A design question. I have developed an online test engine web app earlier this year. I have used Java servlets and Freemarker templates and done it entirely following the MVC paradigm. One big missing feature in the application is that it provides no reporting. The initial design of the application did not consider reporting as part o...
It may be Water fall, iterative or agile development or anything else. No matter what development lifecycle mode we talk about there always several perspectives for same problem. From business to problem oriented and further to programming, testing, etc. So question is how are modern companies use modern advanced methodologies to transl...
Suppose you have a method that should create and return an array of some sort. What if the array doesn't get populated. Do you return an empty array or null/nothing? ...
Here are the points that seem vague to me : "High-Fan in" : have a high number of classes that use a given class; good use of utility classes at the lower levels. "Low fan-out" : don't use too much other classes in a given class. Does that mean you can't even have a given class use several small utility class ? ...
Many databases I've encountered (Like SQL Server) use a single file to store the entire database. This seems to be a pretty common approach. What are the advantages to storing the entire database in a single file, as opposed to breaking up the data into more logical units, such as a single table per file. Also, how does a database wo...
Informed options needed about the merits of flat file database. I'm considering using a flat file database scheme to manage data for a custom blog. It would be deployed on Linux OS variant and written in Java. What are the possible negatives or positives regarding performance for reading and writing of both articles and comments? W...
In my application, there are 10-20 classes that are instantiated once[*]. Here's an example: class SomeOtherManager; class SomeManagerClass { public: SomeManagerClass(SomeOtherManager*); virtual void someMethod1(); virtual void someMethod2(); }; Instances of the classes are contained in one object: class TheManager { pub...
These ribbon in stackoverflow and uservoice.com looks nice. is there any javascript library/jquery plugin for that effect? ...
For those agile practitioners out there... How do you manage changes to a database schema during a project? My assumption is that in an agile project the schema of any database involved will change and be refactored just as happens with the codebase. Is this assumption correct? If so, do you have any particular tools or processes that ...
Hey. We're building a large ASP.NET website, and have hired an external firm to do the design (CSS + protoype pages). In fitting the design to the page, we've found a number of problems that indicate ASP.NET's workings were never considered. My question is - Is there a common standard (that should be) used by design firms creating what w...
When you start thinking about a programming project what do you do first? Do you pull out a piece of paper and start sketching out the architecture? Do you have a notebook for ideas? Do you start coding something? Or do you model the software in a fancy package. Come, come, elucidate your thoughts... ...
Hi everyone, I'd appreciate some feedback on a particular approach I'm thinking of using. The scenario is below. I have an object (lets call it MObject) that has a number of properties, say, x and y coordinates, height and width. The properties are named according to the KVC guidelines (MObject.x; MObject.height, etc). My next task, is...
I am a little confused as to the definition of classes as Models or Views in the Sketch example AppKit application (found at /Developer/Examples/AppKit/Sketch). The classes SKTRectangle, SKTCircle etc. are considered Model classes but they have drawing code. I am under the impression that Models should be free of any view/drawing code....
In brief: Is it ever excusable to have assembly names and class names stored in the database? Does it break the layers of an application for the data layer to have explicit knowledge of the internals of the business layer? Full explanation: I have a boot strapper that runs "jobs" (classes that inherit from a common base) that exist in...
I often find that I do a less than complete work on a feature, especially in the Design phase. I detect several reasons: I'm over-optimistic I feel the need to provide quick solutions, so sometimes I fool myself into thinking the design is fool-proof when in fact it's still full of holes, just to get the job done faster. Of course I en...
In a sorted table, it's common to have an up or a down arrow indicating the sort style. However, I'm having some trouble determining which direction the arrow should point. In an ASC sort, characters are sorted 1-9A-Za-z. Should the arrow point up or down? I've found implementations of both on the web, so that didn't help me much: Up an...
To me at least, the Pair class is a very multi-purpose class. So why did Microsoft put it into the System.Web.UI namespace? Is there a reason that my tiny brain cannot comprehend? Thanks. ...
I have an interesting problem: I'm building a web based image gallery program that right off the bat is going to include almost 7,000 images. So, here's my question: What would be an optimal way to build an ordering system? For example, if the admin wants to have the 4,984 image land in the 3,223 position (I work with some anal peopl...
Hi I'm designing a new component to a system, trying to follow the various guidelines on DI so we get payback in terms of isolation, mocking etc. So I have the following components (illustrated as an abstraction): Fetcher - supports IFetcher, which fetches data from a particular data source. Returns IDataSource. Builder - supports I...
I can read the mysql docs and they are pretty clear. But, how does one decide which character set to use? On what stuff does collation have an effect? I'm asking for an explanation of the two and how to choose them... Thanks! ...