Coding Blocks

This time we're talking about problems with nulls, stored procedures, and impostor syndrome.

Link to Episode 43’s Full Show Notes:
http://www.codingblocks.net/episode43

In this episode we go back to the design pattern well that we've been away from for so long.  We cover the Command, Repository and Mediator design patterns.  It was hard for us to believe, but it's been almost a year since our last design patterns episode!!!  Come on in for fun, learning, and of course, our tips of the week.

See the original show notes at:
http://www.codingblocks.net/epsiode42

Leave us a review here:
http://www.codingblocks.net/review

Spectre013, Christoffer, Genius, HAM3rtag, joe_recursion_joe, Gearhead2k, Manriquey2k, Mike North, AndrewM, MildManneredCalvin, Freeleeks

Sid Savara, J. Mair, tonicorb, Nmkel999, Eschwartz20, mochadwi, Banjammin, wisco_cmo, NewZeroRiot, Nate_the_DBA, Pauloispaulo

Joe’s chess game!

Joe on Hello Tech Pros

Software Engineering Radio #256 on Unit Testing

!important is a CSS code smell.

Do you name your IIFEs? You should.

This is our 5th, Design Patterns Episode. Last one was in July 2015.

30: Adapter, Facade, and Memento
19: Iterators, Observers, and Chains
16: Strategy, Template, Null Object
11: Factories, Factory Methods, Builder, Prototype

What type of development do you prefer?

Front-End
Back-End
Full Stack

• Encapsulate a request as an object, thereby letting you parameterize clients with different requests, queue or log requests, and support undo.
• It's not "method()" it's "new Object(), and later...object.invoke()
• Why? Nice, clean way of organizing your code. Especially if….
• OO replacement for callbacks - meh
  • Specify, queue, execute
  • Undo
  • Transactions/Logging
  • Not mentioned:
    • Macros
    • Async
• Real World Applications
  • GUI/Menus - copy/paste/undo/photoshop
  • Video Games
    • Age of Empires sent commands rather than the game state!
    • It’s not if("B") { jump(); }, if(input[k]) { input[k].invoke() }
      • Great for different contexts, like menus
  • Parallel / Tasks
    • Async/Await
  • Queues / Multi-Step Wizards
    • Queue up the commands, execute all at once
  • Restaurants????
• How it’s done:
  • Client: Customer
  • Receiver: Waiter
  • I/Command: Order
  • Invoker: Cook
• Great example on sourcemaking.com
• What about callbacks?
• Why not the observer pattern?
• Challenge for the listeners, program the command pattern - do it “by the book”

Why?

• Testable with isolated data layer
• Centrally managed access rules and logic
• Centralized caching strategy
• Allows you to separate business logic from data access logic
• Strongly typed entities
• Business entity associations
• Can apply a domain model to simplify business logic
• Decouple business entity from data storage technology - the repository doesn’t expose where it gets its data

What?

• Sits between the data source and the business layer
  • Maps data from the data source to an entity
  • Persists changes from the entity back to the data source
    • Can use the Unit of Work pattern for complex, multi-step operations
  • Typically utilizes a Data Mapper Pattern, or an ORM such as Entity Framework in .NET

What is it?

• The mediator pattern defines an object that encapsulates how a set of objects interact
  • Source: Wikipedia
• Promotes loose coupling by keeping objects from referring to each other explicitly
• Promotes the Single Responsibility Principle by allowing communication to be offloaded to a class that handles just that.
• Similar to the Observer pattern
  • Mediator pattern can be implemented during the observer pattern,
  • The Observer pattern distributes communication by introducing “observer” and “subject” objects.
• Also similar to the Facade pattern in that it abstracts functionality of the classes.

Examples

• Chat room
• Air Traffic Control
• Button events?

http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff649690.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396
https://genericunitofworkandrepositories.codeplex.com/
http://blog.falafel.com/implement-step-step-generic-repository-pattern-c/
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131503/1500_archers_on_a_288_network_.php
https://sourcemaking.com/design_patterns/command
https://sourcemaking.com/design-patterns-book
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/526874/Repository-pattern-done-right
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediator_pattern
https://sourcemaking.com/design_patterns/mediator
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/134432/mediator-vs-observer

Allen:

Want a JavaScript tip per day?!
http://www.jstips.co/

Bonus!!!  Want tons of cheap stuff?!
App called "Geek" - download it on iOS or Android

Michael:

Use Nunit's TestCaseSource to test objects in your test cases

How to delete/forget about a wireless network in Win8.1

• netsh wlan show profiles
• netsh wlan delete profile name="gogoinflight"

SOURCE: http://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-delete-forget-wireless-network-profiles-windows-81

Joe:

Learn a new language! Stretch the brain, learn new concepts and see old concepts in a new light! Scripting, Compiled, Functional - Conway’s Game of Life!

This week on Coding Blocks, Joe changes a different kind of string, Allen drools over the Hellcat, and Michael shares his random thoughts. We span a collection of topics including GraphQL framework envy, bash on Windows, and whether it takes two to Django.

Are you an Advanced Programmer? We dig into the final section of Robert Read’s fantastic writing: How to be a programmer. Also, how to cheat at Jira, a lazy butcher and if learning web development is worth it.

Link to Episode 40’s Full Show Notes
http://www.codingblocks.net/episode40

Link to Episode 39's Full Show Notes
http://www.codingblocks.net/episode39

T-Shirt Giveaway - The winner is...
Manrique Logan - please contact us to send us your ship-to information!

This Episode's Survey
Suggested by: https://twitter.com/CatcheNameHere/status/700507429390274560

Princess rap battle: GALADRIEL vs LEIA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL52R7m8b7w

Shout out to our friend Will - https://twitter.com/iamwillmadison 

How to be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary by Robert L Read
Make a Pull Request to get your thoughts in here:
https://github.com/RobertLRead/HowToBeAProgrammer
Or buy your copy here from Amazon:
http://amzn.to/1WzbIxs

Succinctness is Power - Paul Graham
http://www.paulgraham.com/power.html

You Don't Know JS
https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS/blob/master/README.md

Want to know how fast you type?
http://www.typingtest.com/

Allen's Typing Speed on the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic

http://www.typingtest.com/result.html?acc=100&nwpm=90&gwpm=90&ncpm=452&gcpm=452&dur=60&time=60&chksum=45213&unit=wpm&kh=998&td=null&err=0&hits=452

specflow - Binding business requirements to .NET code
http://www.specflow.org/

Allen Underwood: Execution plan for a running query in Microsoft SQL Server
Preface: You can click a button in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to see the execution plan of a query to identify any performance problems.  The biggest issue with this is that if there's a query that NEVER returns, or takes an insanely long time to return, then you're stuck waiting for the query to finish.  This tip shows you how to find the ACTUAL (not estimated) query plan of the query that is actively running:

How To:

Once that bottom query runs, you'll be provided a link in the results grid that you can click to open up the graphical execution plan.

Michael Outlaw: Have Git ignore changes you make to a specific file like you didn't make the changes, but still have it be part of the tracked files in Git.
Preface: Let's say you have a connection string configuration file that you change to point to your local database.  That config file needs to be tracked in Git, but you don't want your changes to accidentally get committed and pushed up to the remote repo, then this command is for you.

How To:

Joe Zack: Life Tip -  Pay attention to the warnings in your IDE.  It's easy to get used to seeing several warnings and ignoring them because they're not errors.  Eventually a new one that actually matters will show up and by ignoring it, you could be creating heartache for yourself.  If you can, resolve the warnings that are currently showing up so that if a new one surfaces, it'll jump out at you like a sore thumb.