what is block dispatch in iOS? - ios4

Hi I want to understand what is block dispatch?In which condition we can use block dispatch also wanted to know that serial block dispatch and async block dispatch?

Checkout the Concurrency Programming Guide and the Blocks Programming Topics from Apple. They are very complete and a great resource.
If you're a Registered Apple Developer there are some great videos from WWDC on both topics from 2011 and 2012.

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which bot solution I should use, Botframework or Composer tool or Power Virtual Agent? Is Power virtual agent costly? [closed]

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I already use bot framework using c# and hosted in azure. Our bot is integrated with LUIS and use a SharePoint list to answer FAQs. We want to upgrade our bot and we see now many new bot solutions like power virtual agent and composer. Is it worth to switch to any of the new solution? If yes, which one is better and what is the fees.
TL;DR if you are happy with your current solution, there isn't any reason to switch.
Estimated costs:
Bot Framework - $60/mo (10,000 messages)
Power Virtual Agents - $1,000/mo (2,000 conversations)
Composer - Assumed to be the same or similar to Bot Framework, $60/mo
This is largely a matter of preference, but I can provide my personal insight. This post appears to be a little out of date, but gives a good high level overview of the three options. I personally don't have experience with Bot Framework Composer.
First, a general opinion on switching. If you have this working already on Bot Framework and are happy with it, I see little reason to switch. Bot Framework is going to be your cheapest option. There are obviously a lot of variables to cost, but I'd say if you are using free tier for everything except your app service plan, you could probably run a Bot Framework bot for < $60/month for 10,000 messages. Compare that to Power Virtual Agents which costs $1,000/month per 2,000 sessions (if each session was 5 messages, these would be equivalent prices; you can adjust by your expected conversation length). If Bot Framework Composer is just a front end for a traditional Bot Framework bot, I would expect the pricing to be the same around $60/month.
Here are my thoughts on each of the platforms.
Bot Framework gives you total control over the features of your bot. It's 100% code which will turn some people off, but it's ideal for organizations with existing developer competencies or people who prefer not to fight with sometimes finicky builder UIs. In my experience, it is MUCH easier to build integrations this way, especially to Enterprise systems that may be using SOAP. If you can code it, this bot should be able to execute it. The biggest con is that some functionality that is out of the box in other options (notably transcript/session management and reporting) has only token support via modules and poor documentation. There is also no visual builder for your dialogs, though I actually find that sometimes those visuals can be more of a hinderance. For me, the flexibility outweighed the drawbacks and this is what my organization has selected as our Enterprise platform.
Power Virtual Agents is part of the Power Platform and goes completely the other way. It is completely no-code. There are a number of out of the box connectors (integrations), and you can build your own using custom connectors and flows. However, that's harder than it sounds. I have found this a very poor option if you need to create your own custom APIs. Our organization has determined that this would be the best option if you want to allow citizen developers to create their own bots without help from a developer or IT team. It excels at Q&A and simple dialogs, but beyond that I've found it to be frustrating to work with.
Bot Framework Composer seems to be a middle ground between the two. I don't have any personal experience with it. It seems there is still some coding required, but it does have a visual builder for dialogs and it appears to have some other nice out of the box features. I'm not sure if it's any easier to create integrations in this platform. I would see the niche here being an accelerator to coded Bot Framework bots, and also good for lesser technical people who would appreciate being able to visualize their process flows. It could also be a better tool if your customers are heavily involved in the development process, allowing them to see process flows as they are developed instead of just by testing them with conversation.
If any of the MSFT guys have any additions or corrections to my analysis, let me know and I'll edit them into my response.

NooB Alert NodeJs and Slack Bot build. Need Advice

Prewarning: I am a noob with development, I started doing web design when I retired from the Marines about 3 years ago. I specialized in Intelligence and Tactics, so not a computer user during that career. Fast forward to Today:
I work as an Exchange admin and migration specialist with GoDaddy, I have been through several Webdesign courses and learned a decent foundation of html/css/php however JavaScript, Nodejs, Java, Python, C++, and C# are all still things I am working on.
My issue: My lead wants to have a bot built that essentially posts messages in the #general group (I learned how to do this and actually setup a nodejs server within my test hosting server # GD and have a Joke bot running in my slack WS). The tricky part that I have been scratching my brain on is how to use an web API that GD has to monitor our call que, hold times, and agents online. I need to figure out how to get the bot to post a message regarding certain triggers automatically(exp. Hold time exceeds 10mins). I can not figure out whether to use a webhook, eventListener, or a direct bot auth'd into the GD api like my joke bot that links to chuckNorris jokes.
I appreciate all the comments truly, I have thick skin and know that I am late to the game on development. I want to build this for the experience and to integrate with slack, my end goal would be more projects to eventually become a Dev within GD.
I have a few thoughts that might help you.
Regarding these holdtimes, agents online, and call queues, think of these as events. Whenever these events occur, they should fire a payload (HTTP request) to your service that then posts messages to slack. I think you might need a slack bot token for this.
Many APIs have this functionality under webhooks. You provide them the URL to the endpoint your developing and theres usually a toggle to tell them that you want to start accepting events.
To get going on your service/bot, I'd recommend starting with learning about what these webhook event payloads will look like in terms of structure so that you can parse it.
If you have more detailed questions feel free to comment or message. Happy to help. I've written a slack bot or two.

NFC background task

I'm struggling in finding a working solution and I need aid.
I am working on a small IoT project where I want to abuse NFC tags.
I've succeeded in reading/writing in the open app but I wish to read while the app is closed.
More or less I just want to send a small UDP message when reading the appropriate NFC tag, which turns out is a bit more difficult doing in a background task.
The main headache is that I can't find a task trigger that runs upon NFC chatter. I've tried SmartCardsTrigger and ProximitySensorTrigger from the following sources:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/devices-sensors/host-card-emulation
https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-universal-samples/tree/master/Samples/ProximitySensor
The ProximitySensorTrigger seems like it's almost triggering at random, and kinda triggers less when I push the NFC tag against the phone. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
The SmartCardsTrigger doesn't trigger at all. I guess the EmulatorNearFieldEntry trigger type is what I want but for some reason it's unsupported (?).
Anyhow, I am using a Lumia 920 running windows 10 mobile. To my knowledge it does not support smartcards but I just hoped it could use the same trigger for NFC tags.
Reading the responses on a similar question, Akash Chowdary suggested that it may be possible writing a custom trigger. If you know any tips that may point me in the right direction then please do tell them. I got the competence in researching but it's a big sea, and it would really help knowing where to start ^^.
I'm quite the noob when it comes to background tasks, and I am very confused of why after registering a SmartCardTrigger task I have no tasks running.
If I do for example a TimezoneChange trigger or a ProximitySensor trigger, the task is shown as it should. Maybe because my Lumia doesn't support the SmartCardTrigger? Would've guessed it to thrown an error if that's the case but what do I know.
Tl;dr: I want to read NFC tags in a background task, how do I do that on a Lumia 920 inside a basic UWP project?

Real time web app - Which language/framework?

i'm starting to develop a web application for which I need real-time capability. In particular, as result of a server-side event (without client request), the client must refresh the view. The best solution seems to be a websocket communication.
My doubt is mainly between Node.js and JavaEE 7. Which language do you recommend for development? And with which framework?
The main requirements are:
Interoperability with browsers
Support for mobile devices
Availability of tools for the creation of the graphical interface
Thanks
The question is a bit broad and leads to opinion-based results - that's why it is likely to get close votes, so don't be surprised if it happens ;-)
Nevertheless, I would generally state, that "web application" and "real time" won't work together, because you have components like the network or containers in between which you don't control and thus cannot guarantee real-time requirements.
But I assume, that you are more looking for an "instant" reaction, so that your clients get informed instead of having to ask for something. In that case, web sockets are the state of the art for doing so.
Regarding technology selection, I don't think one is better than the other, it is more a question about available skills or your general programming model or customer requirements. I would think you can perfectly use Java EE 7 for that.
As a reference on that topic, I visited Adam Bien's workshops last year and he talked about an example, where he had a huge number of clients which communicated with a Java EE app server using web sockets.

Some SWIFT Questions

I hava some questions about SWIFT:
What database does SWIFT use and can I connect to it and insert messages to it?
If I can insert message in database can SWIFT send it?
Is it possible to send a message using SWIFT using other languages such C#, VB.NET or Delphi?
If the answer to number 3 is true I think SWIFT security is low. Is this true?
SWIFT isn't a database - it's a messaging standard akin to EDI.
You can contact the SWIFT folks, and they can put you in touch with software vendors who supply software which can speak SWIFT. Software like Progress Artix Data Services, which can convert SWIFT messages into Java POJOs or map to databases like Oracle, MySQL and others.
I believe it is also a message clearinghouse, so a subscription to their network might be required, but I'm not 100% on that.
Disclaimer, I work for Progress.
2016 EDIT: Artix (ADS) was sold to C24 sometime around the time this was originally written and is no longer a Progress product. I am also no longer affiliated with either of these parties.
SWIFT is the interbank messaging system used for transferring funds between banks. You don't access the database, you send messages. and security is very, very high, not surprisingly, but there are workrounds. I was once in the enviable position of writing both the SWIFT messaging code for an IB, and the code that managed the bank's counterparties and settlement instructions. It was very tempting to insert a few accounts of my own into the counterparty database (which was ours, not SWIFT's), but I resisted :-)
As for accessing it, it usually lives down the end of a socket. You can also get dedicated SWIFT terminals.
It is worth visiting swiftcommunity.net (which is owned and run by SWIFT) and visiting the forum on Developers' Support with any of your specific SWIFT related questions.

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