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• Migrating SQL Server Databases – The DBA’s Checklist (Part 1)

  - by Sadequl Hussain

  It is a fact of life: SQL Server databases change homes. They move from one instance to another, from one version to the next, from old servers to new ones.  They move around as an organisation’s data grows, applications are enhanced or new versions of the database software are released. If not anything else, servers become old and unreliable and databases eventually need to find a new home. Consider the following scenarios: 1.     A new  database application is rolled out in a production server from the development or test environment 2.     A copy of the production database needs to be installed in a test server for troubleshooting purposes 3.     A copy of the development database is regularly refreshed in a test server during the system development life cycle 4.     A SQL Server is upgraded to a newer version. This can be an in-place upgrade or a side-by-side migration 5.     One or more databases need to be moved between different instances as part of a consolidation strategy. The instances can be running the same or different version of SQL Server 6.     A database has to be restored from a backup file provided by a third party application vendor 7.     A backup of the database is restored in the same or different instance for disaster recovery 8.     A database needs to be migrated within the same instance: a.     Files are moved from direct attached storage to storage area network b.    The same database is copied under a different name for another application Migrating SQL Server database applications is a complex topic in itself. There are a number of components that can be involved: jobs, DTS or SSIS packages, logins or linked servers are only few pieces of the puzzle. However, in this article we will focus only on the central part of migration: the installation of the database itself. Unless it is an in-place upgrade, typically the database is taken from a source server and installed in a destination instance.  Most of the time, a full backup file is used for the rollout. The backup file is either provided to the DBA or the DBA takes the backup and restores it in the target server. Sometimes the database is detached from the source and the files are copied to and attached in the destination. Regardless of the method of copying, moving, refreshing, restoring or upgrading the physical database, there are a number of steps the DBA should follow before and after it has been installed in the destination. It is these post database installation steps we are going to discuss below. Some of these steps apply in almost every scenario described above while some will depend on the type of objects contained within the database.  Also, the principles hold regardless of the number of databases involved. Step 1:  Make a copy of data and log files when attaching and detaching When detaching and attaching databases, ensure you have made copies of the data and log files if the destination is running a newer version of SQL Server. This is because once attached to a newer version, the database cannot be detached and attached back to an older version. Trying to do so will give you a message like the following: Server: Msg 602, Level 21, State 50, Line 1 Could not find row in sysindexes for database ID 6, object ID 1, index ID 1. Run DBCC CHECKTABLE on sysindexes. Connection Broken If you try to backup the attached database and restore it in the source, it will still fail. Similarly, if you are restoring the database in a newer version, it cannot be backed up or detached and put back in an older version of SQL. Unlike detach and attach method though, you do not lose the backup file or the original database here. When detaching and attaching a database, it is important you keep all the log files available along with the data files. It is possible to attach a database without a log file and SQL Server can be instructed to create a new log file, however this does not work if the database was detached when the primary file group was read-only. You will need all the log files in such cases. Step 2: Change database compatibility level Once the database has been restored or attached to a newer version of SQL Server, change the database compatibility level to reflect the newer version unless there is a compelling reason not to do so. When attaching or restoring from a previous version of SQL, the database retains the older version’s compatibility level.  The only time you would want to keep a database with an older compatibility level is when the code within your database is no longer supported by SQL Server. For example, outer joins with *= or the =* operators were still possible in SQL 2000 (with a warning message), but not in SQL 2005 anymore. If your stored procedures or triggers are using this form of join, you would want to keep the database with an older compatibility level.  For a list of compatibility issues between older and newer versions of SQL Server databases, refer to the Books Online under the sp_dbcmptlevel topic. Application developers and architects can help you in deciding whether you should change the compatibility level or not. You can always change the compatibility mode from the newest to an older version if necessary. To change the compatibility level, you can either use the database’s property from the SQL Server Management Studio or use the sp_dbcmptlevel stored procedure.   Bear in mind that you cannot run the built-in reports for databases from SQL Server Management Studio if you keep the database with an older compatibility level. The following figure shows the error message I received when trying to run the “Disk Usage by Top Tables” report against a database. This database was hosted in a SQL Server 2005 system and still had a compatibility mode 80 (SQL 2000).     Continues…

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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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• 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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• Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Millennials

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By Christine Mellon Much is said and written about the new generations of employees entering our workforce, as though they are a strange specimen, a mysterious life form to be “figured out,” accommodated and engaged – at a safe distance, of course.  At its worst, this talk takes a critical and disapproving tone, with baby boomer employees adamantly refusing to validate this new breed of worker, let alone determine how to help them succeed and achieve their potential.   The irony of our baby-boomer resentments and suspicions is that they belie the fact that we created the very vision that younger employees are striving to achieve.  From our frustrations with empty careers that did not fulfill us, from our opposition to “the man,” from our sharp memories of our parents’ toiling for 30 years just for the right to retire, from the simple desire not to live our lives in a state of invisibility, came the seeds of hope for something better. One characteristic of Millennial workers that grew from these seeds is the desire to experience as much as possible.  They are the “Experiential Employee”, with a passion for growing in diverse ways and expanding personal and professional horizons.  Rather than rooting themselves in a single company for a career, or even in a single career path, these employees are committed to building a broad portfolio of experiences and capabilities that will enable them to make a difference and to leave a mark of significance in the world.  How much richer is the organization that nurtures and leverages this inclination?  Our curmudgeonly ways must be surrendered and our focus redirected toward building the next generation of talent ecosystems, if we are to optimize what future generations have to offer.   Accelerating Professional Development In spite of our Boomer grumblings about Millennials’ “unrealistic” expectations, the truth is that we have a well-matched set of circumstances.  We have executives-in-waiting who want to learn quickly and a concurrent, urgent need to ramp up their development time, based on anticipated high levels of retirement in the next 10+ years.  Since we need to rapidly skill up these heirs to the corporate kingdom, isn’t it a fortunate coincidence that they are hungry to learn, develop and move fluidly throughout our organizations??  So our challenge now is to efficiently operationalize the wisdom we have acquired about effective learning and development.   We have already evolved from classroom-based models to diverse instructional methods.  The next step is to find the best approaches to help younger employees learn quickly and apply new learnings in an impactful way.   Creating temporary or even permanent functional partnerships among Millennial employees is one way to maximize outcomes.  This might take the form of 2 or more employees owning aspects of what once fell under a single role.  While one might argue this would mean duplication of resources, it could be a short term cost while employees come up to speed.  And the potential benefits would be numerous:  leveraging and validating the inherent sense of community of new generations, creating cross-functional skills with broad applicability, yielding additional perspectives and approaches to traditional work outcomes, and accelerating the performance curve for incumbents through Cooperative Learning (Johnson, D. and Johnson R., 1989, 1999).  This well-researched teaching strategy, where students support each other in the absorption and application of new information, has been shown to deliver faster, more efficient learning, and greater retention. Alternately, perhaps short term contracts with exiting retirees, or former retirees, to help facilitate the development of following generations may have merit.  Again, a short term cost, certainly.  However, the gains realized in shortening the learning curve, and strengthening engagement are substantial and lasting. Ultimately, there needs to be creative thinking applied for each organization on how to accelerate the capabilities of our future leaders in unique ways that mesh with current culture. The manner in which performance is evaluated must finally shift as well.  Employees will need to be assessed on how well they have developed key skills and capabilities vs. end-to-end mastery of functional positions they have no interest in keeping for an entire career. As we become more comfortable in placing greater and greater weight on competencies vs. tasks, we will realize increased organizational agility via this new generation of workers, which will be further enhanced by their natural flexibility and appetite for change. Revisiting Succession  For many years, organizations have failed to deliver desired succession planning outcomes.  According to CEB’s 2013 research, only 28% of current leaders were pre-identified in a succession plan. These disappointing results, along with the entrance of the experiential, Millennial employee into the workforce, may just provide the needed impetus for HR to reinvent succession processes.   We have recognized that the best professional development efforts are not always linear, and the time has come to fully adopt this philosophy in regard to succession as well.  Paths to specific organizational roles will not look the same for newer generations who seek out unique learning opportunities, without consideration of a singular career destination.  Rather than charting particular jobs as precursors for key positions, the experiences and skills behind what makes an incumbent successful must become essential in succession mapping.  And the multitude of ways in which those experiences and skills may be acquired must be factored into the process, along with the individual employee’s level of learning agility. While this may seem daunting, it is necessary and long overdue.  We have talked about the criticality of competency-based succession, however, we have not lived up to our own rhetoric.  Many Boomers have experienced the same frustration in our careers; knowing we are capable of shining in a particular role, but being denied the opportunity due to how our career history lined up, on paper, with documented job requirements.  These requirements usually emphasized past jobs/titles and specific tasks, versus capabilities, drive and willingness (let alone determination) to learn new things.  How satisfying would it be for us to leave a legacy where such narrow thinking no longer applies and potential is amplified? Realizing Diversity Another bloom from the seeds we Boomers have tried to plant over the past decades is a completely evolved view of diversity.  Millennial employees assume a diverse workforce, and are startled by anything less.  Their social tolerance, nurtured by wide and diverse networks, is unprecedented.  College graduates expect a similar landscape in the “real world” to what they experienced throughout their lives.  They appreciate and seek out divergent points of view and experiences without needing any persuasion.  The face of our U.S. workforce will likely see dramatic change as Millennials apply their fresh take on hiring and building strong teams, with an inherent sense of inclusion.  This wonderful aspect of the Millennial wave should be celebrated and strongly encouraged, as it is the fulfillment of our own aspirations. Future Perfect The Experiential Employee is operating more as a free agent than a long term player, and their commitment will essentially last as long as meaningful organizational culture and personal/professional opportunities keep their interest.  As Boomers, we have laid the foundation for this new, spirited employment attitude, and we should take pride in knowing that.  Generations to come will challenge organizations to excel in how they identify, manage and nurture talent. Let’s support and revel in the future that we’ve helped invent, rather than lament what we think has been lost.  After all, the future is always connected to the past.  And as so eloquently phrased by Antoine Lavoisier, French nobleman, chemist and politico:  “Nothing is Lost, Nothing is Created, and Everything is Transformed.” Christine has over 25 years of diverse HR experience.  She has held HR consulting and corporate roles, including CHRO positions for Echostar in Denver, a 6,000+ employee global engineering firm, and Aepona, a startup software firm, successfully acquired by Intel. Christine is a resource to Oracle clients, to assist in Human Capital Management strategy development and implementation, compensation practices, talent development initiatives, employee engagement, global HR management, and integrated HR systems and processes that support the full employee lifecycle. 

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• Adjust timezone of an AVM Fritz!Box 7390

  It's been a while that I purchased an AVM Fritz!Box 7390 but since I'm using this 'PABX' here in Mauritius, I'm not really happy about the wrong time in the logs or handsets connected. Lately, I had some spare time to address this issue, and the following article describes how to adjust the timezone settings in general. The original idea came from an FAQ found in c't 21/11 (for a 7270 written in German language) but I added a couple of things based on other resources online. The following tutorial may be valid for other models, too. Use your common sense and think before you act. Brief introduction to AVM Fritz!Box devices The Fritz!Box series of AVM has been around for more than a decade and those little 'red boxes' have a high level of versatility for your small office or home. High-speed connections, secure WLAN and convenient telephony make a home network out of any network. Whether it's a computer, tablet or smartphone, any device can be connected to the FRITZ!Box. And best of all, installation is so simple that users will be online in a matter of minutes. If you want to have peace of your mind in your small network then a Fritz!Box is the easiest way to achieve that. I'm using my box primarly as WiFi access point, VoIP gateway and media server but only because it came in second after my Linux system. Limitations in the administrative Web UI Unfortunately, there are no possibilities to adjust the timezone settings in the Web UI at all - even not in Expert mode. I assume that this is part of the 'simplification' provided by AVM's design team. That's okay, as long as you reside in Central Europe, and the implicit time handling is correct for your location. Adjusting the timezone I got my device through an order at Amazon Germany already some time ago, and honestly I wasn't bothered too much about the pre-configured (fixed) timezone setting - CET or CEST depending on daylight saving. But you know, it's that kind of splinter at the back of your head that keeps nagging and bothering you indirectly. So, finally I sat down yesterday evening and did a quick research on how to change the timezone. Even though there are a number of results, I read the FAQ from the c't magazine first, as I consider this as a trusted and safe source of information. Of course, it is most important to avoid to 'brick' your device. You've been warned - No support Tinkering with the configuration of any AVM devices seems to be a violation of their official support channels. So, be warned and continue onlyin case that you're sure about what you are going to do. The following solutions are 'as-is' and they worked for my box flawlessly but may cause an issue in your case. Don't blame me... Solution 1 - Backup, modify and restore That's the way as described in the c't article and a couple of other forum postings I found online, mainly from Australia. Login the administrative Web UI and navigate to 'System => Einstellungen sichern' (System => Backup configuration) and store your current configuration to a local file on your machine. Despite some online postings it is not necessary to specify a password in order to secure or encrypt your backup. IMHO, this only adds another unnecessary layer of complexity to the process. Anyway, next you should create a another copy of your settings and keep it unmodified. That's our safety net to restore the current settings in case that we might have to issue a factory setting reset to the box. Now, open the configuration file with an advanced text editor which is capable to deal with Unix carriage returns properly - Windows Notepad doesn't do the job but Wordpad or Notepad++. Personally, I don't care and simply use geany, gedit or nano on Linux. In total there are 3 modifications that we have to apply to the configuration file - one new line and two adjustments. First, we have to add an instruction near the top of file that overrides the device internal checksum validation. Without this line, your settings won't be accepted. Caution: The drectives are case-sensitve and your outcome should read something like this: **** FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN 7390 CONFIGURATION EXPORTPassword=$$$$<ignore>FirmwareVersion=84.05.52CONFIG_INSTALL_TYPE=iks_16MB_xilinx_4eth_2ab_isdn_nt_te_pots_wlan_usb_host_dect_64415OEM=avmCountry=049Language=deNoChecks=yes**** CFGFILE:ar7.cfg/* * /var/flash/ar7.cfg * Mon Jul 29 10:49:18 2013 */ar7cfg {... Then search for the expression 'timezone' and you should find a section like this one (~ line 1113): timezone_manual {        enabled = no;        offset = 0;        dst_enabled = no;        TZ_string = "";        name = "";} We would like to manually handle the timezone setting in our device and therefore we have to enable it and set the proper value for Mauritius. The configuration block should like so afterwards: timezone_manual {        enabled = yes;        offset = 0;        dst_enabled = no;        TZ_string = "MUT-4";        name = "";} We specify the designation and the offset in hours of the timezone we would like to have. Caution: The offset indicates the value one has to add to the local time to arrive at UTC. More details are described in the Explanation of TZ strings. Mauritius has GMT+4 which means that we have to substract 4 hours from the local time to have UTC. Finally, we restore the modified configuration file via the administrative Web UI under 'System => Einstellungen sichern => Wiederherstellen' (System => Backup configuration => Restore). This triggers a reboot of the device, so please be patient and wait until the Web UI displays the login dialog again. Good luck! Solution 2 - Telnet A more elegant, read: technically interesting, way to adjust configuration settings in your Fritz!Box is to access it directly through Telnet. By default AVM disables that protocol channel and you have to enable it with a connected telephone. In order to activate the telnet service dial the following combination: #96*7* #96*8* (to disable telnet again after work has been completed) If you're using an AVM handset like the Fritz!Fon then you will receive a confirmation message on the display like so: telnetd ein Next, depending on your favourite operating system, you either launch a Command prompt in Windows or a terminal in Linux, get your Admin password ready, and you connect to your box like so: $ telnet fritz.box Trying 192.168.1.1...Connected to fritz.box.Escape character is '^]'.password: BusyBox v1.19.3 (2012-10-12 14:52:09 CEST) built-in shell (ash)Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.ermittle die aktuelle TTYtty is "/dev/pts/0"Console Ausgaben auf dieses Terminal umgelenkt# That's it, you are connected and we can continue to change the configuration manually. In order to adjust the timezone setting we have to open the ar7.cfg file. As we are now operating in a specialised environment, we only have limited capabilities at hand. One of those is a reduced version of vi - nvi. Let's open a second browser window with the fine manual page of nvi and start to edit our configuration file: # nvi /var/flash/ar7.cfg In our configuration file, we have to navigate to the timezone directives. The easiest way is to search for the expression 'timezone' by typing in the following: /timezone    (press Enter/Return) Now, we should see the exact lines of code like in the backed up version: timezone_manual {                                                                            enabled = no;                                                          offset = 0;                                                         dst_enabled = no;                                                   TZ_string = "";                                                     name = "";                                                        } And of course, we apply the same changes as described in the previous section: timezone_manual {                                                                            enabled = yes;                                                          offset = 0;                                                         dst_enabled = no;                                                   TZ_string = "MUT-4";                                                     name = "";                                                        } Finally, we have to write our changes back to the file and apply the new settings. :wq    (press Enter/Return) # ar7cfgchanged That's it! Finally, close the telnet session by pressing Ctrl+] and enter 'quit'. Additional ideas... There are a couple of more possibilities to enhance and to extend the usability of a Fritz!Box. There are lots of resources available on the net, but I'd like to name a few here. Especially for Linux users it is essential to be able to connect to any device remotely in a  safe and secure way. And the installation of a SSH server on the box would be a first step to improve this situation, also to avoid to run telnet after all. Sometimes, there might be problems in your VoIP connections, feel free to adjust the settings of codecs and connection handling, too. I guess, you'll get the idea... The only frontiers are in your mind.

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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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• What does "general purpose system" mean for Java SE Embedded?

  - by Majid Azimi

  The Oracle website says this about Java SE Embedded license: development is free, but royalties are required upon deployment on anything other than general purpose systems What does "general purpose system" mean here? We have a sensor network around the country. On each box we have installed, there is a micro controller based board that gets data from the environment and send data on serial port to a ARM based embedded board. On this board system there is a Java process which reads and submits data to our central server using JMS. Is this categorized as general purpose system? Sorry I'm asking this here. We are in Iran, there is no Oracle office here to ask.

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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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• Checking update reason after actual update

  - by KaRo

  Is there a possibility to find out the reason for at least the last automatic update? When the update-window pops up one can click on the entries and find a statement about what bug shall be fixed with a certain package, or more general why it is updated at all. I want to check for this information afterwards to check if a certain bug or functionality is claimed to be fixed already. thx - robert.

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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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• suggestions for lonewolf dev setup

  - by d33j

  I'm looking for some suggestions for a better development setup. Background: I'm a crusty old software engineer (mostly java of late) and I have around 50 - 100 incomplete java projects scattered everywhere, usb keys, HDDs, and spanning across 5 or 6 computers etc, which have been put on hold for a few years (ie: family). I have no version control at home. I've been using IntelliJ for around 10 years, so that's the only constant. I'm thinking of nominating one machine as a headless server to put all my projects on, maybe a ubuntu box, that way It won't matter which device I'm on, all my projects can be accessed (and I don't have to waste time actually looking for them). I don't need to access code over the net. These are my own 'happy place' projects so I only work on them when I'm at home, however I can see the benefit of the tasking app being online, that way if I think of something while on public transport lets say, I can add it then & there, but it's not a requirement. I can wait until I get home to create tasks. Summary: So I need some sort of version control so I can rollback mistakes, and some sort of simple tasking software where I can assign tasks for myself later on when I get time. I use Subversion, Sonar, Jira and Crucible at work but I think it's a little bit of an overkill for me though. What do you suggest?

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• Floating point undesirable 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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• Should I avoid or embrace asking questions of other developers on the job?

  - by T.K.

  As a CS undergraduate, the people around me are either learning or are paid to teach me, but as a software developer, the people around me have tasks of their own. They aren't paid to teach me, and conversely, I am paid to contribute. When I first started working as a software developer co-op, I was introduced to a huge code base written in a language I had never used before. I had plenty of questions, but didn't want to bother my co-workers with all of them - it wasted their time and hurt my pride. Instead, I spent a lot of time bouncing between IDE and browser, trying to make sense of what had already been written and differentiate between expected behavior and symptoms of bugs. I'd ask my co-workers when I felt that the root of my lack of understanding was an in-house concept that I wouldn't find on the internet, but aside from that, I tried to confine my questions to lunch hours. Naturally, there were occasions where I wasted time trying to understand something in code on the internet that had, at its heart, an in-house concept, but overall, I felt I was productive enough during my first semester, contributing about as much as one could expect and gaining a pretty decent understanding of large parts of the product. I was wondering what senior developers felt about that mindset. Should new developers ask more questions to get to speed faster, or should they do their own research for themselves? I see benefits to both mindsets, and anticipate a large variety of responses, but I figure new developers might appreciate your answers without thinking to ask this question.

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• Quick and Good: ( Requirement -> Validation -> Design ) for self use?

  - by Yugal Jindle

  How to casually do the required Software Engineering and designing? I am an inexperienced developer and face the following problem: My company is a start up and has no fix Software engineering systems. I am assigned tasks with not very clear and conflicting requirements. I don't have to follow any designs or verify requirements officially. Problem: I code all day and finally get stuck where requirement conflicts and I have to start over again. I can-not spend a lot of time doing proper SRS or SDD. How should I: List out Requirements for myself. (Not an official document) How to verify and validate the requirements? How to visualize them? How to design them with minimum effort? (As its going to be with me only) I don't want to waste my time coding something that's gonna collapse according to requirement conflict or something! I don't want to compromise with quality but don't want to re-write everything on some change that I didn't expected. I imagine making a diagram for my thought process that will show me conflict in the diagram itself, then finally correcting the diagram - I decide my design and structure my code in terms of interfaces or something. And then finally start implementing my design. I am able to sense the lack of systematic approach, but don't know how to proceed! Update: Please suggest me some tools that can ask me the questions and help me aggregate important details. How can I have diagram that I talked about for requirement verification?

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• How can I better manage far-reaching changes in my code?

  - by neuviemeporte

  In my work (writing scientific software in C++), I often get asked by the people who use the software to get their work done to add some functionality or change the way things are done and organized right now. Most of the time this is just a matter of adding a new class or a function and applying some glue to do the job, but from time to time, a seemingly simple change turns out to have far-reaching consequences that require me to redesign a substantial amount of existing code, which takes a lot of time and effort, and is difficult to evaluate in terms of time required. I don't think it has as much to do with inter-dependence of modules, as with changing requirements (admittedly, on a smaller scale). To provide an example, I was thinking about the recently-added multi-user functionality in Android. I don't know whether they planned to introduce it from the very beginning, but assuming they didn't, it seems hard to predict all the areas that will be affected by the change (apps preferences, themes, need to store account info somehow, etc...?), even though the concept seems simple enough, and the code is well-organized. How do you deal with such situations? Do you just jump in to code and then sort out the cruft later like I do? Or do you do a detailed analysis beforehand of what will be affected, what needs to be updated and how, and what has to be rewritten? If so, what tools (if any) and approaches do you use?

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