Archive for the ‘Misc. programming’ Category

Upcoming: SANKO event on ADM code modeling & generation

The Finnish .NET User Group SANKO hasn’t been particularly active lately, much due to the busy schedules of potential speakers. But we’re back on the roll: On December 14th on 15:00-17:00 Finnish time, we’ll be having a session on an application modeling methodology called ADM. ADM is the brainchild of Finnish senior developer Kalle Launiala, [...]

November 24, 2011 · Jouni Heikniemi · No Comments
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Valio.fi deep dive #3: Review tooling

After my previous post on review policy, let’s have a look at the tools we used for reviewing code. I have found there to be two approaches to reviewing code. Let’s do a quick comparison first and discuss the tools of the trade next. Patch-based review Social review The key concept here is that a [...]

May 4, 2011 · Jouni Heikniemi · 2 Comments
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Valio.fi deep dive #2: Code review policy

In this second episode of my postings on valio.fi, I’ll look deeper into the concept of code reviews in the project. Pre-post note: No, I’m not following a logical order with these. Rather, I’ll try to answer the asked questions as soon as I can while still maintaining a readable approach to the project details. [...]

April 28, 2011 · Jouni Heikniemi · 2 Comments
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How slow is database access, really?

Many modern applications use relational databases. Performance optimization discussions often end with the statement “If you’re hitting a database, nothing else really matters”. Is that really so? Note: This post is written to provide a rough idea of the performance impact magnitudes involved in database access. There is no substitute for local measurements. To test [...]

March 23, 2010 · Jouni Heikniemi · 3 Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: .NET, Misc. programming

SQL Server Management Studio 2008 and table re-creation

“Saving changes is not permitted. The changes that you have made require the following tables to be dropped and re-created.”… What? I was just changing the null constraint on a column, why are you talking about dropping a table? When it hits you the first time, you’re probably confused. The fix itself is easy: Just [...]

January 29, 2010 · Jouni Heikniemi · 2 Comments
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UTF-8 preamble is a problem when you concatenate files

You’re just changing a couple of words in an XML file with Notepad. Your data modifications are guaranteed to be valid by schema. That couldn’t possibly break anything, could it? <insert the ugly buzzer sound> It quite likely couldn’t, unless you were editing an XML file that happened to be using UTF-8. Because while Notepad [...]

December 21, 2009 · Jouni Heikniemi · 4 Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: .NET, Misc. programming

Kodu is out, get your kids coding

Microsoft has released Kodu (formerly known as Boku) for Xbox and limited PC distribution. It’s essentially a virtual world development environment for kids. The “programming” is done through logic primitives, which are assembled together through a graphical interface and the Xbox controller. Long Zheng has some pretty good screenshots, and if you want to see [...]

July 1, 2009 · Jouni Heikniemi · No Comments
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Getting answers from Experts-Exchange.com

If your search for answers to technical questions yield links to Experts Exchange, you’ll probably find yourself frustrated by the “This answer is only available for Premium Members” blocks. However, it’s good to know that the content really is freely available. This popped up again today, so it’s worth a heads-up. The whole issue has, [...]

June 29, 2009 · Jouni Heikniemi · One Comment
Posted in: Misc. programming

Why CS students should do TDD

If you are a Computer Science student, take heed: When you're about to take on an assignment that takes more than two hours to implement, do Test-Driven Development. (that doesn't mean you couldn't use TDD in smaller assignments if you feel like it) First of all, what is TDD? It is a philosophy that encourages you [...]

October 29, 2006 · Jouni Heikniemi · Comments Closed
Posted in: Misc. programming

Refactorability is not an excuse for bad code

According to Wikipedia, "Refactoring is the process of rewriting a computer program or other material to improve its structure or readability, while explicitly preserving its meaning or behavior". Since the agile culture emphasizes refactoring of the code as necessary, it does set a new stage for code quality demands: How relevant is the initial quality of [...]

September 20, 2006 · Jouni Heikniemi · Comments Closed
Posted in: Misc. programming