Software Engineering Stack Exchange
Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [desktop-application]

98 questions
44
votes
13 answers

Is it bad interview practice to have candidates write a linked-list implementation?

Reading this site and SO I've seen many stories of interview questions and answers saying a candidate had to implement a linked list from scratch. Usually this is a "gimme" exercise for programming role candidates like writing FizzBuzz. The idea is…
joshin4colours
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5 answers

How do I store the OAuth v1 consumer key and secret for an open source desktop Twitter client without revealing it to the user?

I want to make a thick-client, desktop, open source twitter client. I happen to be using .NET as my language and Twitterizer as my OAuth/Twitter wrapper, and my app will likely be released as open source. To get an OAuth token, four pieces of…
Justin Dearing
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27
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1 answer

Is shipping a Clojure desktop app realistic?

I'm currently shipping a desktop Java application. It is a plain old Java 5 Java / Swing app and so far everything worked nicely. Java 5 was targetted because some users were on OS X version / computers that shall never have Java 6 (we may lift this…
Cedric Martin
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23
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10 answers

Web Developer or Software Engineer?

A question that I have been asking myself and really confused which path to take. So I need your guys help as to the pros and cons of these 2 professions in today's world. I love web applications development as the Web is the best thing to happen…
Bat_Programmer
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21
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8 answers

Self-updating application - philosophy

This is a philosophical question. Given a hypothetical desktop application, and a desire to provide automatic updates (rather than forcing people to go to a website, check for an update, download an update, install), which of the two is more of a…
Shannon Davis
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20
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7 answers

Why aren't HTML, CSS, and JavaScript used for desktop apps?

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can be used to build beautiful (and useful) UI's (especially now we have HTML5 and CSS3), and lots of people already know them. Though it's still way beyond my reach, how difficult can it be to bring the whole web app thing…
kapv89
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17
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10 answers

Can we assume that all users today have Internet access?

As the Internet is pretty much ubiquitous, can we as developers assume that all users have Internet access? Now I don't mean that the code is written in such a way that if there is no connection then the whole program crashes due to lack of error…
gablin
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17
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6 answers

Where can I find inspiration for a good user interface?

I've got a mental block as far as desigining the main screen interface for a desktop application that I'm currently upgrading. When I first developed this program the screen resolution was 640 X 480. Today there are multiple screen resolutions out…
Michael Riley - AKA Gunny
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15
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3 answers

How to locate source code that implemented a certain feature?

I was wondering what are some techniques to locate which code implemented a specific feature, on a desktop application. I am a junior developer, with only professional programming experience lying around web programming. In the Web it is easier to…
py_script
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14
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5 answers

Why is JavaScript not used for classical application development (compiled software)?

During my years of web development with JavaScript, I come to the conclusion that it's an incredible powerful language, and you can do amazing things with it. It offers a rich set of features, like: Dynamic typing First-class functions Nested…
Jose Faeti
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13
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7 answers

Whats the best way to determine when it is appropriate to use a database?

I began my programming career in web development using PHP and MySQL. I got quite accustomed to utilizing db for storage of most dynamic data as well as some setting/parameter data. Sometimes there would be a lot of data while other times entries…
Kenneth
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13
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3 answers

REST API vs directly DB calls in Desktop Application

I am currently planing an application that will be used in a company. It is required to build a Desktop Application. At the moment they are not sure if the application should be available on mobile or browser in the near future. I have two…
devz
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13
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3 answers

Can we create desktop application with Ruby?

I know the Ruby on Rails framework is only for web development and not suitable for desktop application development. But if a ruby programmer wants to develop a desktop application, is it suitable and preferable to do it with Ruby only (not jRuby,…
RAJ ...
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2 answers

Should I lock rows in my cloud DB while they're being edited by a user

I am creating a desktop application that persists the data in the cloud. One concern I have is a beginning to edit an item in the application and leaving it for a while causing the data to become stale. This can obviously also happen if 2 people try…
yitzih
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4 answers

Are there any limitations of an idealistic HTML5 web application

Let's assume the following two assumptions are true. Your entire userbase has broadband access everywhere There is an imaginary browser X that implements the entire draft specification of the HTML5 and WHATWG groups, consistently and all users use…
Raynos
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