To Hell in a Handbasket

A conversation between @cwgabriel from Penny Arcade and @pvponline from PVP.

Brought a tear to my eye after @wilw got involved.

The Boy Scout Trail has posted the requirements for the twelve new Cub Scout Belt Loops and Sports/Academic Pins on their website.

The new Sports loops and pins are:

• Hiking
• Skateboarding
• Kickball
• Horseback Riding

The new Academic loops and pins are:

• Video Games
• Reading and Writing
• Photography
• Pet Care
• Nutrition
• Good Manners
• Family Travel
• Disabilities Awareness

These requirements are also available in the 2010 edition of the Cub Scout Academics & Sports Program Guide.

Now, let me get this straight…..We are going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president that also hasn’t read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes…all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s nearly broke. What could possibly go wrong?

~Anonymous

From today’s "The Gartman Letter"

Type: Chardonnay
Year: 2007
Location: Napa County, California
Link: silveradovineyards.com
Rating: 8 out of 10
Opinion: Very good chardonnay comprised of fruit from vineyards in the Napa Valley into Carneros. Minimal oak flavor as to not overpower the fruit. Hints of golden apple and pear aroma with green apple, lemon zest, and honeysuckle flavors provide a refreshing finish.

After feedback from some friends of mine, and doing a little bit of background research, I am writing this update to my original post last week.  As it turns out, by checking all the numbers in the form 6k ± 1  instead of checking each number up to the input value, I have increased the speed by 7 times! determineIsPrime3 (line 48 below) is the fastest algorithm so far.  determineIsPrime2, a simple comparision against the , was twice as fast as the original algorithm.

For now, I am putting this one to bed.  It was a fun exercise, but I have got what I need from it.

'''
Checks the specified value to determine if it is a prime number.
If it is not prime the divisor will be returned instead.

@author: Eric Silva
'''

import math, time

#Change this value to whatever value you want to test for prime.
#testValue = 65027
#testValue = 155188329701
testValue = 99194853094755497
#testValue = 10888869450418352160768000001
print 'Testing %d...' % testValue

def determineIsPrime(testPrime):
    if testPrime % 2 == 0:
        return 'Divisible by 2'
    if testPrime % 3 == 0:
        return 'Divisible by 3'
    testNum = 7
    testLimit = testPrime
    while testLimit >= testNum:
        if testPrime % testNum == 0:
           return 'Divisible by %d' % testNum
        testLimit = testPrime/testNum

        testNum = testNum + 2

    return '%d is prime!' % testPrime

def determineIsPrime2(testPrime):
    if testPrime % 2 == 0:
        return 'Divisible by 2'
    if testPrime % 3 == 0:
        return 'Divisible by 3'
    testNum = 5
    sqrt = math.sqrt(testPrime)
    while testNum <= sqrt:
        if testPrime % testNum == 0:
           return 'Divisible by %d' % testNum

        testNum = testNum + 2

    return '%d is prime!' % testPrime

def determineIsPrime3(testPrime):
    if testPrime % 2 == 0:
        return 'Divisible by 2'
    if testPrime % 3 == 0:
        return 'Divisible by 3'
    testNum = 7
    sqrt = math.sqrt(testPrime)
    while ((6 * testNum) + 1 <= sqrt) or ((6 * testNum) - 1 <= sqrt):
        if testPrime % testNum == 0:
           return 'Divisible by %d' % testNum

        testNum = testNum + 2

    return '%d is prime!' % testPrime

startTime = time.time()
result = determineIsPrime(testValue)
endTime = time.time()

print result
print '1. Calculation took %f s\n' % (endTime - startTime)

startTime = time.time()
result = determineIsPrime2(testValue)
endTime = time.time()

print result
print '2. Calculation took %f s\n' % (endTime - startTime)

startTime = time.time()
result = determineIsPrime3(testValue)
endTime = time.time()

print result
print '3. Calculation took %f s\n' % (endTime - startTime)

Results:

Testing 99194853094755497...
99194853094755497 is prime!
1. Calculation took 202.609000 s

99194853094755497 is prime!
2. Calculation took 114.813000 s

99194853094755497 is prime!
3. Calculation took 28.781000 s

While working on some caching settings, I had a need to know if a number is prime. I wrote this little Python script which will tell you if the number defined in the script is indeed a prime.

'''
Checks the specified value to determine if it is a prime number.
If it is not prime the divisor will be returned instead.

@author: Eric Silva
'''

#Change this value to whatever value you want to test for prime.
testValue = 3011

def determineIsPrime(testPrime):
    if testPrime % 2 == 0:
        return 'Divisible by 2'
    testNum = 3
    testLimit = testPrime
    while testLimit >= testNum:
        if testPrime % testNum == 0:
           return 'Divisible by %d' % testNum
        testLimit = testPrime/testNum

        testNum = testNum + 2

    return '%d is prime!' % testPrime

result = determineIsPrime(testValue)

print result

Smart Bear Software recently released a white paper discussing the misconception that peer code review is a hindrance to Agile development methodologies.  For anyone who regularly performs peer code reviews, would like to start performing them, or thinks they are an obstacle when it comes to Agile development should read this paper.

The paper talks about the history of code review, how code review aligns with Agile, types of lightweight code review, and techniques to perform optimized code reviews.  Some of the key statements that I took away from the paper are this:

• Code review allows for “continuous attention to technical excellence and good design”.  These enhances the agility of the code, the developers working on the code, and the overall Agile process.
• Code review “promotes sustainable development”.  The “bus number” concept is one that I use consistently when promoting peer code review in my own workspace and corporate environment.  The white paper explains it simply, “How many team members would have to get struck by a bus before no one was left that understood the code?  If the bus number for a section of the code is less than two, then that’s a problem.”
• The final take-away comes from the Agile Manifesto Principles itself, “The best architectures, requirements, and design emerge from self-organizing teams.”  The same is true of quality peer code review; “If peer code review is mandated by someone outside the team, its chance of success decreases.  If team members do not want code review to succeed, it will fail.”

I use Code Collaborator.  I think it’s the best tool out there for performing peer code review, especially with distributed development teams.  I think peer code review allows developers to become better developers through the visibility and social nature of performing the review itself.  My opinions may be a bit biased, based upon my experiences with Smart Bear Software, but, in fairness, this white paper discusses the enormous benefits of peer code review without discussing specific products. It only discusses the principals and observed benefits, and is in no way a sales pitch to buy their product.

I just saw on my RSS that GWT 2.0 has been released.  Gonna go play now. Bye.

For anyone looking to upgrade their VS 2005 Web Application project to VS 2008, I found good walkthrough provided by Microsoft here.

I have started working on a new project in .NET and the Problem Domain (PD) was modeled in Visio UML.  Fantastic.  Now I wanted to forward engineer the UML into C# classes to begin development, but wait, I can’t.  I only have Visio 2007 Professional, and the forward engineering features are only available in the Visio for Enterprise Architects version.  Okay, not a problem, I’ll go download it from MSDN.

After starting the installation, I got an error message, “You must first install one of the qualified Visual Studio editions”.  What the hell?  Visual Studio 2008 isn’t good enough?  I sure as hell don’t want to install another, older version Visual Studio just so I can install Visio for EA.

After poking around, I came across this registry trick.  Visio for Enterprise Architects is looking for the existence of the following key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Setup\VS\VSTD\

Within this key should be the String value “ProductDir”.  The text value for ProductDir can be anything other than a null value.

Once you add this key to your registry, the Visio for Enterprise Architects installer will work as hoped.