Is cloud functions a valid replacement/implementation of a distributed system? [closed] - google-cloud-functions

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I want to process a list of data parallelly; processing of each element of the data won't affect other.
With for example google pub/sub + cloud functions, I could achieve something scalable and parallel, which looks like a distributed system.
I have little knowledge about distributed programming, and it seems that it takes a lot of time to master.
So I would like to know is this a replacement or a valid implementation of distributed system?

For the specific use case you're talking about - dividing work among function invocations to run in parallel - yes, it sounds like that would be adequate.
I would be very hesitant to call it a full "distributed system" (at least not without your very strict definition of what that really is). If you take wikipedeia's explanation of distributed computing, you might have a very basic system in place, but lack of a peer-to-peer direct messaging system probably makes it unsuitable for many of the listed applications you see on that page.
The bottom line I think you should really consider is if it satisfies the requirements of the problem at hand. Whether or not it's a "distributed system" is mostly irrelevant - either it works or it doesn't for that use case.

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Why do some people prefer SQLite over MySQL? I am a MSSQL user [closed]

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I am curios why some prefer MYSQL over SQLITE, i am interested on learning MYSQL
SQLite is an embedded library, it requires no server process, and everything it saves is contained within a single, portable file. MySQL is an RDBMS server that's a lot more work to set up, but is multi-user, more scalable, and far more featured.
For example, SQLite is used for mobile applications as well as "development" instances of code where it's only lightly loaded. It can be used at scale but generally isn't, its simple design has limitations.
If you're writing a mobile application and need a local database, SQLite is not a bad call. Spinning up a huge, cumbersome MySQL process to do the same thing on a mobile device is a bad plan.
Although they're both "SQL databases" and have a lot of functional overlap, they're engineered to solve some very different problems. In some trivial use cases it might be an arbitrary choice as to which is best, but in most cases it's pretty obvious which of the two you need.

What is "overkill"? [closed]

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Programmers often wonder if the use of a certain library or programming style is overkill. They also often claim that this is the case (and they are often believed).
What does "overkill" mean in the context of programming?
"overkill" is typically used to mean deploying overly flexible and/or over-engineered solutions to solve what is ostensibly a simple and highly localized problem. The canonical example is FizzBuzz Enterprise Edition.
The term "Overkill" literarilly (if there was ever a literal use of it) refers to the action of killing something or someone, with more resources than necessary. Something like shooting a deer 50 times to make sure it dies.
In programming it applies for the same principle: making use of more resources than necessary or to find an overly complex solution to a simple problem.
Some simple examples are
for i=1 to 100
x[i]=2^z[i];
y=x;
end
Where copying the entire array x in every iteration step achieves the desired result but you could also copy it elementwise y[i]=x[i] saving you some 900 operations and is thus an overkill.
Using the OpenCV library to threshold an image is definetley possible but uses many more resources than strictly necessary and is an exagerated example of an overkill.

How to write documentation for microsoft access database? [closed]

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I've been developing a small database for my summer internship and I need to write a manual/documentation for it aimed at both users and developers for future use. Thing is...I have no idea where to start or what information to include. Many people I work with have no idea what databases can do so I need to keep it as simple as possible. The database is implemented in Access and I experimented with the database documenter but I think that is overkill. Is there some kind of documentation standard that I can follow or anything of that nature?
As a starter for ten, I'd have thought that the user documentation should be task orientated.
(i.e: How to achieve 'X'.)
In terms of the developer documentation, defining the meaning of any non-obvious fields in your schemas, how they're used and the relationships between different tables, etc. would be a good start. (I'm presuming your VBA code is well commented, etc.) You may also want to examine the existing "Documenting Visual Basic with Doxygen" question/answer.
Just straightforward english if you are explaining a process.
If you have a series of Macros do a document highlighting to code used in each macro and the order it should be employed. This could aid someone down the line if they are trying to automate the process.

Twitter xAuth vs open source [closed]

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I am developing an open source desktop twitter client. I would like to take advantage on the new xAuth authentication method, however my app is open source which means that if I put the keys directly into the source file, it may be a vulnerability (am I correct? The twitter support guy told me).
On the other hand, putting the key directly into a binary also doesn't make sense. I am writing my application in python, so if I just supply the pyc files, it is one more seconds to get the keys, thanks to the excellent reflection capatibilities of Python. If I create a small .so file with the keys, it is also trivial to obtain the key by looking at the raw binary (keys has fixed length and character set).
What is your opinion? Is it really a secutiry hole to expose the API keys?
Security hole? In broad terms, yes. Realistically though, these aren't nuclear launch codes we're talking about.
About the worst thing that could happen is that someone could take and use your app's keys to do something against Twitter's TOS that will end up getting the keys banned. No user data would be vulnerable since you're not distributing the user tokens (that would be much worse from a security standpoint). Since anyone can register an app in 2 seconds at no cost, the only reason to do that kind of impersonation would be specifically to besmirch the reputation of you or your app.
One thing you could do is leave them out of the source code but make it clear that user's compiling from source need to obtain their own keys and put them in the appropriate place, but leave them in the binary version that you distribute. Not 100% secure, but makes it that little bit harder that will deter a certain number of n'er-do-wells.

How do you estimate a EAI project using Function point? [closed]

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How do you estimate a EAI project using Function point?
FP analysis is inappropriate for integration projects of any sort as it presupposes that you can specify the application up-front. Most of the work in any integration project of non-trivial complexity is reverse-engineering the nuances of the environment. Typically the environment will not be exhaustively documented in the sort of cases you would expect to use an EAI system in.
By the time you have actually done this level of reverse engineering to the point of having a complete specification you have done most of the work in the project - the actual development is fairly short and sweet by comparison. Therefore the function point analysis is only providing an estimate for a small part of the system.
As an aside, much of the work I do is data warehouse systems in Commercial insurance companies, where extensive prototyping and reconciliation exercises to produce detailed specification documents are actually quite appropriate to the environment. Typically this takes longer than actually developing the production system as most of the data issues are resolved in the prototyping work. EAI systems have a similar class of implementation issues.
Well given that FP counting is based on storage and end user interface, not sure if its even meaningful for EAI (from what little I remember).
I would say you can't, at least not in a useful way. FP counting is generally viewed as a dubious practice of varying accuracy, doing it to an integration project would just add more fuzzyness.