) { glm::vec3* copy = new glm::vec3[6]; memcpy(&copy, &data, sizeof(data)); for(int i = 0; i < 6; i++) copy[i] += glm::vec3(x, -y, z); //Make +y go down instead return copy; } I cannot see where the blocks may be getting offset by more than they should be, and certainly not why the offsets are a power of 2. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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• Working and Studying in Oracle, how I balance my time....

  - by anca.rosu

  Hi, my name is Laura. I am working as an Intern within Executive Administration at Oracle Denmark, whilst studying Information Management at Copenhagen Business school. I have recently handeding a paper on Information Systems which gave me exposure to Oracle. Once completing this paper I came across a job posting on my University’s intranet site and I applied directly online. When I submitted my application for the job offer, I wondered about what language I should use for the application form, as the job posting was in Danish, but the contact person and number looked Irish. I therefore chose English. Later that same day, Fiona, one of Oracle’s Graduates Recruitment Consultants based in Ireland, contacted me. This shows how global Oracle truly is. I went for my face-to-face interview in Oracle Denmark with Charlotte, one of the team managers. I spent 5 minutes waiting in the lobby, just looking around, thinking to myself, I really want to work here. The atmosphere seemed so pleasant with a relaxed approach between colleagues, employees and guests. The interview took about an hour, but we touched on a lot of different subjects. The profile I got of Oraclewas that this is a place where you are encouraged to think for yourself, and you are given the freedom to use your ideas. Later that evening, Fiona called and offered me the job. I was very happy. At Oracle Denmark we have 4 different zones: a Quiet Zone, a Project Zone, a Dialogue Zone and a Call Zone. Everyday when you arrive you consider what will be the most productive for the day’s task, and you take your toolbox and go find a desk in the zone you have decided on. It is therefore very unusual to be next to the same person two days in a row. At Oracle, people are located all over the world, and everybody has team members, colleagues or leaders in other countries, or even other time zones. Initially,I was worried about how I would adapt to this approach but I soon realized I had nothing to worry about and now I appreciate working this way. My colleagues have been very supportive and they have openly welcomed me into my new role. I typically work two days a week and have three days at University. During exam periods, I have the flexibility to work less hours and focus on the exams, in return for putting in more hours at work when needed. The first time I had to ask for time off before handing in a paper, my boss looked at me and said, ”Of course! Your education is the most important!” I hope that by sharing my experiences with you, I can inspire or encourage you to consider Oracle as a potential employer, where you can grow both professionally and personally. If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact  [email protected].  You can find our job opportunities via http://campus.oracle.com Technorati Tags: Intern,Oracle Denmark,Information Systems,Business school,Copenhagen,Graduates Recruitment,Ireland,Quiet Zone,Project Zone,Dialogue Zone,Call Zone,University,flexibility

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• Join us on our Journey to be #1 in SaaS!

  - by jessica.ebbelaar(at)oracle.com

  WHY ORACLE? Oracle is a robust organization that has proven to maintain growth and innovation at all levels with a constant evolving attitude. The main ingredient of Oracles success is the 105.000 talented employees who constantly amaze each other in building a better and more innovative organization. Oracle is a company where YOU can make a difference. What is OD? Oracle Direct is a state-of-the-art, multi-channel EMEA sales operation bringing to life the benefits of Oracle’s complete technology stack. It offers you the unique opportunity to work with the most talented and like-minded sales professionals in the industry.  You will have access to world class training and structured career development programmes allowing you to accelerate your Solution Sales career across a multitude of product lines and a choice of attractive locations. What positions are OD Hiring?   Oracle is on a journey to be the #1 SaaS vendor in EMEA.  Due to recent expansion and acquisitions within our Cloud Business, we are now growing our EMEA Cloud Applications Sales Group in Dublin. We have many exciting NEW opportunities across our CRM and HCM SaaS Sales teams. As a SaaS Sales Account Manager, you will proactively manage an assigned territory / vertical with responsibility for the full sales cycle. This role requires strong business development, solution selling, account management and closing skills. WHY ORACLE? Oracle is a robust organization that has proven to maintain growth and innovation at all levels with a constant evolving attitude. The main ingredient of Oracles success is the 105.000 talented employees who constantly amaze each other in building a better and more innovative organization. Oracle is a company where YOU can make a difference. What is OD? Oracle Direct is a state-of-the-art, multi-channel EMEA sales operation bringing to life the benefits of Oracle’s complete technology stack. It offers you the unique opportunity to work with the most talented and like-minded sales professionals in the industry.  You will have access to world class training and structured career development programmes allowing you to accelerate your Solution Sales career across a multitude of product lines and a choice of attractive locations. What positions are OD Hiring? Oracle is on a journey to be the #1 SaaS vendor in EMEA.  Due to recent expansion and acquisitions within our Cloud Business, we are now growing our EMEA Cloud Applications Sales Group in Dublin. We have many exciting NEW opportunities across our CRM and HCM SaaS Sales teams. As a SaaS Sales Account Manager, you will proactively manage an assigned territory / vertical with responsibility for the full sales cycle. This role requires strong business development, solution selling, account management and closing skills. What is the Business Development Group (BDG) The Business Development Group is the key entry point in Oracle for the future Sales and Management talent of the organisation. We are the Demand Generation engine for Oracle in EMEA. We provide revenue generating, quality sales pipeline to our Inside and Field Sales professionals as well as to our Channel Partners. Our current focus is to provide an agile and flexible service offering to our customers and stakeholders to meet ever changing business needs, whilst constantly striving to improve the customer experience, quality of our pipeline, market coverage and penetration. As a SaaS Business Development Consultant (BDC) you will be the first touch point with new customers. Your goal is to proactively identify and qualify business opportunities leading to revenue for Oracle. You will work closely with your Inside Sales colleagues who will progress your qualified pipeline and opportunities. Work for us Work for the only multi-pillar SaaS vendor in the market Be part of a FUN, fast paced and truly International sales team  Develop you solution sales EXPERTISE Drive your CAREER development within a structured and supportive environment The Profile You have a passion for selling cutting-edge technology You thrive in a fast paced and dynamic work environment where being the best is paramount Your priority is always the customer You live for a challenge and you love to win Join us on our Journey to be #1 in SaaS and be part of our Cloud Success Story! You will find more information about open roles here

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• Open a File Browser From Your Current Command Prompt/Terminal Directory

  - by The Geek

  Ever been doing some work at the command line when you realized… it would be a lot easier if I could just use the mouse for this task? One command later, you’ll have a window open to the same place that you’re at. This same tip works in more than one operating system, so we’ll detail how to do it in every way we know how. Open a File Browser in Windows We’ve actually covered this before when we told you how to open an Explorer window from the command prompt’s current directory, but we’ll briefly review: Just type the follow command into your command prompt: explorer . Note: You could actually just type “start .” instead. And you’ll then see a file browsing window set to the same directory you were previous at. And yes, this screenshot is from Vista, but it works the same in every version of Windows. If that wasn’t good enough, you should really read how you can navigate in the File Open/Save dialogs with just the keyboard—now that’s a Stupid Geek Trick! Open a File Browser in Linux For this exercise, we’re going to assume that you’re using Gnome under a Linux flavor like Ubuntu, because that’s the most common. From your terminal window, just type in the following command: nautilus . And the next thing you know, you’ll have a file browser window open at the current location. You’ll see some type of error message at the prompt, but you can pretty much ignore that. You can also use “gnome-open .” if you want. Open Finder in Mac OS X All the Mac computers in this office are running Linux, so we haven’t had a chance to verify, but you should be able to use the following command on OS X to open Finder in the current terminal location: open . Open Dolphin on Linux KDE4 dolphin . Got any extra tips to help out your fellow readers? How do you do the same thing in KDE3? What about OS X? Leave your savvy advice in the comments, and maybe we’ll update the article. Or not. Either way, it’ll help somebody! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Keyboard Ninja: Concatenate Multiple Text Files in WindowsStupid Geek Tricks: Open an Explorer Window from the Command Prompt’s Current DirectoryHow to automate FTP uploads from the Windows Command LineShell Geek: Rename Multiple Files At OnceAdd "Open with gedit" to the right click menu in Ubuntu 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 Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon

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• Delivering SOA Governance with EAMS and Oracle Enterprise Repository by Link Consulting Team

  - by JuergenKress

  In the last 12 years Link Consulting has been making its presence in specific areas such as Governance and Architecture, both in terms of practices and methodologies, products, know-how and technological expertise. The Enterprise Architecture Management System - Oracle Enterprise Edition (EAMS - OER Edition) is the result of this experience and combines the architecture management solution with OER in order to deliver a product specialized for SOA Governance that gathers the better of two worlds in solution that enables SOA Governance projects, initiatives and programs. Enterprise Architecture Management System Enterprise Architecture Management System (EAMS), is an automation based solution that enables the efficient management of Enterprise Architectures. The solution uses configured enterprise repositories and takes advantages of its features to provide automation capabilities to the users. EAMS provides capabilities to create/customize/analyze repository data, architectural blueprints, reports and analytic charts. Oracle Enterprise Repository Oracle Enterprise Repository (OER) is one of the major and central elements of the Oracle SOA Governance solution. Oracle Enterprise Repository provides the tools to manage and govern the metadata for any type of software asset, from business processes and services to patterns, frameworks, applications, components, and models. OER maps the relationships and inter-dependencies that connect those assets to improve impact analysis, promote and optimize their reuse, and measure their impact on the bottom line. It provides the visibility, feedback, controls, and analytics to keep your SOA on track to deliver business value. The intense focus on automation helps to overcome barriers to SOA adoption and streamline governance throughout the lifecycle. Core capabilities of the OER include: Asset Management Asset Lifecycle Management Usage Tracking Service Discovery Version Management Dependency Analysis Portfolio Management EAMS - OER Edition The solution takes the advantages and features from both products and combines them in a symbiotic tool that enhances the quality of SOA Governance Initiatives and Programs. EAMS is able to produce a vast number of outputs by combining its analytical engine, SOA-specific configurations and the assets in OER and other related tools, catalogs and repositories. The configurations encompass not only the extendable parametrization of the metadata but also fully configurable blueprints, PowerPoint reports, charts and queries. The SOA blueprints The solution comes with a set of predefined architectural representations that help the organization better perceive their SOA landscape. More blueprints can be easily created in order to accommodate the organizations needs in terms of detail, audience and metadata. Charts & Dashboards The solution encompasses a set of predefined charts and dashboards that promote a more agile way to control and explore the assets. Time Based Visualization All representations are time bound, and with EAMS - OER you can truly govern SOA with a complete view of the Past, Present and Future; The solution delivers Gap Analysis, a project oriented approach while taking into consideration the As-Was, As-Is an To-Be. Time based visualization differentiating factors: Extensive automation and maintenance of architectural representations Organization wide solution. Easy access and navigation to and between all architectural artifacts and representations. Flexible meta-model, customization and extensibility capabilities. Lifecycle management and enforcement of the time dimension over all the repository content. Profile based customization. Comprehensive visibility Architectural alignment Friendly and striking user interfaces For more information on EAMS visit us here. For more information on SOA visit us here. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: Link Consulting,OER,OSR,SOA Governance,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,BPM Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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