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1500 questions
78
votes
3 answers
Can you change code distributed under the MIT license, and re-distribute it under the GPL license?
Is it possible to alter the code of the Chili plugin, which had its latest release on July 2008, and it is licensed under the MIT license, to then license it under GPL?
As far I can see, there is no restriction about the new code being licensed…
apaderno
- 4,004
78
votes
7 answers
Why should I use an MVC pattern?
It seems everyone doing web applications nowadays wants to use MVC for everything. I find it hard to convince myself to use this pattern, however. I understand the general idea is to separate the backend logic from the frontend that represents the…
Billy ONeal
- 8,073
77
votes
10 answers
Non-OOP Design Patterns?
I have only heard the term "design pattern" being used for object oriented code, and the GoF patterns include only OOP design patterns, but design patterns are elegant solutions for commonly occuring programming problems, right? There is nothing in…
Anto
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- 13
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77
votes
7 answers
What's the use case for formatting monetary values with a *system-dependent* currency symbol?
Many high-level programming languages have built-in features to format a number with a system-dependent currency symbol:
-- Outputs $100.00 (en-US) or € 100,00 (de-AT)
Console.WriteLine(100.ToString("C")); // C#
? FormatCurrency(100) …
Heinzi
- 9,748
77
votes
5 answers
What is the "Fix Everything" design pattern?
In this 2003 article by Stephen Figgins on linuxdevcenter.com, Bram Cohen's BitTorrent is described as using the "Fix Everything" design pattern.
A less common approach that both makes BitTorrent harder to grasp, but worthy of study, is Cohen's…
Aaron Hall
- 5,945
77
votes
7 answers
What is the purpose of a dedicated build machine?
Due to a number of circumstances leading to a poor deployment last build cycle, I campaigned in our office to perform all future deployments with a dedicated build machine, and my boss accepted this proposal.
However, instead of getting an actual…
Zibbobz
- 1,552
- 3
- 13
- 20
77
votes
4 answers
Dependency Injection: Field Injection vs Constructor Injection?
I know this is a hot debate and the opinions tend to change over time as to the best approach practice.
I used to use exclusively field injection for my classes, until I started reading up on different blogs (exs: petrikainulainen and schauderhaft…
Eric B.
- 1,239
77
votes
2 answers
Why do so many hashed and encrypted strings end in an equals sign?
I work in C# and MSSQL and as you'd expect I store my passwords salted and hashed.
When I look at the hash stored in an nvarchar column (for example the out the box aspnet membership provider). I've always been curious why the generated Salt and…
Liath
- 3,426
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- 33
77
votes
15 answers
Why should passwords be encrypted if they are being stored in a secure database?
I have a web service. Right now, I have passwords stored in plain text in a MySQL table on my server. I know this isn't the best practice, and that is why I am working on it.
Why should passwords be encrypted if they are being stored in a secure…
phpmysqlguy
- 795
77
votes
9 answers
How should you deal with a popular project that you no longer want to maintain?
I am the maintainer of a project which has a large non-technical userbase. I've been maintaining it for about 4 years now and adding new features as they've been requested.
I'd like to move on to other projects now and stop developing for this…
Mendhak
- 929
77
votes
19 answers
Is Perl still a useful, viable language?
I know it may have been asked before, but here goes nothing...
Is Perl still something that would be considered useful? If someone was a new programmer (either completely new to programming or just a few month/years of experience) would Perl be…
Bob
- 2,790
76
votes
11 answers
Can't I just use all static methods?
What's the difference between the two UpdateSubject methods below? I felt using static methods is better if you just want to operate on the entities. In which situations should I go with non-static methods?
public class Subject
{
public int Id…
Alexander
- 1,159
76
votes
18 answers
What is the Best Way to Incentivize a Team of Developers?
I know in advance that people are going to see this question and think "free Red Bull." But I am actually looking for the best way to tie rewards for developers to the company's long-term goals.
For example, assuming a team is working on the same…
Britt Wescott
- 1,220
76
votes
12 answers
Is there a point to including a "change log" in every code file when you are using version control?
I was under the impression that a version control system eliminated the need to have "change logs" plastered everywhere in the code. I've often seen the continued use of change logs, including big long blocks at the start of stored procedures with…
Wayne Molina
- 15,684
76
votes
25 answers
Frankly, do you prefer Cowboy coding?
Most programmers defending methodologies politically correct like Agile, Waterfall, RUP, etc. Some of them follow the methodology but not all of them. Frankly, if you can choose the methodology, you certainly would go to mainstream "correct"…
Maniero
- 10,806