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  • How to do a multishot in xna?

    - by DeVonte
    I am trying to simulate a gun in which shoots multiple bullets at the same time(similar to a spread out shot). I am thinking I have to create another bullet array then do the same as I have below but in a different direction. Here is what I have so far: foreach (GameObject bullet in bullets) { // Find a bullet that isn't alive if (!bullet.alive) { //And set it to alive bullet.alive = true; if (flip == SpriteEffects.FlipHorizontally) //Facing right { float armCos = (float)Math.Cos(arm.rotation - MathHelper.PiOver2); float armSin = (float)Math.Sin(arm.rotation - MathHelper.PiOver2); // Set the initial position of our bullets at the end of our gun arm // 42 is obtained by taking the width of the Arm_Gun texture / 2 // and subtracting the width of the Bullet texture / 2. ((96/2)=(12/2)) bullet.position = new Vector2( arm.position.X + 42 * armCos, arm.position.Y + 42 * armSin); // And give it a velocity of the direction we're aiming. // Increae/decrease speed by changeing 15.0f bullet.Velocity = new Vector2( (float)Math.Cos(arm.rotation - MathHelper.PiOver4 + MathHelper.Pi + MathHelper.PiOver2), (float)Math.Sin(arm.rotation - MathHelper.PiOver4 + MathHelper.Pi + MathHelper.PiOver2)) * 15.0f; } else //Facing left { float armCos = (float)Math.Cos(arm.rotation + MathHelper.PiOver2); float armSin = (float)Math.Sin(arm.rotation + MathHelper.PiOver2); //Set the initial position of our bullet at the end of our gun arm //42 is obtained be taking the width of the Arm_Gun texture / 2 //and subtracting the width of the Bullet texture / 2. ((96/2)-(12/2)) bullet.position = new Vector2( arm.position.X - 42 * armCos, arm.position.Y - 42 * armSin); //And give it a velocity of the direction we're aiming. //Increase/decrease speed by changing 15.0f bullet.Velocity = new Vector2( -armCos, -armSin) * 15.0f; } return; }// End if }// End foreach

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  • How do you save/export changes made in Firebug?

    - by blunders
    Using Firebug to edit CSS, how do I save/export changes made to the CSS? TOOLS: Firefox, Firebug MAJOR UPDATE: If you know of a way to lock the forward/back/refresh on a FireFox tab, please let me know. Otherwise, I've given up on using FireBug/FireDiff as an IDE for CSS, it's nice, but lol... press backspace at the wrong time and ALL your work is gone... funny. So, really like the browser highlighting to CSS/HTML in Firebug. Know any good CSS editors that do this? Really had hope FireBug would work, but for now only see it as being good for ad-hoc inspection and test; meaning using it for what it's made for. UPDATES: @Lèse majesté: Just as an update, "Web Developer add-on" does let you edit CSS, but it does not let you edit/save CSS changes made by Firebug. Meaning you use Firebug to ID and maybe test changes, but it does not let you save the changes from Firebug. Here's a "how to" covering how to use them together: FF + FB + WD @Lèse majesté: Still playing around with FireDiff. It works okay, found one bug already (although I'm just working around it), and there's no "how to" I've been able to find, so I'm just trying every feature and clicking around... (for example, to export a diff you must be over the last item in the list, right click, and select as "Save Diff". The ".diff" is just a text file, no idea why at this point the ext is .diff.

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  • Help identify the pattern for reacting on updates

    - by Mike
    There's an entity that gets updated from external sources. Update events are at random intervals. And the entity has to be processed once updated. Multiple updates may be multiplexed. In other words there's a need for the most current state of entity to be processed. There's a point of no-return during processing where the current state (and the state is consistent i.e. no partial update is made) of entity is saved somewhere else and processing goes on independently of any arriving updates. Every consequent set of updates has to trigger processing i.e. system should not forget about updates. And for each entity there should be no more than one running processing (before the point of no-return) i.e. the entity state should not be processed more than once. So what I'm looking for is a pattern to cancel current processing before the point of no return or abandon processing results if an update arrives. The main challenge is to minimize race conditions and maintain integrity. The entity sits mainly in database with some files on disk. And the system is in .NET with web-services and message queues. What comes to my mind is a database queue-like table. An arriving update inserts row in that table and the processing is launched. The processing gathers necessary data before the point of no-return and once it reaches this barrier it looks into the queue table and checks whether there're more recent updates for the entity. If there are new updates the processing simply shuts down and its data is discarded. Otherwise the processing data is persisted and it goes beyond the point of no-return. Though it looks like a solution to me it is not quite elegant and I believe this scenario may be supported by some sort of middleware. If I would use message queues for this then there's a need to access the queue API in the point of no-return to check for the existence of new messages. And this approach also lacks elegance. Is there a name for this pattern and an existing solution?

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  • How to make an Actor follow my finger

    - by user48352
    I'm back with another question that may be really simple. I've a texture drawn on my spritebatch and I'm making it move up or down (y-axis only) with Libgdx's Input Handler: touchDown and touchUp. @Override public boolean touchDown(int screenX, int screenY, int pointer, int button) { myWhale.touchDownY = screenY; myWhale.isTouched = true; return true; } @Override public boolean touchUp(int screenX, int screenY, int pointer, int button) { myWhale.isTouched = false; return false; } myWhale is an object from Whale Class where I move my texture position: public void update(float delta) { this.delta = delta; if(isTouched){ dragWhale(); } } public void dragWhale() { if(Gdx.input.getY(0) - touchDownY < 0){ if(Gdx.input.getY(0)<position.y+height/2){ position.y = position.y - velocidad*delta; } } else{ if(Gdx.input.getY(0)>position.y+height/2){ position.y = position.y + velocidad*delta; } } } So the object moves to the center of the position where the person is pressing his/her finger and most of the time it works fine but the object seems to take about half a second to move up or down and sometimes when I press my finger it wont move. Maybe there's another simplier way to do this. I'd highly appreciate if someone points me on the right direction.

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  • How can you predict the time it will take for two processes in two different machines in a cluster to communicate?

    - by Dokkat
    I am trying to develop a computing application which needs a lot of memory (500gb). Buying a single machine for that is overly expensive. I can, though, buy ~100 small instances on Digital Ocean or similar, divide the memory in blocks and use TCP to emulate shared memory between the instances. Now, my question is: how can I measure/predict the time it will take for two processes in two different machines like that to share information, in comparison to IPC and shared memory? Are there rules of thumb? I don't want exact values, but knowing more or less how much faster one is would be very helpful in visualising the feasibility of this approach.

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  • How many tiers should my models have in a DB driven web app?

    - by Hanno Fietz
    In my experience, the "Model" in MVC is often not really a single layer. I would regularly have "backend" models and "frontend" models, where the backend ones would have properties that I want to hide from the UI code, and the frontend ones have derived or composite properties which are more meaningful in the context of the UI. Recently, I have started to introduce a third layer in between when database normalization created tables that did not really match the conceptual domain objects anymore. In those projects I have model classes that are equivalent with the DB structure, these become components of objects that represent the domain model, and finally these are filtered and amended for displaying information to the user. Are there patterns or guidelines for how, when and why to organize the data model across application layers?

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  • Algorithms or patterns for a linked question and answer cost calculator

    - by kmc
    I've been asked to build an online calculator in PHP (and the Laravel framework). It will take the answers to a series of questions to estimate the cost of a home extension. For example, a couple of questions may be: What is the lie of your property? Flat, slightly inclined, heavily inclined. (these suggestive values could have specific values in the underlying calculator like, 0 degrees, 5 degrees, 10 degrees. What is your current flooring system? Wooden, or concrete? These would then impact the results of other questions. Once the size of the extension has been input, the lie of the land will affect how much site works will cost, and how much rubbish collection will cost. The second question will impact the cost of the extensions flooring, as stumping and laying floorboards is a different cost to laying foundations and a concrete slab. It will also influence what heating and cooling systems are available in the calculator. So it's VERY interlinked. The answer to any question can influence the options of other questions, and the end result. I'm having trouble figuring out an approach to this that will allow new options and questions to be plugged in at a later stage without having things too coupled. The Observer pattern, or Laravel's events may be handy, but currently the sheer breadth of the calculator has me struggling to gather my thoughts and see a sensible implementation. Are there any patterns or OO approaches that may help? Thanks!

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  • Is there a simple isometric graphical game engine (using vectors?) that could be used for a (multiplayer) crafting/farming game? [closed]

    - by Renier Wijnen
    Possible Duplicate: Good, free isometric game engine? With little game development experience (albeit having graphical skills and some programming knowledge) a group currently working on a game used to explain permaculture through interaction would like to create a simple concept game. Is there a specific engine or set of tools we could used to achieve this? Being able to make it an (online) multiplayer game would be much preferred. Thank you in advance for your input.

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  • What is a proper way of building Winform apps with multiple "screens"

    - by CurtisHx
    What's a proper way of building a Winform app that has multiple 'screens'? For example, I'm trying to write a small backup program (mainly for giggles), and I've been dumping controls and containers onto the form. I'm using panels and group boxes to separate out the different screens (eg: I'm using a panel to hold all of the controls for the "Settings" window, and another panel to show all the current backups that have been set up). Well, my form.cs file ballooned into a massive amount of code, and I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I can hardly find anything in the file, and I'm ready to start over. This project was just for me to expand my knowledge of C# and .NET, so starting a new project is not a huge deal.

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  • Query something and return the reason if nothing has been found

    - by Daniel Hilgarth
    Assume I have a Query - as in CQS that is supposed to return a single value. Let's assume that the case that no value is found is not exceptional, so no exception will be thrown in this case. Instead, null is returned. However, if no value has been found, I need to act according to the reason why no value has been found. Assuming that the Query knows the reason, how would I communicate it to the caller of the Query? A simple solution would be not return the value directly but a container object that contains the value and the reason: public class QueryResult { public TValue Value { get; private set; } public TReason ReasonForNoValue { get; private set; } } But that feels clumsy, because if a value is found, ReasonForNoValue makes no sense and if no value has been found, Value makes no sense. What other options do I have to communicate the reason? What do you think of one event per reason? For reference: This is going to be implemented in C#.

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  • Abstract Factory Method and Polymorphism

    - by Scotty C.
    Being a PHP programmer for the last couple of years, I'm just starting to get into advanced programming styles and using polymorphic patterns. I was watching a video on polymorphism the other day, and the guy giving the lecture said that if at all possible, you should get rid of if statements in your code, and that a switch is almost always a sign that polymorphism is needed. At this point I was quite inspired and immediately went off to try out these new concepts, so I decided to make a small caching module using a factory method. Of course the very first thing I have to do is create a switch to decide what file encoding to choose. DANG! class Main { public static function methodA($parameter='') { switch ($parameter) { case 'a': $object = new \name\space\object1(); break; case 'b': $object = new \name\space\object2(); break; case 'c': $object = new \name\space\object3(); break; default: $object = new \name\space\object1(); } return (sekretInterface $object); } } At this point I'm not really sure what to do. As far as I can tell, I either have to use a different pattern and have separate methods for each object instance, or accept that a switch is necessary to "switch" between them. What do you guys think?

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  • Trying to Integrate Five9 and Apptivio [on hold]

    - by David Mitchell
    Five9 is a calling system application and Apptivio will be used to store client information for purchased products. Specifically what I need is an example code that will allow me to access Five9's CRM system using the access key and transfer a persons first and last name, for example, to Apptivio. The issue is I have never dealt with this type of system and I cannot find any information for it other than the Web2Campaign that was sent to me by Five9. Lets say this is the code from Five9 F9key=first_name&F9key=last_name&first_name=jon&last_name=smith Once this information is placed into Five9 I must update Apptivio with this information. I am lost as to how to send this information to Apptivio.

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  • ASP.NET MVC 3 (C#) Software Architecture

    - by ryanzec
    I am starting on a relatively large and ambitious ASP.NET MVC 3 project and just thinking about the best way to organize my code. The project is basically going to be a general management system that will be capable of supporting any type management system whether it be a blogging system, cms, reservation system, wikis, forums, project management system, etc…, each of them being just a separate 'module'. You can read more about it on my blog posted here : http://www.ryanzec.com/index.php/blog/details/8 (forgive me, the style of the site kinda sucks). For those who don't want to read the long blog post the basic idea is that the core system itself is nothing more than a users system with an admin interface to manage the users system. Then you just add on module as you need them and the module I will be creating is a simple blog post to test it out before I move on to the big module which is a project management system. Now I am just trying to think of the best way to structure this so that it is easy for users to add in there own modules but easy for me to update to core system without worrying about the user modifying the core code. I think the ideal way would be to have a number of core projects that user is specifically told not to modify otherwise the system may become unstable and future updates would not work. When the user wants to add in there own modules, they would just add in a new project (or multiple projects). The thing is I am not sure that it is even possible to use multiple projects all with their own controllers, razor view template, css, javascript, etc... in one web application. Ideally each module would have some of it own razor view templates, css, javascript, image files and also need access to some of the core razor view templates, css, javascript, image files which would is in a separate project. It is possible to have 1 web application run off of controllers, razor view templates, css, javascript, image files that are store in multiple projects? Is there a better was to structure this to allow the user to easily add in module with having to modify the core code?

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  • Inheritance vs containment while extending a large legacy project

    - by Flot2011
    I have got a legacy Java project with a lot of code. The code uses MVC pattern and is well structured and well written. It also has a lot of unit tests and it is still actively maintained (bug fixing, minor features adding). Therefore I want to preserve the original structure and code style as much as possible. The new feature I am going to add is a conceptual one, so I have to make my changes all over the code. In order to minimize changes I decided not to extend existing classes but to use containment: class ExistingClass { // .... existing code // my code adding new functionality private ExistingClassExtension extension = new ExistingClassExtension(); public ExistingClassExtension getExtension() {return extension;} } ... // somewhere in code ExistingClass instance = new ExistingClass(); ... // when I need a new functionality instance.getExtension().newMethod1(); All functionality that I am adding is inside a new ExistingClassExtension class. Actually I am adding only these 2 lines to each class that needs to be extended. By doing so I also do not need to instantiate new, extended classes all over the code and I may use existing tests to make sure there is no regression. However my colleagues argue that in this situation doing so isn't a proper OOP approach, and I need to inherit from ExistingClass in order to add a new functionality. What do you think? I am aware of numerous inheritance/containment questions here, but I think my question is different.

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  • Pro/con of using Angular directives for complex form validation/ GUI manipulation

    - by tengen
    I am building a new SPA front end to replace an existing enterprise's legacy hodgepodge of systems that are outdated and in need of updating. I am new to angular, and wanted to see if the community could give me some perspective. I'll state my problem, and then ask my question. I have to generate several series of check boxes based on data from a .js include, with data like this: $scope.fieldMappings.investmentObjectiveMap = [ {'id':"CAPITAL PRESERVATION", 'name':"Capital Preservation"}, {'id':"STABLE", 'name':"Moderate"}, {'id':"BALANCED", 'name':"Moderate Growth"}, // etc {'id':"NONE", 'name':"None"} ]; The checkboxes are created using an ng-repeat, like this: <div ng-repeat="investmentObjective in fieldMappings.investmentObjectiveMap"> ... </div> However, I needed the values represented by the checkboxes to map to a different model (not just 2-way-bound to the fieldmappings object). To accomplish this, I created a directive, which accepts a destination array destarray which is eventually mapped to the model. I also know I need to handle some very specific gui controls, such as unchecking "None" if anything else gets checked, or checking "None" if everything else gets unchecked. Also, "None" won't be an option in every group of checkboxes, so the directive needs to be generic enough to accept a validation function that can fiddle with the checked state of the checkbox group's inputs based on what's already clicked, but smart enough not to break if there is no option called "NONE". I started to do that by adding an ng-click which invoked a function in the controller, but in looking around Stack Overflow, I read people saying that its bad to put DOM manipulation code inside your controller - it should go in directives. So do I need another directive? So far: (html): <input my-checkbox-group type="checkbox" fieldobj="investmentObjective" ng-click="validationfunc()" validationfunc="clearOnNone()" destarray="investor.investmentObjective" /> Directive code: .directive("myCheckboxGroup", function () { return { restrict: "A", scope: { destarray: "=", // the source of all the checkbox values fieldobj: "=", // the array the values came from validationfunc: "&" // the function to be called for validation (optional) }, link: function (scope, elem, attrs) { if (scope.destarray.indexOf(scope.fieldobj.id) !== -1) { elem[0].checked = true; } elem.bind('click', function () { var index = scope.destarray.indexOf(scope.fieldobj.id); if (elem[0].checked) { if (index === -1) { scope.destarray.push(scope.fieldobj.id); } } else { if (index !== -1) { scope.destarray.splice(index, 1); } } }); } }; }) .js controller snippet: .controller( 'SuitabilityCtrl', ['$scope', function ( $scope ) { $scope.clearOnNone = function() { // naughty jQuery DOM manipulation code that // looks at checkboxes and checks/unchecks as needed }; The above code is done and works fine, except the naughty jquery code in clearOnNone(), which is why I wrote this question. And here is my question: after ALL this, I think to myself - I could be done already if I just manually handled all this GUI logic and validation junk with jQuery written in my controller. At what point does it become foolish to write these complicated directives that future developers will have to puzzle over more than if I had just written jQuery code that 99% of us would understand with a glance? How do other developers draw the line? I see this all over Stack Overflow. For example, this question seems like it could be answered with a dozen lines of straightforward jQuery, yet he has opted to do it the angular way, with a directive and a partial... it seems like a lot of work for a simple problem. Specifically, I suppose I would like to know: how SHOULD I be writing the code that checks whether "None" has been selected (if it exists as an option in this group of checkboxes), and then check/uncheck the other boxes accordingly? A more complex directive? I can't believe I'm the only developer that is having to implement code that is more complex than needed just to satisfy an opinionated framework.

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  • How do you prevent inflation in a virtual economy?

    - by Tetrad
    With your typical MMORPG, players can usually farm the world for raw materials essentially forever. Monsters/mineral veins/etc are usually on some respawn timer so, other than time, there really isn't a good way to limit the amount of new currency entering the system. So that really only leaves money sinks to try to take money out of the system. What are some strategies to prevent inflation of the in-game currency?

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  • How to verify the Liskov substitution principle in an inheritance hierarchy?

    - by Songo
    Inspired by this answer: Liskov Substitution Principle requires that Preconditions cannot be strengthened in a subtype. Postconditions cannot be weakened in a subtype. Invariants of the supertype must be preserved in a subtype. History constraint (the "history rule"). Objects are regarded as being modifiable only through their methods (encapsulation). Since subtypes may introduce methods that are not present in the supertype, the introduction of these methods may allow state changes in the subtype that are not permissible in the supertype. The history constraint prohibits this. I was hoping if someone would post a class hierarchy that violates these 4 points and how to solve them accordingly. I'm looking for an elaborate explanation for educational purposes on how to identify each of the 4 points in the hierarchy and the best way to fix it. Note: I was hoping to post a code sample for people to work on, but the question itself is about how to identify the faulty hierarchies :)

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  • I've been told that Exceptions should only be used in exceptional cases. How do I know if my case is exceptional?

    - by tieTYT
    My specific case here is that the user can pass in a string into the application, the application parses it and assigns it to structured objects. Sometimes the user may type in something invalid. For example, their input may describe a person but they may say their age is "apple". Correct behavior in that case is roll back the transaction and to tell the user an error occurred and they'll have to try again. There may be a requirement to report on every error we can find in the input, not just the first. In this case, I argued we should throw an exception. He disagreed, saying, "Exceptions should be exceptional: It's expected that the user may input invalid data, so this isn't an exceptional case" I didn't really know how to argue that point, because by definition of the word, he seems to be right. But, it's my understanding that this is why Exceptions were invented in the first place. It used to be you had to inspect the result to see if an error occurred. If you failed to check, bad things could happen without you noticing. Without exceptions every level of the stack needs to check the result of the methods they call and if a programmer forgets to check in one of these levels, the code could accidentally proceed and save invalid data (for example). Seems more error prone that way. Anyway, feel free to correct anything I've said here. My main question is if someone says Exceptions should be exceptional, how do I know if my case is exceptional?

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  • How to store prices that have effective dates?

    - by lal00
    I have a list of products. Each of them is offered by N providers. Each providers quotes us a price for a specific date. That price is effective until that provider decides to set a new price. In that case, the provider will give the new price with a new date. The MySQL table header currently looks like: provider_id, product_id, price, date_price_effective Every other day, we compile a list of products/prices that are effective for the current day. For each product, the list contains a sorted list of the providers that have that particular product. In that way, we can order certain products from whoever happens to offer the best price. To get the effective prices, I have a SQL statement that returns all rows that have date_price_effective >= NOW(). That result set is processed with a ruby script that does the sorting and filtering necessary to obtain a file that looks like this: product_id_1,provider_1,provider_3,provider8,provider_10... product_id_2,provider_3,provider_2,provider1,provider_10... This works fine for our purposes, but I still have an itch that a SQL table is probably not the best way to store this kind of information. I have that feeling that this kind of problema has been solved previously in other more creative ways. Is there a better way to store this information other than in SQL? or, if using SQL, is there a better approach than the one I'm using?

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  • How stable are Single Page Application (SPA) build with Microsoft .Net for enterprise application [on hold]

    - by Husrat Mehmood
    Imagine a situation where you have your data loading to your application via REST Api,you are building a responsive application(ajax request) for an Enterprise. What potential problems might I run into for a single page application(SPA) using Microsoft Asp.Net Web application build using MVC template? Are there advantages to just designing a multi-page application using asp.net mvc 5 remember I am using SPA for an Enterprise Application where there are role based views for the users.?

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  • Should I limit my type name suffix vocabulary when using OOP?

    - by Den
    My co-workers tend to think that it is better to limit non-domain type suffixes to a small fixed set of OOP-pattern inspired words, e.g.: *Service *Repository *Factory *Manager *Provider I believe there is no reason to not extend that set with more names, e.g. (some "translation" to the previous vocabulary is given in brackets): *Distributor (= *DistributionManager or *SendingService) *Generator *Browser (= *ReadonlyRepositoryService) *Processor *Manipulator (= *StateMachineManager) *Enricher (= *EnrichmentService) (*) denotes some domain word, e.g. "Order", "Student", "Item" etc. The domain is probably not complex enough to use specialized approaches such as DDD which could drive the naming.

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  • Nested Entities and calculation on leaf entity property - SQL or NoSQL approach

    - by Chandu
    I am working on a hobby project called Menu/Recipe Management. This is how my entities and their relations look like. A Nutrient has properties Code and Value An Ingredient has a collection of Nutrients A Recipe has a Collection of Ingredients and occasionally can have a collection of other recipes A Meal has a Collection of Recipes and Ingredients A Menu has a Collection of Meals The relations can be depicted as In one of the pages, for a selected menu I need to display the effective nutrients information calculated based on its constituents (Meals, Recipes, Ingredients and the corresponding nutrients). As of now am using SQL Server to store the data and I am navigating the chain from my C# code, starting from each meal of the menu and then aggregating the nutrient values. I think this is not an efficient way as this calculation is being done every time the page is requested and the constituents change occasionally. I was thinking about a having a background service that maintains a table called MenuNutrients ({MenuId, NutrientId, Value}) and will populate/update this table with the effective nutrients when any of the component (Meal, Recipe, Ingredient) changes. I feel that a GraphDB would be a good fit for this requirement, but my exposure to NoSQL is limited. I want to know what are the alternative solutions/approaches to this requirement of displaying the nutrients of a given menu. Hope my description of the scenario is clear.

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  • How common are circular references? Would reference-counting GC work just fine?

    - by user9521
    How common are circular references? The less common they are, the fewer hard cases you have if you are writing in a language with only reference counting-GC. Are there any cases where it wouldn't work well to make one of the references a "weak" reference so that reference counting still works? It seems like you should be able to have a language only use reference counting and weak references and have things work just fine most of the time, with the goal of efficiency. You could also have tools to help you detect memory leaks caused by circular references. Thoughts, anyone? It seems that Python uses references counting (I don't know if it uses a tracing collector occasionally or not for sure) and I know that Vala uses reference counting with weak references; I know that it's been done before, but how well would it work?

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  • Why do old programming languages continue to be revised?

    - by SunAvatar
    This question is not, "Why do people still use old programming languages?" I understand that quite well. In fact the two programming languages I know best are C and Scheme, both of which date back to the 70s. Recently I was reading about the changes in C99 and C11 versus C89 (which seems to still be the most-used version of C in practice and the version I learned from K&R). Looking around, it seems like every programming language in heavy use gets a new specification at least once per decade or so. Even Fortran is still getting new revisions, despite the fact that most people using it are still using FORTRAN 77. Contrast this with the approach of, say, the typesetting system TeX. In 1989, with the release of TeX 3.0, Donald Knuth declared that TeX was feature-complete and future releases would contain only bug fixes. Even beyond this, he has stated that upon his death, "all remaining bugs will become features" and absolutely no further updates will be made. Others are free to fork TeX and have done so, but the resulting systems are renamed to indicate that they are different from the official TeX. This is not because Knuth thinks TeX is perfect, but because he understands the value of a stable, predictable system that will do the same thing in fifty years that it does now. Why do most programming language designers not follow the same principle? Of course, when a language is relatively new, it makes sense that it will go through a period of rapid change before settling down. And no one can really object to minor changes that don't do much more than codify existing pseudo-standards or correct unintended readings. But when a language still seems to need improvement after ten or twenty years, why not just fork it or start over, rather than try to change what is already in use? If some people really want to do object-oriented programming in Fortran, why not create "Objective Fortran" for that purpose, and leave Fortran itself alone? I suppose one could say that, regardless of future revisions, C89 is already a standard and nothing stops people from continuing to use it. This is sort of true, but connotations do have consequences. GCC will, in pedantic mode, warn about syntax that is either deprecated or has a subtly different meaning in C99, which means C89 programmers can't just totally ignore the new standard. So there must be some benefit in C99 that is sufficient to impose this overhead on everyone who uses the language. This is a real question, not an invitation to argue. Obviously I do have an opinion on this, but at the moment I'm just trying to understand why this isn't just how things are done already. I suppose the question is: What are the (real or perceived) advantages of updating a language standard, as opposed to creating a new language based on the old?

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  • When module calling gets ugly

    - by Pete
    Has this ever happened to you? You've got a suite of well designed, single-responsibility modules, covered by unit tests. In any higher-level function you code, you are (95% of the code) simply taking output from one module and passing it as input to the next. Then, you notice this higher-level function has turned into a 100+ line script with multiple responsibilities. Here is the problem. It is difficult (impossible) to test that script. At least, it seems so. Do you agree? In my current project, all of the bugs came from this script. Further detail: each script represents a unique solution, or algorithm, formed by using different modules in different ways. Question: how can you remedy this situation? Knee-jerk answer: break the script up into single-responsibility modules. Comment on knee-jerk answer: it already is! Best answer I can come up with so far: create higher-level connector objects which "wire" modules together in particular ways (take output from one module, feed it as input to another module). Thus if our script was: FooInput fooIn = new FooInput(1, 2); FooOutput fooOutput = fooModule(fooIn); Double runtimevalue = getsomething(fooOutput.whatever); BarInput barIn = new BarInput( runtimevalue, fooOutput.someOtherValue); BarOutput barOut = barModule(BarIn); It would become with a connector: FooBarConnectionAlgo fooBarConnector = new fooBarConnector(fooModule, barModule); FooInput fooIn = new FooInput(1, 2); BarOutput barOut = fooBarConnector(fooIn); So the advantage is, besides hiding some code and making things clearer, we can test FooBarConnectionAlgo. I'm sure this situation comes up a lot. What do you do?

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