I was going through some websites today when I came across this article and wanted to share it with all of you.

Its really funny, but mostly true. Read ON….

Programmers all have their pet peeves. Whether it’s scope creep, Hungarian notation, or smelly coworkers, we’ve come to accept that there are certain nuisances that come with our line of work. The following is a list of the top 10 things that annoy programmers, compiled from the results of my recent question on StackOverflow along with some of my own experiences:

10. Comments that explain the “how” but not the “why”

Introductory-level programming courses teach students to comment early and comment often. The idea is that it’s better to have too many comments than to have too few. Unfortunately, many programmers seem to take this as a personal challenge to comment every single line of code. This is why you will often see something like this code snippit taken from Jeff Atwood’s post on Coding Without Comments:

Do you have any idea what this code does? Me neither. The problem is that while there are plenty of comments describing what the code is doing, there are none describing why it’s doing it.

Now, consider the same code with a different commenting methodology:

Much better! We still might not understand exactly what’s going on here, but at least we have a starting point.

Comments are supposed to help the reader understand the code, not the syntax. It’s a fair assumption that the reader has a basic understanding of how a for loop works; there’s no need to add comments such as “// iterate over a list of customers”. What the reader is not going to be familiar with is why your code works and why you chose to write it the way you did.

9. Interruptions

Very few programmers can go from 0 to code at the drop of a hat. In general, we tend to be more akin to locomotives than ferraris; it may take us awhile to get started, but once we hit our stride we can get an impressive amount of work done. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to get into a programming zone when your train of thought is constantly being derailed by clients, managers, and fellow programmers.

There is simply too much information we need to keep in mind while we’re working on a task to be able to drop the task, handle another issue, then pick up the task without missing a beat. Interruptions kill our train of thought and getting it back is often a time-consuming, frustrating, and worst of all, error-prone process.

8. Scope creep

From Wikipedia:

Scope creep (also called focus creep, requirement creep, feature creep, and sometimes kitchen sink syndrome) in project management refers to uncontrolled changes in a project’s scope. This phenomenon can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled. It is generally considered a negative occurrence that is to be avoided.

Scope creep turns relatively simple requests into horribly complex and time consuming monsters. It only takes a few innocent keystrokes by the requirements guy for scope creep to happen:

• Version 1: Show a map of the location
• Version 2: Show a 3D map of the location
• Version 3: Show a 3D map of the location that the user can fly through

Argh! What used to be a 30 minute task just turned into a massively complex system that could take hundreds of man hours. Even worse, most of the time scope creep happens during development, which requires rewriting, refactoring, and sometimes throwing out code that was developed just days prior.

7. Management that doesn’t understand programming

Management is not an easy job. People suck; we’re fickle and fragile and we’re all out for #1. Keeping a large group of us content and cohesive is a mountain of a task. However, that doesn’t mean that managers should be able to get away without having some basic understanding of what their subordinates are doing. When management cannot grasp the basic concepts of our jobs, we end up with scope creep, unrealistic deadlines, and general frustration on both sides of the table. This is a pretty common complaint amongst programmers and the source of a lot of angst (as well as one hilarious cartoon).

6. Documenting our applications

Let me preface this by saying that yes, I know that there are a lot of documentation-generating applications out there, but in my experience those are usually only good for generating API documentation for other programmers to read. If you are working with an application that normal everyday people are using, you’re going to have to write some documentation that the average layman can understand (e.g. how your application works, troubleshooting guides, etc.).

It’s not hard to see that this is something programmers dread doing. Take a quick look at all the open-source projects out there. What’s the one thing that all of them are constantly asking for help with? Documentation.

I think I can safely speak on behalf of all programmers everywhere when I say, “can’t someone else do it?“.

5. Applications without documentation

I never said that we weren’t hypocrites. Programmers are constantly asked to incorporate 3rd party libraries and applications into their work. In order to do that, we need documentation. Unfortunately, as mentioned in item 6, programmers hate writing documentation. No, the irony is not lost on us.

There is nothing more frustrating than trying to utilize a 3rd party library while having absolutely no fricken idea what half the functions in the API do. What’s the difference between poorlyNamedFunctionA() and poorlyButSimilarlyNamedFunctionB()? Do I need to perform a null check before accessing PropertyX? I guess I’ll just have to find out through trial and error! Ugh.

4. Hardware

Any programmer who has ever been called upon to debug a strange crash on the database server or why the RAID drives aren’t working properly knows that hardware problems are a pain. There seems to be a common misconception that since programmers work with computers, we must know how to fix them. Granted, this may be true for some programmers, but I reckon the vast majority of us don’t know or really care about what’s going on after the code gets translated into assembly. We just want the stuff to work like it’s supposed to so we can focus on higher level tasks.

3. Vagueness

“The website is broken”. “Feature X isn’t working properly”. Vague requests are a pain to deal with. It’s always surprising to me how exasperated non-programmers tend to get when they are asked to reproduce a problem for a programmer. They don’t seem to understand that “it’s broken, fix it!” is not enough information for us to work off of.

Software is (for the most part) deterministic. We like it that way. Humor us by letting us figure out which step of the process is broken instead of asking us to simply “fix it”.

2. Other programmers

Programmers don’t always get along with other programmers. Shocking, but true. This could easily be its own top 10 list, so I’m just going to list some of the common traits programmers have that annoy their fellow programmers and save going into detail for a separate post:

• Being grumpy to the point of being hostile.
• Failing to understand that there is a time to debate system architecture and a time to get things done.
• Inability to communicate effectively and confusing terminology.
• Failure to pull ones own weight.
• Being apathetic towards the code base and project

And last, but not least, the number 1 thing that annoys programmers…

1. Their own code, 6 months later

Ever look back at some of your old code and grimace in pain? How stupid you were! How could you, who know so much now, have written that? Burn it! Burn it with fire!

Well, good news. You’re not alone.

The truth is, the programming world is one that is constantly changing. What we regard as a best practice today can be obsolete tomorrow. It’s simply not possible to write perfect code because the standards upon which our code is judged is evolving every day. It’s tough to cope with the fact that your work, as beautiful as it may be now, is probably going to be ridiculed later. It’s frustrating because no matter how much research we do into the latest and greatest tools, designs, frameworks, and best practices, there’s always the sense that what we’re truly after is slightly out of reach. For me, this is the most annoying thing about being a programmer. The fragility of what we do is necessary to facilitate improvement, but I can’t help feeling like I’m one of those sand-painting monks.

Full credit to Kevin Pang

courtesy: http://www.kevinwilliampang.com/2008/08/28/top-10-things-that-annoy-programmers/

1. Go to tools -> Macro -> Record New Macro : A pop up will display. Just enter the macro name and assign a short cut key to it. Select “Personal Macro Workbook” in “Store macro in” checkbox.

2. Next do all the stuff you wanted by the macro to do manually.

3. Finally Go to tools -> Macro -> Stop Recording.

That’s it your Macro is Created.

Example:

We will create a Macro for Cell Merging:

Step 1:  Go to tools -> Macro -> Record New Macro : Provide the below details:

Macro Name : Cell Merge

Key                : Ctrl + Shift + M (You can provide your own key)

Step 2: Select any two cells -> Go to Format -> Cells -> Click on Alignment -> Select Merge Cells Check box and Click Ok.

Step 3: Go to tools -> Macro -> Stop Recording.

Step 4: While closing the excel, it will ask to save the key, click on Yes.

That’s it from now onwards we can use Ctrl+Shift+M for Cell Merging.

Hopefully this may be helpful in many situations like creating Test Cases, building Formula’s etc

1) Add these files to your webpage

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”jquery.js”></script>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”jquery-calendar.js”></script>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”jquery-calendar.css” />

2)Now copy the following Jquery in your script

$(document).ready(function () {
$(’#dob’).calendar();
$(’#dob’).bind(’change’,calculate_Age);
});

3)Copy the follwing function calculate_Age() in your script so that after selecting the date age will popoulate automatically

function calculate_Age(){

//dob has to be the id of ur input element in which u want to call calendar
var user_date = Date.parse(  $(”#dob”).val() );
var diff_date =  new Date() - user_date;

//age has to be the id of ur input element in which u want to populate age automatically
$(’#age’).val(Math.floor(diff_date/31536000000));
}

4)keep class=”calendarFocus” in the <input> element in which u want to call the calendar so that it calls above jquery.

NOTE: calculate_Age() above provided displays the age depending on the date selected. If u selected the date less than the current date the age displays correctly where as if u selected some future age(age greater than the current date) it displays negative value.So u can add ur own fuctionality in case u want to avoid selection of future date.

So had explored for a solution to generate serial numbers or what else you call as the row numbers using MySQL query.

I had spent hours on exploring but with some guidance of my colleague, I finally had achieved the query that suits my requirement.

Here it is - an example of how you can generate serial numbers or row numbers using MySQL query:

SELECT (@rownum:=@rownum+1) as SlNo[, <other_fields>] from (SELECT @rownum:=0) alias[, <other_tables>];

Explain?

SELECT @rownum:=0 - this will create a variable “rownum” initialized to zero.

@rownum:=@rownum+1 - this SQL expression will increment the value of rownum just as similar to a count variable in for loop.

Hope this could be useful. Thanks!

<init-param>
<param-name>sendfileSize</param-name>
<param-value>-1</param-value>
</init-param>

In order to solve the error you need to correct the file system manually. So the ubuntu will ask you correct the file system manually. To do the same follow the below steps

1. If you dont know the root credentials

Press ctrl + alt + delete then it will ask the user name, password.

Enter the credentials that you have then execute the following command to correct the file system

sudo fsck then it will ask so many prompts give the inputs of your choice [yes/no]

After that execute this command sudo reboot, Now the ubuntu will load properly

Note: I dont know is it correct or not but it works for me.

1. Cookie name

2. Cookie value and

3. Time on which cookie have to die itself.

The fourth thing which we have to consider is…

4. Cookie path.

If we did not mention any path externally then it will take the current path as default.

But in Zend, please consider the path of the cookie because if you create the cookie in the root which will be accessible from any other path( We can say from any other folder).

It means if you create a cookie in a particular path which is accessible in that path only.

Syntex for creating a cookie in the root…

setcookie(”cookie_name”,”cookie_value”,time()+3600,”/”);

The above is normal php cookie setting but please follow the zend standards to set a cookie..

Syntax for creating a cookie in the current folder…

setcookie(”cookie_name”,”cookie_value”,time()+3600);

Getting a cookie value in Zend

$cookie = $this->getRequest()->getCookie(’cookie_name’);

I hope this information will help you to solve your Zend cookie problem…

Please visit this link! to make it easier

http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.http.cookies.html

we have different types of locks are there in MySql.

• Read/Write Locks.
• Table Locks.
• Page Locks.
• Record Locks.

Let us have example on the single record lock by using select for update statement.

suppose we are using

select item_id from the item_table where item_id=’100′ for update.

This 100 record is blocked no other user can access this. this will more help in updating any bookings or transactions. which gives the synchronization solutions. that is no same number can generate to different persons.

While implementing this type of synchronization locking use in transaction. began transaction and complete whole task in that transaction if it is not succedded then roll back the changes.

While Implementing transactions and Locking we should be consider all aspects other wise we will be lead to dead lock state.

Suppose in the transaction iam locking the registration number generation table. while submitting the registration form it will generate registration number at that time logged_user table also updates.

In some situations the records locks in the transaction along with the user table but all the persons will definitely interact with the user table then it leads to Dead lock situation.

If we come across with deadlock then the MySql database hangs and doesnt respond to the all the users.

In that situvation we just look after the Engine Status.

• First Identify which type of engine we are using in Mysql.
• Identify the status of engine
• Read the status then you will know the bug and solve it.

Let us consider that we are using INNODB engine

SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS;

execute above command you will get the status of innodb engine.

Copy the content in the status column and paste it in notepad or word

Now read the status then you will find the problem then solve it.

While we apply transactions that are applied to that transaction block only. If we want to implement transactions we need to start the transaction and wrote the desired code.

This function is used to start the transaction and set the database to auto commit to false

Public Sub SetTransactionForAccounts()
cmdtext = “START transaction;”
connection.ExecuteOperation(cmdtext)
cmdtext = “SET autocommit=0;”
connection.ExecuteOperation(cmdtext)
connection.ExecuteOperation(cmdtext)
End Sub
This function is used to Commit the changes done
Public Sub SetCommit()
cmdtext = “commit;”
connection.ExecuteOperation(cmdtext)
End Sub
This function is used to commit the transaction and set the database to auto commit to true

Public Sub setAccountsCommit()
cmdtext = “commit;”
connection.ExecuteOperation(cmdtext)
cmdtext = “set autocommit=1;”
connection.ExecuteOperation(cmdtext)

End Sub
This function is used to roll back the changes and set the database to auto commit to true
Public Sub setAccountsRollBack()
cmdtext = “Rollback;”
connection.ExecuteOperation(cmdtext)
cmdtext = “set autocommit=1;”
connection.ExecuteOperation(cmdtext)
End Sub

This function is used to roll back the changes
Public Function setRollBack() As Boolean
cmdtext = “Rollback;”
Return connection.ExecuteOperation(cmdtext)
End Function