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• Using a CDN for CMS software (multiple sites)

  - by SmokeyPHP

  I'm currently researching ideas for the media management side of a CMS I'm writing. I was looking at having images served from a CDN which is fine on a single site, but I want all sites that run the CMS to make use of a CDN (which will most likely be a custom developed one, rather than a third party service like S3). My main question is: Is a multi-site CDN a good idea? I can't think of a downside, but have probably missed something - obviously they won't share the same folder, as I invisage the requests to be css.cdnsite.com/example.com/style.css or something along those lines. Having multiple sites in the same place will obviously make it easier for us to manage, as well as being cheaper, but then I wonder if it'll be worth it... Long story short: How should the CMS handle user uploaded media (separate installations) Just keep a local copy of all assets and serve them from the same site, like in days of yore? Keep a local copy, force site to use www. and have CDN subdomains per site? Or use a single separate CDN for all sites? Apologies for the length of this question, not sure if this should be multiple questions or not, as all parts are kind of related and could affect each other.

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• Best way to calculate unit deaths in browser game combat?

  - by MikeCruz13

  My browser game's combat system is written and mechanically functioning well. It's written in PHP and uses a SQL database. I'm happy with the unit balance in relation to one another. I am, however, a little worried about how I'm calculating unit deaths when one player attacks another because the deaths seem to pile up a little fast for my taste. For this system, a battle doesn't just trigger, calculate winner, and end. Instead, it is allowed to go for several rounds (say one round every 15 mins.) until one side passes a threshold of being too strong for the other player and allows players to send reinforcements between rounds. Each round, units pair up and attack each other. Essentially what I do is calculate the damage: AP = Attack Points HP = Hit Points Units AP * Quantity * Random Factors * other factors (such as attrition) I take that and divide by the defending unit's HP to find the number of casualties of defending units. So, for example (simplified to take out some factors), if I have: 500 attackers with 50 AP vs 1000 defenders with 100 HP = 250 deaths. I wonder if that last step could be handled better to reduce the deaths piling up. Some ideas: I just change all the units with more HP? I make sure to set the Attacking unit's AP to be a max of the defender's HP to make sure they only kill 1 unit. (is that fair if I have less huge units vs many small units?) I spread the damage around more by including the defending unit's quantity more? i.e. in that scenario some are dead and some are 50% damage. (How would I track this every round?) Other better mathematical approaches?

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• How to perform game object smoothing in multiplayer games

  - by spaceOwl

  We're developing an infrastructure to support multiplayer games for our game engine. In simple terms, each client (player) engine sends some pieces of data regarding the relevant game objects at a given time interval. On the receiving end, we step the incoming data to current time (to compensate for latency), followed by a smoothing step (which is the subject of this question). I was wondering how smoothing should be performed ? Currently the algorithm is similar to this: Receive incoming state for an object (position, velocity, acceleration, rotation, custom data like visual properties, etc). Calculate a diff between local object position and the position we have after previous prediction steps. If diff doesn't exceed some threshold value, start a smoothing step: Mark the object's CURRENT POSITION and the TARGET POSITION. Linear interpolate between these values for 0.3 seconds. I wonder if this scheme is any good, or if there is any other common implementation or algorithm that should be used? (For example - should i only smooth out the position? or other values, such as speed, etc) any help will be appreciated.

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• Throwing and catching exceptions in the same function/method

  - by usr

  I've written a function that asks a user for input until user enters a positive integer (a natural number). Somebody said I shouldn't throw and catch exceptions in my function and should let the caller of my function handle them. I wonder what other developers think about this. I'm also probably misusing exceptions in the function. Here's the code in Java: private static int sideInput() { int side = 0; String input; Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in); do { System.out.print("Side length: "); input = scanner.nextLine(); try { side = Integer.parseInt(input); if (side <= 0) { // probably a misuse of exceptions throw new NumberFormatException(); } } catch (NumberFormatException numFormExc) { System.out.println("Invalid input. Enter a natural number."); } } while (side <= 0); return side; } I'm interested in two things: Should I let the caller worry about exceptions? The point of the function is that it nags the user until the user enters a natural number. Is the point of the function bad? I'm not talking about UI (user not being able to get out of the loop without proper input), but about looped input with exceptions handled. Would you say the throw statement (in this case) is a misuse of exceptions? I could easily create a flag for checking validity of the number and output the warning message based on that flag. But that would add more lines to the code and I think it's perfectly readable as it is. The thing is I often write a separate input function. If user has to input a number multiple times, I create a separate function for input that handles all formatting exceptions and limitations.

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• How should I approach learning programming languages?

  - by gcc

  I am a student of computer engineering. I have never done any programming before, and as you can understand, I don't know how to study it or how to make my own programs. My English is weak [edited for clarity - ed], and so if you don't like the choices I list, please feel free to provide others. How should I study? How should I learn programming languages? Study completely from a book. Don't study from a book, just try writing code. A mix of the two; study from a book, then try writing code. Study half the book, then write the code by hand on paper. Listed to the teacher, then try to solve general problems (those not from any specific chapter). I have send that question to stackoverflow before when I am at first year. Now, I want to construct webpage to guide fresh students by giving advise of yours and mines.Maybe, you wonder Why I want to construct webpage , I just want help the other student. I am giving a link to that question < http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3389465/how-should-i-study-programming-languagess If you have other advice, feel free. EDIT: This web cite, I think , is constructed to share member's life experience and also I know these experiences is valuable . So I have no right to want your opinion, But I want your opinion / experience even if you think it is not so helpful to other

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• Book Giveaway: We Have 10 Free Copies of the 4-Hour Chef (The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life)

  - by The Geek

  The 4-Hour Chef isn’t just a cookbook. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure guide to the world of rapid learning from the best-selling author of the 4-Hour Workweek, and we’ve got 10 free copies for How-To Geek readers. Want more information? Here’s the description of the book, from the Amazon page. The 4-Hour Chef is a five-stop journey through the art and science of learning: 1. META-LEARNING. Before you learn to cook, you must learn to learn. META charts the path to doubling your learning potential. 2. THE DOMESTIC. DOM is where you learn the building blocks of cooking. These are the ABCs (techniques) that can take you from Dr, Seuss to Shakespeare. 3. THE WILD. Becoming a master student requires self-sufficiency in all things. WILD teaches you to hunt, forage, and survive. 4. THE SCIENTIST. SCI is the mad scientist and modernist painter wrapped into one. This is where you rediscover whimsy and wonder. 5. THE PROFESSIONAL. Swaraj, a term usually associated with Mahatma Gandhi, can be translated as “self-rule.” In PRO, we’ll look at how the best in the world become the best in the world, and how you can chart your own path far beyond this book. Still not sold? There’s more information and pictures over on the Amazon page for the book. The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life Why Your Android Phone Isn’t Getting Operating System Updates and What You Can Do About It How To Delete, Move, or Rename Locked Files in Windows HTG Explains: Why Screen Savers Are No Longer Necessary

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• Is C# development effectively inseparable from the IDE you use?

  - by Ghopper21

  I'm a Python programmer learning C# who is trying to stop worrying and just love C# for what it is, rather than constantly comparing it back to Python. I'm really get caught up on one point: the lack of explicitness about where things are defined, as detailed in this Stack Overflow question. In short: in C#, using foo doesn't tell you what names from foo are being made available, which is analogous to from foo import * in Python -- a form that is discouraged within Python coding culture for being implicit rather than the more explicit approach of from foo import bar. I was rather struck by the Stack Overflow answers to this point from C# programmers, which was that in practice this lack of explicitness doesn't really matter because in your IDE (presumably Visual Studio) you can just hover over a name and be told by the system where the name is coming from. E.g.: Now, in theory I realise this means when you're looking with a text editor, you can't tell where the types come from in C#... but in practice, I don't find that to be a problem. How often are you actually looking at code and can't use Visual Studio? This is revelatory to me. Many Python programmers prefer a text editor approach to coding, using something like Sublime Text 2 or vim, where it's all about the code, plus command line tools and direct access and manipulation of folders and files. The idea of being dependent on an IDE to understand code at such a basic level seems anathema. It seems C# culture is radically different on this point. And I wonder if I just need to accept and embrace that as part of my learning of C#. Which leads me to my question here: is C# development effectively inseparable from the IDE you use?

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• 45 Different Services, Sites, and Apps to Help You Read Your Favorite Sites (Like How-To Geek)

  - by Eric Z Goodnight

  Ever wonder how geeks stay connected with their favorite blogs and writers? Read on to learn about RSS feeds and how easy they are to use with these 45 apps, services, and websites that can help you stay current. Note: of course, our more geeky readers are going to understand a lot of this already, which is why we included 45 great services that you might not have heard about before. Keep reading for more, or give you advice to the newbies in the comments Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Lord of the Rings Movie Parody Double Feature [Video] Turn a Webpage into an Asteroids-Styled Shooting Game in Opera Dolphin Browser Mini Leaves Beta; Sports New GUI, Easy Bookmarking, and More Updated Google Goggles Scans Faster; Solves Sudoku Puzzles Snowy Castle Retreat in the Mountains Wallpaper Fix TV Show Sorting Issues on iOS Devices

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• Career advice on whether to stick with coding or move on to tech. lead\management [closed]

  - by flk

  I'm at a point in my career where I need to decide what to do next. I've mainly done C# desktop development (with a little python and Silverlight) for 5 or 6 years and I'm trying to decide whether to start learning JavaScript\HTML or to moving into a role where I do less coding and more tech. lead\management role. With all the talk around HTML5\JavaScript, the rise of mobile and the changes with Windows 8 (metro at least) I wonder if I should stick with coding to get some experience in these areas before moving on. But at the same time if I decide stick with coding for a ‘couple more years’ I will probably be faced with the same situation with some other new\interesting technology that I feel I should learn before moving on. I feel if I stick just with coding I'm limiting my career options but if I move to tech. lead\management I will loose my coding skills. Is going one direction or the other going to limiting my career options in the future? I know that there is no real answer to this question so I’m really just looking for some thoughts from others and perhaps experiences from other people that faced similar situations. Thanks

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• No audio in Google Chrome

  - by Z9iT

  I started with Ubuntu 12.04 Minimal. Then installed only 3 utils sudo apt-get install xorg xinit google-chrome-stable alsa-base alsa-utils alsa-oss I have added google-chrome to .xinitrc file. Used sudo alsamixer to unmute everything using M. Also I am able to hear sound when I run this independently in a terminal sudo aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav However Google Chrome is not giving any sound output be it on youtube or the same file (/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav) opened by browsing in chrome. UPDATE : the moment i install some Desktop (display) Manager like gnome or lxde and launch chrome then, the audio is perfect success. However if i kill the xsession and the desktop manager (lxde) AND then start with loading only the chrome (without DM) then again i loose the sound. This makes me wonder that there is something which is not allowing the sound to be loaded into chrome directly, but once the session like lxde loads, then it works flawless. I am thinking that i should rather ask, how to authorize google-chrome to use sound software? Miscellaneous : I am surprised to know that I cannot start google-chrome by sudo command (it asks to be a normal user) && that i cannot start alsamixer as a normal user (i must use sudo alsamixer ) May someone please help what i need to do so that google chrome speaks????

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• How to find out when to increase bit rate? (TCP streaming solution)

  - by Kabumbus

  How to find out when to increase bit rate? (TCP streaming solution) We have a stream with "frames". each "frame" has a "timestamp" . frames have bit rate property which is actually there size. We generate frames with our app and stream them one by one on to our TCP server socket. At the same time server post replies so when after each sent frame we try to read from socket we receive which timestamp is currently on server. if timestamp is lover than previous frame we lover bit rate 20%. Such scheme seems to work giving me one way vbr (lowering) but I wonder how to implement increase? I mean we can always try to increase 5% each frame until some limited desired value but each time we have delay will lose real-time feature of our stream... Generally such scheme is for finding out how much of network stream is currently used by other user apps and give picture of how much server is loaded at the same time so we can stream just right amount of data for all to receive it in real time. So what shall I do to add increase to my scheme? So having current bit rate of A I thought we could add +7% for 3 frames and than one -20% and than if all that 3 frames with +7% came in time we could add 14% to A and repeat circle and it would hopefully not be really noticeable if 2nd frame wold come to us with delay... probably this one is too localised because it is a requirement for me to use TCP.

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• One site being on a subdirectory of another. Does google count this againt you?

  - by Mick

  I have created two similar websites (relating to monetary systems). So far, one appears to be loved by Google and the other hated. I'm struggling to work out why. This is a mystery to me because both sites were created by me with the same design philosophy, both in pure html. Both are packed to the rafters with references to, and information about, their respective subjects. One issue I'm worried may be the cause is to do with the location of the sites. I got a web hosting package from hostmonster.com for the successful one, but less liked one is just an "add-on" which sits on a subdirectory of the successful one. I wonder if Google somehow detects this and treats it as a less significant website? EDIT: Just to clarify, even though one site is an add-on that sits on a subdirectory of the other, the URL is arranged to look like it is a root. I.e. the unpopular site can be accessed directly with a simple www.myunpopularsite.com name, without specifying any subdirectory.

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• Data Access Objects old fashioned? [on hold]

  - by Bono

  A couple of weeks ago I delivered some work for a university project. After a code review with some teachers I got some snarky remarks about the fact that I was (still) using Data Access Objects. The teacher in question who said this mentions the use of DAO's in his classes and always says something along the lines of "Back then we always used DAO's". He's a big fan of Object Relational Mapping, which I also think is a great tool. When I was talking about this with some of my fellow students, they also mentioned that they prefer the use of ORM, which I can understand. It did make me wonder though, is using DAO's really so old fashioned? I know that at my work DAO's are still being used, but this is due to the fact that some of the code is rather old and therefor can't be coupled with ORM. We also do use ORM at my work. Trying to find some more information on Google or Stack Exchange sites didn't really enlighten me. Should I step away from the use of DAO's and only start implementing ORM? I just feel that ORM's can be a bit overkill for some simple projects. I'd love to hear your opinions (or facts) about this.

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• How can I test linkable/executable files that require re-hosting or retargeting?

  - by hagubear

  Due to data protection, I cannot discuss fine details of the work itself so apologies PROBLEM CASE Sometimes my software projects require merging/integration with third party (customer or other suppliers) software. these software are often in linkable executables or object code (requires that my source code is retargeted and linked with it). When I get the executables or object code, I cannot validate its operation fully without integrating it with my system. My initial idea is that executables are not meant to be unit tested, they are meant to be linkable with other system, but what is the guarantee that post-linkage and integration behaviour will be okay? There is also no sufficient documentation available (from the customer) to indicate how to go about integrating the executables or object files. I know this is philosophical question, but apparently not enough research could be found at this moment to conclude to a solution. I was hoping that people could help me go to the right direction by suggesting approaches. To start, I have found out that Avionics OEM software is often rehosted and retargeted by third parties e.g. simulator makers. I wonder how they test them. Surely, the source code will not be supplied due to IPR rgulations. UPDATE I have received reasonable and very useful suggestions regarding this area. My current struggle has shifted into testing 3rd party OBJECT code that needs to be linked with my own source code (retargeted) on my host machine. How can I even test object code? Surely, I need to link them first to even think about doing anything. Is it the post-link behaviour that needs to be determined and scripted (using perl,Tcl, etc.) so that inputs and outputs could be verified? No clue!! :( thanks,

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• Efficient Algorithm for Recording gameplay's objects positions

  - by Scorch

  So, I have a game idea in mind, and for that I need to record the game around the player. I'me not talking about recording it as video, but rather recording the scene objects, and their positions within the game, and then render them, giving the player the ability to go back and forth, to stop time and move around. I've made a prototype with some data structures in C#, since this is going to be the programming language we'll be using in our game, but if we want the player to be able to go back just five minutes back with the data of just 100 NPC's, it takes almost 1GB of RAM. Right now, I'm just storing a Doubly linked list, each item with the object position. In the game, I'll need to store even more data in each node, so I need something even more ligher. Of course, this algorithm is zero optimized, but still, that is a lot. The alternatives would be create the NPC's that aren't really important to the game when the user is viewing the past, but I don't really like it very much for the sake of realism. I wonder if there is a better way to store this? Thanks in advance, Scorch

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• Ubuntu 12.04 startup is slow and dmesg output seems to lose several seconds

  - by cdowen

  I use ubuntu on Dell Inspiron n4050.I have upgraded to ubuntu 12.04 from 10.04. But now I find the system startup is a little slow and plymouth only show purple screen without logo during startup. When I use dmesg, it shows such messages: [ 2.497750] EXT4-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null) [ 2.603028] usb 2-1.6: new high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd [ 2.715538] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver... [ 2.715594] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage [ 2.715596] USB Mass Storage support registered. [ 21.317843] Adding 2000892k swap on /dev/sda5. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:2000892k [ 21.323724] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready [ 21.391450] udevd[431]: starting version 175 I wonder what it is doing between 2 second and 21 second. Is it related to being so slow? I tried bootchart. It gave me a complex picture. Sorry I can't post it here. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7LX8T5uQvlw/UKhdFMVkp4I/AAAAAAAAADg/dtxePkE94mg/s320/lengzhen-ubuntu-precise-20121118-1.png While ubuntu is booting , I also noticed that it appears:/tmp is not ready or present And sometimes follows *Stop saving kernel messages. Is this the reason dmesg lost output?

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• What would be the fastest way of storing or calculating legal move sets for chess pieces?

  - by ioSamurai

  For example if a move is attempted I could just loop through a list of legal moves and compare the x,y but I have to write logic to calculate those at least every time the piece is moved. Or, I can store in an array [,] and then check if x and y are not 0 then it is a legal move and then I save the data like this [0][1][0][0] etc etc for each row where 1 is a legal move, but I still have to populate it. I wonder what the fastest way to store and read a legal move on a piece object for calculation. I could use matrix math as well I suppose but I don't know. Basically I want to persist the rules for a given piece so I can assign a piece object a little template of all it's possible moves considering it is starting from it's current location, which should be just one table of data. But is it faster to loop or write LINQ queries or store arrays and matrices? public class Move { public int x; public int y; } public class ChessPiece : Move { private List<Move> possibleMoves { get; set; } public bool LegalMove(int x, int y){ foreach(var p in possibleMoves) { if(p.x == x && p.y == y) { return true; } } } } Anyone know?

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• What makes you look like a bad developer (ie a hacker) [on hold]

  - by user134583

  This comes from a lot of people about me, so I have to look at myself. So I would wonder what make one a bad developer (ie a hacker). These are a few things about me I used IDE intensively, all features, you name it: auto-completion, refactoring, quick fixes, open type, view hierarchy, API documentation, etcc When I deal with writing code for a project in domain I am not used to (I can't have fluency in this, this is new), I only have a very rough high level ideas. I don't use the standard modeling diagrams for early detail planning. Unorthodox diagrams that I invented when I need to draw the design in details. I don't use UML or similar, I find them not enough. I divide the sorts of diagram I drew into 3 types. Very high level diagrams which probably can be understood by almost anybody. Data entity diagram used for modeling data objects only (like ER diagrams and tree for inheritances and composition). Action diagrams for agents/classes and their interactions on data objects they contain. Constantly changing the interface (public methods) between interacting agents/classes if the need arises. I am more refrained when the interface and the module have matured Write initial concept code in a quick hackie way just so that the module works in the general cases so that I can play around with it. The module will be re-factored intensively after playing around so I could see more corner cases that I couldn't or (wouldn't want) anticipate before writing code. Using JUnit for integration-like test by using TestSuite class and ordering Unit test classes in the suite Using debugger almost anytime there is a problem instead of reading the code Constantly search on the internet for how to do some thing with some library that I haven't used a lot. So judgment, am I a bad developer? a hacker? Put in other words, to make sure this is not considered off-topic: - Is this bad practice to make your code too agile during incubating/prototyping phase of software development - Is it bad practice to use JUnit for integration testing, (I know there are other framework for integration testing, but those frameworks are for a specific products, not general)

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• How to avoid the GameManager god object?

  - by lorancou

  I just read an answer to a question about structuring game code. It made me wonder about the ubiquitous GameManager class, and how it often becomes an issue in a production environment. Let me describe this. First, there's prototyping. Nobody cares about writing great code, we just try to get something running to see if the gameplay adds up. Then there's a greenlight, and in an effort to clean things up, somebody writes a GameManager. Probably to hold a bunch of GameStates, maybe to store a few GameObjects, nothing big, really. A cute, little, manager. In the peaceful realm of pre-production, the game is shaping up nicely. Coders have proper nights of sleep and plenty of ideas to architecture the thing with Great Design Patterns. Then production starts and soon, of course, there is crunch time. Balanced diet is long gone, the bug tracker is cracking with issues, people are stressed and the game has to be released yesterday. At that point, usually, the GameManager is a real big mess (to stay polite). The reason for that is simple. After all, when writing a game, well... all the source code is actually here to manage the game. It's easy to just add this little extra feature or bugfix in the GameManager, where everything else is already stored anyway. When time becomes an issue, no way to write a separate class, or to split this giant manager into sub-managers. Of course this is a classical anti-pattern: the god object. It's a bad thing, a pain to merge, a pain to maintain, a pain to understand, a pain to transform. What would you suggest to prevent this from happening?

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• What makes one language any better than another when both are designed for the same goals? [closed]

  - by Justin808

  I'm in the process of creating a grammar for a scripting language but as I'm working on it I started to wonder what makes a language good in the first place. I know the goals for my script but there are always 1000 different ways to go about doing things. Goals: Easy to use and understand (not my grandma could do it easy, but the secretary at the front desk could do it or the VP of marketing could do it type of easy) No user defined functions or subroutines. Its use would be in events of objects in a system similar to HyperCard. Conceptually I was thinking of a language like this: set myVariable to 'Hello World' set counter to 0 repeat 5 times with x begin set counter to counter add x end set myVariable to myVariable plus ' ' plus counter popup myVariable set text of label named 'label' to 'new text' set color of label named 'label' to blue The end result would popup a dialog with the contents Hello World 15 it would also change the text of a label and make it blue. But I could do the same thing 1000 different ways. So what makes one language any better than another when both are designed for the same goals?

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• Role based access to resources for a RESTful service

  - by mutex

  I'm still wrapping my head around REST, but I wonder if someone can help with any suggestions or approaches to role based access control for a RESTful service, particularly from the point of view of securing the data and how the URLs might look. It's probably best to consider an example: Say I have a REST service for Customers, and want to split the users of this REST service into Admin, Editor and Reader roles: Admins can change all attributes of a Customer resource Editors can change only some Readers can only view them. Access control rights are assigned to the Customers entities individually. So for example a user of the service might have admin rights to Customers 1,2 and 3 but Editor access to 4,5 and Reader access to 7,8,9. Now consider the user calling the service. What is a good way to seperate the list of Customers for the current User? GET /Customer - this might get a list of all customers that the current user has Admin\Editor\Reader access to. But then on each Customer the consumer would need an indication of what role they have. Or would it be "better" having something like GET /Customer/Admin - return all customers the current user has Admin access to. Just looking for some high level pointers or reading on a decent way to secure\filter the resources based on roles of the current user.

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• How "commercially savvy" should software developers be? [closed]

  - by mattnz

  I have been watching answers to many questions on this site, and have come to the conclusion that commercial pragmatism does not factor into many software development discussions. As a result, I seriously wonder at the commercial skills within the industry, specifically the ability to deliver projects on time and to a budget. I see no indication from the site that commercially successful project delivery is a serious concern, yet the industry has a reputation for poor performance in this. Rarely, if ever, does the cost of time factor into discussions. I have never seen concepts such as opportunity cost, time to market, competitive advantage or cash flow mentioned, let alone discussed in technical answers to questions. How can you answer virtually any question without understanding the commercial background on which it is asked? Even Open source projects have a need to operate efficiently and deploy their limited resources to providing the most value for effort. Typically small start-ups have cash flow issues that outweigh longevity concerns, yet they are typically still advised to build for a future they probably won’t have if they do. Is it fair to say that these problems are solely the Managers and Project managers to solve, or are we, as developers, also responsible for ensuring successful on time, within budget delivery of projects, even if those budgets do not allow use to achieve engineering excellence?

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• How to quickly search through a very large list of strings / records on a database

  - by Giorgio

  I have the following problem: I have a database containing more than 2 million records. Each record has a string field X and I want to display a list of records for which field X contains a certain string. Each record is about 500 bytes in size. To make it more concrete: in the GUI of my application I have a text field where I can enter a string. Above the text field I have a table displaying the (first N, e.g. 100) records that match the string in the text field. When I type or delete one character in the text field, the table content must be updated on the fly. I wonder if there is an efficient way of doing this using appropriate index structures and / or caching. As explained above, I only want to display the first N items that match the query. Therefore, for N small enough, it should not be a big issue loading the matching items from the database. Besides, caching items in main memory can make retrieval faster. I think the main problem is how to find the matching items quickly, given the pattern string. Can I rely on some DBMS facilities, or do I have to build some in-memory index myself? Any ideas? EDIT I have run a first experiment. I have split the records into different text files (at most 200 records per file) and put the files in different directories (I used the content of one data field to determine the directory tree). I end up with about 50000 files in about 40000 directories. I have then run Lucene to index the files. Searching for a string with the Lucene demo program is pretty fast. Splitting and indexing took a few minutes: this is totally acceptable for me because it is a static data set that I want to query. The next step is to integrate Lucene in the main program and use the hits returned by Lucene to load the relevant records into main memory.

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• How come there is still so much programming work?

  - by jd_505

  First I'd like to say that I am not pretty sure that this question will meet the guidelines. I think it can goes under the "Freelancing and business concerns" bullet, but I am not sure. Anyway, I will give it a shot. I wonder how the programming jobs hasn't yet "dried" because of the software evolution, for example, I am a developer myself, which means that I do care about software (I mean I am not of the type of guys that needs a computer mainly to just browse the Internet), and still I wouldn't mind if I never receive any more updates on my Ubuntu machine. I find that it provides everything I need, and while the updates provide various bug fixes/improvements, I wouldn't mind using it with it's current state for the rest of my life, for 2 years of Ubuntu usage I have never bumped at a serious bug/problem. Another example is Windows, almost half of it's users still use XP, which is practically ancient, yet they find it satisfying all their needs (and I agreee with them). I could go with many more examples, but by now you are understanding my point and my question. While new "trends" appears all of the time (like a new mobile OS) which runs on new platforms and requires some fresh development work, still the majority of the software effort goes in to what I consider as "completed projects", or at least a state of a project which is enough to be considered as completed. Do you have an explanation ? I can't think of the right tags for this question, please edit it the way you find it to be most appropriate. Thanks.

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• How and what should I be (unit) testing for in this method?

  - by user460667

  I am relatively new to unit testing and have a query about what/how I should be testing a certain method. For the following (psudo-c#) method I have created (not a real-life example) what would you test for? Initially, my thoughts would be to test the output with variations on the dictionary of form fields, e.g. valid, invalid, missing values. However I also wonder how you would test to make sure the object values have been changed to the correct value and that the correct email message was attempted to be sent (obviously both services could/would be mocked). I hope what I am asking makes sense, I appreciate this is a subjective question and the answers may be 'it depends' ;) public bool ProcessInput(Dictionary<string, string> formFields, ObjService objService, EmailService emailService) { try { // Get my object id int objId; if(!int.TryParse(formField["objId"], out objId) { return false; } // Update my object - would you validate the save against a DB or a mocked inmemory db? var myObj = objService.Find(objId); myObj.Name = formField["objName"]; objService.Save(myObj); // Send an email - how would you test to make sure content, recipient, etc was correct? emailService.SendEmail(formField("email"), "Hello World"); return true; } catch(Exception ex) { return false; } }

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