INFO NEWS !!! Volume 1 | Page 5

INFO NEWS !! News and Tips for Programing Tips Use a consistent coding style Good coding style is like using correct punctuation. You may think you can manage without it, but it sure makes things easier to read. As with styles of punctuation, there are many possible variations. However, you do need to have and to use a consistent style. Good style is important because while your code only has one author, it'll usually have multiple readers. This is especially true when you're writing code with others. In that case, it's a good idea to agree on a common style up-front. Since no style is strictly better than another, working with others may mean that you'll need to sacrifice some preferred aspects of your style. Benchmark your code There are multiple ways to time code.You can use the microbenchmark package. There is also the rbenchmark package, and the tried-and-true workhorse System.time(foo). Regardless of which you use, it can be illuminating to compare slightly different implementations. Which brings us to the next suggestion… Profile slow code Use R’s code profiling mechanisms, specifically Rprof, when dealing with slow code. Identifying the bottleneck and recoding it, or moving it into C++, can provide speed gains measured not in multiples but orders of magnitude! News SQL Server Data Tools Now Supports SQL Server 2014 Fresh on the heels of SQL Server 2014 being released to manufacturing, the SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) team yesterday announced support for the new version, along with numerous other enhancements. One benefit of SSDT is that it lets database developers do more work in Visual Studio, without having to switch back and forth between the IDE and other applications such as SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), among other things. "The most important new feature is support for SQL Server 2014," noted Microsoft's Kevin Cunnane in a blog post announcing the new release. "We also have a number of new