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For an open source project, is it legal and acceptable to link to commercial libraries? For example, an open source application I'm involved in would benefit from using commercial 3rd party user interface library.
I am in the design phase of a project where the end user will submit a request from a web page that will spawn a long running asynchronous processed job. Is there a "best practice" for this problem? Are web services and service brokers a good way to go? Is Microsoft messaging queue applicable here?
With all the programming languages that are out there, what exactly does it mean to program in the small and is it still possible, without the possibility of re-purposing to the large. The original article which mentions in the small was dated to 1975 and referred to scripting languages (as glue languages). Maybe I am...
How useful would it be for a recruiter? In martial arts there are a minimum number of trainings, not years of practicing, to be evaluated for a higher level. I saw some exceptions but there are rare. In software, maybe this would be valuable to express experience in particular technologies such as OO, OR/Mappers or spe...
What would you call this type of specialty? Is "Microsoft Developer" misleading?
Are there any studies on the adoption of agile methods based on Lean principles? Some of the stats I'm looking for: How widely is Lean used? In terms of Agile methods, how does the adoption of Lean compare with other Agile methodologies like Scrum, XP, etc?
In academia, it's considered cheating if a student copies code/work from someone/somewhere else without giving credit, and tries to pass it off as his/her own. Should companies make it a requirement for developers to properly credit all non-trivial code and work that they did not produce themselves? Is it useful to do ...
I recently read the book 'UML Distilled' and found the sequence diagrams very useful. My question is that can we show 'data flow' as well on a sequence diagram? This is my first time on sequence diagrams. Nice to see some examples if any.
Are there any credible sources of information on the adoption of agile techniques like automated testing, continuous integration and refactoring? Of those that are using unit testing, how many follow test first or test driven development. I'm trying to determine how widespread these practices are.
I'm diving in to Domain Driven Design and some of the concepts i'm coming across make a lot of sense on the surface, but when I think about them more I have to wonder if that's really a good idea. The concept of Aggregates, for instance makes sense. You create small domains of ownership so that you don't have to deal ...
I've been developing a free, open source Java database abstraction project (jOOQ) and I have released first stable releases from November 2010 onwards. Feedback has been quite good and constructive, and I am very motivated to continue my work. In the mean time, to get more attention and feedback, I have published artic...
I understand the importance of well documented code. But I also understand the importance of self-documenting code. The easier it is to visually read a particular function, the faster we can move on during software maintenance. With that said, I like to separate big functions into other smaller ones. But I do so to a ...
A lot of software updates follow the scheme of v0.1 to v0.2 to v2.6.5.6. What do these "updates" to software really mean? Is there an industry standard always followed or do programmers pretty much keep raising the update # or adding more decimals?
I'm interested in the ability of rules engines to: launch and iterate over business driven logic have "business users" perform the actual modification of those rules rather than developers comprehend the business rules in general Also, does using a rules engine impact the quality of an application? Does the use of a ...
Perhaps its just me, but as a current CS student I have already come across many questions on this site and elsewhere about not just "Which language should I use for x?" but also "Does anyone still use language Y?" My first CS class was taught in Scheme, which, if I'm not mistaken, isn't used widely (at least in compa...
As a student studying Computer Science in college, I often hear from friends working on various humanitarian projects, and I want to do something myself. But it seems that programmers don't have as many obvious avenues to help out as, say, doctors or teachers. What are some ways in which programmers can put their talen...
I'm going to create my own web server that focuses on scalability, rapid prototyping and the use of JavaScript as the server's scripting language, much like node.js. It will use a Model-View-Controller design pattern so a web application can support more concurrent users just by adding hardware -- and not having to red...
I have used MVP and MVC in the past, and I prefer MVP as it controls the flow of execution so much better in my opinion. I have created my infrastructure (datastore/repository classes) and use them without issue when hard coding sample data, so now I am moving onto the GUI and preparing my MVP. Section A I have seen M...
What will be the best way to manage reviewed source code in a source control repository? Should the source code go through a review process before getting checked in, or should the code review happen after the code is committed? If the review happens after the code is checked in to the repository, then how should that ...
As every Java developer knows, Oracle bought Sun and the future of java looks quite unclear, specially since Oracle wants to monetize the JVM. Java as a language has also been stale in the last few years, the non-inclusion of closures is one example (which might be included in java 1.8) At the same time, some new techn...
The setting: Multiple development teams, lots of dependencies and constraints. If one team is blocked on developing some code, getting service calls, or moving to a QA environment, what are ways for teams to creatively look for work-arounds to their issues?
The new keyword in languages like Java, Javascript, and C# creates a new instance of a class. This syntax seems to have been inherited from C++, where new is used specifically to allocate a new instance of a class on the heap, and return a pointer to the new instance. In C++, this is not the only way to construct an o...
ASP.NET MVC and Rails have similar area of use, are built around same architecture, both frameworks are relatively new and open source. So as a Rails programmer I'd like to know, what ASP.NET MVC can do and Ruby on Rails can't, and visa versa?
I have recently started using test-driven development and unit testing, and it has paid off immensely in the areas where I have aplied it. One area that it has been helpful in is database access. When I abstract away the data access, the testing of methods that need the data become almost ridiculously easy. However, I ...
I have developed a unique website but do not have a lot of fund to protect it with trademark or patents. I'm looking for suggestions so that when my supervisor gets my codes, some laws restrict anyone from copying it and claim their work. I'm in the middle of thinking, making the application a commercial one or never a...
I have been learning programming in C# for about a year and a half now. How should I ensure that the code that I am writing and the habits are forming are good ones? ie. I don't want to end up having written code which only I can understand. I know that we must use the naming conventions as per language. But are there...
First, some background on me. I have a PhD in CS and have had jobs both as a software engineer and as an R&D research scientist, both at Very Large Corporations You Know Very Well. I recently changed jobs and interviewed for both types of positions (as I have done in the past). My observation: SW engineer job interview...
Are there any conventions to use if I were to distribute the source for a C++ library I built? The plan is to use CMake as a build system, but for the rest I was wondering what are the standards in terms of file/folder/subfolder naming, inclusion paths etc. What I got so far: Put everything in the $prefix folder under...
I was cruising around the programming blogosphere when I happened upon this post about GOTO's: http://giuliozambon.blogspot.com/2010/12/programmers-tabu.html Here the writer talks about how "one must come to the conclusion that there are situations where GOTOs make for more readable and more maintainable code" and then...
I did try searching, but I did not see a similar question (either that or my search terminology was incorrect - if so, feel free to close). I am an avid user of SO, and I notice that there are lots of references to the C++ standard in discussions and answers - and I have to admit, I have never read this particular docu...
One of the arguments against using Open Source is that there is no "support". However, do big vendors (e.g. Microsoft) really offer "support" of any kind? I'm sure there is some sort of 4-figure-per-hour "paid support" option out there, but is that really an "option" for any problem short of one that is going to bank...
I'm looking for good examples of finite state machines; language isn't particularly important, just good examples. Code implementations are useful (generalized pseudo-code), but it's also very useful to gather the various uses of FSM's. Examples don't necessarily need to be computer based, for example Mike Dunlavey's R...
This is a question that was put to me many years ago as a gradute in a job interview and it's nagged at my brain now and again and I've never really found a good answer that satisfied me. The interviewer in question was looking for a black and white answer, there was no middle ground. I never got the chance to ask abou...
Why do we keep using CSV? I recently made a shift to working the health domain and despite the wonderful work in data transfer standards, all data transfer is in CSV, both for reporting to external organisations, and for data migrations when implementing new systems. Unfortunately the use of CSV is the cause of the en...
I'm testing a product for health care businesses, and we're working with HL7 messages. I saw people groaning on another question about the issues with HL7 but not mentioning specifics. Can someone give me some ideas of what issues or classes of problems we should specifically be looking for? We are using some well-...
Honestly, I hate the word "Pythonic" -- it's used as a simple synonym of "good" in many circles, and I think that's pretentious. Those who use it are silently saying that good code cannot be written in a language other than Python. Not saying Python is a bad language, but it's certainly not the "end all be all language...
MS Access gets pooped on a lot because A) many newbies use it B) people use it as a database backend which is not a good idea. I'd like to see some reasonable discussion on why you might choose VB.Net over MS Access or vice versa for programming a Database GUI (forms and reports) to be used with MS SQL Server.
I have been working as an embedded software engineer on mostly 8 bit micro-controller firmware and desktop/mobile applications development for the past five years. My work on a WinCE project (in which I got introduced to .NET CF) was short lived. I did use core APIs for interrupt processing, peripheral communication, e...
Ok, so this is a bit of a devils advocate question really. When are global variables ok, and if never, what would you use as an alternative? An interesting side-case to this question, how is a public static class field different from a global?
ie. you speak out the code, and someone else across the room types it in Anyone tried this? Obviously the person taking the dictation would need to be a coder too, so you didn't have to explain everything and go into tedious detail (not 'open bracket, new line...' but more like 'create a new class called myParser that ...
For example, I know that open-source versions of IL readers/writers exist such as Cecil, and Microsoft's (closed source) CCI. What would it take to get developers to pay for something that is already freely available? I have always wanted to start my own ISV by writing my own tools and selling them in the open market, ...
I'm putting together a fairly large GUI. I'm a tech person, but more on the hardware side, not software. I'm wondering what software package would be best suited to enable me to generate a web-based help-system. Preferably it takes care of a lot of coding, allowing me to focus on the content. For example, the user wou...
Five years ago, I lost my ability to concentrate long-term, and therefore ability to code with professional efficiency. I know why it happened, I understood how it happened, and on top of being able to re-create my calm and thus relaxed focus, I overcame the original (rooted in childhood) reason why my mind tilted on ...
I am developing a mobile application which has many functionality, and I am pretty sure that the design will confuse the user about how to use some functionality so we decided to include some help as we can see them regularly in desktop applications, but later we found that the help text is too long. We don't think tha...
In the Sun Java coding conventions document (here: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/codeconv-138413.html), it states: "80% of the lifetime cost of a piece of software goes to maintenance" Does anyone know where this statistic is sourced from? I don't doubt the assertion, but I can make up statistics without attri...
I have recently implemented fuzz testing over one of my projects. Several bugs have come up, generally classifiable as (dare-I-say trivial?) input validation bugs, and I've fixed them. In no case so far have the breakages involved business logic, which I guess is reasonable. My question is in the following: When I get ...
Sometimes programmers who work on a project for long time get inflexible, and it becomes difficult to reason with them. Even if we do manage to convince them, they can be unlikely to implement our suggestions. For instance, I recently joined a project where the build & release process is too complicated and has unneces...
A very good friend of mine, and an avid programmer, recently passed away. He left nearly 40 projects on BitBucket. Most of them are public, but a few of them are marked as private. I've decided to take on curation duties for the projects rather than leave his work to disappear. If you have been in the same situation...
I am puzzled on how to model this situation. Suppose you have an algorithm operating in a loop. At every loop, a procedure P must take place, whose role is to modify an input data I into an output data O, such that O = P(I). In reality, there are different flavors of P, say P1, P2, P3 and so on. The choice of which P ...
I recently finished my Master of Science in Software Engineering, and I am about to start my professional career in a few weeks. My role will be as a Junior Developer for a company which develops software using Java & related technologies (among them Spring and Hibernate). To be honest, I am really excited about what i...
Being a computer scientist in a research field I am often tasked with working alongside professionals outside of the software domain (think math people, electrical engineer etc), and then translating their theories and ideas into real-world implementations. I often find it difficult when they present a theoretical prob...
This is probably a holywarish topic, but nevertheless. In a perfect content management system of your dream, would you rather want a templating system that is completely, 100% separate from your code, and uses declarative syntax to produce (X)HTML (such as <your code> -> DOM/XML -> XSLT -> HTML), or would you rather c...
There is a basic website (homepage and 5 subpages) with static content, we want to add something like a slideshow of current offers with custom images that would change every month. We also want to include an image gallery with effects like Lightbox. The person who is going to add/modify/delete the images in the two ne...
My friends and I have been struggling to classify exactly what is an integration test. Now, on my way home, I just realised, that every time I try to give a real world example of an integration test, it turns out to be an acceptance test, ie. something that a business person would say out loud that specs out what the ...
In comparison with an open source license and requesting donations, is a free-for-open-source-projects (or free for non-commercial developers) closed source and otherwise commercial project likely to get more license fees? Or just to alienate potential users? Assume the project has value to programmers - I'm looking fo...
To me, it's a little odd that HL7 requires you to be a member to distribute the standard within your organization and in that sense implement the standard and tell others who have implemented the standard what parts you'll be implementing, especially when it's nothing classier than a few pipes and carets for 2.x and so...
What, if any, are the Microsoft supported options for running C#/.NET 4.0 code natively on the Mac? Yes, I know about Mono, but among other things, it lags Microsoft. And Silverlight only works in a web browser. A VMWare-type solution won't cut it either. Is there any semi-authoritative answer to why Microsoft just doe...
We typically used Perforce and SmartBear's Code Collaborator at Big Corp and now we're also going to be using Mercurial for certain projects. Code Collaborator support Mercurial (we are using version 5) and I'm trying to determine when the best time (during the commit/push to server) process is the best/efficient time...
What are some concepts/techniques/language features that every decent C programmer should know/be aware of (exclude general software engineering and similar and focus only on C specific stuff). I would like to know so that I would be able to fill in some possible gaps in my C knowledge.
Anyone who likes their Documents folder to contain only things they place there knows that the standard Documents folder is completely unsuitable for this task. Every program seems to want to put its settings, data, or something equally irrelevant into the Documents folder, despite the fact that there are folders speci...
I was thinking about this when I was starting to set up some code for a new project: are there any rules of thumb for when a method should be part of an object, and when it should be a stand alone function that takes an object as a parameter? EDIT: as pointed out in a comment, this can depend on language. I was working...
JavaScript is a prototype language. To turn it into a class based language adds little value? I am not talking about best-practice here. I remember reading an article from way back, which claimed that the class-based worldview is perceivably more flawed than the one of prototypes. My summary can be found here: http://c...
I'm having a difficult time understanding the Single Responsibility Principle. What should I look for to evaluate the various sources of information on the matter? What should I look for in examples explaining the principle?
I have a legacy application written in C, using the raw Win32 API. The general level of abstraction is low and raw dependency on <windows.h> is common. I would like to port this application to GTK+. There are any kind of guidelines or best practices on how to do this? I've previously ported a MFC application to Qt, but...
I just started working at a company that has a very large ant build file that imports lots of other large/small ant files. Needless to say it's giving me a headache trying to figure out what is going on. What are the best tools out there for: Getting some kind of concise answer on what is happening Visualizing the v...
I read somewhere in one of the answers to a question here (can't remember which) that C++ is not suitable for object-oriented programming. There was some mentioning that you could make use of its feature or something like that, but not in a purely OOP sense (I actually didn't really understand what the person meant). I...
Is there such thing? I designed a while back a rudimentary form based app for my users. We receive from our suppliers hardware manufacturing data in XML files: file name is made of eleven fields separated by tildes, with each field having its own meaning. R&D guys wanted to be able to search each field of the file nam...
I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind why the language designers would make the for (.. in ..) loops so verbose. For example: for (var x in Drupal.settings.module.stuff) { alert("Index: " + x + "\nValue: " + Drupal.settings.module.stuff[x]); } It makes trying to loop over anything semi-complex like the abo...
I am struggling to find a good balance with our development and testing process. We use Git right now, and I am convinced that ReinH's Git Workflow For Agile Teams is not just great for capital-A Agile, but for pretty much any team on DVCS. That's what I've tried to implement but it's just not catching. We have a large...
We're trying to come up with terms that better describe our bugs/defects. To us, the term 'bug' or 'defect' is too generic and doesn't accurately reflect what is happening. For example, instead of saying that there is a bug (in the general sense), we'd rather say what type of bug (an error, or enhancement, or improve...
Most of Haskell syntax has beauty of purity. But the record syntax looks ugly. It's uncomfortable. It feels some kind of mixture with C. It requires comma and braces. Haskell has tab,line based separation. So it looks too verbose than originally it requires. Why is it designed in that way?
The typical reason I hear to why people bash C++ is that they don't actually know C++, they just know "C with classes", which apparently is different. I am just beginning to learn C++, however, I want to actually learn C++ and not simply "C with classes". How can I ensure I learn C++ properly? Some examples would be wo...
Java allows marking variables (fields / locals / parameters) as final, to prevent re-assigning into them. I find it very useful with fields, as it helps me quickly see whether some attributes - or an entire class - are meant to be immutable. On the other hand, I find it a lot less useful with locals and parameters, and...
There is the classic OOP problem of method chaining vs "single-access-point" methods: main.getA().getB().getC().transmogrify(x, y) vs main.getA().transmogrifyMyC(x, y) The first seems to have the advantage that each class is only responsible for a smaller set of operations, and makes everything a lot more modular - a...
Any preferences for Asp.Net programmers on how to document their code? I read XML with Sandcastle is a good way to go. What do you use?
How many ASP.NET developers program using OO (e.g. using get, set)? 6 years ago I developed and maintained a .Net 1.1 Intranet application that had no get/set. So how about today? Worth trying the pure OO route? Thanks, TDG
It seems to me that everyone uses NUnit without even considering the other options. I think this is because: Everyone is familiar with it already so they won't have to learn a new API. It is already set up with their continuous integration server to work with NUnit. Am I wrong about this? I decided to use xUnit on on...
Today I checked in a change on some code which turned out to be not working at all due to something rather stupid yet very crucial. I feel really bad about it and I hope I finally learn something from it. The stupid thing is, I've done these things before and I always tell myself, next time I won't be so stupid... Then...
I guess no one would argue for decomposing use cases, that is just wrong. However sometimes it is necessary to specify use cases, which are on lower, more technical level, like for example authetication and authorization, which give the actor value, but are further from his business needs. Cockburn argues for levels wh...
I know it's a very subjective question , but this is one section of Software Engineering wherein I haven't seen any improvement in terms of how we can do it in a better way. I guess every programmer does documentation with some frustration, but when working I feel it's the most important tool for me. How can the proces...
I am in the in-house development team of my company, and we develop our company's web sites according to the requirements of the marketing team. Before releasing the site to them for acceptance testing, we were requested to give them a test plan to follow. However, the development team feels that since the requirements...
I have a CI server (Hudson) which merrily builds, runs unit tests and deploys to the development environment but I'd now like to get it running the integration tests. The integration tests will hit a database and that database will be consistently being changed to contain the data relevant to the test in question. This...
I created a app using Microsoft's WPF. It mostly handles data reading and input as well as associating relations between data within specific parameters. As a total beginner I made some bad design decision ( not so much decisions as using the first thing I got to work ) but now understanding WPF better I'm getting the ...
I am trying to design the architecture of a system that I will be implementing in C++, and I was wondering if people could think of a good approach, or critique the approach that I have designed so far. First of all, the general problem is an image processing pipeline. It contains several stages, and the goal is to des...
This question has been in the back of my mind since I started with WPF and Silverlight. In general, is it better to use nested grids, or just set the Column/Row Span properties in a single Grid? Better could be measured in many ways (not limited to these): Easier to read Easier to maintain and/or extend Better perform...
The senior dev in our shop insists that whenever code is modified, the programmer responsible should add an inline comment stating what he did. These comments usually look like // YYYY-MM-DD <User ID> Added this IF block per bug 1234. We use TFS for revision control, and it seems to me that comments of this sort are m...
Some friends of mine came up with an idea for a web application which we (so far) think could be great. I made the analysis and all the early stages of the development process and I'm about to start the coding. I'm talking about something that is barely a mid-level project, so I consider one developer (myself) should b...
I'd like to have some suggestions about using code repository. I don't need to know how to check out or how to check in or how to create a branch. What I need to know is, how to maintain the repository tree or how to structure it for optimal usage. For example, for a given project, when to create a branch? Where to cre...
My colleagues and I are a bunch of scientists (i.e., untrained in programming) hacking code for data processing. Is there a concise and simple reference that documents idioms, conventions, or guidelines for organizing code? For instance: conventions for using global variables documenting code that is distributed to ot...
I need to develop a simple declarative language to drive an application. I have various computational modules, some of them depending on other modules which also need setup. The problem is that I don't know how to manipulate the keywords. I will explain myself with an example Task optimize Units meters System { // i...
So I've been working on a small, small side project to learn a bit more about PHP database interactions. I bought a small, cheap database of "Inspirational Stories" and set to work on turning it into a web site that no one will ever remember. :P I've worked out a number of issues so far and learned a fair bit, however,...
Good afternoon, My work environment has some problems. Our IT team is trying to be more agile, but we're not really getting buy-in from the business. They attend our daily stand-ups and sprint reviews, and they help with sprint planning, but then they turn around and do 4 months of requirements gathering for a project ...
I'm having a hard time finding reviews on Google Analytics for native iOS apps and I was hoping to find some programmers on here that have any experience with it. If so, how well did it work? Thanks so much for your thoughts!
Why I Ask this Question: I've just starting to learn Ruby (and by extension IronRuby since I work in the Microsoft world). I picked up IronRuby Unleased to teach me the basic syntax of Ruby, and any particulars of IronRuby. However, learning the syntax is not my primary goal (if that was, I would just obtain The Ruby P...
What is the most appropriate way of writing this comment: /// <summary> /// Order - Identifies the ordinal location of this category /// relative to other listed categories. /// </summary> if I'm wanting to wrap "category" in <see> tags? I've considered: /// <summary> /// Order - Identifie...
Since this site is read by a global audience of programmers, I want to know if people generally agree that the vast majority of software innovation - languages, OS, tools, methodologies, books, etc. - still originates from the USA, Canada, and the EU. I can think of a few exceptions, e.g. Nginx webserver from Russia a...
A lot of blogs and advice on the web seem to suggest that in order to become a great developer, doing just your day job is not enough. For example, you should contribute to open source projects in your spare time, write smartphone apps, etc. In fact a lot of this advice seems to suggest that if you don't love programmi...
Back story: My best friend is a self-taught coder for a community art site, written in PHP. Some time ago he mentioned he wanted to make the source code of the site public, to which my response was total horror - surely it was going to be full of security holes waiting to be found, and it was going to lead to hacking a...
A record can implement protocols. However, each time I think of a new function that I would like the record to implement, I have to add it to an existing protocol or create a new protocol. How do I get around this? Ideally, I'd just like to associate a function to a record without having to define a protocol.
I'd like to hear from those who have used Doctrine 2 (or later) and Propel 1.5 (or later). Most comparisons between these two object relational mappers are based on old versions -- Doctrine 1 versus Propel 1.3/1.4, and both ORMs went through significant redesigns in their recent revisions. For example, most of the crit...