Development/Programming/Architecture Thread V1.0

[DT]

OK, this thread is a result of this exchange in a semi-recent browser thread:

Whit ~ Got a cool browser/server/app/distro thing going you might groove on - don't think it's dedicated thread worthy (unless we could do like a master "developer" thread [like the design one]).

make it happen.

Not sure how much action it will see (specifically outside of me and ZeeBeR), but I figured WTF, I'll just let it migrate to the abyss of topics past.

If you have a question/comment about photoshop, or even the design elements of things like Flash, there's a thread here for that:

http://209.200.225.217/forum/showthread.php?t=25463

This thread - per the title - is for the backend, middle tier, scripting, objects, database design/modeling/programming (SQL (T/SQL), Oracle (PL/SQL), design of system architecture (.NET, J2EE), even some HTML/CSS, various languages (VB, C#, PHP, PERL, Java)

Figure it's a good place to ask questions, post tricks/traps, neat utils, shortcuts, etc.

[LAXitives288]

I was hoping it was about building architecture.

[Derek Makekau]

[zeus]

not bad derek

[ZapBulletRider]

Have you seen the new addition to the Guggenheim?

[DT]

You did that?

[zeus]

this thread reminds me of there's something about mary

[DT]

Oh yeah, so per my original tech babble - we have this web based app that needed availability offline/disconnected (at least 4 or 5 of the roughly 15 functional areas). So instead of having to manage a second codebase for a client/windows based version, I deployed the web version as a downloaded client app.

It's a single zip that bundles up a Cassini webserver as a DLL runtime and the required web code, and has a single windows form that simply hosts the webserver instance and a web browser control. The underlying DB is a SQL CE (which allowed the structures to be easily ported over, though the SP's had to be recoded as dynamic SQL).

So now ONE set of code functions as the web and stand-alone client versions - the UI is exactly the same to reduce training/confusion, and I manage everything from a single project.

[ZapBulletRider]

You did that?

Yup. Didn't take me that long, either...

[Derek Makekau]

I thought engineers made railroads?

They can.

[ZapBulletRider]

Oh yeah, so per my original tech babble - we have this web based app that needed availability offline/disconnected (at least 4 or 5 of the roughly 15 functional areas). So instead of having to manage a second codebase for a client/windows based version, I deployed the web version as a downloaded client app.

It's a single zip that bundles up a Cassini webserver as a DLL runtime and the required web code, and has a single windows form that simply hosts the webserver instance and a web browser control. The underlying DB is a SQL CE (which allowed the structures to be easily ported over, though the SP's had to be recoded as dynamic SQL).

So now ONE set of code functions as the web and stand-alone client versions - the UI is exactly the same to reduce training/confusion, and I manage everything from a single project.

Sounds like one of the main purposes of Passive-view MVP. Managing ALL of your presentation and business logic independent of the UI implementation, so you can essentially stick any frontend on it that implements the view interfaces. It's what we're using right now, although our reason is mainly to approach 100% code coverage with unit tests. There's no foreseeable reason we'd ever put a different frontend on it.

[DT]

Yeah, there are several methodologies that are intended for situations that really never occur IRL production.

Though I'm currently having to migrate an app from SQL to Oracle and *if* I would've abstracted all the data access into objects (vs. just a DAL which is sort of a given), porting (at least at the app layer) would have just meant a replacement DAL (and of course all the DB side changes).

[lil chuck]

i have some house blueprints i made in autocad...but i dont think this is what this thread is about.

[skimcowboy]

Frank Lloyd Wright gave me a blowjob.

[ZapBulletRider]

Yeah, there are several methodologies that are intended for situations that really never occur IRL production.

Though I'm currently having to migrate an app from SQL to Oracle and *if* I would've abstracted all the data access into objects (vs. just a DAL which is sort of a given), porting (at least at the app layer) would have just meant a replacement DAL (and of course all the DB side changes).

yeah the mentality I've adopted over the last few years is decouple, decouple, decouple. Basically the same mentality with database normalization but with code. My favorite is when you have your layers completely decoupled and all relationships are controlled by an Inversion of Control container through dependency injection. It's all fun in theory and it lets you really think about your architecture in depth but I also worry sometimes about overdoing it too much. I've come across a few instances where it's not necessary, especially in smaller apps or apps where you really need fast access to the same types of data repeatedly, and sticking things in objects nested within other objects and pulling it back out into a flat form again just wasn't practical. That type of design is really best suited for large apps where you've got different devs working on different layers.

[megadeth]

can any of you guys like make my myspace like totally cool and awesum?

[ZapBulletRider]

I can make your myspace polymorphic; you can inherit from other, cooler myspace pages.

[megadeth]

what do you mean by polymorphic? I wikipedia'd and don't understand?

[ZapBulletRider]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymor...ed_programming

[megadeth]

so if I give you a cool myspace, you could like transfer the coding and make it for mine?

[ZapBulletRider]

haha no not really, it was a lame programming joke

[DT]

haha no not really, it was a lame programming joke

I was with ya

[espinho]

hehehe .. one more addict for thes post...

i m also a developer.. nowdays i m WPF .. developing a huge project to run the healthcare process of a pacient in a hospital.. ( one of the biggest of Portugal more that 5000 workers)

Also i love silverlight.. i m now developing my personal website ..

and you what projects are your working in?

[espinho]

Also.. when do we get together for a big open source project for skimboarding?

[DT]

hehehe .. one more addict for thes post...

i m also a developer.. nowdays i m WPF .. developing a huge project to run the healthcare process of a pacient in a hospital.. ( one of the biggest of Portugal more that 5000 workers)

Also i love silverlight.. i m now developing my personal website ..

and you what projects are your working in?

Awesome. Healthcare stuff is *potentially* fun - improving quality of life for someone can be really cool.

One of our core products relates to pediatric traumatic injury - data aggregation, analytics, collaboration tools, etc. In fact, it's international in scope - we're working with some folks in Brazil, Spain, Italy. I'm the PI on a couple of a clinical trials and have been published a couple of times (currently have another abstract in for review). I'm not a doctor, but I play one on the interwebZ.

Everything we've done in the last several years has been in .NET (using C#) - all pretty much "pure web" solutions; sitting on MS/SQL (2K, 2K5), Oracle (10g) or recently SQL/CE (for a mobile project extension). Also do a good bit of EAI against everything: VMS (wrote an HL7 parser/listener) and other disparate systems usually using Web Services (working on one now to message between Cold Fusion and our .NET app).

[ZapBulletRider]

our architect just went to a MS conference and came back RAVING about Silverlight. It's looking like she'll be making a big push for us to use it when we go full force with our redesign in Oct (it's complicated...). I played w/ it a bit back when it was new and called WPF/E but basically the verdict back then was, whatever it can do, Flash can do as well or better and Flash is already widely accepted (and installed) by users. Since then things have changed, Silverlight is looking a lot better, and I got sold from the NBC Olympics site that was done in Silverlight. I've never seen online video that ran so smoothly over our shitty connection here at work.

[DT]

I played w/ it a bit back when it was new and called WPF/E but basically the verdict is, whatever it can do, Flash can do as well or better and Flash is already widely accepted (and installed) by users.

That's the problem I have with constantly layering/requiring add-ins/plug-ins, is you're getting into dealing with client-side installs, versioning, etc., and it starts getting back to a thick client without consistent implementation which starts *feeling* like [client] Active/X all over again.

[ZapBulletRider]

yup. And our client is especially leery of that. (Army) We pretty much only had the option of using thin client technologies or third party stuff that was already installed on all their dumb terminals around the country (we manage the system that ROTC programs around the country use to manage their cadets). I think flash was allowed b/c it was required by some other piece of software but we were able to do what we needed without using it. We are using AJAX quite a bit though, and we've decided it will be more efficient to write our own callback framework, which we're in the process of doing now. AJAX (.Net's framework) is really nice and makes things easy but there's also a lot of overhead when you want to make small callbacks.

[DT]

ahHAhahahHHAhh!!

This thread just got so much better with your new avy.

Yeah, we deal with the same issue with the Feds - it's a huge issue just to push out a printer driver. We're doing a good bit of AJAX, but since it's already "resident" in the browser (and they allow JS), there's no hassles.

You are totally right about the MS AJAX implementation - it's got a ton of overhead - I've traced some of the remote calls and all the built in stuff is chunky. Plus there's some silly shit like instead of packaging the pairs from a TypeAhead textbox in separate strings, they concat it with this "FIRST:", "SECOND:" prefix to indicate which position it occupies in the value pair (W..T..F..).

Of course if everything is .NET, that's not exposed because there's a built in method, CreateAutoCompleteItem() and the client side is designed to consume it - but now I'm making a call to a different system, and the developers on the other end are also WTF'ing the specification.

Weeee!

Plus it looks like I may be back up in DC again soon. We need a satellite office...

[ZapBulletRider]

oh frack yeah, programming from space would be awesome!

[espinho]

well.. about silverlight, i just love it.. before i was hire to work now in WPF, i was in other company developing with siverlight, i started with 1.0, see the betas, and nwo we are in 2.0, waiting for 3.0.

Silverlight isn't flash.. and of course u can use adobe air or flex to do the same things, but the real thing is that in here if you already know C# you can start working on silveright without having to study real hard and learn a new language... the programming model is the .Net that all of us already now.

about installign software, well i am testing last build of windows 7, and silverligh runtime was already push by the updates.. so as you can imagine in a real future, 80% of windows computers will have the plugin installed on the machine and make the life easier for the ones who develop with silverlight.

One of the best things of Silverlight is also the streaming media , it manages incredble well, the stream of videos over the inter...

So whos going to the MIX? as you know i m from Portugal, but i m going to california (laguna) this year, one the things i was thinking is going to las vegas just for one day to see this big expo, do u think its worthy?

[espinho]

here is a good link of lots of samples of flash vs silverlight performance

http://www.shinedraw.com/

[megadeth]

so, computer geniuses. I assume you all went to school for computer related things. Is it a bad idea? I mean it seems like doing some things with computers would have a great outlook and opportunity. I think I would be better off with a degree in something like that than a plan business degree...

Basically, what are all your outlooks on computer degree related fields? Thank you <3

[DT]

To be honest, I'm actually more about the business end of it than the technology side - I'm not "into tech" unless it resolves a problem. I'm not in any user groups, I don't attend expos, etc. I'm more of a system architect + business analyst with programming competence to execute what I design (see Jeff Goldblum in The Fly) since I've been writing code on and off for 20 years. My Kung Fu is pretty f**king strong, but it's always focused on getting it done - that was kind of one the reasons for starting this thread (for me at least) - not about theory or jazzy new tech - about Ninja Death Squad Coding: identify and execute in the quickest way possible.

Definitely don't sell the business end of it short (it's where you really make the $ if that's your goal). A business minor isn't even a bad idea.

That being said: I don't see any downside to a formal computer related degree. While programming has become a bit of a commodity there's still a need for quality developers and especially in some of the vertical markets like healthcare. Like anything else though, I'd say pursue if you have an interest in the field - otherwise you'll be miserable (and computer major have all sorts of peripheral studies like a good bit of math that can be a real obstacle).

[megadeth]

Yah, that is my main worry about pursuing a computer related field; the math. I don't enjoy math. I've never been a good math student. I don't know. I don't know what I want to do. haha