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• Automatically Organize Tags in Tax/Folksonomy

  - by Rob Wilkerson

  I'm working on a process that will perform natural language processing (NLP) on one--and potentially several--of our content rich sites. What I'd like to do once the NLP is complete is to automatically organize the output (generally a set of terms that you might think of as tags given the prevalence of that metaphor) into some kind of standard or generally accepted organizational structure. In a perfect world, I'd really like this to be crowd sourced under the folksonomy concept (as opposed to a taxonomy) since the ultimate goal is to target/appeal to real people rather than "domain experts", but I'm open to ideas and best practices. For the obvious purpose of scalability, I'd like to automate the population of this tax/folksonomy so that "some guy" in the team/organization isn't responsible for looking at a bunch of words (with or without context) and arbitrarily fleshing out the contextual components of the tree. I have a few ideas for doing this that require some research to establish viability, but I have exactly zero practical experience with this sort of thing so the ideas really just boil down to stuff I made up that might perform some role in accomplishing the task. Imagining that others have vastly more experience with this sort of thing, I'm hoping that I can stand on your shoulders. Thanks for your thoughts and insights.

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• Use of Java [Interfaces / Abstract classes]

  - by Samuel

  Hello, Lately i decided to take a look at Java so i am still pretty new to it and also to the approach of OO programming, so i wanted to get some things straight before learning more, (i guess it's never to soon to start with good practices). I am programming a little 2D game for now but i think my question applies to any non trivial project. For the simplicity i'll provide examples from my game. I have different kinds of zombies, but they all have the same attributes (x, y, health, attack etc) so i wrote an interface Zombie which i implement by WalkingZombie, RunningZombie TeleportingZombie etc. Is this the best thing to do? Am i better of with an abstract class? Or with a super class? (I am not planning to partially implement functions - therefor my choice for an interface instead of an abstract class) I have one class describing the main character (Survivor) and since it is pretty big i wanted to write an interface with the different functions, so that i can easily see and share the structure of it. Is it good practice? Or is it simply a waste of space and time? I hope this question will not be rated as subjective because i thought that experienced programmers won't disagree about this kind of topic since the use of interfaces / super classes / abstract classes follows logical rules and is thereby not simply a personal choice. Thank you for your time -Samuel

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• Console Application Structure

  - by Paul Fox

  I've written several .Net Console Applications over the past 6 months and we have many more throughout different projects in our organization. I generally stick to the same standard format/structure for my Console Applications. Unfortunately, many of our console applications do not. I have been looking into ways of standardizing the structure of these Console Applications. I would also like to provide a framework for the basic structure of a Console Application and provide easy access to standard ways of handling things such as argument passing, logging, etc. Can anyone suggest Best Practices for addressing these concerns? I have been reading this MSDN article on Console Applications in .Net which suggests a Design Pattern for Console Apps. The example uses a Template Method pattern to handle some of the concerns I listed earlier. Two negatives of using this approach are listed in the article. Ending up with twice as many classes Having many simple, similar classes Can anyone suggest better, or more standard, ways of handling this? What about listing additional negatives with this approach?

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• Wicket: Where to add components? Constructor? Or onBeforeRender?

  - by gmallett

  I'm a Wicket newb. This may just be my ignorance of the Wicket lifecycle so please enlighten me! My understanding is that Wicket WebPage objects are instantiated once and then serialized. This has led to a point of confusion for me, see below. Currently I have a template class which I intend to subclass. I followed the example in the Wicket docs demonstrating how to override the template's behavior in the subclass: protected void onBeforeRender() { add(new Label("title", getTitle())); super.onBeforeRender(); } protected String getTitle() { return "template"; } Subclass: protected String getTitle() { return "Home"; } This works very well. What's not clear to me are the "best practices" for this. It seems like onBeforeRender() is called on every request for the page, no? This seems like there would be substantially more processing done on a page if everything is in onBeforeRender(). I could easily follow the example of the other Wicket examples and add some components in the constructor that I do not want to override, but then I've divided by component logic into two places, something I'm hesitant to do. If I add a component that I intend to be in all subclasses, should I add it to the constructor or onBeforeRender()?

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• Why use shorter VARCHAR(n) fields?

  - by chryss

  It is frequently advised to choose database field sizes to be as narrow as possible. I am wondering to what degree this applies to SQL Server 2005 VARCHAR columns: Storing 10-letter English words in a VARCHAR(255) field will not take up more storage than in a VARCHAR(10) field. Are there other reasons to restrict the size of VARCHAR fields to stick as closely as possible to the size of the data? I'm thinking of Performance: Is there an advantage to using a smaller n when selecting, filtering and sorting on the data? Memory, including on the application side (C++)? Style/validation: How important do you consider restricting colunm size to force non-sensical data imports to fail (such as 200-character surnames)? Anything else? Background: I help data integrators with the design of data flows into a database-backed system. They have to use an API that restricts their choice of data types. For character data, only VARCHAR(n) with n <= 255 is available; CHAR, NCHAR, NVARCHAR and TEXT are not. We're trying to lay down some "good practices" rules, and the question has come up if there is a real detriment to using VARCHAR(255) even for data where real maximum sizes will never exceed 30 bytes or so. Typical data volumes for one table are 1-10 Mio records with up to 150 attributes. Query performance (SELECT, with frequently extensive WHERE clauses) and application-side retrieval performance are paramount.

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• Dealing with large number of text strings

  - by Fadrian

  My project when it is running, will collect a large number of string text block (about 20K and largest I have seen is about 200K of them) in short span of time and store them in a relational database. Each of the string text is relatively small and the average would be about 15 short lines (about 300 characters). The current implementation is in C# (VS2008), .NET 3.5 and backend DBMS is Ms. SQL Server 2005 Performance and storage are both important concern of the project, but the priority will be performance first, then storage. I am looking for answers to these: Should I compress the text before storing them in DB? or let SQL Server worry about compacting the storage? Do you know what will be the best compression algorithm/library to use for this context that gives me the best performance? Currently I just use the standard GZip in .NET framework Do you know any best practices to deal with this? I welcome outside the box suggestions as long as it is implementable in .NET framework? (it is a big project and this requirements is only a small part of it) EDITED: I will keep adding to this to clarify points raised I don't need text indexing or searching on these text. I just need to be able to retrieve them in later stage for display as a text block using its primary key. I have a working solution implemented as above and SQL Server has no issue at all handling it. This program will run quite often and need to work with large data context so you can imagine the size will grow very rapidly hence every optimization I can do will help.

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• How does an ASP.NET programmer go from working on/developing existing sites, to creating one from sc

  - by SLC

  I've been an ASP.NET developer for some time, always working on existing ASP.NET pages, modifying functionality, adding features, tweaking things etc. but have never built a site up from scratch. I've read books on ASP.NET, and they generally talk you through the various features of ASP.NET with a mock up site, but it's always very basic and they jump straight in. The time has come however, to write a site from scratch for a client. I've never done this before. There are design considerations, but like a lot of ASP.NET sites, the basic idea is, you have a site, where users can log in, and save some information like their name and password and address. The site has some functionality, but that's the basic design of a majority of (business-related) asp.net websites I would wager. I know how to program in ASP.NET already on an existing site, but I don't know how to design my own properly that meets the criteria above. I guess the main worry is security. I don't know the best way to handle a simple log-in system that stores user information like their name and password. I understand there are a few approaches to this, but the catch with this project is that it has to be absolutely bulletproof. Maximum security. All those good practices for security, it needs to have them all. I'm not asking what they are, but I am asking where to begin. What should be the first steps after I do File New Project ? Where can I look for information about setting up a secure ASP.NET website? I'll figure out the content and page layout later, it's the framework that is the big thing. Any and all advice would be welcome. I really want to get my first from-scratch project right from the beginning. Just to confuse things, it's possible I will be using MVC, I am not sure if this has any impact.

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• SQL Server: Why use shorter VARCHAR(n) fields?

  - by chryss

  It is frequently advised to choose database field sizes to be as narrow as possible. I am wondering to what degree this applies to SQL Server 2005 VARCHAR columns: Storing 10-letter English words in a VARCHAR(255) field will not take up more storage than in a VARCHAR(10) field. Are there other reasons to restrict the size of VARCHAR fields to stick as closely as possible to the size of the data? I'm thinking of Performance: Is there an advantage to using a smaller n when selecting, filtering and sorting on the data? Memory, including on the application side (C++)? Style/validation: How important do you consider restricting colunm size to force non-sensical data imports to fail (such as 200-character surnames)? Anything else? Background: I help data integrators with the design of data flows into a database-backed system. They have to use an API that restricts their choice of data types. For character data, only VARCHAR(n) with n <= 255 is available; CHAR, NCHAR, NVARCHAR and TEXT are not. We're trying to lay down some "good practices" rules, and the question has come up if there is a real detriment to using VARCHAR(255) even for data where real maximum sizes will never exceed 30 bytes or so. Typical data volumes for one table are 1-10 Mio records with up to 150 attributes. Query performance (SELECT, with frequently extensive WHERE clauses) and application-side retrieval performance are paramount.

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• Data access pattern

  - by andlju

  I need some advice on what kind of pattern(s) I should use for pushing/pulling data into my application. I'm writing a rule-engine that needs to hold quite a large amount of data in-memory in order to be efficient enough. I have some rather conflicting requirements; It is not acceptable for the engine to always have to wait for a full pre-load of all data before it is functional. Only fetching and caching data on-demand will lead to the engine taking too long before it is running quickly enough. An external event can trigger the need for specific parts of the data to be reloaded. Basically, I think I need a combination of pushing and pulling data into the application. A simplified version of my current "pattern" looks like this (in psuedo-C# written in notepad): // This interface is implemented by all classes that needs the data interface IDataSubscriber { void RegisterData(Entity data); } // This interface is implemented by the data access class interface IDataProvider { void EnsureLoaded(Key dataKey); void RegisterSubscriber(IDataSubscriber subscriber); } class MyClassThatNeedsData : IDataSubscriber { IDataProvider _provider; MyClassThatNeedsData(IDataProvider provider) { _provider = provider; _provider.RegisterSubscriber(this); } public void RegisterData(Entity data) { // Save data for later StoreDataInCache(data); } void UseData(Key key) { // Make sure that the data has been stored in cache _provider.EnsureLoaded(key); Entity data = GetDataFromCache(key); } } class MyDataProvider : IDataProvider { List<IDataSubscriber> _subscribers; // Make sure that the data for key has been loaded to all subscribers public void EnsureLoaded(Key key) { if (HasKeyBeenMarkedAsLoaded(key)) return; PublishDataToSubscribers(key); MarkKeyAsLoaded(key); } // Force all subscribers to get a new version of the data for key public void ForceReload(Key key) { PublishDataToSubscribers(key); MarkKeyAsLoaded(key); } void PublishDataToSubscribers(Key key) { Entity data = FetchDataFromStore(key); foreach(var subscriber in _subscribers) { subscriber.RegisterData(data); } } } // This class will be spun off on startup and should make sure that all data is // preloaded as quickly as possible class MyPreloadingThread { IDataProvider _provider; MyPreloadingThread(IDataProvider provider) { _provider = provider; } void RunInBackground() { IEnumerable<Key> allKeys = GetAllKeys(); foreach(var key in allKeys) { _provider.EnsureLoaded(key); } } } I have a feeling though that this is not necessarily the best way of doing this.. Just the fact that explaining it seems to take two pages feels like an indication.. Any ideas? Any patterns out there I should have a look at?

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• Is the design notion of layers contrived?

  - by Bruce

  Hi all I'm reading through Eric Evans' awesome work, Domain-Driven Design. However, I can't help feeling that the 'layers' model is contrived. To expand on that statement, it seems as if it tries to shoe-horn various concepts into a specific, neat model, that of layers talking to each other. It seems to me that the layers model is too simplified to actually capture the way that (good) software works. To expand further: Evans says: "Partition a complex program into layers. Develop a design within each layer that is cohesive and that depends only on the layers below. Follow standard architectural patterns to provide loose coupling to the layers above." Maybe I'm misunderstanding what 'depends' means, but as far as I can see, it can either mean a) Class X (in the UI for example) has a reference to a concrete class Y (in the main application) or b) Class X has a reference to a class Y-ish object providing class Y-ish services (ie a reference held as an interface). If it means (a), then this is clearly a bad thing, since it defeats re-using the UI as a front-end to some other application that provides Y-ish functionality. But if it means (b), then how is the UI any more dependent on the application, than the application is dependent on the UI? Both are decoupled from each other as much as they can be while still talking to each other. Evans' layer model of dependencies going one way seems too neat. First, isn't it more accurate to say that each area of the design provides a module that is pretty much an island to itself, and that ideally all communication is through interfaces, in a contract-driven/responsibility-driven paradigm? (ie, the 'dependency only on lower layers' is contrived). Likewise with the domain layer talking to the database - the domain layer is as decoupled (through DAO etc) from the database as the database is from the domain layer. Neither is dependent on the other, both can be swapped out. Second, the idea of a conceptual straight line (as in from one layer to the next) is artificial - isn't there more a network of intercommunicating but separate modules, including external services, utility services and so on, branching off at different angles? Thanks all - hoping that your responses can clarify my understanding on this..

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• Data access pattern, combining push and pull?

  - by andlju

  I need some advice on what kind of pattern(s) I should use for pushing/pulling data into my application. I'm writing a rule-engine that needs to hold quite a large amount of data in-memory in order to be efficient enough. I have some rather conflicting requirements; It is not acceptable for the engine to always have to wait for a full pre-load of all data before it is functional. Only fetching and caching data on-demand will lead to the engine taking too long before it is running quickly enough. An external event can trigger the need for specific parts of the data to be reloaded. Basically, I think I need a combination of pushing and pulling data into the application. A simplified version of my current "pattern" looks like this (in psuedo-C# written in notepad): // This interface is implemented by all classes that needs the data interface IDataSubscriber { void RegisterData(Entity data); } // This interface is implemented by the data access class interface IDataProvider { void EnsureLoaded(Key dataKey); void RegisterSubscriber(IDataSubscriber subscriber); } class MyClassThatNeedsData : IDataSubscriber { IDataProvider _provider; MyClassThatNeedsData(IDataProvider provider) { _provider = provider; _provider.RegisterSubscriber(this); } public void RegisterData(Entity data) { // Save data for later StoreDataInCache(data); } void UseData(Key key) { // Make sure that the data has been stored in cache _provider.EnsureLoaded(key); Entity data = GetDataFromCache(key); } } class MyDataProvider : IDataProvider { List<IDataSubscriber> _subscribers; // Make sure that the data for key has been loaded to all subscribers public void EnsureLoaded(Key key) { if (HasKeyBeenMarkedAsLoaded(key)) return; PublishDataToSubscribers(key); MarkKeyAsLoaded(key); } // Force all subscribers to get a new version of the data for key public void ForceReload(Key key) { PublishDataToSubscribers(key); MarkKeyAsLoaded(key); } void PublishDataToSubscribers(Key key) { Entity data = FetchDataFromStore(key); foreach(var subscriber in _subscribers) { subscriber.RegisterData(data); } } } // This class will be spun off on startup and should make sure that all data is // preloaded as quickly as possible class MyPreloadingThread { IDataProvider _provider; MyPreloadingThread(IDataProvider provider) { _provider = provider; } void RunInBackground() { IEnumerable<Key> allKeys = GetAllKeys(); foreach(var key in allKeys) { _provider.EnsureLoaded(key); } } } I have a feeling though that this is not necessarily the best way of doing this.. Just the fact that explaining it seems to take two pages feels like an indication.. Any ideas? Any patterns out there I should have a look at?

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• Observer pattern used with decorator pattern

  - by icelated

  I want to make a program that does an order entry system for beverages. ( i will probably do description, cost) I want to use the Decorator pattern and the observer pattern. I made a UML drawing and saved it as a pic for easy viewing. This site wont let me upload as a word doc so i have to upload a pic - i hope its easily viewable.... I need to know if i am doing the UML / design patterns correctly before moving on to the coding part. Beverage is my abstract component class. Espresso, houseblend, darkroast are my concrete subject classes.. I also have a condiment decorator class milk,mocha,soy,whip. would be my observer? because they would be interested in data changes to cost? Now, would the espresso,houseblend etc, be my SUBJECT and the condiments be my observer? My theory is that Cost is a changes and that the condiments need to know the changes? So, subject = esspresso,houseblend,darkroast,etc.. // they hold cost() Observer = milk,mocha,soy,whip? // they hold cost() would be the concrete components and the milk,mocha,soy,whip? would be the decorator! So, following good software engineering practices "design to an interface and not implementation" or "identify things that change from those that dont" would i need a costbehavior interface? If you look at the UML you will see where i am going with this and see if i am implementing observer + Decorator pattern correctly? I think the decorator is correct. since, the pic is not very viewable i will detail the classes here: Beverage class(register observer, remove observer, notify observer, description) these classes are the concrete beverage classes espresso, houseblend,darkroast, decaf(cost,getdescription,setcost,costchanged) interface observer class(update) // cost? interface costbehavior class(cost) // since this changes? condiment decorator class( getdescription) concrete classes that are linked to the 2 interface s and decorator are: milk,mocha,soy,whip(cost,getdescription,update) these are my decorator/ wrapper classes. Thank you.. Is there a way to make this picture bigger?

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• DB Design Pattern - Many to many classification / categorised tagging.

  - by Robin Day

  I have an existing database design that stores Job Vacancies. The "Vacancy" table has a number of fixed fields across all clients, such as "Title", "Description", "Salary range". There is an EAV design for "Custom" fields that the Clients can setup themselves, such as, "Manager Name", "Working Hours". The field names are stored in a "ClientText" table and the data stored in a "VacancyClientText" table with VacancyId, ClientTextId and Value. Lastly there is a many to many EAV design for custom tagging / categorising the vacancies with things such as Locations/Offices the vacancy is in, a list of skills required. This is stored as a "ClientCategory" table listing the types of tag, "Locations, Skills", a "ClientCategoryItem" table listing the valid values for each Category, e.g., "London,Paris,New York,Rome", "C#,VB,PHP,Python". Finally there is a "VacancyClientCategoryItem" table with VacancyId and ClientCategoryItemId for each of the selected items for the vacancy. There are no limits to the number of custom fields or custom categories that the client can add. I am now designing a new system that is very similar to the existing system, however, I have the ability to restrict the number of custom fields a Client can have and it's being built from scratch so I have no legacy issues to deal with. For the Custom Fields my solution is simple, I have 5 additional columns on the Vacancy Table called CustomField1-5. This removes one of the EAV designs. It is with the tagging / categorising design that I am struggling. If I limit a client to having 5 categories / types of tag. Should I create 5 tables listing the possible values "CustomCategoryItems1-5" and then an additional 5 many to many tables "VacancyCustomCategoryItem1-5" This would result in 10 tables performing the same storage as the three tables in the existing system. Also, should (heaven forbid) the requirements change in that I need 6 custom categories rather than 5 then this will result in a lot of code change. Therefore, can anyone suggest any DB Design Patterns that would be more suitable to storing such data. I'm happy to stick with the EAV approach, however, the existing system has come across all the usual performance issues and complex queries associated with such a design. Any advice / suggestions are much appreciated. The DBMS system used is SQL Server 2005, however, 2008 is an option if required for any particular pattern.

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• Guilty of unsound programming

  - by TelJanini

  I was reading Robert Rossney's entry on "What's the most unsound program you've had to maintain?" found at: (What's the most unsound program you've had to maintain?) when I realized that I had inadvertently developed a near-identical application! The app consists of an HTTPListener object that grabs incoming POST requests. Based on the information in the header, I pass the body of the request to SQL Server to perform the appropriate transaction. The requests look like: <InvoiceCreate Control="389> <Invoice> <CustomerNumber>5555</CustomerNumber> <Total>300.00</Total> <RushOrder>1</RushOrder> </Invoice> </InvoiceCreate> Once it's received by the HTTPListener object, I perform the required INSERT to the Invoice table using SQL Server's built-in XML handling functionality via a stored procedure: INSERT INTO Invoice (InvoiceNumber, CustomerNumber, Total, RushOrder) SELECT @NEW_INVOICE_NUMBER, @XML.value('(InvoiceCreate/Invoice/CustomerNumber)[1]', 'varchar(10)'), @XML.value('(InvoiceCreate/Invoice/Total)[1]', 'varchar(10)'), @XML.value('(InvoiceCreate/Invoice/Total)[1]', 'varchar(10)') I then use another SELECT statement in the same stored procedure to return the value of the new Invoice Number that was inserted into the Invoices table: SELECT @NEW_INVOICE_NUMBER FOR XML PATH 'InvoiceCreateAck' I then read the generated XML using a SQL data reader object in C# and use it as the response of the HTTPListener object. My issue is, I'm noticing that Robert is indeed correct. All of my application logic exists inside the stored procedure, so I find myself having to do a lot of error-checking (i.e. validating the customer number and invoicenumber values) inside the stored procedure. I'm still a midlevel developer, and as such, am looking to improve. Given the original post, and my current architecture, what could I have done differently to improve the application? Are there any patterns or best practices that I could refer to? What approach would you have taken? I'm open to any and all criticism, as I'd like to do my part to reduce the amount of "unsound programming" in the world.

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• SQL SERVER – Watch Online and Download – Inside of Next Generation SQL Server – Best Practices Analyzer using Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer

  - by pinaldave

  I presented on subject Inside of Next Generation SQL Server – Denali online at Zeollar.com. This sessions are really fun as they are online, downloadable, and 100% demo oriented. I used SQL Server ‘Denali’ CTP 1 to present on the subject of What is New in Denali. My earlier session on the Topic of Best Practices Analyzer is also available to watch online here: SQL SERVER – Video – Best Practices Analyzer using Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer I enjoyed presenting a lot on above two subjects. I would like to ask your opinion on the same. You can download the sessions and watch it yourself afterwords. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• When should I use Perl's AUTOLOAD?

  - by Robert S. Barnes

  In "Perl Best Practices" the very first line in the section on AUTOLOAD is: Don't use AUTOLOAD However all the cases he describes are dealing with OO or Modules. I have a stand alone script in which some command line switches control which versions of particular functions get defined. Now I know I could just take the conditionals and the evals and stick them naked at the top of my file before everything else, but I find it convenient and cleaner to put them in AUTOLOAD at the end of the file. Is this bad practice / style? If you think so why, and is there a another way to do it? As per brian's request I'm basically using this to do conditional compilation based on command line switches. I don't mind some constructive criticism. sub AUTOLOAD { our $AUTOLOAD; (my $method = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*:://s; # remove package name if ($method eq 'tcpdump' && $tcpdump) { eval q( sub tcpdump { my $msg = shift; warn gf_time()." Thread ".threads->tid().": $msg\n"; } ); } elsif ($method eq 'loginfo' && $debug) { eval q( sub loginfo { my $msg = shift; $msg =~ s/$CRLF/\n/g; print gf_time()." Thread ".threads->tid().": $msg\n"; } ); } elsif ($method eq 'build_get') { if ($pipelining) { eval q( sub build_get { my $url = shift; my $base = shift; $url = "http://".$url unless $url =~ /^http/; return "GET $url HTTP/1.1${CRLF}Host: $base$CRLF$CRLF"; } ); } else { eval q( sub build_get { my $url = shift; my $base = shift; $url = "http://".$url unless $url =~ /^http/; return "GET $url HTTP/1.1${CRLF}Host: $base${CRLF}Connection: close$CRLF$CRLF"; } ); } } elsif ($method eq 'grow') { eval q{ require Convert::Scalar qw(grow); }; if ($@) { eval q( sub grow {} ); } goto &$method; } else { eval "sub $method {}"; return; } die $@ if $@; goto &$method; }

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• Managing highly repetitive code and documentation in Java

  - by polygenelubricants

  Highly repetitive code is generally a bad thing, and there are design patterns that can help minimize this. However, sometimes it's simply inevitable due to the constraints of the language itself. Take the following example from java.util.Arrays: /** * Assigns the specified long value to each element of the specified * range of the specified array of longs. The range to be filled * extends from index <tt>fromIndex</tt>, inclusive, to index * <tt>toIndex</tt>, exclusive. (If <tt>fromIndex==toIndex</tt>, the * range to be filled is empty.) * * @param a the array to be filled * @param fromIndex the index of the first element (inclusive) to be * filled with the specified value * @param toIndex the index of the last element (exclusive) to be * filled with the specified value * @param val the value to be stored in all elements of the array * @throws IllegalArgumentException if <tt>fromIndex &gt; toIndex</tt> * @throws ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if <tt>fromIndex &lt; 0</tt> or * <tt>toIndex &gt; a.length</tt> */ public static void fill(long[] a, int fromIndex, int toIndex, long val) { rangeCheck(a.length, fromIndex, toIndex); for (int i=fromIndex; i<toIndex; i++) a[i] = val; } The above snippet appears in the source code 8 times, with very little variation in the documentation/method signature but exactly the same method body, one for each of the root array types int[], short[], char[], byte[], boolean[], double[], float[], and Object[]. I believe that unless one resorts to reflection (which is an entirely different subject in itself), this repetition is inevitable. I understand that as a utility class, such high concentration of repetitive Java code is highly atypical, but even with the best practice, repetition does happen! Refactoring doesn't always work because it's not always possible (the obvious case is when the repetition is in the documentation). Obviously maintaining this source code is a nightmare. A slight typo in the documentation, or a minor bug in the implementation, is multiplied by however many repetitions was made. In fact, the best example happens to involve this exact class: Google Research Blog - Extra, Extra - Read All About It: Nearly All Binary Searches and Mergesorts are Broken (by Joshua Bloch, Software Engineer) The bug is a surprisingly subtle one, occurring in what many thought to be just a simple and straightforward algorithm. // int mid =(low + high) / 2; // the bug int mid = (low + high) >>> 1; // the fix The above line appears 11 times in the source code! So my questions are: How are these kinds of repetitive Java code/documentation handled in practice? How are they developed, maintained, and tested? Do you start with "the original", and make it as mature as possible, and then copy and paste as necessary and hope you didn't make a mistake? And if you did make a mistake in the original, then just fix it everywhere, unless you're comfortable with deleting the copies and repeating the whole replication process? And you apply this same process for the testing code as well? Would Java benefit from some sort of limited-use source code preprocessing for this kind of thing? Perhaps Sun has their own preprocessor to help write, maintain, document and test these kind of repetitive library code? A comment requested another example, so I pulled this one from Google Collections: com.google.common.base.Predicates lines 276-310 (AndPredicate) vs lines 312-346 (OrPredicate). The source for these two classes are identical, except for: AndPredicate vs OrPredicate (each appears 5 times in its class) "And(" vs Or(" (in the respective toString() methods) #and vs #or (in the @see Javadoc comments) true vs false (in apply; ! can be rewritten out of the expression) -1 /* all bits on */ vs 0 /* all bits off */ in hashCode() &= vs |= in hashCode()

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• hibernate column uniqueness question

  - by Seth

  I'm still in the process of learning hibernate/hql and I have a question that's half best practices question/half sanity check. Let's say I have a class A: @Entity public class A { @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.AUTO) private Long id; @Column(unique=true) private String name = ""; //getters, setters, etc. omitted for brevity } I want to enforce that every instance of A that gets saved has a unique name (hence the @Column annotation), but I also want to be able to handle the case where there's already an A instance saved that has that name. I see two ways of doing this: 1) I can catch the org.hibernate.exception.ConstraintViolationException that could be thrown during the session.saveOrUpdate() call and try to handle it. 2) I can query for existing instances of A that already have that name in the DAO before calling session.saveOrUpdate(). Right now I'm leaning towards approach 2, because in approach 1 I don't know how to programmatically figure out which constraint was violated (there are a couple of other unique members in A). Right now my DAO.save() code looks roughly like this: public void save(A a) throws DataAccessException, NonUniqueNameException { Session session = sessionFactory.getCurrentSession(); try { session.beginTransaction(); Query query = null; //if id isn't null, make sure we don't count this object as a duplicate if(obj.getId() == null) { query = session.createQuery("select count(a) from A a where a.name = :name").setParameter("name", obj.getName()); } else { query = session.createQuery("select count(a) from A a where a.name = :name " + "and a.id != :id").setParameter("name", obj.getName()).setParameter("name", obj.getName()); } Long numNameDuplicates = (Long)query.uniqueResult(); if(numNameDuplicates > 0) throw new NonUniqueNameException(); session.saveOrUpdate(a); session.getTransaction().commit(); } catch(RuntimeException e) { session.getTransaction().rollback(); throw new DataAccessException(e); //my own class } } Am I going about this in the right way? Can hibernate tell me programmatically (i.e. not as an error string) which value is violating the uniqueness constraint? By separating the query from the commit, am I inviting thread-safety errors, or am I safe? How is this usually done? Thanks!

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• Writing Device Drivers for Microcontrollers, where to define IO Port pins?

  - by volting

  I always seem to encounter this dilemma when writing low level code for MCU's. I never know where to declare pin definitions so as to make the code as reusable as possible. In this case Im writing a driver to interface an 8051 to a MCP4922 12bit serial DAC. Im unsure how/where I should declare the pin definitions for The CS(chip select) and LDAC(data latch) for the DAC. At the moment there declared in the header file for the driver. Iv done a lot of research trying to figure out the best approach but havent really found anything. Im basically want to know what the best practices... if there are some books worth reading or online information, examples etc, any recommendations would be welcome. Just a snippet of the driver so you get the idea /** @brief This function is used to write a 16bit data word to DAC B -12 data bit plus 4 configuration bits @param dac_data A 12bit word @param ip_buf_unbuf_select Input Buffered/unbuffered select bit. Buffered = 1; Unbuffered = 0 @param gain_select Output Gain Selection bit. 1 = 1x (VOUT = VREF * D/4096). 0 =2x (VOUT = 2 * VREF * D/4096) */ void MCP4922_DAC_B_TX_word(unsigned short int dac_data, bit ip_buf_unbuf_select, bit gain_select) { unsigned char low_byte=0, high_byte=0; CS = 0; /**Select the chip*/ high_byte |= ((0x01 << 7) | (0x01 << 4)); /**Set bit to select DAC A and Set SHDN bit high for DAC A active operation*/ if(ip_buf_unbuf_select) high_byte |= (0x01 << 6); if(gain_select) high_byte |= (0x01 << 5); high_byte |= ((dac_data >> 8) & 0x0F); low_byte |= dac_data; SPI_master_byte(high_byte); SPI_master_byte(low_byte); CS = 1; LDAC = 0; /**Latch the Data*/ LDAC = 1; }

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• Good style for handling constructor failure of critical object

  - by mtlphil

  I'm trying to decide between two ways of instantiating an object & handling any constructor exceptions for an object that is critical to my program, i.e. if construction fails the program can't continue. I have a class SimpleMIDIOut that wraps basic Win32 MIDI functions. It will open a MIDI device in the constructor and close it in the destructor. It will throw an exception inherited from std::exception in the constructor if the MIDI device cannot be opened. Which of the following ways of catching constructor exceptions for this object would be more in line with C++ best practices Method 1 - Stack allocated object, only in scope inside try block #include <iostream> #include "simplemidiout.h" int main() { try { SimpleMIDIOut myOut; //constructor will throw if MIDI device cannot be opened myOut.PlayNote(60,100); //..... //myOut goes out of scope outside this block //so basically the whole program has to be inside //this block. //On the plus side, it's on the stack so //destructor that handles object cleanup //is called automatically, more inline with RAII idiom? } catch(const std::exception& e) { std::cout << e.what() << std::endl; std::cin.ignore(); return 1; } std::cin.ignore(); return 0; } Method 2 - Pointer to object, heap allocated, nicer structured code? #include <iostream> #include "simplemidiout.h" int main() { SimpleMIDIOut *myOut; try { myOut = new SimpleMIDIOut(); } catch(const std::exception& e) { std::cout << e.what() << std::endl; delete myOut; return 1; } myOut->PlayNote(60,100); std::cin.ignore(); delete myOut; return 0; } I like the look of the code in Method 2 better, don't have to jam my whole program into a try block, but Method 1 creates the object on the stack so C++ manages the object's life time, which is more in tune with RAII philosophy isn't it? I'm still a novice at this so any feedback on the above is much appreciated. If there's an even better way to check for/handle constructor failure in a siatuation like this please let me know.

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• Objective-c design advice for use of different data sources, swapping between test and live

  - by user200341

  I'm in the process of designing an application that is part of a larger piece of work, depending on other people to build an API that the app can make use of to retrieve data. While I was thinking about how to setup this project and design the architecture around it, something occurred to me, and I'm sure many people have been in similar situations. Since my work is depending on other people to complete their tasks, and a test server, this slows work down at my end. So the question is: What's the best practice for creating test repositories and classes, implementing them, and not having to depend on altering several places in the code to swap between the test classes and the actual repositories / proper api calls. Contemplate the following scenario: GetDataFromApiCommand *getDataCommand = [[GetDataFromApiCommand alloc]init]; getDataCommand.delegate = self; [getDataCommand getData]; Once the data is available via the API, "GetDataFromApiCommand" could use the actual API, but until then a set of mock data could be returned upon the call of [getDataCommand getData] There might be multiple instances of this, in various places in the code, so replacing all of them wherever they are, is a slow and painful process which inevitably leads to one or two being overlooked. In strongly typed languages we could use dependency injection and just alter one place. In objective-c a factory pattern could be implemented, but is that the best route to go for this? GetDataFromApiCommand *getDataCommand = [GetDataFromApiCommandFactory buildGetDataFromApiCommand]; getDataCommand.delegate = self; [getDataCommand getData]; What is the best practices to achieve this result? Since this would be most useful, even if you have the actual API available, to run tests, or work off-line, the ApiCommands would not necessarily have to be replaced permanently, but the option to select "Do I want to use TestApiCommand or ApiCommand". It is more interesting to have the option to switch between: All commands are test and All command use the live API, rather than selecting them one by one, however that would also be useful to do for testing one or two actual API commands, mixing them with test data. EDIT The way I have chosen to go with this is to use the factory pattern. I set up the factory as follows: @implementation ApiCommandFactory + (ApiCommand *)newApiCommand { // return [[ApiCommand alloc]init]; return [[ApiCommandMock alloc]init]; } @end And anywhere I want to use the ApiCommand class: GetDataFromApiCommand *getDataCommand = [ApiCommandFactory newApiCommand]; When the actual API call is required, the comments can be removed and the mock can be commented out. Using new in the message name implies that who ever uses the factory to get an object, is responsible for releasing it (since we want to avoid autorelease on the iPhone). If additional parameters are required, the factory needs to take these into consideration i.e: [ApiCommandFactory newSecondApiCommand:@"param1"]; This will work quite well with repositories as well.

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• MVC design in Cocoa - are all 3 always necessary? Also: naming conventions, where to put Controller

  - by Nektarios

  I'm new to MVC although I've read a lot of papers and information on the web. I know it's somewhat ambiguous and there are many different interpretations of MVC patterns.. but the differences seem somewhat minimal My main question is - are M, V, and C always going to be necessary to be doing this right? I haven't seen anyone address this in anything I've read. Examples (I'm working in Cocoa/Obj-c although that shouldn't much matter).. 1) If I have a simple image on my GUI, or a text entry field that is just for a user's convenience and isn't saved or modified, these both would be V (view) but there's no M (no data and no domain processing going on), and no C to bridge them. So I just have some aspects that are "V" - seems fine 2) I have 2 different and visible windows that each have a button on them labeled as "ACTIVATE FOO" - when a user clicks the button on either, both buttons press in and change to say "DEACTIVATE FOO" and a third window appears with label "FOO". Clicking the button again will change the button on both windows to "ACTIVATE FOO" and will remove the third "FOO" window. In this case, my V consists of the buttons on both windows, and I guess also the third window (maybe all 3 windows). I definitely have a C, my Controller object will know about these buttons and windows and will get their clicks and hold generic states regarding windows and buttons. However, whether I have 1 button or 10 button, my window is called "FOO" or my window is called "BAR", this doesn't matter. There's no domain knowledge or data here - just control of views. So in this example, I really have "V" and "C" but no "M" - is that ok? 3) Final example, which I am running in to the most. I have a text entry field as my View. When I enter text in this, say a number representing gravity, I keep it in a Model that may do things like compute physics of a ball while taking in to account my gravity parameter. Here I have a V and an M, but I don't understand why I would need to add a C - a controller would just accept the signals from the View and pass it along to the Model, and vice versa. Being as the C is just a pure passthrough, it's really "junk" code and isn't making things any more reusable in my opinion. In most situations, when something changes I will need to change the C and M both in nearly identical ways. I realize it's probably an MVC beginner's mistake to think most situations call for only V and M.. leads me in to next subject 4) In Cocoa / Xcode / IB, I guess my Controllers should always be an instantiated object in IB? That is, I lay all of my "V" components in IB, and for each collection of View objects (things that are related) I should have an instantiated Controller? And then perhaps my Models should NOT be found in IB, and instead only found as classes in Xcode that tie in with Controller code found there. Is this accurate? This could explain why you'd have a Controller that is not really adding value - because you are keeping consistent.. 5) What about naming these things - for my above example about FOO / BAR maybe something that ends in Controller would be the C, like FancyWindowOpeningController, etc? And for models - should I suffix them with like GravityBallPhysicsModel etc, or should I just name those whatever I like? I haven't seen enough code to know what's out there in the wild and I want to get on the right track early on Thank you in advance for setting me straight or letting me know I'm on the right track. I feel like I'm starting to get it and most of what I say here makes sense, but validation of my guessing would help me feel confident..

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• How to cope with developing against a poor 3rd party API/application?

  - by wsanville

  I'm a web developer, and my organization has recently started to use a proprietary ASP.NET CMS for our web sites. I was excited to get started using the CMS, thinking it would bring a lot of value to our end users and be fun to work with, since my skills are a good match for the types of projects we're using it for. That was about a year ago. Since then, we've ran into all kinds of issues, from blatant bugs in the product, to nasty edge cases in the APIs, to extremely poor documentation for developers. On about a weekly basis, we are forced to pursue workarounds and rewrite some of the out of the box functionality, and even find some of the basic features unusable. In many cases, since this is a closed source application (and obfuscated of course), there's nothing we can do as developers to solve these issues. So my question is, how does one attempt to develop a good application in such a scenario? The application mostly works when using the the exact out of the box behavior, or using one of the company's starter sites. However, my attempts to use the underlying APIs to implement slightly different, yet reasonable behavior has proved to be extremely time consuming (not to mention just as buggy), given the lack of good information about the APIs. I've given this a lot of thought, and my conflicting viewpoints are the following: Strongly advise against any customization to the CMS, as development time will rise exponentially, or even have an extremely high chance of failing. While this is accurate, I do not want to give the impression that I am not willing to code my own solutions to problems and take the initiative to implement something difficult or complex. I don't want to be perceived as someone who is not motivated, lazy, or not knowledgeable to do anything complex, because this is simply not the case. I love coding my own solutions, trying new/difficult things, I just dislike the vendor app we're using. Continue on the path I'm on now, which is hacking my way past all issues I encounter and try my best to deliver an application that meets the needs and specs exactly. My goals are to make it as seamless and easy to use as possible to the end user, even when integrating the CMS with our other applications internally. The problem I'm finding with this approach is it is very time consuming. I open support cases with the vendor on a regular basis to solve issues and to gain knowledge of their APIs, but this is extremely time consuming, and in some cases it leads to dead ends. I post on the vendors forums on a regular basis but have become frustrated as most of my posts get 0 replies. So, what would you, a reasonable developer, do in this case? How can I make the best of the situation? And just for fun, here are some of the code smells and anti-patterns I've dealt with using the product (aside from their own code blatantly failing): Use of StringBuilder to concatenate a giant string that is hard coded and does not change. They use it to concatenate their Javascript and write it out into the body tags of their pages. Methods that accept object or Microsoft.VisualBasic.Collection as the parameters. In the case of the VB Collection, the data is not a list of any kind, it's used instead of making a class. Methods that return a Hashtable of VB Collections Method names of the form MethodName_v45, MethodName_v20, etc... Multiple classes with the same name in different namespaces with different functionality/behavior. Intellisense that reads "Note: this parameter is non functional" Complete lack of coding standards, API is filled with magic numbers and magic strings. Properties with a getter of type object that accepts totally different things, like enum or strings, and throw exceptions at runtime when you pass in something not supported. And much, much, more...

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• What is a good generic sibling control Javascript communication strategy?

  - by James

  I'm building a webpage that is composed of several controls, and trying to come up with an effective somewhat generic client side sibling control communication model. One of the controls is the menu control. Whenever an item is clicked in here I wanted to expose a custom client side event that other controls can subscribe to, so that I can achieve a loosely coupled sibling control communication model. To that end I've created a simple Javascript event collection class (code below) that acts as like a hub for control event registration and event subscription. This code certainly gets the job done, but my question is is there a better more elegant way to do this in terms of best practices or tools, or is this just a fools errand? /// Event collection object - acts as the hub for control communication. function ClientEventCollection() { this.ClientEvents = {}; this.RegisterEvent = _RegisterEvent; this.AttachToEvent = _AttachToEvent; this.FireEvent = _FireEvent; function _RegisterEvent(eventKey) { if (!this.ClientEvents[eventKey]) this.ClientEvents[eventKey] = []; } function _AttachToEvent(eventKey, handlerFunc) { if (this.ClientEvents[eventKey]) this.ClientEvents[eventKey][this.ClientEvents[eventKey].length] = handlerFunc; } function _FireEvent(eventKey, triggerId, contextData ) { if (this.ClientEvents[eventKey]) { for (var i = 0; i < this.ClientEvents[eventKey].length; i++) { var fn = this.ClientEvents[eventKey][i]; if (fn) fn(triggerId, contextData); } } } } // load new collection instance. var myClientEvents = new bsdClientEventCollection(); // register events specific to the control that owns it, this will be emitted by each respective control. myClientEvents.RegisterEvent("menu-item-clicked"); Here is the part where this code above is consumed by source and subscriber controls. // menu control $(document).ready(function() { $(".menu > a").click( function(event) { //event.preventDefault(); myClientEvents.FireEvent("menu-item-clicked", $(this).attr("id"), null); }); }); <div style="float: left;" class="menu"> <a id="1" href="#">Menu Item1</a><br /> <a id="2" href="#">Menu Item2</a><br /> <a id="3" href="#">Menu Item3</a><br /> <a id="4" href="#">Menu Item4</a><br /> </div> // event subscriber control $(document).ready(function() { myClientEvents.AttachToEvent("menu-item-clicked", menuItemChanged); myClientEvents.AttachToEvent("menu-item-clicked", menuItemChanged2); myClientEvents.AttachToEvent("menu-item-clicked", menuItemChanged3); }); function menuItemChanged(id, contextData) { alert('menuItemChanged ' + id); } function menuItemChanged2(id, contextData) { alert('menuItemChanged2 ' + id); } function menuItemChanged3(id, contextData) { alert('menuItemChanged3 ' + id); }

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• Associating an Object with other Objects and Properties of those Objects

  - by alzoid

  I am looking for some help with designing some functionality in my application. I already have something similar designed but this problem is a little different. Background: In my application we have different Modules. Data in each module can be associated to other modules. Each Module is represented by an Object in our application. Module 1 can be associated with Module 2 and Module 3. Currently I use a factory to provide the proper DAO for getting and saving this data. It looks something like this: class Module1Factory { public static Module1BridgeDAO createModule1BridgeDAO(int moduleid) { switch (moduleId) { case Module.Module2Id: return new Module1_Module2DAO(); case Module.Module3Id: return new Module1_Module3DAO(); default: return null; } } } Module1_Module2 and Module1_Module3 implement the same BridgeModule interface. In the database I have a Table for every module (Module1, Module2, Module3). I also have a bridge table for each module (they are many to many) Module1_Module2, Module1_Module3 etc. The DAO basically handles all code needed to manage the association and retrieve its own instance data for the calling module. Now when we add new modules that associate with Module1 we simply implement the ModuleBridge interface and provide the common functionality. New Development We are adding a new module that will have the ability to be associated with other Modules as well as specific properties of that module. The module is basically providing the user the ability to add their custom forms to our other modules. That way they can collect additional information along with what we provide. I want to start associating my Form module with other modules and their properties. Ie if Module1 has a property Category, I want to associate an instance From data with that property. There are many Forms. If a users creates an instance of Module2, they may always want to also have certain form(s) attached to that Module2 instance. If they create an instance of Module2 and select Category 1, then I may want additional Form(s) created. I prototyped something like this: Form FormLayout (contains the labels and gui controls) FormModule (associates a form with all instances of a module) Form Instance (create an instance of a form to be filled out) As I thought about it I was thinking about making a new FormModule table/class/dao for each Module and Property that I add. So I might have: FormModule1 FormModule1Property1 FormModule1Property2 FormModule1Property3 FormModule1Property4 FormModule2 FormModule3 FormModule3Property1 Then as I did previously, I would use a factory to get the proper DAO for dealing with all of these. I would hand it an array of ids representing different modules and properties and it would return all of the DAOs that I need to call getForms(). Which in turn would return all of the forms for that particular bridge. Some points This will be for a new module so I dont need to expand on the factory code I provided. I just wanted to show an example of what I have done in the past. The new module can be associated with: Other Modules (ie globally for any instance of that module data), Other module properties (ie only if the Module instance has a certian value in one of its properties) I want to make it easy for developers to add associations with other modules and properties easily Can any one suggest any design patterns or strategy's for achieving this? If anything is unclear please let me know. Thank you, Al

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