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• What is a good design pattern / lib for iOS 5 to synchronize with a web service?

  - by Junto

  We are developing an iOS application that needs to synchronize with a remote server using web services. The existing web services have an "operations" style rather than REST (implemented in WCF but exposing JSON HTTP endpoints). We are unsure of how to structure the web services to best fit with iOS and would love some advice. We are also interested in how to manage the synchronization process within iOS. Without going into detailed specifics, the application allows the user to estimate repair costs at a remote site. These costs are broken down by room and item. If the user has an internet connection this data can be sent back to the server. Multiple photographs can be taken of each item, but they will be held in a separate queue, which sends when the connection is optimal (ideally wifi). Our backend application controls the unique ids for each room and item. Thus, each time we send these costs to the server, the server echoes the central database ids back, thus, that they can be synchronized in the mobile app. I have simplified this a little, since the operations contract is actually much larger, but I just want to illustrate the basic requirements without complicating matters. Firstly, the web service architecture: We currently have two operations: GetCosts and UpdateCosts. My assumption is that if we used a strict REST architecture we would need to break our single web service operations into multiple smaller services. This would make the services much more chatty and we would also have to guarantee a delivery order from the app. For example, we need to make sure that containing rooms are added before the item. Although this seems much more RESTful, our perception is that these extra calls are expensive connections (security checks, database calls, etc). Does the type of web api (operation over service focus) determine chunky vs chatty? Since this is mobile (3G), are we better handling lots of smaller messages, or a few large ones? Secondly, the iOS side. What is the current advice on how to manage data synchronization within the iOS (5) app itself. We need multiple queues and we need to guarantee delivery order in each queue (and technically, ordering between queues). The server needs to control unique ids and other properties and echo them back to the application. The application then needs to update an internal database and when re-updating, make sure the correct ids are available in the update message (essentially multiple inserts and updates in one call). Our backend has a ton of business logic operating on these cost estimates. We don't want any of this in the app itself. Currently the iOS app sends the cost data, and then the server echoes that data back with populated ids (and other data). The existing cost data is deleted and the echoed response data is added to the client database on the device. This is causing us problems, because any photos might not have been sent, but the original entity tree has been removed and replaced. Obviously updating the costs tree rather than replacing it would remove this problem, but I'm not sure if there are any nice xcode libraries out there to do such things. I welcome any advice you might have.

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• Can a candidate be judged by asking to write a complex program on "paper"?

  - by iammilind

  Sometime back in an interview, I was asked to write following program: In a keypad of a mobile phone, there is a mapping between number and characters. e.g. 0 & 1 corresponds to nothing; 2 corresponds to 'a','b','c'; 3 corresponds to 'd','e','f'; ...; 9 corresponds to 'w','x','y','z'. User should input any number (e.g. 23, 389423, 927348923747293) and I should store all the combinations of these character mapping into some data structure. For example, if user enters "23" then possible character combinations are: ad, ae, af, bd, be, bf, cd, ce, cf or if user enters, "4676972" then it can be, gmpmwpa, gmpmwpb, ..., hnroxrc, ..., iosozrc Interviewer told that people have written code for this within 20-30 mins!! Also he insisted I have to write on paper. If I am writing a code then my tendency is as of I am writing production code, even though it may not be expected from me. So, I always try to think all the aspects like, optimization, readability, maintainability, extensible and so on. Considering all these, I felt that I should be writing on PC and it needs decent 2 hours. Finally after 25 mins, I was able to come up with just the concept and some shattered pieces of code (not to mention of my rejection). My question is not the answer for the above program. I want to know that is this a right way to judge the caliber of a person ? Am I wrong / too slow in the estimates ? Am I too idealistic ?

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• Should a primary key be immutable?

  - by Vincent Malgrat

  A recent question on stackoverflow provoked a discussion about the immutability of primary keys. I had thought that it was a kind of rule that primary keys should be immutable. If there is a chance that some day a primary key would be updated, I thought you should use a surrogate key. However it is not in the SQL standard and some RDBMS' "cascade update" feature allows a primary key to change. So my question is: is it still a bad practice to have a primary key that may change ? What are the cons, if any, of having a mutable primary key ?

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• Catching typos or other errors in web-based scripting languages

  - by foreyez

  Hi, My background is mainly strongly typed languages (java, c++, c#). Having recently gotten back to a bit of javascript, I found it a bit annoying that if I misspell something by accident (for example I'll type 'myvar' instead of 'myVar') my entire script crashes. The browser itself most of the time doesn't even tell me I have an error, my program will just be blank, etc. Then I have to hunt down my code line by line and find the error which is very time consuming. In the languages I am used to the compiler lets me know if I made a typo. My question to you is, how do you overcome this issue in scripting (javascript)? Can you give me some tips? (this question is mainly aimed at people that have also come from a strongly typed language). Note: I mainly use the terminal/VIM ... this is mainly b/c I like terminal and I SSH alot too

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• How should I architect a personal schedule manager that runs 24/7?

  - by Crawford Comeaux

  I've developed an ADHD management system for myself that's attempting to change multiple habits at once. I know this is counter to conventional wisdom, but I've tried the conventional for years & am now trying it my way. (just wanted to say that to try and prevent it from distracting people from the actual question) Anyway, I'd like to write something to run on a remote server that monitors me, helps me build/avoid certain habits, etc. What this amounts to is a system that: runs 24/7 may have multiple independent tasks to run at once may have tasks that require other tasks to run first lets tasks be scheduled by specific time, recurrence (ie. "run every 5 mins"), or interval (ie. "run from 2pm to 3pm") My first naive attempt at this was just a single PHP script scheduled to run every minute by cron (language was chosen in order to use a certain library, but no longer necessary). The logic behind when to run this or that portion of code got hairy pretty quick. So my question is how should I approach this from here? I'm not tied to any one language, though I'm partial to python/javascript. Thoughts: Could be done as a set of scripts that include a scheduling mechanism with one script per bit of logic...but the idea just feels wrong to me. Building it as a daemon could be helpful, but still unsure what to do about dozens of if-else statements for detecting the current time

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• What design pattern do you use to support graceful fallback on old platforms?

  - by JoJo

  Let's say I need to add a drop shadow behind a box. Some old platforms do not support drop shadows, so I have to fake it by putting an image behind the box. Here's the pseudo code of how I'm currently handling this fallback: if (dropShadowsAreSupported) { box.addDropShadow("black"); } else { box.putImageBehindIt("gaussianBlur.png"); } Is this the right way to handle it? It seems too amateur to me. Is there a better design pattern?

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• Do I have to write a lot of boilerplate code if I keep working using Java?

  - by edem

  I'm working for a company writing ERP applications. My problem is that I have to write tons of boilerplate code. I came up with ideas to automatize/prevent the drudgery but only some of them were accepted. I have been told by the lead developer that my ideas tend to be go far afield and I should write code everyone can understand. I had a discussion about this lately and it seems to me that this kind of code ramp is within java's philosophy. I have to write lots of code to achiveve simple things not because it is necessary but because this is the way most of the people at the company think. Is this universally applicable to most of the companies out there using java or this is just my company's view? Do I have to get used to the drudgery if I keep working for java-based firms?

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• Using "prevent execution of method" flags

  - by tpaksu

  First of all I want to point out my concern with some pseudocode (I think you'll understand better) Assume you have a global debug flag, or class variable named "debug", class a : var debug = FALSE and you use it to enable debug methods. There are two types of usage it as I know: first in a method : method a : if debug then call method b; method b : second in the method itself: method a : call method b; method b : if not debug exit And I want to know, is there any File IO or stack pointer wise difference between these two approaches. Which usage is better, safer and why?

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• Is the "One Description Table to rule them all" approch good?

  - by DavRob60

  Long ago, I worked (as a client) with a software which use a centralized table for it's codified element. Here, as far as I remember, how the table look like : Table_Name (PK) Field_Name (PK) Code (PK) Sort_Order Description So, instead of creating a table every time they need a codified field, they where just adding row in this table with the new Table_Name and Field_Name. I'm sometime tempted to use this pattern in some database I design, but I have resisted to this as from now, I think there's something wrong with this, but I cannot put the finger on it. It is just because you land with some of the structure logic within the Data or something else?

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• Building a complete program?

  - by Bob

  Reading books, watching videos, and reviewing tutorials is all very easy. Taking notes and actually learning the material may be slightly harder, but even then, anyone with a decent brain and a fair amount of interest, it's easy enough (not to mention, fun). The thing is, it doesn't really prepare you to write a full program or website. Let's say you're those teens (only in highschool, no true (college level) computer science or programming courses, and no real world experience), and you come out with Groupon. Or even Mark Zuckerburg, sure he was a genius, and he was a very capable programmer... but how? How do you recommend that people who are not necessarily new to programming, but new to programming real applications and real programmers go about developing it? What is the "development process" - especially for single programmers (or maybe 2-3 teens)? Also, as far as web development goes, what is the process? Was something like Facebook or Groupon written with a framework (like CodeIgniter or Zend for PHP)? Or do they develop their own frameworks? I'm not asking how to come up with a great idea, but how to implement great ideas in an effective way? Does anyone have advice? I've read a couple of books on both C and C++ (primarily the C Programming Language and the C++ Programming Language) and taken AP Computer Science (as well as read a few additional books on Java and OOP). I also have read a few tutorials on PHP (and CodeIgniter) and Python. But I'm still in highschool, and I'm technically not even old enough to work at an internship for a few more months.

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• Am I bored with programming? [closed]

  - by user1167074

  I have started programming 2 years back and I have learnt web programming while working for big corporate companies. I was very passionate and I even did couple of side projects which were well appreciated by my friends and colleagues. But for the past 2 months I am not doing anything really interesting with programming, even if I get good ideas I am not feeling like coding, sub consciously I am feeling like "So What?" if I do this project. I would like to know from the more experienced programmers if this is just a phase or am I really missing something? Thanks

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• Must all AI states be able to react to any event?

  - by Prog

  FSMs implemented with the State design pattern are a common way to design AI agents. I am familiar with the State design pattern and know how to implement it. How is this used in games to design AI agents? Consider a simplified class Monster, representing an AI agent: class Monster { State state; // other fields omitted public void update(){ // called every game-loop cycle state.execute(this); } public void setState(State state){ this.state = state; } // irrelevant stuff omitted } There are several State subclasses implementing execute() differently. So far, classic State pattern. AI agents are subject to environmental effects and other objects communicating with them. For example, an AI agent might tell another AI agent to attack (i.e. agent.attack()). Or a fireball might tell an AI agent to fall down. This means that the agent must have methods such as attack() and fallDown(), or commonly some message receiving mechanism to understand such messages. With an FSM, the current State of the agent should be the one taking care of such method calls - i.e. the agent delegates to the current state upon every event. Is this correct? If correct, how is this done? Are all states obligated by their superclass to implement methods such as attack(), fallDown() etc., so the agent can always delegate to them on almost every event? Or is it done in some other way?

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• Sucking Less Every Year ?

  - by AdityaGameProgrammer

  Sucking Less Every Year A trail of thought that had been on my mind for a while Quoting directly from the post I've often thought that sucking less every year is how humble programmers improve. You should be unhappy with code you wrote a year ago. If you aren't, that means either A) you haven't learned anything in a year, B) your code can't be improved, or C) you never revisit old code. All of these are the kiss of death for software developers. How often does this happen or not happen to you? How long before you see an actual improvement in your coding ? month, year? Do you ever revisit Your old code? How often does your old code plague you? or how often do you have to deal with your technical debt. It is definitely very painful to fix old bugs n dirty code that we may have done to quickly meet a deadline and those quick fixes ,some cases we may have to rewrite most of the application/code. No arguments about that. Some of the developers i had come across argued that they were already at the evolved stage where their coding doesn't need improvement or cant get improved anymore. Does this happen? If so how many years into coding on a particular language does one expect this to happen?

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• Is it a bad practice to include all the enums in one file and use it in multiple classes?

  - by Bugster

  I'm an aspiring game developer, I work on occasional indie games, and for a while I've been doing something which seemed like a bad practice at first, but I really want to get an answer from some experienced programmers here. Let's say I have a file called enumList.h where I declare all the enums I want to use in my game: // enumList.h enum materials_t { WOOD, STONE, ETC }; enum entity_t { PLAYER, MONSTER }; enum map_t { 2D, 3D }; // and so on. // Tile.h #include "enumList.h" #include <vector> class tile { // stuff }; The main idea is that I declare all enums in the game in 1 file, and then import that file when I need to use a certain enum from it, rather than declaring it in the file where I need to use it. I do this because it makes things clean, I can access every enum in 1 place rather than having pages openned solely for accessing one enum. Is this a bad practice and can it affect performance in any way?

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• Quick Tip - Speed a Slow Restore from the Transaction Log

  - by KKline

  Here's a quick tip for you: During some restore operations on Microsoft SQL Server, the transaction log redo step might be taking an unusually long time. Depending somewhat on the version and edition of SQL Server you've installed, you may be able to increase performance by tinkering with the readahead performance for the redo operations. To do this, you should use the MAXTRANSFERSIZE parameter of the RESTORE statement. For example, if you set MAXTRANSFERSIZE=1048576, it'll use 1MB buffers. If you...(read more)

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• How do you keep track of the authors of code?

  - by dustyprogrammer

  This is something I was never taught. I have seen alot of different types of authoring styles. I code primarily in Java and Python. I was wondering if there was a standard authoring style or if everything is freestyle. Also if you answer would you mind attaching the style you use to author files that your create at home or at work. I usually just go @author garbagecollector @company garbage inc.

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• design practice for business layer when supporting API versioning

  - by user1186065

  Is there any design pattern or practice recommended for business layer when dealing with multiple API version. For example, I have something like this. http://site.com/blogs/v1/?count=10 which calls business object method GetAllBlogs(int count) to get information http://site.com/blogs/v2/?blog_count=20 which calls business object method GetAllBlogs_v2(int blogCounts) Since parameter name is changed, I created another business method for version 2. This is just one example but it could have other breaking changes for which it requires me to create another method to support both version. Is there any design pattern or best practice for business/data access layer I should follow when supporting API Versioning?

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• How should compound words be handled when coding? Is there a definitive list of compound words? [closed]

  - by Ray

  QUESTION: How should you handle compound words when programming? Are there any good lists available online for developers of generally accepted technology-related compound words? I can see how this is highly ambiguous, so should I just use common-sense? EXAMPLE: I would be inclined to do this: filename NOT FileName or login NOT LogIn However, the microsoft documentation indicates that filename is not compound. So I wonder, is there a more definitive source? See also, this english.stackexchange discussion on filename. Under the section "Capitalization Rules for Compound Words and Common Terms" located here: Microsoft .NET Capitalization Conventions only offers a limited introduction into the topic, and leaves it up to the developer to use their intuition with the rest.

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• Should I extract specific functionality into a function and why?

  - by john smith optional

  I have a large method which does 3 tasks, each of them can be extracted into a separate function. If I'll make an additional functions for each of that tasks, will it make my code better or worse and why? Edit: Obviously, it'll make less lines of code in the main function, but there'll be additional function declarations, so my class will have additional methods, which I believe isn't good, because it'll make the class more complex. Edit2: Should I do that before I wrote all the code or should I leave it until everything is done and then extract functions?

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• Is it bad to be the only person supporting software you have developed?

  - by trpt4him

  My employer has a need for a web-based application to manage and share data within the department, with approximately 50-75 possible users. I feel I have the ability to write it for them. I would likely use Python/Django with a MySQL database, so it would be open source. However, I'm the only IT person in my department (our larger organization has a separate IT support staff with which I often work, but not for web development). I want to develop this application, but if I leave in 1-2 years, and someone else has to come in after me and support it, will this be seen as a bad decision? This is assuming all the obvious points -- I will write documentation, I will comment my code, and I will strive to follow good application design principles. But will that be enough? In principle, is it acceptable for one person to develop and support an entire web application? Is this a "do first, then show and ask" kind of situation, or should I be certain it will be adopted by everyone involved first?

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• Design: How to model / where to store relational data between classes

  - by Walker

  I'm trying to figure out the best design here, and I can see multiple approaches, but none that seems "right." There are three relevant classes here: Base, TradingPost, and Resource. Each Base has a TradingPost which can offer various Resources depending on the Base's tech level. Where is the right place to store the minimum tech level a base must possess to offer any given resource? A database seems like overkill. Putting it in each subclass of Resource seems wrong--that's not an intrinsic property of the Resource. Do I have a mediating class, and if so, how does it work? It's important that I not be duplicating code; that I have one place where I set the required tech level for a given item. Essentially, where does this data belong? P.S. Feel free to change the title; I struggled to come up with one that fits.

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• What to do as a new team lead on a project with maintainability problems?

  - by Mr_E

  I have just been put in charge of a code project with maintainability problems. What things can I do to get the project on a stable footing? I find myself in a place where we are working with a very large multi-tiered .NET system that is missing a lot of the important things such as unit tests, IOC, MEF, too many static classes, pure datasets etc. I'm only 24 but I've been here for almost three years (this app has been in development for 5) and mostly due to time constraints we've been just adding in more crap to fit the other crap. After doing a number of projects in my free time I have begun to understand just how important all those concepts are. Also due to employee shifting I find myself to now be the team lead on this project and I really want to come up with some smart ways to improve this app. Ways where the value can be explained to management. I have ideas of what I would like to do but they all seem so overwhelming without much upfront gain. Any stories of how people have or would have dealt with this would be a very interesting read. Thanks.

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• How to design console application with good seperation of UI from Logic

  - by JavaSa

  Is it considered an overkill for console application to be design like MVC , MVP or N tier architecture? If not which is more common and if you can link me to simple example of it. I want to implement a tic tac toe game in console application. I have a solution which hold two projects: TicTacToeBusinessLogic (Class library project) and TicTacToeConsoleApplication (Console application project) to represent the view logic. In the TicTacToeConsoleApplication I've Program.cs class which holds the main entry point (public static void Main). Now I face a problem. I want the game to handle its own game flow so I can: Create new GameManager class (from BL) but this causing the view to directly know the BL part. So I'm a little confused how to write it in an acceptable way. Should I use delegates? Please show me a simple example.

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• Is using Javascript/JQuery for layout and style bad practice?

  - by Renesis

  Many, but not all, HTML layout problems can be solved with CSS alone. For those that can't, JQuery (on document load) has become very popular.* As a result of its ease, many developers are quick to use JQuery or Javascript for layout and style — even without understanding whether or not the problem can be solved with CSS alone. This is illustrated by responses to questions like this one. Is this bad practice? What are the arguments for/against? Should someone who sees this in practice attempt to persuade those developers otherwise? If so, what are the best responses to arguments in favor of JQuery saying it's "so easy"? * Example: Layouts that wish to use vertical layout flow of some kind often run into dead ends with CSS alone — this would include layouts similar to Pinterest, though I'm not sure that's actually impossible with CSS.

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• Questioning one of the arguments for dependency injection: Why is creating an object graph hard?

  - by oberlies

  Dependency injection frameworks like Google Guice give the following motivation for their usage (source): To construct an object, you first build its dependencies. But to build each dependency, you need its dependencies, and so on. So when you build an object, you really need to build an object graph. Building object graphs by hand is labour intensive (...) and makes testing difficult. But I don't buy this argument: Even without dependency injection, I can write classes which are both easy to instantiate and convenient to test. E.g. the example from the Guice motivation page could be rewritten in the following way: class BillingService { private final CreditCardProcessor processor; private final TransactionLog transactionLog; // constructor for tests, taking all collaborators as parameters BillingService(CreditCardProcessor processor, TransactionLog transactionLog) { this.processor = processor; this.transactionLog = transactionLog; } // constructor for production, calling the (productive) constructors of the collaborators public BillingService() { this(new PaypalCreditCardProcessor(), new DatabaseTransactionLog()); } public Receipt chargeOrder(PizzaOrder order, CreditCard creditCard) { ... } } So there may be other arguments for dependency injection (which are out of scope for this question!), but easy creation of testable object graphs is not one of them, is it?

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