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• Ubuntu Control Center Makes Using Ubuntu Easier

  - by Vivek

  Users who are new to Ubuntu might find it somewhat difficult to configure. Today we take a look at using Ubuntu Control Center which makes managing different aspects of the system easier. About Ubuntu Control Center A lot of utilities and software has been written to work with Ubuntu. Ubuntu Control Center is one such cool utility which makes it easy for configuring Ubuntu. The following is a brief description of Ubuntu Control Center: Ubuntu Control Center or UCC is an application inspired by Mandriva Control Center and aims to centralize and organize in a simple and intuitive form the main configuration tools for Ubuntu distribution. UCC uses all the native applications already bundled with Ubuntu, but it also utilize some third-party apps like “Hardinfo”, “Boot-up Manager”, “GuFW” and “Font-Manager”. Ubuntu Control Center Here we look at installation and use of Ubuntu Control Center in Ubuntu 10.04. First we have to satisfy some dependencies. You will need to install Font-Manager and jstest-gtk (link below)…before installing Ubuntu Control Center (UCC). Click the Install Package button. You’ll be prompted to enter in your admin password for each installation package. Installation is successful…close out of the screen. Download and install Font-Manager…again you’ll need to enter in your password to complete installation.   Once you have installed the two dependencies, you are all set to install Ubuntu Control Center (link below), double click the downloaded Ubuntu Control Center deb file to install it. Once installed you can find it under Applications \ System Tools \ UCC. Once you launch it you can start managing your system, software, hardware, and more.   You can easily control various aspects of your Ubuntu System using Ubuntu Control Center. Here we look at configuring the firewall under Network and Internet.     UCC allows easy access for configuring several aspects of your system. Once you install UCC you’ll see how easy it is to configure your Ubuntu system through an intuitive clean graphical interface. If you’re new to Ubuntu, using UCC can help you in setting up your system how you like in a user friendly way. Home Page of UCC http://code.google.com/p/ucc/ Links Download Font-Manager ManagerDownload jstest-gtkUbuntu Control Center (UCC) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Adding extra Repositories on UbuntuAllow Remote Control To Your Desktop On UbuntuAssign a Hotkey to Open a Terminal Window in UbuntuInstall VMware Tools on Ubuntu Edgy EftInstall Monodevelop on Ubuntu Linux 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 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium

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• Package management system corrupted. Cannot install or remove packages. U12.04LTS

  - by user271490

  Having read other posts, I believe that this may be less about samba than about update system. Below is the log file of the failed installation of Samba. I have been trying without success to install/outstall samba so that I could install anything else ... I cannot either install or remove samba using either update-manager or apt-get (nor indeed Software Centre). One of the errors that I have had to correct is the presence after "removal" (failed) of /usr/share/system-config-samba directory which finally allowed itself to be deleted. That, however was then ... I have U12.04LTS. running on release 63 because I allowed the upgrade to 64 this morning which fell over - no output to monitor - obviously even less support for my graphic chip than I am suffering already (see other posts in this forum). According to my interpretation of the dpkg returned errors there may be some problem with the package files, but if this is the case then it is on servers 'main', 'nantes uni fr' and 'best fr' at the very least if not everywhere. The suggestions offered at Package operation failed and elsewhere have not worked for me. This linked post suggests that a similar error is present in other packages, or that the error is in the 'update system' I have tried ... sudo apt-get remove samba ... autoremove ... install samba ... clean ... update -f all of the above In update-manager I have tried the "reload packages list" which fails to terminate because of the error. I have tried to install and remove samba from the software centre ... :( I am at a loss ... I need help, please! Firstly to recover my apt-get/update-manager/Software Centre so that I can at least carry on with my continuing installation - up to communicating with home network hence need for samba - which brings me to my second requirement ... samba. PS is the issue about "MaxReports" associated or apart? UPDATE! Being heartily sick of restarting FF every 5 seconds I thought I'd try again with Chromium ... and got the same errors from dpkg about corrupt compressed package - coincidence? Of course this was no longer in clipboard when I got here because apport has just errored ... AAARRRGGGH!!! Why does every error clear the clipboard? Thanks for any and all help!! installArchives() failed: Preconfiguring packages ... ... snip (Reading database ... ... snip (Reading database ... 184858 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking samba (from .../samba_2%3a3.6.3-2ubuntu2.10_i386.deb) ... dpkg-deb (subprocess): data: internal gzip read error: ': data error' dpkg-deb: error: subprocess returned error exit status 2 dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/samba_2%3a3.6.3-2ubuntu2.10_i386.deb (--unpack): subprocess dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile returned error exit status 2 No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already Selecting previously unselected package system-config-samba. Unpacking system-config-samba (from .../system-config-samba_1.2.63-0ubuntu5_all.deb) ... Processing triggers for ureadahead ... ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot Processing triggers for ufw ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ... Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ... Processing triggers for gnome-menus ... Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ... Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/samba_2%3a3.6.3-2ubuntu2.10_i386.deb Error in function: dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of system-config-samba: system-config-samba depends on samba; however: Package samba is not installed. dpkg: error processing system-config-samba (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

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• Bootstrap a debian build environment and build source packages with no root privileges

  - by Erwan Queffélec

  On debian squeeze, I am trying to do the following : fetch sources package from the wheezy source repository bootstrap a squeeze chroot for several architectures build the packages for several architectures (i386, amd64 + all and any) I want both the fetching, bootstrapping and build operation to be scriptable, repeatable, and run as a normal user. For the environment setup, I want to make as little use of the root account as possible (install the necessary dependencies, and maybe some visudo stuff). If possible I would like to avoid using a VM (pbuilder with user mode linux) So far I have tried several things with pbuilder (require root), debootstrap (require root) with little success. Here is an example script of what I want to do (does not work): #/bin/bash set -e set -x this=`readlink -f $0` this_dir=`dirname $this` archs='i386 amd64 any all' pushd $this_dir/src # I actually want the following line to work with a repo that # is not in /etc/apt/sources.list but that is another question apt-get source cyrus-imapd-2.4 popd for arch in $archs do build_dir=$this_dir/build/$arch/ pbuilder --create --configfile $build_dir/pbuilderrc --buildresult $build_dir/ pbuilder --build --configfile $build_dir/pbuilderrc --buildresult \ $build_dir/ $this_dir/src/*.dsc # of course I want to use the .dput.cf in /home/myuser/ # and not in /root/ dput $build_dir/$arch/*.changes done

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• Debian package with init.d without autostart

  - by viraptor

  Hi, I'm trying to create a package which contains the init.d file, but doesn't try to start the daemon right after the installation. Currently, I'm using scripts created from the dh_make template. Right after installation, dpkg wants to start the service. I'd like to stop it from doing that - the daemon will be always started / stopped manually.

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• mini-dinstall chmod 0600 changes file: Operation not permitted

  - by V. Reileno

  I'm getting "Operation not permitted" in the mini-dinstall.log everytime a new debian package has been uploaded on the custom debian repository using dput. The deb file is installed successfuly but the changes file remains in the incoming folder. I can not use a post-install script when the changes file can not be processed. How can I fix this problem? Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/mini-dinstall", line 780, in install retval = self._install_run_scripts(changefilename, changefile) File "/usr/bin/mini-dinstall", line 826, in _install_run_scripts do_chmod(changefilename, 0600) File "/usr/bin/mini-dinstall", line 193, in do_chmod do_and_log('Changing mode of "%s" to %o' % (name, mode), os.chmod, name, mode) File "/usr/bin/mini-dinstall", line 176, in do_and_log function(*args) OSError: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/srv/debian-repository/mini-dinstall/incoming/debian-repository_1.3_amd64.changes' The mini-dinstall permissions: ls -lad incoming/ drwxrws--- 2 mini-dinstall debian-repository-uploader 4096 Jun 6 11:45 incoming/ ls -la incoming/debian-repository_1.3_amd64.changes -rw-rw---- 1 uploader-user debian-repository-uploader 1322 Jun 6 11:43 incoming/debian-repository_1.3_amd64.changes groups uploader-user uploader-user : uploader-user adm users debian-repository debian-repository-uploader puppet-client-updater groups mini-dinstall mini-dinstall : mini-dinstall debian-repository-uploader Cheers and thanks V.

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• Can a working Tomcat 6 webapp be turned into a usable .war file?

  - by Bill Cole

  Problem: I have a working webapp on a FreeBSD 8.1 Tomcat 6 test server that I need to move to a production system. The developer who last touched it (and had root on that server) has moved on and isn't helpful. The running app seems to have been deployed from a CVS server that is now unavailable. My thinking is that I would like to find a way to wrap the working webapp into a proper .war so that I can deploy it on a pristine host and (after testing) send the existing system to a very deep bitbucket. But I'm not having luck finding a way to do that. I'm a sysadmin not a developer and don't work much with Tomcat systems so I may be (likely am) overlooking something blindingly simple. I gather that I may be able to just tar up the deployed directory and untar it on the new machine, but I have a nagging feeling that there are pitfalls in that.

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• How do I create a SCCM package where the main installation initiates self-contained msi's?

  - by DeliriumTremens

  I have a few applications that are installed using InstallShield -- during the installation one or two parts of the application are installed with msi's. I've tried recording an iss file to instruct the installation process, but these installations always seem to freeze up. I've also tried installing in a sequence, first installing the msi's, but this doesn't prevent the main installation from trying to install these. Any tips/suggestions/ideas? Thanks!

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• Queries with developing a Voice to Text Based Software

  - by harigm

  I am looking for any software which converts the voice to the text. I can get some software which can easily convert the english launguage voice to English text. But my intention is be it any language, whatever the system gets voice that should give the output in the text format in English. Is it possible to get this kind of software? If yes any open source available to help me to use this? If not, Is this feasible to develop this kind of software, Can any one guide how to and where to begin with? I am looking for windows based software

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• Writing Great Software

  - by 01010011

  Hi, I'm currently reading Head First's Object Oriented Analysis and Design. The book states that to write great software (i.e. software that is well-designed, well-coded, easy to maintain, reuse, and extend) you need to do three things: Firstly, make sure the software does everything the customer wants it to do Once step 1 is completed, apply Object Oriented principles and techniques to eliminate any duplicate code that might have slipped in Once steps 1 and 2 are complete, then apply design patterns to make sure the software is maintainable and reusable for years to come. My question is, do you follow these steps when developing great software? If not, what steps do you usually follow inorder to ensure it's well designed, well-coded, easy to maintain, reuse and extend?

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• Can't exec "locale": No such file or directory

  - by Alex

  I am new in Linux. I was trying to install wine and after /i followed instructions from a youtube video i got to the point where I needed to install wine from Ubuntu Software Center. The problem is the Ubuntu Software Center doesn't work anymore, it ask me to reparir it, and when I push the Repair button it gives me this error: installArchives() failed: Can't exec "locale": No such file or directory at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Encoding.pm line 16. Use of uninitialized value $Debconf::Encoding::charmap in scalar chomp at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Encoding.pm line 17. Preconfiguring packages ... Can't exec "locale": No such file or directory at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Encoding.pm line 16. Use of uninitialized value $Debconf::Encoding::charmap in scalar chomp at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Encoding.pm line 17. Preconfiguring packages ... Can't exec "locale": No such file or directory at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Encoding.pm line 16. Use of uninitialized value $Debconf::Encoding::charmap in scalar chomp at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Encoding.pm line 17. Preconfiguring packages ... dpkg: warning: 'ldconfig' not found in PATH or not executable. dpkg: error: 1 expected program not found in PATH or not executable. Note: root's PATH should usually contain /usr/local/sbin, /usr/sbin and /sbin. Error in function: SystemError: E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2) Please help me. Thank you :D

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• Should a developer create test cases and then run through test cases

  - by Eben Roux

  I work for a company where the development manager expects a developer to create test cases before writing any code. These test cases have to then be maintained by the developers. Every-so-often a developer will be expected to run through the test cases. From this you should be able to gather that the company in question is rather small and there are no testers. Coming from a Software Architect position and having to write / execute test cases wearing my 'tester' hat is somewhat of a shock to the system. I do it anyway but it does seem to be a rather expensive exercise :) EDIT: I seem to need to elaborate here: I am not talking about unit-testing, TDD, etc. :) I am talking about that bit of testing a tester does. Once I have developed a system (with my unit tests / tdd / etc.) the software goes through a testing phase. Should a developer be that tester and developer those test cases? I think the misunderstanding may stem from the fact that developers, typically, are not involved with this type of testing and, therefore, assumed I am referring to that testing we do do: unit testing. But alas, no. I hope that clears it up.

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• Does the "security" repository provides anything not found in the "updates" repository?

  - by netvope

  For the limited number of package I looked at (e.g. apache), I found that the package version in the updates repository is always newer than or equal to the version available in the security repository (provided that they exist). This gives me the impression that all security patches posted to the security repository are also posted to the updates repository. If this is true, I can remove all <release_name>-security entries in my apt sources.list and the <release_name>-updates entries will still give me the security patches. This will speed up apt-get update quite a bit. The best documentation I can found regarding the repositories is on the community help page "Important Security Updates (raring-security)". Patches for security vulnerabilities in Ubuntu packages. They are managed by the Ubuntu Security Team and are designed to change the behavior of the package as little as possible -- in fact, the minimum required to resolve the security problem. As a result, they tend to be very low-risk to apply and all users are urged to apply security updates. "Recommended Updates (raring-updates)". Updates for serious bugs in Ubuntu packaging that do not affect the security of the system. However, it does not mention whether the updates repository also includes everything in the security repository. Can anyone confirm (or disconfirm) this?

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• Is it wise to ask about design decisions made on a product during an interview?

  - by Desolate Planet

  I've been thinking about interview questions lately and I've been reflecting on bad interview experiences I've had in the past. One of particular note is where I had asked the interviewer why the team chose to use Spring over EJB3 in their product. The interviewer pretty much tore my face off, yelling "Because Spring is not the be all and end all of Java software development, do you want this job or not?". In response to this, I told him that this probably wasn't the job for me and I walked out the interview. He told me at the start of the interview that they had high stuff turnover, the product had gone from Modula 3 to Perl to Java then after asking him a technical question, he went in flames. It seemed obvious to me that he was toxic to the company with that kind of attitude. Question: Is it a good idea to probe on architectural choices taken in an interview? If not, why? From my own point of view, an interview is a two-way process. If the interviewers are testing me on my technical skills, I've got every right to ask them the same questions to 1) Figure out what their mindset and attitudes towards developing software solutions are and 2) To figure out if there are in line with how I would approach problems of that kind. It's very possible that the interviewer who got angry was a bad interviewer and forgot that an interview is a two-way process. If I was asked this, I would have simply said something along the lines of wanting to leverage the container more, but I certainly wouldn't have tried to put him in a state of meek capitulation. The interviewer in question was the lead developer in the team.

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• Why does TDD work?

  - by CesarGon

  Test-driven development (TDD) is big these days. I often see it recommended as a solution for a wide range of problems here in Programmers SE and other venues. I wonder why it works. From an engineering point of view, it puzzles me for two reasons: The "write test + refactor till pass" approach looks incredibly anti-engineering. If civil engineers used that approach for bridge construction, or car designers for their cars, for example, they would be reshaping their bridges or cars at very high cost, and the result would be a patched-up mess with no well thought-out architecture. The "refactor till pass" guideline is often taken as a mandate to forget architectural design and do whatever is necessary to comply with the test; in other words, the test, rather than the user, sets the requirement. In this situation, how can we guarantee good "ilities" in the outcomes, i.e. a final result that is not only correct but also extensible, robust, easy to use, reliable, safe, secure, etc.? This is what architecture usually does. Testing cannot guarantee that a system works; it can only show that it doesn't. In other words, testing may show you that a system contains defects if it fails a test, but a system that passes all tests is not safer than a system that fails them. Test coverage, test quality and other factors are crucial here. The false safe feelings that an "all green" outcomes produces to many people has been reported in civil and aerospace industries as extremely dangerous, because it may be interepreted as "the system is fine", when it really means "the system is as good as our testing strategy". Often, the testing strategy is not checked. Or, who tests the tests? I would like to see answers containing reasons why TDD in software engineering is a good practice, and why the issues that I have explained above are not relevant (or not relevant enough) in the case of software. Thank you.

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• What Should You Look for In a CRM Demo?

  - by charles.knapp

  I have helped firms evaluate software demos and delivered demos in diverse industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, life sciences, and travel (to name just a few). Here are a few suggestions. First, which vendor has the best fit for your industry? Make sure that the vendor demo staff tell you clearly throughout the demo (not just in a passing comment), what portion of each business process and screen is standard, what has been configured, what has been custom coded, and what has been provided by a partner. If you don't keep asking, what you buy may be less useful than what you saw. This will lead to added (and unbudgeted) costs and time. Second, what are the roles of the primary users? What are their top-most needs, such as exception-oriented dashboards or rapid data entry? Can you get a demo for each key role, showing how the software fits a typical workday? Have the vendor repeatedly tell you what is standard, configured, custom coded, or provided by a partner. Third, how well does the demo balance ease of use with completeness of business processes? One common approach is to hide needed fields or steps that are of low visual value. Another approach is to focus heavily on a visually appealing capability, while downplaying the fit with your key business processes. Result: despite their business acumen, demo attendees may not focus adequately on gaps in business fit So, look for complete disclosure and complete CRM. To arrange a demo from Oracle, please visit http://www.oracle.com/crm.

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• Handling Indirection and keeping layers of method calls, objects, and even xml files straight

  - by Cervo

  How do you keep everything straight as you trace deeply into a piece of software through multiple method calls, object constructors, object factories, and even spring wiring. I find that 4 or 5 method calls are easy to keep in my head, but once you are going to 8 or 9 calls deep it gets hard to keep track of everything. Are there strategies for keeping everything straight? In particular, I might be looking for how to do task x, but then as I trace down (or up) I lose track of that goal, or I find multiple layers need changes, but then I lose track of which changes as I trace all the way down. Or I have tentative plans that I find out are not valid but then during the tracing I forget that the plan is invalid and try to consider the same plan all over again killing time.... Is there software that might be able to help out? grep and even eclipse can help me to do the actual tracing from a call to the definition but I'm more worried about keeping track of everything including the de-facto plan for what has to change (which might vary as you go down/up and realize the prior plan was poor). In the past I have dealt with a few big methods that you trace and pretty much can figure out what is going on within a few calls. But now there are dozens of really tiny methods, many just a single call to another method/constructor and it is hard to keep track of them all.

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• Real world pitfalls of introducing F# into a large codebase and engineering team

  - by nganju

  I'm CTO of a software firm with a large existing codebase (all C#) and a sizable engineering team. I can see how certain parts of the code would be far easier to write in F#, resulting in faster development time, fewer bugs, easier parallel implementations, etc., basically overall productivity gains for my team. However, I can also see several productivity pitfalls of introducing F#, namely: 1) Everyone has to learn F#, and it's not as trivial as switching from, say, Java to C#. Team members that have not learned F# will be unable to work on F# parts of the codebase. 2) The pool of hireable F# programmers, as of now (Dec 2010) is non-existent. Search various software engineer resume databases for "F#", way less than 1% of resumes contain the keyword. 3) Community support as of now (Dec 2010) is less available. You can google almost any problem in C# and find someone that has already dealt with it, not so with F#. Third party tool support (NUnit, Resharper etc) is also sketchy. I realize that this is a bit Catch-22, i.e. if people like me don't use F# then the community and tools will never materialize, etc. But, I've got a company to run, and I can be cutting edge but not bleeding edge. Any other pitfalls I'm not considering? Or anyone care to rebut the pitfalls I've mentioned? I think this is an important discussion and would love to hear your counter-arguments in this public forum that may do a lot to increase F# adoption by industry. Thanks.

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• How to explain a layperson why a developer should not be interrupted while neck-deep in coding?

  - by András Szepesházi

  If you just consider the second part of my question, "Why a developer should not be interrupted while neck-deep in coding", that has been discussed a number of times by smart people. Heck, even the co-founder of SO, Joel Spolsky, wrote a blog post about "getting in the zone" and "being knocked out of the zone" and why it takes an average of 15 minutes to achieve productivity when participating in complex, software development related tasks. So I think the why has been established. What I'm interested in is how to explain all that to somebody who doesn't know beans about Beans (khmm I mean software development). How to tell the wife, or the funny guy from accounting at the workplace, or the long time friend who pings you on Skype every 30 minutes with a "Wazzzzzzup?!", that all the interruptions have a much deeper impact on your work than the obvious 30 seconds they took from your time. Obviously you can't explain it by sentences like "I have to juggle a lot of variable names in my short term memory" unless you want to be the target of blank stares or friendly abuse. I'd like to be able to explain all that to non-developers in a way that will make them clearly understand - without being offensive, elitist or too technical.

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• Who is likely to need the most this high-quality, measurable, reliable approach to software? [closed]

  - by Marek Cruz

  Software engineering is the application of principles of engineering to software. Trouble is, most of those who like to flatter with the title "software engineer" don't do that. They just keep writing code and patching it until it's stable enough to foist off on users. That's not software engineering. Who is likely to need the most the practice of software engineering? (with all the project planning, requirements engineering, software design, implementation based on the design, testing, deployment, awareness of IEEE standards, metrics, security, dependability, usability, etc.)

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• Customizing the NUnit GUI for data-driven testing

  - by rwong

  My test project consists of a set of input data files which is fed into a piece of legacy third-party software. Since the input data files for this software are difficult to construct (not something that can be done intentionally), I am not going to add new input data files. Each input data file will be subject to a set of "test functions". Some of the test functions can be invoked independently. Other test functions represent the stages of a sequential operation - if an earlier stage fails, the subsequent stages do not need to be executed. I have experimented with the NUnit parametrized test case (TestCaseAttribute and TestCaseSourceAttribute), passing in the list of data files as test cases. I am generally satisfied with the the ability to select the input data for testing. However, I would like to see if it is possible to customize its GUI's tree structure, so that the "test functions" become the children of the "input data". For example: File #1 CheckFileTypeTest GetFileTopLevelStructureTest CompleteProcessTest StageOneTest StageTwoTest StageThreeTest File #2 CheckFileTypeTest GetFileTopLevelStructureTest CompleteProcessTest StageOneTest StageTwoTest StageThreeTest This will be useful for identifying the stage that failed during the processing of a particular input file. Is there any tips and tricks that will enable the new tree layout? Do I need to customize NUnit to get this layout?

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• How best to keep bumbling, non-technical managers at bay and still deliver good work?

  - by Curious

  This question may be considered subjective (I got a warning) and be closed, but I will risk it, as I need some good advice/experience on this. I read the following at the 'About' page of Fog Creek Software, the company that Joel Spolsky founded and is CEO of: Back in the year 2000, the founders of Fog Creek, Joel Spolsky and Michael Pryor, were having trouble finding a place to work where programmers had decent working conditions and got an opportunity to do great work, without bumbling, non-technical managers getting in the way. Every high tech company claimed they wanted great programmers, but they wouldn’t put their money where their mouth was. It started with the physical environment (with dozens of cubicles jammed into a noisy, dark room, where the salespeople shouting on the phone make it impossible for developers to concentrate). But it went much deeper than that. Managers, terrified of change, treated any new idea as a bizarre virus to be quarantined. Napoleon-complex junior managers insisted that things be done exactly their way or you’re fired. Corporate Furniture Police writhed in agony when anyone taped up a movie poster in their cubicle. Disorganization was so rampant that even if the ideas were good, it would have been impossible to make a product out of them. Inexperienced managers practiced hit-and-run management, issuing stern orders on exactly how to do things without sticking around to see the farcical results of their fiats. And worst of all, the MBA-types in charge thought that coding was a support function, basically a fancy form of typing. A blunt truth about most of today's big software companies! Unfortunately not every developer is as gutsy (or lucky, may I say?) as Joel Spolsky! So my question is: How best to work with such managers, keep them at bay and still deliver great work?

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• Do you believe it's a good idea for Software Engineers to have to work as Quality Assurance Engineers for some period of time?

  - by Macy Abbey

  I believe it is. Why? I've encountered many Software Engineers who believe they are somehow superior to QA engineers. I think it may help quench this belief if they do the job of a QA engineer for some time, and realize that it is a unique and valuable skill-set of its own. The better a Software Engineer is at testing their own programs, the less cost in time their code incurs when making its way through the rest of the software development life-cycle. The more time a Software Engineer spends thinking about how a program can break, the more often they are to consider these cases as they are developing them, thus reducing bugs in the end product. A Software Engineer's definition of "complete" is always interesting...if they have spent time as a QA engineer maybe this definition will more closely match the designer of the software's. What do you all think?

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• Unable to remove the lock by normal means

  - by Loki

  I've been installing ubuntu restricted extras via the software center. Everything was going well at first, but then the installation process froze on 'applying changes' stage. I've had this in the past already, and usually just hitting the 'cancel' button helped, but not this time. Obviously, the install process has placed a lock, and I couldn't issue any apt-get commands. then i've tried doing what was suggested here Fixing Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock : sudo fuser -cuk /var/lib/dpkg/lock; sudo rm -f /var/lib/dpkg/lock but it seemed to me that it has only killed my X server. Okay, i've just pressed the power button on my PC, and restarted, hoping that the lock was finally off and i could reinstall the stuff. No dice. when I open the software center, I still have one operation in process, a weird one: " Searching | Cancelling ". The 'cancel' button is either inactive, or it just does nothing. So I've become desperate and decided to write here. How do I fix the problem? Can't install anything on a fresh ubuntu 12.04 :) Thanks in advance

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• Floating point undesireable in highly critical code?

  - by Kirt Undercoffer

  Question 11 in the Software Quality section of "IEEE Computer Society Real-World Software Engineering Problems", Naveda, Seidman, lists fp computation as undesirable because "the accuracy of the computations cannot be guaranteed". This is in the context of computing acceleration for an emergency braking system for a high speed train. This thinking seems to be invoking possible errors in small differences between measurements of a moving object but small differences at slow speeds aren't a problem (or shouldn't be), small differences between two measurements at high speed are irrelevant - can there be a problem with small roundoff errors during deceleration for an emergency braking system? This problem has been observed with airplane braking systems resulting in hydroplaning but could this actually happen in the context of a high speed train? The concern about fp errors seems to not be well-founded in this context. Any insight? The fp is used for acceleration so perhaps the concern is inching over a speed limit? But fp should be just fine if they use a double in whatever implementation language. The actual problem in the text states: During the inspection of the code for the emergency braking system of a new high speed train (a highly critical, real-time application), the review team identifies several characteristics of the code. Which of these characteristics are generally viewed as undesirable? The code contains three recursive functions (well that one is obvious). The computation of acceleration uses floating point arithmetic. All other computations use integer arithmetic. The code contains one linked list that uses dynamic memory allocation (second obvious problem). All inputs are checked to determine that they are within expected bounds before they are used.

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• Relation between developers and clients

  - by guiman

  Hi everyone, i've been facing a situation at work and i would like to share it with you and tell me: Did you had to do it to? Should a developer be in direct contact wit the client? Or there should be an "adapter" guy that translates client needs in pseudo formal requirements understandable to us? I'm currently working in a small company that its taking care of implementing lots of systems, most of them for goverment institutions, in witch it generally means taking software developted 20 years ago and refurbish them so fit up-to-date needs. The clients generally are very used to them and tend to discourage change (they are in their 50s 60s give or take, so not technologie-friendly in general). As you can imagine, dev-team in most cases starts taking care of relation with clients, generating the documentation needed in this cases (CU usually), assisting to weekly meets to see improvements with clients. As for experience, this is a gold mine for me, because gives a nice perspective on all the aspects of software development, but also some problems rise because, if developers come from mars then client are from venus. So there is a fine gap on the vocabulary/experience/capability-to-interpret-needs that generates an noice in the communication, and some times affecting the final product.

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