design

Is there a good way to quickly create diagrams to illustrate folder structure?

Is there a good tool to quickly create a diagram that illustrates a folder structure? I've tried doing it with Visio, but I find that it takes longer to do in Visio than it would to just create the folder structure and then take screen shots with windows explorer. For rather simple folder structures, it's not a real problem but when st...

Producing a clock glitch in a verilog design.

I am designing a chip using a verilog. I have a 3 bit counter.I want that when the counter is in its 8th loop , there should be a clock glitch and thereafter work normally.What could be the possible ways of producing a clock glitch in a verilog design? ...

When is it appropriate to use accordions?

Accordions can provide flashy effects, but with regard to usability, when is it appropriate to use them? For example, in a menu tree with lots of options, an accordion can provide better overview of the categories. On the other hand, if I want to see all options available, I have to click around a lot. When do you use accordions? Thank...

How old is too old to support?

I'm writing a new project, and I have a choice between using a library that only exists in OSX 10.5 and later (We're on 10.6 now), but makes my life much easier, and using a library from earlier versions, but I have to a lot more of the work myself. How does one make this decision? How do you balance new/better technology vs customers ...

Naming conventions - in which namespace do subclasses go?

Hypothetically, if I have: Contoso.App.People.SecurityGuard : Contoso.App.People.Person And I then build this class and ship it as a core lib. If I then consume this library in, say, a mobile client app and make a: NightDeskGuard : Contoso.App.People.SecurityGuard In which namespace would the new class go? Contoso.App.Mobile.Peopl...

How can you trigger the reload of firefox on file save?

Hi, I'm curious with all the webservers reloading the code on save, can't we just make firefox do the same when in develop mode? any hints on how to do this? ...

How do I make a button in the iPhone SDK that will look like the UIActionSheet buttons?

In some iPhone apps, I've seen buttons that look similar to UIActionSheet buttons (example: End Call button in Phone.app). I would like one in a UIView that I've made. Is there a way to do this? Thanks. ...

Designing a tool for PHP debugging

EDIT: Like I said, Xdebug type responses are not really that helpful here. I've added some more info below: I am planning on writing a small PHP debugging solution and would like to poll Stack Overflow for some ideas before I get started. The goal is to simplify debugging a PHP based web app. The tool should be able to plug into an ex...

SimpleDB - how to select where ANY attribute matches a given string?

I am designing the layout and usage of an Amazon SimpleDB application. The docs for simpleDB give several example queries: Here is one: ref: http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=1231 select * from mydomain where Title = 'The Right Stuff' I would like to use something like: select * from mydomain where * ...

Integrating two systems to talk to each other - how can web services decouple the integration?

Hi, I am trying to integrate TFS 2010 with DotSvn. I need to fool Svn into thinking I have checked into it when I make a checkin into TFS. So I need to make a windows service which executes the main method every 5 minutes, get all the checkins commited into TFS, and then make checkins into DotSvn. The typical C# approach would be to wr...

How do you design, sketch, and blueprint a complicated piece of software? What are some workflows or tools that can be used to do so?

Hi, I have been programming for a couple of years and am now studying computer-science at university. Every time I have coded something, I did so by starting up my editor and improvise. Writing methods, classes as I go. Off course, I think about it beforehand, I take out sketch paper and write my ideas down, do a little list of things t...

What kind of architecture is good for my JavaScript software?

Hi, I am writing a software for a website where people can manage the website content. The interface is similar to Windows with all those windows floating around, click-able components, type-able text fields, etc. The admin interface is written in JavaScript, HTML and CSS. I'm wondering what kind of architecture should I apply to my adm...

Is there a, kind of, 'Crystal Ball' OOP Design Pattern?

With regards to design patterns such as GoF, is there a pattern to decribe when one object needs to observe another object that is not even in existance yet? i.e. $crystalBall = new crystalBall(); $futureDependent = new FutureDependent(); $futureDependent->attach($crystalBall); ... then much later .... $importantObject = new Importa...

Logic on DAL class??

Guys, I have a conceptual question.- I have a Class named ClientDAL that inserts an object on the DataBase (Im using LINQ2SQL).- But before insertinng that class checks that it is not already on the database (check if it exists already on the DB) so I have a try and a if incrementing the ciclomatic complexity.- My question is, ClientDA...

Where can I get fancy red and green UIButtons kind of like "End Call", etc?

Is there any resource for an iPhone developer who wants bright red and green buttons in their app? I mean, as in pre-cut buttons? The closest I've found are the Photoshop templates and those are a bit difficult to cut out just right. Thanks. ...

Should this JavaScript thing be an object or a singleton class?

Hi, I'm working on a JavaScript software that bears resemblance to Windows. It has a desktop, taskbar, etc. and I'm wondering whether I should make the desktop a class or an object? I'm thinking about making a process list array that holds all instances of objects. It would hold an instance of desktop. Does this make sense? Or should I...

Correct way to access an NSMutableArray between two UIViewControllers ?

Design question: I have ViewController A which contains an NSMutableArray*. The ViewController A is responsible for displaying the user a Map, when the user interacts with this map, the view controller A fills the NSMutableArray* with Coordinate Objects. The information contained in the NSMutableArray* should be later displayed in a ...

Should I REALLY make subclasses in this situation?

I'm finishing a small project, an iPhone game. I've been expanding my GameObject class to include powerups and mines. These are physically identical to each other. Late last night I came up with the genius idea of making two subclasses of GameObject. They're each less than a hundred lines long. I also have to do stuff like cast them t...

Design/Architecture question: rollbacks with remote services

Hi, For example, there's remote API with the following calls: getGroupCapacity(group) setGroupCapacity(group, quantity) getNumberOfItemsInGroup(group) addItemToGroup(group, item) deleteItemFromGroup(group, item) The task is to add some item to some group. Groups have capacity. So first we should check if group is not full. If it is,...

When should one use the temporarily-rebind-a-special-var idiom in Clojure?

I've noticed that some libraries such as clojure-twitter use special vars (the ones intended for dynamic binding that are surrounded by asterisks) for oauth authentication. You save your authentication in a var and then use (with-oauth myauth ..). I think this is a very nice solution to this sort of problem, because you can rebind the au...