Well all, this week is an introduction to good aul Design Principles! If you’ve been following my blog, it uses a lot of Visual Language. It’s all connected folks!

If you look back at the blogs covering elements of Visual Language well it can also be said they are elements of design principles. The big difference between design and creativity though is that design isn’t necessarily creative. Design is all about how use and apply elements of Visual Language.

So first let’s look at balance…think seesaw. There’s 2 types of balance. Symmetrical is one side of the picture balancing the other. They’re the same. Asymmetrical is when the two sides are different but still balance each other out by the smaller object been further away and the bigger object is closer to the middle. Check out Mattwebb to get an idea of how it can be used.

Now, let’s not for get, that rules are sometimes made to be broken! But it’s hard to break the rules when you don’t know them first.

 Next comes contrast. We can make things look different by composition, size, shape and colour. Here’s an example that uses size for some contrast:

So here’s a new way of looking at movement. Instead of physical movement, think about how your eyes move around the picture or image instead. We use elements of Visual Language to create this effect. We use line, repetition and rhythm to be exact. The big tip I learnt in this part of the lecture is that it’s important not to let your writing go right to the edge of the page or screen because peoples eyes have a tendency to drift off the page.

Emphasis is important to bring attention to key things. We can emphasise through simplicity by leaving out all but the most important bits, placement and scale by the size and where we place objects in an image like the main character in the foreground and bigger, colour and isolation.

Check out movies posters and the like because these use a lot of these Design Principles.

In this lecture we learned about design principles.  We looked at 4 elements of design this week.  These elements were balance, contrast, movement and emphasis.

There are two ways of showing balance.  these are symmetrically and asymmetrically.

Contrast simply means difference.  contrast can be portrayed in shape size colour and composition.

Movement is the path followed by the eye in an image.  There are three types of movement for an image, these are rhythm, line and repetition.

Emphasis is the stressing of a particular area of focus.  There are four types of emphasis, these are simplicity, placement and scale, colour and isolation.

In the lab session this week we used photoshop to edit an image of louis walsh.

Laurie Baker, his Architectural Design Principles are not only worth following but I understand that many who truly believe in sustainable design practices can  remodel these and use it locally, anywhere in the world.

Picture source: www.lauriebaker.net

Harmony by Likeness - Click to enlarge

I show this image elsewhere but it is easier to see in this post and this setting. Both the lamp and the Zen garden have been combined to create a pleasant little scene and they work well together.

Of course it’s easy to see why these two items harmonize – the somewhat oriental look to both elements, the stone in both, the shared textures and colors and shapes – all working together to create a fairly dynamic Unity.

Our emotional perception relates these two elements, the lamp and garden by their shared attributes, as mentioned above. We don’t just see, we feel the correspondence, as that is what emotional perception does – perceives relationships. The same process is behind the formation of our human relationships.

I mention this because this is one of the best ways I have found for developing emotional perception – actively looking for and contemplating relationships – of all kinds.

Consider your neighboring couples, for example. Looking at the individuals, taking them in we come to some basic understandings of them as people – He’s kind of serious, not at all frivolous or fun seeking – she is also serious but more open to people, more gregarious … that sort of thing. By intentionally looking at elements, people, pets, already in some kind of relationship we can see (feel, really) what it is about them that is in relation  – and what isn’t. It requires our emotional intelligence to do this and by using it, we develop it. Try it. I think you’ll find yourself at the threshold of a whole new world.

We were delighted to have Design Principles host their event at the studio for Design Week- a great exhibition, presentations, seminars and above all a creative atmosphere! Have a look at some of the shots from the event courtesy of Johnny Savage.

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Photo by Johnny Savage

Harmonious Elements

I brought home this stone lamp from a craft show and inadvertently placed it next to a zen garden with rocks. Jackie walked by and said “Look how nice the lamp looks next to the Zen garden.

She was right – the two harmonize nicely through the shared element of the stones, as well as the colors and textures of  the sand, stones and the shade. A nice little lesson in harmony.

We are often not aware of balance when we encounter it as we encounter it often but we are viscerally affected by imbalance. The reason we like balance is because we don’t like imbalance. This stems, probably, from being physical creatures built upon a bilaterally symmetrical design and to whom balance is essential to health, well-being and to movement. What is not balanced is not stable, not reliable and potentially threatening, in one way or another.

When one area or item in a landscape is visibly, and considerably more or less weighted than the rest of the space or elements, it creates within us a visceral sense of discomfort. The over weighted area or element seems too strong or heavy and makes the other areas or elements seem weak. This does not mean that all aspects or areas of a garden need to have the same ‘weight’. It means that when one is more heavily weighted it should be balanced by another weighted area or element or a group of elements.

Does the planting balance with the house?

This sort of out of scale, or imbalanced landscaping  is actually quite common in newer, upscale neighborhoods where the houses are quite large.

Normally builders do the landscaping and it generally consists of sadly small shrubs along a straight walk. Notice the two large evergreens towards the ends of the house and how they begin to bring balance to the massive structure.

A tree would have helped

In the image to the right, the two sets of stone steps and the brick and stone retaining wall help in balancing against the rather massive and monolithic home. A tree in the foreground, either in the grass to the left or the bed to the right would have created a greater degree of balance. A more substantial grouping of several shrubs in the curve of the walk, even only to about six feet high would also have created a more satisfying balance and either or both of these approaches would have helped integrate the house with the property.

Balance is one of the least contested principles of design and is applicable to every medium. Look at this image, for example, of a light hanging in my dinning room. I originally had only two hooks from which the chain was suspended but then added another – in the wrong place. The little loop on the right is too small for the larger loop.

If I were to move the middle hook to about a third of the way toward the hook from which the lamp is suspended,  the whole would look quite good. As it is, it looks out of balance.

The smaller loop looks weak in relation to the larger

I’ll do that for another post.

“The Development of the Domain Name System” describes the basic design of the DNS system, the motivations and design principles employed, and the lessons learned by the designers of the system.

DNS Design

DNS is a distributed, hierarchical database that maps domain names to values. The values associated with a domain name are a collection of resource records (RRs), each with a well-known type (e.g. host IP address). RRs also have a “class,” which specifies the “protocol family” of the RR (e.g. Internet). Given the dominance of IP, I’d expect classes to not be used in the modern DNS system.

DNS names are arranged into a variable-depth tree. The name of each node is given by concatenating the labels of the path from a node to the root, and separating the labels with periods. The tree is divided into “zones,” which are each controlled by a different organization. Each zone is a contiguous region of the tree, although a zone is typically a simple subtree. Administrative authority flows from the root of the tree to the leaves: the root zone controls the set of top-level domains (e.g. COM, NET), which in turn control the contents of their subtree. This allows individual organizations to administer portions of the tree autonomously.

DNS is composed of name servers, which host DNS data, and resolvers, which query the system to resolve domain names. Resolvers can either be individual client machines (e.g. part of libc), or a separate organization-wide resolver service (that might be combined with the organization’s name server). Resolvers can cache DNS lookups, to reduce resolution traffic (particularly on the servers that host the higher levels of the tree). Each DNS record has a “TTL” value that specifies how long it can be cached for. DNS resolvers typically use UDP, rather than TCP, which avoids the need for a TCP handshake before an address can be resolved.

Discussion

Modern DNS is insecure, arcane, and overly complex. Why? In practice, it seems that the focus on “leanness” described in the paper hasn’t produced a simple and minimalistic system.

I wonder if the focus on extensibility in the DNS design is justified. In practice, DNS is a system for mapping host names to IP addresses, with some secondary functionality like maintaining a secondary collection of (often-inaccurate) administrative information about host names, and the MX feature. While extensibility may have been important when the intended use of the system was unclear, it doesn’t seem to be a big win in the modern Internet — a simpler and more constrained design might be a better fit for modern DNS usage.

The lack of any consideration of security is notable, given DNS’s shabby security record.

The paper explains that DNS could have represented multiple resource records of the same type with a single multi-valued record. Their argument for using multiple records is:

The space efficiency of the single RR with multiple values was attractive, but the multiple RR option cut down the maximum RR size. This appeared to promise simpler dynamic update protocols, and also seemed suited to use in a limited-size datagram environment.

I think this is a backwards way to design systems, because it confuses physical layout decisions (e.g. space efficiency of storage) with logical data format decisions (e.g. whether to use multiple “rows” of the same type, or a single row with an array value).

The paper notes that in 1983, root name servers typically processed one query per second (although clients still observed poor response times, 500 milliseconds to 5 seconds in some cases). I couldn’t find much data on the query rates of modern root servers, but the website for the K root server has a graph of query rates which suggests the average load is 15,000-20,000 queries per second. Multiplied by 13 root servers, that is a significant query load (although note that the 13 “root servers” are hosted by far more than 13 physical machines, using techniques like anycast).

Related Reading

Paul Vixie’s article “What DNS Is Not” decries “innovators” who “misuse” the DNS system. He particularly dislikes using IP-based geolocation to use DNS to implement CDNs, for instance.

By hadi alaeddin
Originally Posted On aslittledesign

…

It is no secret, a designer’s brain functions through an intricate web of faulty wires coming in and out all over the place, in an environment of somewhat systematic chaos and an everlasting effort trying to control that chaos.

Ideas juggling back and forth between the right and left side of your brain.

One side conjures up a feeling, an abstract undefined sense of what he/she wants to do, and the other constantly fighting battles with every part of your body wanting to realize those ideas no matter how ambiguous and unworldly they might seem!

What most people forget about is passion, and I’m not talking about you loving your work;

it is a well-known fact that most designer’s egos are so big, naming every idea they have “their baby” until they are living in a secret society run by one, populated by the same one, and known also only to that one.

But that’s ok, we designers are proud of that, because with a certain amount of confidence, and love poured into every project we keep learning, growing, and we will do more good than we’ll ever do if we are over run by self-doubt every step of the way.

Back to my point, remember? The point I was trying to make.

My belief is that every good idea, after running through all parts necessary in your brain, before it is sent through your nervous system to the tips of your fingers and you start working, it has to pass by your heart first and YES of course this is a metaphor, I know feelings come from the brain too

{Form Follows Function} said Louis Henri Sullivan, Then in 1969 came Hartmut Esslinger, coined the term to contain wider issues which is the now famous {Form Follows Emotion}

These phrases never work out of context, they are easily misunderstood, what can be said is that the simplest guideline to good design is one that follow form, function, and emotion. What’s first and what’s last is never set, and will always be decided by who and what the design is for.

These graphics are starting to emerge out of this kind of mentality; this holistic view on design starting with the designer simply thinking about it, and ending with the perception of people interacting with it.

…

Thank you. Feel free to comment on what you’ve gathered from this article or any other post on my blog.

Good day.

One of the principles all art forms work with is embodied in the concept of harmony and contrast (which in music is counterpoint or disonance).

Just what is a harmony and what a contrast? Of course we all know these when we see or hear them but knowing what constitutes a definite harmony or contrast can be a considerable aid in intentionally employing them to good effect. In our dress we use this principle without thinking about but in many of the arts it is intentionally employed. In flower arranging for example and even in cooking.

So what exactly are harmony and contrast? Two things are said to be in harmony when they share some important characteristic- when they have some significant property in common, when they are related to each other by some intrinsic attribute. (If they have every attribute in common then they are not in harmony, they are identical). Two lines – that of a curving wall and of a planting bed at its base, for example, which mirror each other in some portions of their lengths, are in those portions in harmony. Shades of color; some shades of pink and red, for example, harmonize because they share certain color values through which they blend into one another.

Photo by Steve Silk

A contrast occurs when two or more elements, or portions of  the elements differ to the extent of appearing opposite, or nearly so. Smooth and rough, light and dark, red and green and so on. Contrasts can be as enjoyable as harmonies. Two contrasting elements highlight the opposing qualities in one another, thus exciting our appreciation of their specific attributes.

In garden creation and especially evident in plant combinations the application of this principle is vital.  Look, for example, at this flower grouping.

It is quite pleasing and it seems fairly obvious why.The blossom colors are exact opposites (contrast) on the color wheel and their forms are in clear contrast to one another as well. The spiky foxtail highlights the globe shape of the Allium and vice versa. So there is both color and form contrast between the two plants.

There is more to this relationship however. The leaves of the Foxtail, in which the blossoms of the allium are embedded, harmonize with its own blossom in shape and the stem of the Allium does likewise, creating a unity, weaving a harmonious substructure above which the striking contrasts have their interplay. Even more subtly, each of the blossoms is composed of  tiny, individual florets and each floret transforms into little seed capsules on both plants, which creates another harmony. Thus, there is a layering of relationships in this grouping. They are in relationship to one another. There is an overall harmony which supports the striking contrasts. This is something we feel because it is something we emotionally perceive. More on this faculty in other posts.

Let’s consider this principle within the realm of painting.

Is it possible to perceive relationships of harmonies and contrasts in this “Portrart of a Girl Reading” by the plein air painter, George Van Hook, and if so, are they integral to the success of the work or merely arbitrary?

Girl reading in a garden

Notice the line of the girl and the line of the several types of flowers to the right of her in the painting. They mirror each other, creating a harmony of line from her knees through her head, from the red geraniums through the yellow roses.

Still regarding line, notice the bowl of sunflowers as they lean to our right and the yellow roses as they lean as if to meet the sunflowers. Together they form an arc over the girl which our eye completes, (with the help of the background planting ) so, though they are leaning in opposite directions, they form a harmony by combining together to create a definite form.

Another harmony of form (and color) is created between the pots on the table, both among themselves and with the watering can in the lower right. These are the only such forms in the painting and they help bind the middle left with the lower right through form and help bring the girl to focus between them. They also create a distinct contrast through their textures and simple shapes to the soft textures and complex forms of the foliage and flowers throughout the painting while harmonizing in color with both the background and the foreground plantings.

Notice too that the graceful, enclosing arc of the blossoms in the foreground, beginning with the red geraniums at the girls knees, sweeping through the purple iris and yellow roses, is picked up in the background with the purple-pink flowering shrubs to the upper-right. Together they create a wonderfully harmonious sweep that encompasses the peaceful girl, embracing her in an arc of blossom, repeating her own form, while the bowl of sunflowers sits opposite and points into the center of this arc, as counterpoint, or contrast.

Several other harmonies and contrasts are evinced in the various colors – purple and yellow—purple and blue—pink and purple—lavender and green, etc. This painting would not be what it is without these harmonies and contrasts. It’s success depends upon them, as well of course as upon other principles of design which we address later on

The point of all this is the demonstration of principles which are essential to the success of any work of art. Of course, this isn’t news. Principles of design are taught everywhere art is taught. But somehow there seems to be a gap or disconnect between the teaching of those principles and the creation of successful works of art. There are billions of meaningless and unenjoyable plant combinations and a world of failed painters who were never able to create anything beautiful. Why? Is it talent? and What is that?

In a future post I’ll speak of the mechanism by which we perceive these relatinships of contrast, harmony and all the other attributes that comprise a work of art. It involves emotional perception – an unknown phenomena and ability we all possess and utilize all the time without knowing it.

Any design needs to be appropriate for he, she or they for whom it is intended and for the purpose it is to serve. It should also be appropriate, or suitable to its environment. This is true for all the arts and can be verified in all aspects of life. A musical composition meant for a Jazz club would not play well at a traditional wedding and an Opera would fail miserably at a strip joint.

If you chose to design yourself in a swimsuit for a Congressional Ball, chances are you wouldn’t be let in and if you wore a Tux to a pool party you’d  be quite the fool. Probably woudn’t enjoy the pool much either. Your personal design would be unsuitable.

The new Meditation Gardens for the Monks of New Skete is another case in point. Previous to the redesign there was nowhere outside for visitors to enjoy the beautiful natural surroundings.

Monks of New Skete - Before

Monks of New Skete - After

Terracing the previously useless slope provided ample areas for visitors to meander through and in which to sit and enjoy the beautiful surroundings and natural mountainscape.

But it was not only the fact of terracing – so frequently an appropriate choice for a hillside,  but as well how it was done which contributed to the suitability of the design.

This is a rustic setting with wood buildings  surrounded by 400 acres of mountain forest with nothing but natural materials and an abundance of stone all around. A tame, contemporary design approach with artificial materials would have been all wrong. Instead, giant boulders found back in the woods only hundreds of yards away were used to create the terraces, which follow gracefully arching lines as they delineate the various spaces.

The overall effect is both inspiring and calming. (They call this their Meditation and Welcome Gardens). It is in harmony with the spire-topped buildings and overall intent of the Monastery and is yet powerfully bound to the land and environment on which it is built.

To see more of this project, click here.

An example of an inappropriate design might be an oriental front yard in a Long Island suburban neighborhood. It might be beautifully done and when looked at in isolation would seem to work beautifully. But the moment you step back and see the garden in the context of its environment, which is how it would be seen, it would loose all credability. It would seem very contrived and, in fact, unsuitable. Suitability is a very real principle designers in all arts apply to their work.

This home is beautifully designed for its location. Image a two story brick home here.

]]> http://beautyandart.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/an-experiement-in-beauty/ Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:05:47 +0000 kdavitt http://beautyandart.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/an-experiement-in-beauty/

When you see a person coming toward you down the street who appears from thirty feet or so to be attractive, continue looking as he or she nears.  You will find, in perhaps ninety nine cases out of a hundred that as the person comes close enough for you to see more details of the face the attractiveness diminishes.  In some cases the distantly apparent beauty will vanish altogether, in others merely lessen significantly.  You can prove this phenomena to yourself easily enough, but do you know why it happens so?  The answer is a key to understanding what beauty is.

Gentlewoman, by Da'Vinci

From a distance we see the approaching visage only generally. The head will be seen to be in a particular relation to the rest of the body, the general divisions of the face, i.e., the forehead, eye area, nose and mouth area will be somewhat clear but none of the particulars of the eyes or nose or mouth and face will at first be apparent.  The approaching beautiful person has a generally pleasing composition of visage elements.  There is a harmony there.  As the person comes close enough for you to take in the details you find that although the nose is well positioned on the face, it is itself, not well formed.  It is too narrow  for the size of the nose, or the it is too short or too long for the face.  The mouth will be too large for the face, or the lips too thin for the mouth, the chin too deeply cleft in relation to the surrounding area and so on. (Naturally, these various values are culture-dependent, but the principle applies.

What is happening here expresses the principle of Unity.  Everything hung together from a distance and seemed a unified whole. But on closer inspection, that same unity was lacking.

This experience is, in fact, quite common. The reverse, on the other hand,  is not. Only rarely we will look at someone who seems attractive, we are moved to look more closely and we find her even more pleasing. We focus in further, find the same level of beautiful relationship at that level of detail, in the eye itself, the lids and lashes and we look still closer and are astonished at the beauty we find, involving all the particulars and details. The harmony apparent in the general outline is carried through the relation of each element to every other element and through each element in itself. The eyes not only relate beautifully to the nose and mouth but are themselves wonderfully formed, all perfectly placed on the face and so on. The person is truly beautiful because of an excellence of relationships that carries through the entire composition creating a unified whole.

All this says nothing about the inner person, only the outer but what this tells us is how essential is unity to beauty. But how do we make these perceptions of relationships because we certainly don’t go through the intellectual process I went through to express all this. In fact, it happens in seconds – we see, we feel and we understand.

Tomorrow I will begin an exposition on the Mind of the Artist – the role of Emotional Perception in Life and Art. – That might sound a bit presumptions – but I ask you to  suspend judgment. I will be speaking of that phenomenal perceptive faculty we all  have in us and always have had but simply were not aware of as a the  intelligent perceptive faculty it is and which can be utilized and developed. I refer of course, to our emotional mind, the mind of the artist.

Welcome to the November 2009 issue of The Agrarian Urbanite.  This month, The Agrarian Urbanite explores the true meaning of regenerative agriculture and gives a brief description of design principles.  There are other articles to assist with winter gardening.

The Agrarian Urbanite is a monthly grassroots publication dedicated to providing practical agricultural education focused on sustainable, regenerative and organic techniques.

The Agrarian Urbanite is a guide for creating balanced, healthier and sustainable communities & neighborhoods.

The Agrarian Urbanite hopes to restore Spirit, Humankind and Earth by being a catalyst for folks to think beyond the garden, building foundations of knowledge & inspiring action.

Agrarian Urbanite November 2009

Now, get to reading!

Yaklaşık 9 ay kadar önce Yenibiris.com’dan 3 arkadaş TDD eğitimi almıştık. Eğitimi artık bu alanda guru sayılan J.B.Rainsberger’den (Joe) aldık. Kendisi Kanada’lı bir yazılım geliştirme danışmanı. Yani şirketlerin yazılım geliştirme ekibine “O şöyle bir sorun yaratır, şu patterni kullan”, “Daha önce falanca yerde böyle birşey olmuştu, şöyle çözdük” gibi ahkamlar kesen bir insan.

Meslek, ilk bakışta “ukalalık”, “kendini beğenmişlik”, vs gibi düşünülse de böyle olmadığı açık. Ama bu düşünce yüzünden böyle bir meslek Türkiye’de yok. Zaten sektörün hali ortada. Bu konuyu geçelim. Gelelim konu başlığımıza.

Efendim eğitimin başlamasını müteakip Joe bize ilk şu listeyi yazdı:

Simple Design

1. Passes tests
2. Minimize duplication
3. Maximize clarity
4. Reduces size
5. One thing at a time

Bu 5 madde uygulanırsa sonuç : Modüler tasarım.

Maddelere gelirsek:

• Passes test : TDD de testlerin geçmesi zaten işin temeli. Tasarımın %85 ini oluşturur ve Joe’ya göre (katılmamak elde değil) zamanla otonomik bir hale dönüşüyor. Yani, nasıl yürürken hangi ayağımızı ne zaman öne atacağımızı düşünmeden hareket edip kendi haline bırakıyorsak, zamanla yazılan testlerin geçmesini sağlamak ta aynı şekilde kendi haline bırakılır.
• Minimize duplication : Daha önce yazdığım Bu kod kokuyor isimli makalede bahsi geçmişti. Aynı kod projenizde birden çok kez geçiyorsa ki bu zaman zaman olur. Bunları refactor edip minimize etmeliyiz.
• Maximize clarity : Kodumuzda anlamsız değişkenler, açıklayıcı olmayan class ya da method isimleri bulunmamalı. Asla ve asla kodumuza comment yazmamalıyız. Comment yazılmış kod, açıklayıcı değildir. Kodumuzu öyle bir yazmalıyız ki commente ihtiyaç duymadan kod kendini anlatabilmeli.
• Reduce size : Bu madde 5 i içindeki en önemsiz. Ama aklımızın bir köşesinde bulunmalı. Ne kadar çok kod yazarsak maintenance yapılacak o kadar çok satır olacak demektir. Kodumuzu mümkün olduğunca kısa tutmakta fayda. Tabi bunu yaparken dozu iyi ayarlamalı, şokunu çıkarmamalıyız.
• One thing at a time : İşte bu 5 maddenin en zoru. Aslında olay şu. Her seferinde tek bir şey yapmalıyız. İhtiyacımız oldukça kod yazmalıyız. Aksi takdirde YAGNI olacaktır.

Tecrübeli fakat TDD kullanmayan yazılımcıların bu 5 maddede en çok sonuncusunda zorlandığını öğrendik Joe’dan (Eğitimdeki örneklemelerde bizzat ben) . Sebebi de yıllarca kompleks yapılar tasarlamışlar, Presentation Layer a bi textbox koymak için; bir yandan BL yazarken, diğer yandan DAL yazarak projeler geliştirmişler. Şimdi adama diyorsun ki “dur bakalım. önce falanca classın bilmemne fonksiyonunu yaz. Database ile ilgimiz yok!!!”

E doğal olarak, eğer gelişimden hoşlanmayan bir insansa, “uğraşamam ben bununla” diyerek kestirip atabiliyor.

TDD development aşaması uzun ve keyifli, maintenance ve bugfixing aşaması ise hemen hemen hiç yok diyebileceğim kadar kısa ve zahmetsiz oluyor. Bunu ekip olarak, son yazdığımız servisleri TDD ile yazarak yaşadık.

TDD yi seviyoruz.

Bazen kendi yazdığımız ya da başkasının yazdığı kodu incelerken “bu işte bir terslik var” dediğimiz olur. En azından benim olur. O terslik nedir, o sırada bilmem ama vardır. Bunu hissederim.

İşte buna “Code Smell” diyoruz. Yani kokan kod.

Örnek 1:

return AllItems.Where(a => a.ArticleTypeID = 1);

İşte böyle bir kod gördüğümde ben biraz işkilleniyorum. Orada kendi kendine durmakta olan “1” beni rahatsız ediyor. Acaba o “1” ne anlama gelmekte? “1” yerine “2” dersem ne olur? Oraya yazılacak sayının bir üst limiti var mıdır acaba? Ve eğer düzeltilmezse her bu kodu gördüğümde zincirleme olarak bu sorular aklıma tekrar tekrar gelecektir. Kısacası bu kod “kokmaktadır”.

Kodu kokutan maddeleri şöyle sıralayabiliriz:

• Çoğaltılmış (duplicate) kod : Eğer birebir aynı şeyi yapan kod, projenizde birden çok defa geçiyorsa, kodunuz kokmaya başlamıştır.
• Çoğaltılmış Fonksiyon : Birbirlerine çok benzeyen, hatta aynı işi yapan birden fazla fonksiyonlarınız olabilir. Overload etmeyi denemelisiniz.
• Fazla uzun fonksyion : Code Complete der ki; “Eğer bir method 35 satırdan uzun sürüyorsa, methodu parçalara ayırmayı düşünmelisiniz”. Fazla uzun fonksiyonlar kodu kokutmak için birebirdir.
• Fazla uzun class : Yine Code Complete buyurmuştur ki; “Eğer bir class, 350 satırdan uzunsa, classı parçalamayı düşünmelisiniz.”
• Başka sınıfın işini yapmaya çalışan sınıf : Eğer yazdığınız bir class, başka bir class ın methodlarını çok sık kullanmaya başladıysa, belkide iki classı birlikte düşünmelisiniz.
• Başka sınıfın işine karışan sınıf : Eğer yazılmış bir class başka bir classın işine karışmaya başlamışsa. Kendisini ilgilendirmeyen işler yapmaya kalkıyorsa, kodunuz kokuyor dikkat!!!
• Türediği sınıftan gelen mirasları reddeden sınıf : Meşhur Canlı –> Hayvan örneğinde Hayvan, Canlı’dan gelen “NefesAl” methodunu override ediyor ve en sonunda “base.NefesAl();” demiyorsa dikkat etmek gerek. Canlı’nın ne yaptığını bilmeden bunu yapmamakta fayda var.
• Tembel Sınıf : Malumunuz çok az kullanılan sınıf. Az kullanıldığı için ya hiç sorun çıkarmaz, ya da çıkardığında sorunun nereden geldiğinin anlaşılması zor olabilir.
• Gereksiz kompleks yapı : Alt tarafı bir formdaki verileri database e kayıt edecek bir yapı için bşn satır kod, onlarca sınıf, vs yazarak pireyi deve yapmışsanız kodunuz kokuyordur.

Yukarıdaki liste Wikipedia’dan alınmıştır.

Bu örnekler çoğaltılabilir. Peki tek satırlık örneğimizde (Örnek 1) burnuma gelen kokunun sebebi nedir sizce? Elbette ki “1” in ne olduğunu anlamamam. Buradaki “1” e Magic Number diyoruz. Kodlarımızın içerisinde Magic Number bulunması kokuya sebep olur. Peki bu kokudan nasıl kurtuluruz. Hemen imdadımıza sabitlerimiz yani Constant larımız yetişiyor.

Örneğimizi şöyle değiştirirsek:

Örnek 2:

const int STANDART_ARTICLE_TYPEID = 1;
return AllItems.Where(a => a.ArticleTypeID = STANDART_ARTICLE_TYPEID);

Böylece, bileceğim ki benim kodumun sonucunda her zaman “Standart Makale” tipindeki makaleler döner. Her bu kodu gördüğümde de bundan böyle “1” in ne olduğunu hatırlamak zorunda kalmayacağım.

When you’re designing a performance-sensitive computer system, it is important to have an intuition for the relative costs of different operations. How much does a network I/O cost, compared to a disk I/O, a load from DRAM, or an L2 cache hit? How much computation does it make sense to trade for a reduction in I/O? What is the relative cost of random vs. sequential I/O? For a given workload, what is the bottleneck resource?

When designing a system, you rarely have enough time to completely build two alternative designs to compare their performance. This makes two skills useful:

1. Back-of-the-envelope analysis. This essentially means developing an intuition for the performance of different alternate designs, so that you can reject possible designs out-of-hand, or choose which alternatives to consider more carefully.
2. Microbenchmarking. If you can identify the bottleneck operation for a given resource, then you can construct a micro-benchmark that compares the performance of different implementations of that operation. This works in tandem with your intuition: the more microbenchmarking you do, the better your intuition for system performance becomes.

Jeff Dean makes similar points in his LADIS 2009 keynote (which I unfortunately wasn’t able to attend). In particular, he gives a useful table of “Numbers Everyone Should Know” — that is, the cost of some fundamental operations:

Some useful figures that aren’t in Dean’s data can be found in this article comparing NetBSD 2.0 and FreeBSD 5.3 from 2005. Approximating those figures, we get:

In comparison, John Ousterhout’s RAMCloud project aims to provide end-to-end roundtrips for a key-value store in the same datacenter within “5-10 microseconds,” which would represent about a 100x improvement over the 500 microsecond latency suggested above.

The keynote slides are worth a glance: Dean talks about the design of “Spanner”, a next-generation version of BigTable he is building at Google. See also James Hamilton’s notes on the keynote, and Greg Linden’s commentary.

I have attended DevReach’2009: Microsoft technologies at your reach (12-13 October).

Modeling: Here and Now by Chris Sells, Connecting to the Clouds: The Azure Services Platform by Luka Debeljak, From One Web Server to Two: Making the Leap by Richard Campbell, Being Productive with ASP.NET MVC by Hadi Hariri, SQL Server Intelligence by Remi Caron, Fun with Garbage Collection by Ed Musters at the first day of sessions of the conference. And the next day I have attended Practical Parallel Programming with Visual Studio 2010 by Tiberiu Covaci, SOLID Design Principles by Hadi Hariri, Building Data Visualization Applications with WPF by Tim Huckaby, Will It Blend? Building Websites with All Flavors of ASP.NET by Todd Anglin, SharePoint Web Part Development (Deep Dive) by Ed Musters, and The Daily Scrum by Stephen Forte & Remi Caron.

These are my notes listed by sessions:

Modeling: Here and Now There exist types of data models, 3 in count: graph (generally used for programming- behaviour), tree (generally used for transmission- interop), relational (generally used for storage- permanence). Re-factoring DB in VS is a very powerful feauture which requires only the schemas of the DB.

Connecting to the Clouds: The Azure Services Platform The vision of Microsoft was Software + Service which is applied in the Azure Services Platform. The Cloud is an additional platform, a hosted software platform, a shared infrastructure, it is virtualized and dynamic, and you pay as you use it. The Cloud is close to an infinite amount of computer power and is flexible. The Azure Platform consists of blobs, tables, and queus. Blobs is a file system with meta about the files where Web Apps are placed as executables. Tables are DB tables. Queus are tunels for application communication- Service Bus is suppposed to take place here. Nice whitepapers about Azure can be found at davidchappell.com.

From One Web Server to Two: Making the Leap The reason for adding web server is actually reliability. Configurations between web servers must be identical. Single affinity in network configuration refers to sending requests from on visitor IP always to one and the same server in the farm. The letter is important for web sessions saving. Single affinity increases the network traffic by 10%. Google says over 3 sec. for page loading makes you lose visitors.

Being Productive with ASP.NET MVC MVC is about Convention over Configuration assuming certain things. M (the model) is missing in APS.NET MVC, it is replaced by ViewModel and normally 1:1 ViewModel and View relation. One way to implement aspect-oriented programming is by action filters. For complex views (like homepage) the main view calls Controllers to render by pointing where to render their views in the first.

SOLID Design Principles – Single Responsibility Principle: the more we touch, the more bugs can born; A class should have only one reason to change. – Open Closed Principle: A class should be open for extension but closed for change; This is solved by polymorphism, and avoiding switch statements in general. – Liskov Substitution Principle: if S is a subtype of T, then objects of type T in a program may be replaced with objects of type S without altering any of the desirable properties of that program. – Interface Segregation Principle: the interface is a contract and if you do not implement a function from an interface you are breaking the contract; Clients are supposed to depend on methods that they do not use. – Dependency Inversion Principle: Program to an Interface, not a Class; Use IoC containers. At objectmentor.com are many more principles.

The Daily Scrum In Harvard Business Review before 20 years the idea is first explained that people lose ‘relay race’ if work in issolation. Scrum is an agile process that focuses on communication. Expose problems fundamental to your organization and enable you to fix them earlier. Make small 2 week sprints ending with presenting everything to the client. This way making the client an active member of the team. Separate the basic job types in small things and work on small parts from all types in order to have a solution ready for presentation at the client.

I was able to have talks with a few speakers and present to them my visions which can be found in this blog, too. I have made few friendships with attendees, too. One of the greatest benefits was to meet live with attendees and presenters at the coffee breaks.

This excellent nub was directed by my friend Omair Barkatulla from back in the day when there used to be a London College of Printing (now London College of Communication). It looks at the different principles of design in typography and I think gives an interesting insight into the attitudes around the encroachment of computer generated production onto the more traditional mechanistic methods of type-setting. There is obvious conflict and tension between the two approaches, but you get the overall impression from the film that the traditional approach is the preferred one…I can definitely see the appeal, might have a look at LCC’s latest summer courses, humm…

As we examine brochures, fliers, commercials, and every other informative marketing tool we can see that every company has a specific or target audience that it wants to reach. A target audience can be defined as the public an advertisement or public relations campaign is directed to. It is important not only in television commercials but in print publications to work with a segmented audience in order to effectively deliver a message.

For my Public Relations Publications course we were asked to choose a non-profit agency that would serve as our client for the semester. I have chosen Joseph’s Home for Boys in Statesboro, Ga.

To segment an audience for this agency my first thoughts would be to look at age and life stages. Individuals in the Second Adulthood stage (ages 55 to 85) are most likely to be searching for mentoring and volunteer opportunities that are fulfilling according Linda P. Morton, author of Strategic Publications: Designing for Target Audiences.

When segmenting by social class it becomes a little more difficult in that both the Upper Class and Middle Class could potentially be great targets. The Upper Class tends to be willing to give to a worthy cause while the Middle Class value homes and neighborhoods which could lead to them wanting to contribute to the home in order to create a better environment for the boys who live there.

When designing a brochure or any publication with the segments that I am considering it is important tailor every detail to that particular audience. It is difficult to tell exactly what will be effective at this point. If I decided to target the Upper Class I would need to be sure to highlight the investment opportunity where as with the Middle Class I would need to help them consider improving the home and family life of the boys.

Whatever I choose I have to remember that every audience has specific needs that must be met.

Cohesion and Coupling – Look for the definition here and here …

Now that you have gone through a bit about Cohesion and Coupling in OO programming, I would like to share with you my own experience of identfying cohesiveness and coupling while you are actually out there implementing a java appplication. These will provide you pointers to figure out if you have violated either or both of the design principles.

Here’s a checklist for you of figure out if you have violated Cohesion:

1. Are you finding it hard to come out with a meaningful name for an interface or a class, that describes it completely and correctly?
2. Are you having problems coming out with a meaningful documentation of what each method in a class is doing or even worst, a class in question is intended to do? In others words, is the responsibility of a class well defined?
3. Is any method of your class doing more than what it is supposed to do?
4. Are the methods in a class functioning together as units to serve the overall purpose of the class in which they are declared?

 Here’s a checklist for you of figure out if you have violated Coupling:

1. Does one class of your application know more than it should about another class?
2. Are you passing data as parameters into the methods of your classes, which is more than what they require?
3. Are you finding it difficult to unit test methods of your classes?
4. Is a small change to one of the methods of your classes, impacting a lot of its clients?
5. Are the clients using the service rendered by a class through direct invocation of a service implementation or through an interface?

If you have found yourself answering in affirmitive most of the times, you have undoubtedly broken either  both of the above mentioned design principle in you application and should certainly revisit them to correct the same. I hope this checklist helps to make your code more maintainable.

I feel that the most simplest of all the ways to be sure whether or not you have broken a design principle or not, is to revisit the java docs of your APIs. Does it convey in clearest possible terms the intent behind your classes and its methods? If not, you must re-think your design.

As far as possible it is advisable to keep your classes “highly cohesive” and “loosely coupled”. In my view interface based programming is an excellent way of promoting ”cohesiveness” and ”loose coupling” (if defined diligently) between service provider(s) and  client(s).

P.S. Let me know if you have some more points to share.

There is a conclusive thought among design and advertising experts when it comes to branding (or re-branding) your company. Beware of initials.

You can probably think of several companies that use only initials if you try. A few would be BMW, IBM, BP, AT&T, and AARP.  The thing is, they didn’t start out by using just their initials (Bavarian Motor Works, International Business Machines Corporation, British Petroleum, American Telephone and Telegraph and American Association of Retired Persons).   It literally took decades and billions of marketing dollars to shorten their brands to their widely recognized initials today. Most businesses don’t have, or want to invest, those kinds of resources in today’s economy.

Luckily, you don’t have to fork over a mint to get an effective, memorable brand for your company.

Ideally, two-syllable words are more memorable. For example, Nike, Xerox, Kodak, Apple, Yahoo and Google easily roll off the tongue, since they are easy to spell and remember.  Don’t worry if you get to three syllables… as long as the name is meaningful to your brand.  Amazon, Microsoft and a few others are doing okay.

What should an excellent logo do for you? Clearly express your company’s product or service, in a way that represents you well, even if you’re not around to explain.

Sometimes this can be more difficult when your product or service isn’t simple or easily identified with one-word or two-word descriptions. Consulting comes to mind. However, a good graphic artist with branding experience can guide you in the right direction to establish or re-define your brand into what truly works for you.

The easy don’ts…

Don’t use unexplained initials…
If you must use initials, let your audience know what your initials stand for, and make it easy for them to remember.

What’s in a name?
If possible, stay away from family surnames – - unless it should be the one thing you want to impart (like a political candidate, etc.) or unless your name brings it’s own recognition (Rockafeller, Kennedy, etc.) that will automatically engage your audience.

K.I.S.S. – Keep it simple, silly!
Avoid hard to spell words. Simple is always better. This follows the two-syllable principle, as well.

We hope these tips will point you in the right direction with your business identity.

If you are looking for an experienced designer to assist you, contact us.

For more information on building a solid, memorable brand for your business, check out our other articles.

I’m going to add links which pertain to (UX) User Experience and RIA. I will be adding more links since there is some good stuff.

A Flex Developer’s Guide to User Experience Work Flows and Best Practices
50 Most Usable RIAs
the Flex User Interface Discussion

Design elements and principles

Theresa Neil blog
Designing Web Interface blog
Bill Scott’s blog (Netflix)
Wireframes
Functioning Form
Info Design Patterns
Stop Design

Prototyping
Rapid Prototyping Tools

Messages and Images
CSS Message Boxes for different message types

Opinion
Google not a nice place to work

Hey Hey Hey!

So we’re finished week 10. Christmas is just around the corner, as is semester two! Time fly’s!

We started the lecture by going through the assessment process of the module, which assignments had what weighting. We also talked about our current assignment, which is on Semiotics. We moved on to review the notes from the previous weeks Semiotics lecture.

This weeks lecture was on Design Principles.

Design does not equal creativity. Creativity could be inherited and depends on the thought process that is nurtured. The principles of design can be thought of as ‘what we do to the elements of design’.

1. Balance

Balance refers to the degree of equilibrium in a composition. This is determined by the choice and arrangements of elements in relation to each other and the frame.

Symmetrical balance is a mirror image balance.

Asymmetrical balance has elements that don’t mirror each other across a center line.

Lack of balance can convey action and motion. Off-balance designs can get people thinking.

2. Contrast

Contrast can simply mean difference.

Composition, size, shape and colour are four main ways to achieve contrast in a composition. This creates interest and pulls the attention towards the focal point.

Composition creates tension by placing opposing elements in a relation to one another.

Size is useful as it can make for a way into a visual arrangement.

Shape can add tension to a composition.

Colour can be used to balance areas of neutral colours.

composition

shape

3. Movement

The purpose of movement is to create unity in the artwork.

Repetition occurs when elements which have something in common are repeated regularly or irregularly creating a visual rhythm.

Line is used to create a feeling or sense of movement.

Rhythm refers to the way your eyes move around the picture.

4. Emphasis

Emphasis is the stressing of a particular area of focus rather than the presentation. Simplicity is omitting all non-essential or unimportant elements of details that do not contribute to the overall composition.

We then had to get into a group of four and analize a movie poster. We had to talk about the Balance, Contrast, Movement and Emphasis of the image. We got the extremely famous Sandra Bullock movie ‘Premonition’.

• Balance = The face is centrally located in the image (Symmetrical).
• Contrast = Dark and Light colours are used, also the text is in red to draw the attention to the ’star’.
• Movement = The branches making the shape of the face.
• Emphasis = would be on the actors name, because of the colour, and the eyes and lips.

PremonitionMoviePoster

Next we had our lab!

In the lab, we were told how to backdate our blog entries!

Niamh gave us a handout with Louis Walsh in it for us to have a go at editing in Photoshop.

I knew how to do this so I continued on with my Semiotics assignment. I had all of my images completed, so all that I needed to do was to to write a short paragraph on each image explaining my approach and creative decisions and the process involved. When I had this completed, I created the folder for submission. Here is one of the starting ideas that I came up with:

Popular1

‘Till the next time!

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