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I have just stumbled accross the following AOP framework built on top of StructureMap and was wondering if anybody has any experience using it.
Any good, any issues?
http://www.chrissurfleet.co.uk/post/2012/06/27/AspectMap-Part-5-Aspect-Nesting-and-Prioritising.aspx
Or can you suggest any alternatives?
I use it, and like it, but then I built it! Its nice and easy to get started with, but isn't as full featured as some of the alternatives.
The nice thing is though that the code you write is generally reusable - so if you decide you want to use something else it will be easy to swap the aop provider out. Or you can easily start with something else and move onto AspectMap ;)
If you've got any questions feel free to mail me via the blog, or just ask on here
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I've been wanting to help out with an open source project for some time now. I want to do this for two main reasons. I am a strong supporter of foss and I want to gain experience.
I've struggled to find a project that I thought I would want to help with. There are many I would like to help with, but they are far to complex for what I would want to start with. However, I recently found a browser, uzbl, which seems like it is complex enough for me to be able to learn from, however simple enough for me to be able to wrap my head around.
It is a simple lightweight browser which uses webkit and gtk.
Now that you are familiar with my positon, here is my question.
What is the best way to go about understanding the code base?
Now I realize this is a subjective question. However, I feel if I have the suggestions of more experienced developers, I may be able to cut down on the wrong turns I make.
Should I familiarize myself with the libraries used first? Or should I look through the core code and concern myself with what goes in under the hood after I have a basic understanding of the global picture?
How do you guys go about understanding the code base of a new project?
Thank you for your time and effort.
First, compile and run it. With many projects, simply accomplishing that task will give you some understanding :-)
Second, it's good to have some problem to solve. Some small task, like fix a minor bug somewhere. Just debug, search for the bug origin, try to fix it. Then run unit tests (if any), see what else you broke with your fix. Investigate that, too.
Then repeat. A dozen of bugs, preferably in different areas, give some better understanding of the codebase.
After that, I usually start wondering around the product, just looking how it works and playing with it. Natural curiosity takes over sooner or later, and I find a feature that interests me. In a "wow, I wonder how it works" kind of way. Then I try to sketch a high-level design for that feature myself. Along the lines of "what would I do if I had to create this feature? Very briefly, just in my mind, no fancy diagrams and whatnot.
In doing so, I inevitably find myself in need to know more about the system: after all, you can't design a fully isolated feature, can you? You'll have to interact with the rest of the system, and you need to know how. So I go into code and find out.
Then, a moment may come when I realize that I really don't know how to design this little part of that feature. I think, and I think, and I think, and I just don't know. So then comes the sweetest part: I go into the code and look how is it designed in the first place. Sometimes I would be disappointed in the project. But more often, I would be disappointed in myself. But that's exactly what's precious: that's how I learn.
I have found two things (in addition to the answer by Fyodor Soikin) that really help. One is getting doxygen to do document everything for me. It makes it a lot easier when I can go through the function declarations, and click the data structure which is supposed to be passed in so I can see all the members it contains (if there is no current documentation you can just set EXTRACT_ALL = YES). I also find it very useful to compile the project with debuggin symbols then run it in gdb so that you can follow it from start to finish.
I would look for their tests first, and look at those. If there aren't tests, I probably wouldn't bother with the project. If there are tests, they should be instructive as to how the software works. Step through the tests in the debugger to understand how the high level components fit together.
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Lately I've been job hunting, and for the most part, they would ask me what type of IDE I like to use.
Now, I usually answer with;
Well it all depends on what language I'm developing it in. If it's Java then it would be Eclipse, if AS3 then either Flash CS4 or Flex Builder 3. For HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript, I prefer to use PsPad. (almost identical to Notepad+ or textmage).
Now why is it that they always seem to become immediately disgusted with the fact that I said PSPad? Truth be told, I don't like to use DreamWeaver because I feel like it's bloated. I mean to each his own I guess ... but I've tried using it and I honestly work faster with PSPad.
Should I start using Dreamweaver just to put in my resume?
Theoretical Advice
It's quite reasonable not to like IDE's, though you do need to acknowledge their usefulness, and everyone has their own most efficient ways of working, which makes sense.
Practical Advice
You can't deal with recruitment agents logically, I'm afraid. You need to check their checkboxes, and get past them, to talk to someone real.
Once you get into a real interview with a programmer, be honest about everything, about why you don't like IDE's (especially DreamWeaver) and then you can just hope for the appropriate outcome.
But with recruitment agents you need to appreciate that they don't understand anything about our industry; and you typically need to give them the answers they want.
I'd say your are "familiar" with DreamWeaver and leave it at that.
Maybe they don't know what PSPad is - I didn't. As for Dreamweaver, I would actually look down on somebody who uses Dreamweaver. It's much better to be able to code from scratch.
And to answer your question - it's definitely not wrong to not prefer a single IDE for everything. You should use whatever tools you feel comfortable with, and if it's different for each language, then so be it.
No, just like it's not wrong to prefer:
Horses over cars;
Kerosene lamps over electrical lighting;
Aqueducts over water pipes;
Storing food in a cold cellar instead of an "icebox";
Punch cards over keyboards and visual displays;
and so on.
Sucks that we have to go through people who care not about the programmer but the programs we use!
I mean I think I lost a few chances just by trying to explain that I am decent with HTML and CSS but don't use Dreamweaver (because I cant afford it).
Though I am not that worried, I did eventually stumble across a person who does understand these things and love working for him. So no it's not wrong, you're just unlucky to have come across wrong recruiters.
Good luck finding a job though!
PS It doesn't take more than 10 minutes to get familiar with an IDE, so always a plus to try out some (so you're not completely lost later).
One way to spin such answers is to make yourself the expert. So you could say something like, "I'm familiar with Dreamweaver, but once I got really good at coding HTML, CSS etc. I found it more efficient to just use a really fast and simple text editor like PSPad."
I used the same trick after I worked in C++ and was applying for a Java job. In that case, it went like this, "Well, the nice thing about having started in C++ is that it's such a rich and low level language that once you've done that, Java seems really easy by comparison."
The recruiter doesn't know what DreamWeaver is -- they just know what a commission is. Show them you'll make them one by selling yourself to their principle and they'll send you out to interview more often than not.
Look: when you're job hunting the person who is looking at your resume is either a:
Human Resource person (Needs a person to fill a position or just interview)
Head Hunter (Needs a body to fill a job so they can get their placement pay)
IT Manager (Needs a qualified soul for the best price).
Depending on the person interviewing you over the phone or in person they are just trying to get the best candidate for a position. Sometimes they have prepared questions to see how much you know, how you think and do you match up to your resume.
I went to a .NET code camp once and a head hunter was asked how one goes about showing the interviewer their experience. The head hunter said show them your work:
Bring a laptop with samples of your work.
Print out code sample.
Direct the interview to a website with samples of your work.
Things like this get you past the IDE question real quick.
As silky alluded to above, it's probably a simple mechanism in use by the HR agency to filter out candidates. If you're not using an IDE on the selected list, you're filtered.
For me, when interviewing, I would find somebody who says they use VIM or Emacs as their IDE to be a more advanced developer than perhaps somebody using Notepad.
Last time a CTO asked me what I use, I immediately said "Emacs, of course". He said, "OK, now I'm interested!". I've been working there since.
(I don't know why PSPad would be any worse than Dreamweaver or Eclipse. I find all IDEs hard to really customize. Everybody I work with has gobs of elisp, much of it shared, to make it much more productive for our project.)
Maybe you're talking to the wrong people for the kind of job you want. Where are you finding these "they" who ask you this?
It's certainly not worse than depending on one.
I use EMACS as my primary programming environment. It has a few big advantages:
It's available practically everywhere.
You can use it without having a window system installed.
You can use it over SSH.
It lets you edit multiple files at the same time.
It understands most programming languages.
You can run subshells.
Oh, you can read your email from within it, too.
This question has no good answer. It depends on the culture of the place you're interviewing for. At my current job, I play up my Unix experience and can impress other folks that also enjoy non IDE toolsets. vi, one liner scripts, etc. At my former gig, people were enamored with Visual Basic, and thought the command line was horrific. I'll bet if you were interviewing for the company that develops PSPad you would not have had the same result. ;-)
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During hiring a .NET web developer I give the candidate a coding test.
I tend to limit the candidate to MSDN installed on the test server - I think it holds everything the candidate needs to complete the task.
I admit, this is not the normal case as I don't expect the candidate to do his work without use of the web.
On the other hand I don't want the candidate to google for a complete example and copy-paste it, i want to evaluate his skills.
The question is do I need to allow free use of the web during the test?
If you think the whole coding test is wrong - I would like to hear alternatives you may have for me.
As you say, 'I don't expect the candidate to do his work without use of the web' why not allow it too during the test? And what if he does copy and paste? I do that too. Surely the key is to know where to look, be discerning with what you find and apply it intelligently. Do you want to hire someone with a terrific memory or someone who can develop software for you?
When I was at school, calculators were just becoming affordable. As their use was seen as unavoidable, the exams were changed. Simple number-crunching was no longer tested in the way it was before (it was important then). Rather problem-solving techniques were to be tested.
I usually allow candidates to use whatever resources they want. After they're done, I sit down with them and go through their code together, ask questions like why they chose that particular approach etc.
If a couple of minutes of Googling was enough to not just copypaste some code but to learn enough about it to be able to defend the decisions within, then he's intelligent enough!
There are tests, where web access can be given, and there are where it doesn't really make sense.
Case where its fine to allow web access
When its unlikely to find even 60 percent of the code over the net
When you will ask to explain the code after he/she completed the code
A very specific solution using SQL query, which is unlikely to be found on the web
Case where its fine to not allow web access
Some basic programs like, recurssion, fibonacci, factorial, string manipulation, small trick programs, etc. There is no need of computer even in some of these cases
I'm very sceptical about coding tests during interviews. I think that a lot of the test I have seen, represent very specific (artificial, non real-world) problems where you would use the internet to solve them.
I think it's not really important to know how to solve such problems by heart - often time it is much more important that you know how and where to search for answers.
If you want to test the persons during the interview, I think it is better to ask them some conceptual questions instead of a specific programming problem. E.g: questions about object orientation, polymorphism, design of n-tier application, etc. etc.
Or as an example from the ASP.NET world, ask the interviewed person question such as: what is ViewState, what is a postback, what is session-/application-state, etc.
If you want to get an idea of how a candidate will perform in a job, I think it's best to try and make the conditions of the test as close as possible to the actual working conditions.
It should be pretty easy to prevent copy-and-pasters from slipping through the cracks by asking the candidate to explain his/her code.
Well, one thing you want to be aware of is that the developer you hire might not know everything that he will be thrown during the time he is working for you. If you ask him a question that he doesn't know off the top of his head you would want and expect him to research it and come back to you with proof that he understood the concepts that he just learned.
I say let them use the web - but ask them to explain in their own words how their code works. Most of my knowledge comes from online resources. However, I make sure that every line of code I write I understand.
There is a baseline knowledge that developers in a particular field should know; but you also want to figure out how quickly he can learn new things. A good test IMO is to throw a question you know he doesn't know and see how long he can figure it out using the resources he would have if he were an employee of your company.
Is your goal to see what basic knowledge the candidate has and if he can code without copying solutions from the web, then don't allow internet access. If you want to see what strategies he employs to get to a solution, let him use the web if he wants to.
I personally find it more interesting if a candidate can solve problems on a larger scale than just solving a simple programming problem. So I tend to ask him about the methods he uses when programming (Unit testing? Ever worked with it? What do you think of it?). This gives me a better picture than coding in an interview situation.
Sometimes it helps if you ask the candidates beforehand to bring a one-page coding sample to take a look at their coding style. This also saves you time during the interview.
It's important to make sure a candidate is resourceful - you don't want your programmer sitting there when they get stuck, not moving forward; you want them to use whatever resources are at hand - be it MSDN, picking someone else's brains, using the web, etc - to get the job done. Cut-n-paste from the web does seem like cheating, but (a) if you design your task carefully then it will be unique enough for there not to be a standard answer they can copy from the web, and (b) isn't re-using existing code a key part of building software? It's not much different from using 3rd-party libraries, to avoid reinventing the wheel. On the downside, of course, you also want them to show they can develop algorithms, so the unique task needs to include some element that requires that without the solution already being on the web. Trouble is, forums are the achilles heel to all of that since they can simply ask for the solution and someone, somewhere, is going to hand over the answer unwittingly!
Allow the candidate to use the web but tell him beforehand that if he used the web, you will have to evaluate HOW he solved the problem.
If he used the web for something simple such as finding the syntax or parameters which he forgot, don't mark him down. This is normal.
If he used the web for something like look at how a specific function is used, don't mark him down. This is normal.
If he searched for a specific code and then copy-paste it, then ask him about how the code works. If he can explain how the code works, then there's no reason to mark him down. If he can't explain it without looking at the site where he got the code, you have to mark him down.
If he used stackoverflow.com, check his profile for questions, answers and badges. From there, you can check how good a programmer he is.
It all depends what you want out of your successful candidate. I contest the view that knowing how to google makes you a good programmer because the simple fact is that the internet is full of bad examples as well as good ones. You don't really want your codebase to reflect how lucky your googler was on the day he cut and pasted all his code off the web. You want it to demonstrate sound practices, proven methodologies & elegant, efficient solutions that your team understand and are enthusiastic about. Not a jumble of styles that don't resemble each other. There's a wealth of good to be gotten from knowing how to get help from the interweb but real knowledge and ancient wisdom is being lost every day that people who don't really understand what they are doing are given jobs because they appear to solve problems with their ability to "google it".
If you really want to give your candidates access to the web then by all means do, but make the questions hard and scrutinise the results to see if they've picked the first solution they found or if they've picked the best solution to the problem.
As do many other respondents, I'd rather employ a resourceful developer who know how to use the web to the fullest to draw on other's experiences and previous work, than a developer who limits himself and his applications to the MSDN way of doing things.
I copy other peoples code all the time - daily in fact. The knack of it depends on finding the right solution quickly and integrating it into your existing work.
So let your candidate use the web and ask him how he came to his solutions. You might learn more about him from his methods than from how will he can remember previous solutions.
Three things I'd do.
Let applicants send in a coding example along with their cv.
Let applicants produce some real-life code (maybe even pair-program with a developer on your team) this will show you if they can actually use the tools. Internet is a tool too so they should be able to use internet.
Let applicants solve a problem in pseudo code on a blackboard during the interview. In this case you can be their "internet" by helping them.
These three approaches will show you different things. The first is a good early warning mechanism but can easily be faked (they could just download oss code from the web somewhere). The second is good to see if they can actually code but they might score badly if they're unfamiliar with the tools you use. The third will show you if they can solve theoretical problems but won't show you if they actually are good team players or if they write maintainable code.
I recently had a friend start talking to me on IM, he was in a coding test job interview. He had a couple SQL questions. At first i thought, hell you've got to do this yourself. I'm not going to help you cheat during an interview.
Then i thought about it again. I've been answering questions and talking to him about various technical issues for years on IM as part of his work. So when he encounters problems in the real world with the job if he gets hired, he'll do the same thing.
We don't talk about it much, but having a good network of friends to ask questions, and knowing how to search out relevant answers on the net are a big part of being an effective programmer or sysadmin. I've met people who were super smart programmers, but didn't really know how to find information online. They missed a lot, were kind of out of the loop. Knowing how to use resources should be important.
When i do interviews i often ask people what websites they read, what development tools they use, and why. It's a similar thing. Sure it's not about how they write x line of code, but it's about how they work.
No how to get around somebody just copy and pasting "answers". Well first, don't ask questions which have pat answers. Secondly when i'm interviewing i like to give people some code, ask them to refactor it, have them talk through what they are thinking. Then ask them to write some new code which implements a feature. Pair program with them. It's hard to hide inability to code when pair programming. While they are pairing, it totally makes sense to say, "let's go look up the api on the date time library."
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I work on a complex application where different teams work on their own modules with a degree of overlap. A while back we got a Mediawiki instance set up, partly at my prompting. I have a hard job getting people to actually use it, let alone contribute.
I can see a lot of benefit in sharing information. It may at least reduce the times we reinvent the wheel.
The wiki is not very structured, but I'm not sure that is a problem as long as you can search for what you need.
Any hints?
Some tips:
Any time someone sends information by email that really should be in a wiki, make a page for that topic and add what they put in the email. Then reply "Thanks for that info, I've put it into the wiki here so that it's easier to find in the future."
Likewise, if you have information you need to share that should be in the wiki, put it there and just send an email with a link to it, rather than email people.
When you ask people for information, phrase it so that putting such documentation in the wiki should be considered the default or standard: "I searched in the wiki but I couldn't find it. Have you put that info up there yet?"
If you are the "wiki champion", make sure other people know how to use it, e.g. "Did I go through how to create a new page with you yet?"
Edit the sidebar to make sure it is relevant to your work.
Use "nav box" style templates on related pages for easier navigation.
Put something like {{Special:NewPages/5}} on the front page, or recent changes, so that people can see the activity.
Take a peek at Recent changes every few days or week, and if you notice someone adding information without being prodded, send them an email or drop by and give them a little compliment.
As I mentioned before, a Wiki is very unorganized.
However, if that is the only argument from your developers, then invest some effort to create a simple index page and keep it updated (either do it yourself or ask people to link their contributions to the index). That way, the Wiki might grow into a very nice and quite comprehensive collection of documentation for all your work.
We've been using a wiki in some form or another for a while now, but it does take a while for people to get on board. You might find that you will be the only one writing articles for some time, but bear with it, other people will come on board eventually.
If someone sends an email around that contains information related to the project then helpfully point them in the direction of the wiki - and keep doing that - they should get the hint.
We have a SharePoint portal and use the wiki from there - we customised it with our own branding so that it "looks the part" - I really feel this has helped to improve the uptake of it.
Make sure that everyone is aware that the wiki is even more informal than email.... because there will be a "fear factor" that people may think anything they add to the wiki will be over-analysed.
I think most of the answers so far are spot on - the more you plug away at it yourself, the larger the body of useful information will become, so slowly but surely people will naturally start to use it.
The other approach you could use is this: Suggest that every time someone asks another team member a question about the project, they should answer the question as normal, but also add the answer to a section of the Wiki. This may take a few minutes extra, but it will mean that the next time someone asks the same question (which they inevitably will), you can save time by pointing them at the Wiki. This, in turn, should help people to start using the Wiki as a first source of information and help overall up-take.
You can't force developers to do something they do not have an incentive of using for; unfortunately wikis, like documentation (well, in fact wikis are documentation) rarely have any "cool" value for developers. Besides, they're already deep into dev work -- could you really bother them with a wiki?
That being said, the people who pushed for the wiki (e.g., you) should be primarily responsible for updating it, and you really would have a lot of work cut out for you if you're serious about it.
You might also try the ff:
It's not very structured you say -- a lot of people get turned off from ill-structured (hard-to-search/browse) wikis. So maybe you can fix that first
Maybe you can ask lead developers/project managers to populate it with things that are issues for them: things like code conventions and API design for your particular project
Lead by example: religiously document your part of the system. Setting a precedent may encourage others to do the same
Sell the idea of using the wiki to the developers. You've identified some benefits, share those with the developers. If they can see that they'll get something of value out of it they'll start using it.
Example advantages from What Is a Wiki
Good for writing down quick ideas or longer ones, giving you more time for formal writing and editing.
Instantly collaborative without emailing documents, keeping the group in sync.
Accessible from anywhere with a web connection (if you don't mind writing in web-browser text forms).
Your archive, because every page revision is kept.
Exciting, immediate, and empowering--everyone has a say.
I have done some selling and even run some training sessions. I think some people are turned off by the lack of WYSIWYG editing and ability to paste formatted text from Word or Outlook. I know there are some tools to work around these, but they are still barriers.
There are some areas where the wiki is being used to log certain areas, but people who update those are not doing anything else with it.
I will use the wiki to document my specialised area regardless as it acts as a convenient brain extension. When starting a new development I use it as a notepad for ideas that I can expand on as it progresses.
It would help if management would give it some vocal support, even if it is not made mandatory.
I have a hard job getting people to actually use it, let alone contribute.
One of the easiest ways to get people to contribute to a wiki, is to actually have them provide contents in a wiki-suitable fashion, i.e. so that whatever they post using their usual channels of communications (newsgroups, mailing lists, forums, issue trackers, chat), is basically suitable for inclusion on the wiki.
So that others (users/volunteers) can simply take such contents and put them on the wiki.
This sounds more complicated than it really is, it's mostly about generalizing questions and answers, so that they are not necessarily part of a conversation, but can be comprehensible, meaningful and useful in a standalone fashion.
For example a question like the following:
how do I get git to clone a remote repository???
Can be answered like this:
Hello,
Just use git clone git://...
But questions can also be answered in a less personal style:
In order to clone a git repository, you will want to use the clone parameter to git:
git clone git://....
What I am trying to say is that most discussions in a project can and should be easily used to become documentation eventually. With this sort of mindset, your documentation can actually grow rather rapidly. You only need to get people to keep in mind that useful information should be ideally provided in a fashion that is suitable for wiki inclusion.
I have witnessed several instances where open source projects started to use this approach to some extent and while some people (largely new users) complained that answers were not very personal, the body of documentation was increasing steadily, because other people simply monitored such discussions and started to copy/paste such responses to the wiki.
Basically, this is one of the easiest ways to get people to contribute to a wiki, without requiring them to actually use it themselves, the only thing that's required of them is a shift in thinking.
If the developers still need to maintain 'real' documentation (s.a. Word documents), I see no way to meaningfully duplicate that on a Wiki.
It does not make sense for people to write twice
Any duplicated data is prone to get out of sync, soon.
What my current customer has done is move all this to Wiki. So I only document once, and I do it on the Wiki.
This is okay. Working with Wiki is more tedious than with Word, but at least the doc is online and others can mix-and-match with it.
Another working solution (imho) would be to store docs alongside the source, on subversion. But then the merging system needs to be able to cope with rich text etc. as well. I don't know, if any solution for that exists (other than using HTML or LaTex, which actually would not be bad picks).
Find "sticky" items (sub-3 pg. docs / diagrams / etc) something that the team seems to be creating again and again & post it on the wiki. Make sure everyone has access to the wiki and knows its there - set up a notification mechanism if possible. With some luck, the next time they have to access, rather than dig it out of version control or their machines - they should hit the wiki.
If they still don't, try to see if the team has enough slack to actually use the wiki - Subtler issues may lie beneath their reluctance.
Take a look at the advice at http://www.ikiw.org/ Grow your Wiki
Just to add to some of the excellent advice being offered here...
As a dev in a small company that does largely gov't contract work in the 6-24 month range, I find that my time is often split between development and writing status reports (right up there with writing documentation, only worse!) Having a wiki to slap down unorganized thoughts and notes as we go along has made report-writing a lot less painful (not pain-LESS, but better all the same).
Further, if you're already in the Mediawiki world, you might want to look at SemanticMediawiki. It allows you to take the organization of your data to another level by semantically tagging it. That doesn't mean a lot on its own, I know, but I can tell you (for example) that it can drastically improve the relevance of the data returned from searches. It is definitely worth a look.
Generally good advice here. I'd like to add:
You really need a champion - someone pushing this to developers and management (without being pushy - that's a challenge!) and providing support & tutorials when possible. This person also needs to be a peer (so a fellow developer, not someone in a remote IT department) and really customer focused i.e. ready to make changes when requested.
Speaking of changes, some people here say wikis are unstructured. I disagree. Our MediaWiki installation is structured using categories, particularly with two extensions:WarnNoCategories (to require users to add a category when saving a page) and CategoryTree to show how all the categories fit together (this can be linked to from the sidebar). I've got more tips on how we keep this low threshold, if you're interested.