start of with OCA/OCP , the rest will become clearer,

DBA skills is sort of entry level now, cause most ERPs , CRM included have dependencies on DBs.

so go the Oracle route, you can't go wrong that way ,

solomon201:

@ Poster
though C++ teaches u better memory management but who cares? these days memory is cheap and abundant. Again most ppl say JAVA is slow but i tell u every passing day hardware performance increases n the so called slow pace is disappearing. I think the future holds little or nothing for C++ even with a new standard (C++0x) to be released soon.

So Poster, u should switch to JAVA in my opinion, it is easier, rules is Web development, Networking and it gives more jobs than C++.

please this is wrong!!!

and memory management has little to do with cheap memory, think memory leak

on speed, that was history from the far past ,

@dueal i agree with you perfectly
but imagine a life support system that would require service pack 14.8.19p

Software failures in some areas are actually so critical that even you the developer might be reluctant to release the product.

So lets imagine you develop a Life support system; how much time and after what activities would you be ready to tell the customer to give you your money (cause you're done )

software dev no eazee o ,

Intelligent interviewers can ask you what is the weather outside like, and get what kind of thinker you are ,

The major things they want to know are:

How often do you really write code ?
Can you think out of the box ?
Are you self motivated ?
Can you work alone ?
Can you work well in a team ?

For more advanced members
Can you mange a team ?
How do you resolve conflicts ?
and other soft skills ?

Your answers say a lot, e.g.

Using a lot of "I" did this and that raises question of your lack of team experience and reporting.
"We" is okay but statements with "they" questions your commitment ,
etc.

Won't it be better to simply use javaranch ?

dueal:

Going through the threads on this forum i ran unto this topic and had a lil laugh. 'The importance of software testing'. Like popular saying , Software that hasn't been tested simply does not work. You must continously with emphasis go through the iterative process of analysis,design,implement ,test.ur work ain't done yet till u r convinced each stage has been considered to a depth. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to decipher that. Ha ha!

@dueal Software testing is much more than unit tests or the typical tests that a development team might integrate into the Software dev life-cycle.

To put it in perspective, how many programs or applications have you written and is certain is fail safe or fail hard ?
There was this Greek thing, about "if a Builders work collapses and kills the tenants son, then the builder's son too must be killed" .Can you imagine the number of people that would sign-out of software development if such things were still in practice ? 

Software fails!!! simple ,
How can the customer get some level of comfort that business critical processes would not end in catastrophe ? How can the developer give this assurance ? (Its not by saying, "we did unit tests throughout the SDLC).

Hint : Quality assurance !
so @blacksta's mix of testing and Project management is okay, but that's not the whole story
Solid testing suites and practices cannot by itself deliver projects, so i'm wondering how reference to the, now famous, Standish group report is relevant.

bigboyslim:

Its advisable to save classes in different files but all classes should be in the same package. the main() class in particular should be saved in a separate file. (this is just good programming practice anyway, if you save them all in one file, the program will still run)

Why would you want to make all your classes in the same package ? The package structure should reflect the logical arrangement of the classes.


Also you can have only one public class in a translational unit (i.e .java file), the other classes would be package private(meaning no modifier).

Like @nolongTing said , invest a little more time in the basic before you bite on this kind of project you're undertaking ,
It doesn't seem difficult, but that's for someone who knows Java(or .NET).


Cheers

MIDI is a digitized format that works with instruments ,

are you thinking voice recognition or commands, its definitely possible

you'd have to have a A/D converter which might simply be a device like the microphone, digitized signals can then be made to trigger instructions.

This is all theory, though the concept works well in mobile phones that do voice dialing.

, or is it security equipment, like an alarm triggered based on auditory signals ?

Loosely coupled !

1) Why do software project fail ?

2)If you were brought on to form a new department, how would you go about it?
How many team members ? Why ?

These are loaded questions that'll keep the interviewee talking (if he/she knows their onions)

While Spring like the Enterprise library is a collection of reusable components ,its most notably an IOC container.

It encourages loosely coupled designs strung together declaratively ,

Dr. Lorenz:

@Ghenghis

U asked for the question, so let me here your own answer too.

Off the top of my head I'd say yes.
I'm not very much into multimedia programming ,

but I'm aware that the information(code) is in a quantized format hence the sound also has to be quantized however sound by nature is analog ,
this is the stuff sound codecs and the likes are made.

More details please ,

enohj2ee:

YES WE HAVE INDIANS WORKING WITH US, WE EVEN HAVE DEVELOPMENT CENTER THERE TOO, BUT THE BRAIN IS THE NIGERIANS GUYS WITH ME. WE HAVE ALOT OF SOLUTIONS
Partial List of our Softwares

If you don't mind my asking , what role do the Indians play ?

Why are they placed so highly in your organization, if the brains are elsewhere ?
We have to give credit to where its due,we can't plant corn and expect to reap wheat.
If you go to India, the educational and recreational system is far different from Naija.
They have created an enabling environment for the youths, they have as much potential like any ordinary Nigerian but they have tapped into this potential and are giving the whole world(US and Europe) a run for their money, so lets not compare Nigerian software to Indian ones
(There are a very few exceptions)


The fundamental problem with Nigerian solution developers is poverty ; the Chairman/MD/CEO is ready to bailout after the one big project that was preceded by 7years of nothing. He forgets that a stable structure is necessary to support software infrastructure ,

Although i'm a developer I'd be hard put to buy Nigerian software it a business has a need. Though my mind would remain open , most local software vendors cannot really survive an unbiased RFP selection process.

Investors expect profit in business, and purchase of software cannot be a good way to contribute to charity ,
(Just my humble opinion)

candylips:

create a new object with the new keyword !!!

Interesting , how do you manage this ?

How do u decide on what to manage or let the container manage ?

Loose coupling is good but no coupling is a nuisance ,
Spring doesn't manage all my objects so i'm still stuck eith new once in a while

I've met very few female programmers, though not Nigerian.
Many female DBAs and web developers though ,

Dr. Lorenz:

There's a question about the power of programming (regardless of the language used) I've been wanting to know the answer. Now this is time for all of you that has been talking to prove yourselves  . Anyway, let me know if anyone of you wants to know the question,

now I'm curious , so lets play along ,

What's the question

@nolongting
when it comes to people exercising their right to choose , things are never settled.

I can assure you that such arguments are not only done in Nigeria,
There are benefits in comparing the languages , look at improvements made to java due to comparisons with c#.

Though I've used C# professionally, Java is my language of choice but note that i haven't disagreed with you regarding the power of C#.


The point is a good developer might argue about his/her favorite language, but curiosity should move him to check other ones(this is the spirit of learning and advancement).

for beginners i usually just tell them to pick any language :javascript, php,python, C,java etc. Once they've learned the first language they can settle on a favorite and join the language wars there's really a rich history behind it all http://oreilly.com/news/graphics/prog_lang_poster.pdf.

@nolongthing

nolongTing:


Bill Gates is not stupid he wants you to learn then you will have to buy the full professional edition.

I don't quite agree ,

MS keeps visual Studio commercial so that tool development would still be competitive and profitable to tool developers like Inprise Borland.
The variety of tools available for java is one of the advantages of that environment over .NET, if companies like Borland, infragistics etc. can't make money (because MS gives the very good VS for free) then no one develops tools at all for the platform other than MS(this is not good).


yeah the full version is definitely better than the express, but not in terms of pure code development.
even the professional versions have enterprise, team etc.

On programming ease, I think java is simpler than C# or even VB.NET (because of the CLS) ,

@linxon are you suggesting that beginners buy the full suite instead of using express ?

and yes I like freebies, I'm always excited for guys that are starting out now, cause there's a lot to choose from ,

linxon:

I If you even dream of me learning from you, you should wake up and apologise 

maybe we'll meet across a table some day ,

if only @linxon would listen, he might learn a few things

If you need a free copy of VS.NET http://www.microsoft.com/Express/

take it easy o!

linxon:


like I told you before: YAWN times INFINITY

That makes no sense at all!
Give advice to the original poster and stop waffling! Is java harder than C#? Thats the question, stop blurting out all you haved read from a leaflet on Java and give some practical advice!

I wanted to join this programming section to help those less fortunate than me and help, I have been there and done it all but it seems that some of you are bent on arguing for arguing sake.

@Linxon
You're such an abrasive character !!!

I was referring to java (the platform) and .NET ,

You should exercise decorum wherever you find yourself, more so in an environment for learning and sharing ideas I'll just leave it at that ,

Hello Guys,

I think even without knowing it @clementcro original question of Java and .NET is on the mark,

it requires a comparison of the benefits of the Java platform(which includes Jython, Jruby, Java, javaFX etc.) with those of .NET(C#, VB.NET, Jscript etc.)

Answer: Both platforms are very similar in concept (Virtual machine, Evolutionary compilation , ) , the class libraries are intuitively similar because many of the original developers of the .NET platform are form a Java background. Its noteworthy that Microsoft was an early and very eager member of the JCP before their fall-out with SUN.

Yes Oracle intends to buy SUN, however JAVA is free and would remain free!
The question is how Oracle would influence the JCP which would in turn influence the growth of Java. Its no big secret that IBM and Oracle have overtime, made much more money form Java than SUN. So free/open source does not mean un-commercial.

Whichever platform or language a beginner decides to choose is not so relevant, to be really techno-savvy in software solutions delivery you'd need far more than Java, C# or any other language can offer you, alone.

So to start, the problem is one of an embarrassment of rich tools and choices.

You have eclipse, netbeans, intelliJ etc. for Java
for .NET you have Visual studio .NET

I have to admit that java solutions are the most deployed on the planet(+mobile).
MS are the most deployed across computers.

Also i agree with everything @kobojunkie said,
I you cant decide, simply close your eyes and choose, its like choosing between a BENZ and BMW (both great)

try using a torrent client to pull it from

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:4UU4A7NIPH2BZMEQIZGFAQYQRUWSQ7TK


its about 15mb in chm format
6th ed.

@lekside44

if you're programming for the solaris platform(which is one of the best platforms for software development) simply
get the sun one suite or solaris developer express edition.


If you're on windows the best C++ compilers are from inprise Borland
or GCC for open source

also try bloodshed-dev (very good C++ compiler and IDE)

If you don't mind managed environment (lots of baggage) then C++.NET

Watford's set of compilers are also good for fortran and C++

try www.thefreecountry.com

enjoy!!!

Lets remember something Random() is not random is psuedo random so what you have is an even distribution of numbers.
Making random number of result sets (without repeats)is difficult because of the context of randomness. A good trick would be to get the random numbers generated form the app and request a record or resultset with its index(like rownum in oracle) equal to the random number. It also means you can be sure the records would stay random by calling the same rand function or storing used indexes (so u wont use them again)

There are many algorithms that can be used to have the kind of effect you want, a sieve immediately comes to mind.

note:@davidt : who pays for random adverts ? what you want is adverts that are called an equal number of times in an unspecified order.

Getting randomness in nature is harder than you might think

nice discussion!

Hmm Long post ,

Ok let me get some things of my chest

@seun
python is object oriented
python is very good for rapid prototyping because its object oriented
python uses higher level data structures like tuples, lists etc because its object oriented
do you do garbage collection in python ? no , because its , all objects tuples included descend form a single object hierarchy -- so you might not like oo but Guido does, and he built python on it


on classes

creating a class or interface is not supposed to be a matter of whim or mood

the needs of the domain model determine if you create
a class
an abstract class
an interface
delegate (in C#) or inner class(java)

you can also inherit although its almost always better to use aggregation

I recommend every developer java or otherwise read
Effective java by Joshua Bloch

it'll clear up many of the confusing areas regarding OO.

OO is not the language, its the way one goes about developing applications, but some languages make it easier by having OO friendly syntax
I've seen some solid OO in C (but it'll make you dizzy)

OO is well suited to business apps, it keeps data and behavior very close together
so if we take @Atomx ADO db example, you model tables with objects , an ADO object is both the row contents and the things(operations) you can perform on a row.

A school of thought is promoting OO databases, well there are ways of having inheritance like behavior in a DB.
These things are not just theory, but best practices people have used to deliver robust world class solutions

Nice discussion though

Seun:

Object Oriented Programming is mostly hype.  I recommend procedural programming and python.

Mr. controversy ,

Python is object oriented.

@seun
So you think feature/ideas are false or hype


loose coupling
inheritance and aggregation
programming by contract and interfaces
design patterns
encapsulation
data hiding
polymorphism

When you develop large applications and the likes that businesses today demand, maybe you'd appreciate these things more. For some people OO is not just an academic exercise or do it 'cause i said so, its a proven technique for managing the chaos that can be a result of poorly designed software.

We'll , that's my opinion, I'm sure you have some sort of advanced knowledge why its all hype

@donkoleone
Codegear winner!!
It was a lot of effort for me to read his code(I thought he was just showing of the scanner class), he later described what it was supposed to do.
You might not always be around to explain what your code does, try to write code that speaks for itself

Cheers

yawa-ti-de:

@ebot (a sanu  ):
Not to take away from any of the books listed above but one must also ask, "greatest by whose definition and on what basis?"
,
Again, not to take away from the post but one must always carry out their own independent research to verify things to be true for themselves.  The aforementioned books could be "good" or "great" but not necessarily "the greatest".

You are absolutely right, but its cool if you can get tips , I've found that only 1 in 7 books i buy is crap (i use amazon to decide).
May be @ebot should have picked just the favorite/top 10, we'd have a quality list from that. I usually just have 1 or 2 favs in a particular topic irrespective of language.

like the Java database best practices book is one of the best i've seen for developing databases (in any language)

yeah many are great books , but add these to the list

Effective java by Joshua Bloch
Mythical man month by Frederick brooks
Compilers - Principles, Techniques, and Tools by Alfred V. Aho,Monica S. Lam et. al
Seeing Data: Designing User Interfaces for Database Systems Using .NET By Rebecca M. Riordan
Java Concurrency in Practice By Brian Goetz, Tim Peierls, Joshua Bloch, Joseph Bowbeer, David Holmes, Doug Lea
Programming Windows by Charles Petzold
Refactoring to Patterns By Joshua Kerievsky

malone5923:

How can I pick of digits form 5 Int numbers that are typed by the user with three spaces seperating them as in: 45489 to 4 5 4 8 9. Using only division and module operand. I will appreciate if you use peseudocode to answer my questions.

You're outsourcing your homework

Ok, I'll give you some tips (not in pseudocode)
primary 1 stuff
Since you're using the decimal system :
example 1:
H T U
4 5 7
+ 2 5 9
--------
7 1 6
-------
example 2:
you'll notice that meaning ( 4 x 100) + (5 x 10) + (7)
plus (2 x 100) + ( 5 x 10) + (9)

457 / 100 = 4 REM 57
57 / 10 = 5 REM 7
7/1 = 7

You'll wish you paid more attention in primary 1 (Good luck)

candylips:

Even the most famous IT drop out(Bill Gates) wished he hadn't dropped out of school.

drop-out my PASS , he stopped going to Harvard in year 3! (, after making his first millions)
By the way, do know his high school ? The point is not that he even went to school, but its obvious he's (very) educated,

candylips:

I definately am a salary earner and i have learnt a great deal from working for big organisations which i believe might be very invaluable to me latter on if i decide to go on my own.

There is no better way to learn than from veterans who have been in the field for decades and i quiet enjoy understuding the way they approach and solve problems in ingenuious ways. These are things i will never have known if i had stroke it out on my own .

You must be my twin!
here's a little quiz ,
1)Where are the people who know the most about windows ?
2)Where are the people who know what would happen to java tomorrow ?
3)Who new how to use eclipse and netbeans before it was released ?

[size=4pt]Answers:1)Microsoft 2)sun,google,IBM 3)IBM,SUN[/size]

Who wont pay to work there for a year ?
p.s to do that write your own compiler or get a degree(or more)

@javalove ,@javaprince,@candylips

the world does not start and end with java (or PHP ) ,

I know quite a few computer science grads that happen to know how to code to pieces ,

The hot new languages like ruby,groovy,even java sit on the shoulder of giants , smalltalk ,lisp, pascal ,c

Our beloved java is not a giant, by the way,

Personally i'm yet to see a great programmer that is sooo particular about language , Gosling,fowler,kent,schirazi,Bloch check out their resumes
When i started progarmming , i wrote code (in a notebook) in all sorts of languages , i loved them all. ,
My first real experience was influenced by the first compiler i could lay my hands on, not on whether java was better than pascal or fortran,

I guess what i'm saying is , if i was born 50 years back ,I'd still write code , maybe in machine language , it doesn't really matter
But i'd get the machine to jump through hoops for me ,

So, please let the schools teach anything they like , even if its VBA . The rest would take care of itself,

there are many things u get from schools(even in naija) and its not only the maths and physics. ,
Some rare people get a similar experience without getting within the walls of a uni ,yeah
but i think the uni environment is one of the best places u can find like minds or whatever of life's goals you're looking for
Its like an incubation center , sometimes you hatch chickens and geese other times eagles fly out