₦airaland Forum

"logical thinkers" sounds like tautology 2 me. i would hope that most thinkers are logical, but then what do i know. apparently some thinkers are illogical in their reasoning.

find out about the nigerian company called City Business Computers. they should be able to assist you.

finally come 2 nigeria? was it absent b4?

in strict terms, an architect designs. but then how will a developer gain enough experience to be regarded as an architect? therefore is it expected that developers from certain levels (say senior level) begin to get involved in the design process. in any case, an architect is necessarily a developer. no need 2 get 2 technical on terminologies, but i simply had 2 play around with that dude called Afam. the thread starter was correct in requesting for an IT consultant as that is a broader term than programmer, developer or architect.

rotfl. ode.

Dude, please explain why the client needs a Programmer or Developer to design software. Are programmers or developers supposed to design? The decision on the architecture of the software has not yet been determined, yet he should be searching for a programmer or developer? the environment, infrastructure in place (networked environment, server OS, etc), budget, etc are yet to be determined, yet you want to jump straight to application development? please stick to your tashere PHP trivialities.

The thread starter is well aware of the needs of the project and far better than you who has no real idea of how software is designed and developed. Rather you pose around with PHP being the panacea to all software needs. The magic potion. What is needed at this point is an I.T Consultant (with Architecture skills), so kindly keep off topics way above your head.

Check this: http://www.prospects.ac.uk/links/ITConsult/

Job description

An IT consultant works in partnership with clients, advising them how to use information technology in order to meet their business objectives or overcome problems. Consultants work to improve the structure and efficiency and of an organsiation's IT systems.

IT consultants may be involved in a variety of activities, including marketing, project management, client relationship management and systems development.

They may also be responsible for user training and feedback. In many companies, these tasks will be carried out by an IT project team. IT consultants are increasingly involved in sales and business development, as well as technical duties.
» Typical work activities

Task typically involve:

    * meeting with clients to determine requirements; (Architect)
    * working with clients to define the scope of a project;(Architect)
    * planning timescales and the resources needed;
    * clarifying a client's system specifications, understanding their work practices and the nature of their business;(Architect)
    * travelling to customer sites;
    * liaising with staff at all levels of a client organisation;
    * defining software, hardware and network requirements;(Architect)
    * analysing IT requirements within companies and giving independent and objective advice on the use of IT;(Architect)
    * developing agreed solutions and implementing new systems;(Architect)
    * presenting solutions in written or oral reports;
    * helping clients with change-management activities;
    * project managing the design and implementation of preferred solutions;
    * purchasing systems where appropriate;
    * designing, testing, installing and monitoring new systems;(Architect)
    * preparing documentation and presenting progress reports to customers;
    * organising training for users and other consultants;
    * being involved in sales and support and, where appropriate, maintaining contact with client organisations;
    * identifying potential clients and building and maintaining contacts.


I have highlighted the job descriptions of an I.T consultant that are essentially those of a Systems/Solutions Architect. If you have any counters, please present them. And while you are doing that, explain to us why this client needs a Programmer or Developer for the DESIGN of the required system.

Also, check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology_consulting

The important point is shown in bold below:

Independent consultants, who function as contractors (in the US, on "1099", employees of staffing firms (in the US, employed on "W-2", or as subcontractors in their own right.

I have worked as an independent consultant on W-2, and while I was an I.T consultant, I was actually a developer. You have attempted one of your oversabi yarns and failed miserably as usual. And mind you, I used no curse words. I merely used the word that best describes you, but it happens to be derogatory.

@Afam the maga

"design a custom software for its front and back office operations"

the operational word here is "design" you idiot. he said "design", he hasn't even mentioned development yet, so a programmer/developer doesn't even come into the picture yet. so he does need an IT consultant or an architect.

lol. so an IT Consultant cannot be a Programmer or Developer?

lol. u missed it. some stones have touch-screens. so, the iphone is as good as a stone.

this bug isn't even close in comparison 2 exploits that made jailbreaking possible.

what do u mean by "the kind of front end that will be compatible with it"?

This will leave iPhone OSX developers gloating:

http://mobile.slashdot.org/mobile/08/11/08/1720246.shtml

Makes it harder for Android 2 catch up with things like this.

there have been frameworks which use GSM cellphones as payment implements from as far back as I can remember. I remember being contacted by a company in SA in 2001 about their product that does exactly that. this is not new.

some dudes r working on the bluetooth profiles:

http://ibluetoothblog

so soon u can do file transfers via bluetooth. i guess the apple developers need some help afterall.

UPDATE: append ".tk" to the end of that URL, this forum keeps stripping it off. i guess it's 1 of those "smart" features.

sorry i don't have the time, but it's easy enough:

i believe java allows u 2 check the existence of a file in the file-system: http://www.roseindia.net/java/beginners/file-directory-exists.shtml . so, in the same procedure (method) that u use in writing the file to the file-system, it could be done using a loop that if the file or copies of it already exist, u simply rename new copies of a file sequentially e.g if the file in question has the name "somefile.doc", new copies of the file can be called "somefile01.doc", "somefile02.doc", etc. i'm sorry if all i said is of no use 2 u.

i believe that's a detail left 4 u 2 implement in ur code in the procedure that writes the file.

a mischief maker is so focused on his task that he will see evil in everything good, talk less of things that are neither here nor there. in the example u gave, it's the idiots that follow such a person that are actually worse than the mischief maker himself. herd of goats they all are. what does it take 2 figure out ur cousin's initials and his wife's are "CS"? even a 5 year old can figure that.

so back 2 the "mysterious" markings; i even gave them the benefit of the doubt by assuming there were indeed markings. i won't be surprised if there were none at all.

idiots. probably what they saw were markings on the plates to prevent them from being stolen.

actually Android is considered more secure (some kind of sandbox model). i started a thread on that back in april/may, if u do a search u'll probably see the link 2 the original article.

u r just making a bunch of subjective assertions. who is everybody? u and how many ppl? u have not even told us what it was that was included in C# that gave it an edge over java, since u say the language alone and knowing language is about grammar, syntax and semantics, i am very much interested in breaking this down. so C# allows u 2 express ur self better? it's less verbose? what exactly r u talking about here?

no doubt about what? on what basis is C# better than Java?

comparisons have been trashed out even b4 the G1 was released, and nothing has changed. it will take years for the Google phones 2 outclass the iPhone, if it ever happens.

logics is the father of mathematics?

u got it backwards. logic is a branch of mathematics.

i took a look @ django in 2006 @ the prompting of a friend and i must say it favorably competes with the equivalent frameworks in java that i am familiar with (such as struts and jsf). i think google did a lot 2 draw attention 2 python.

ruby is another language that demands some attention. i have used a tool called WATIR developed in ruby. u can google and find out what it does, and i can say i was pretty impressed. developers need 2 take a look @ plenty of those so called obscure languages and find their treasure. ruby is very popular in japan though.

great points xanadu.

but here is a good read:

http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?msr_tr_id=MSR-TR-2006-45

Application designers often face the question of whether to store large objects in a filesystem or in a database. Often this decision is made for application design simplicity. Sometimes, performance measurements are also used.
This paper looks at the question of fragmentation – one of the operational issues that can affect the performance and/or manageability of the system as deployed long term. As expected from the common wisdom, objects smaller than 256K are best stored in a database while objects larger than 1M are best stored in the filesystem. Between 256K and 1M, the read:write ratio and rate of object overwrite or replacement are important factors.
We used the notion of “storage age” or number of object overwrites as way of normalizing wall clock time. Storage age allows our results or similar such results to be applied across a number of read:write ratios and object replacement rates.

u will also find a link to a PDF file detailing the tests: ftp://ftp.research.microsoft.com/pub/tr/TR-2006-45.pdf

from the foregoing, on the issue of fragmentation it seems it is best 2 store images as blobs except of course the images we r dealing with here r ultra-high resolution and therefore extremely huge.

u know this discussion just led me to the discovery of Firebird. has anybody tried it? it apparently stores files as blobs much faster than the file can be stored on the file-system. not sure how it compares overall to MySQL but it's also open-source.

"SQL operations don't work on files.  They work on tables and fields"

sql operations do work on files stored as BLOBs which is a field in the intended table isn't it? and what essentially is a BLOB if not just a sequence of bytes? u can perform string operations on these. i don't get your point here, as you seem to agree with the point i raised.

File size
i already thot about storing the file size in the db, but that is still replication of detail/duplicity. u r storing the same information about the same entity 2ce, as opposed to a file stored as a BLOB, where the size of the file is simply the length of the BLOB - LEN(imagine_file).

Contraint
the size of file allowed for example. i know u will say this can be enforced before trying to store the file, but the database enforcement is more difficult to get around.

Security
a file stored in a db is benign and not likely to cause any harm (it is simply a sequence of bytes like i said earlier). now imagine a hypothetical exploit with images for instance (not sure if any have been discovered, but i can bet they do exist). an image file that has been modified to take advantage of this hypothetical exploit cannot do much if stored in a db table, than if stored in the file system where it is possible to perform an execute operation or some other trigger condition/operation might occur. that u don't want it in ur db is not the issue here after all it would have made its way 2 ur file system anyway, but there in the db it is harmless.

it is advantageous 2 store a file as an object in cases where u want 2 perform SQL operations involving the file such as selecting all records fitting a filter like the size of the file or containing a particular string/pattern, or even enforcing a constraint. it will be tedious if the file is stored on the file system. it might also provide some form of security as no likely dangerous files are introduced to the file system.

i really don't think u have enough info about the app 2 know it's a bad idea 2 store images in a db.

maybe if u can be specific and mention the exact problem u r having, i might be able 2 make suggestions. also what rdbms r u using?

no. that's why u declare constants such as names of database tables as global strings. u usually do this by having an interface which you can call "Constants" for instance. then u declare each table name like this:

public static final String TBL_NAME_1 = "table_name_1";

that way u only change the name of the table in exactly 1 location if there is a need 2 make a change.

that's good design. shikena.