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• How do I become a developer?

  - by ATester

  Since many of you are already there I figured this might be a great place to invite ideas and suggestion for becoming a software developer. My background I have some basic knowledge of programming in VB and C++ from a course I had pursued 8 years ago. My main drawback is a lack of experience in software since I was in a teaching career until a year ago. I am working as a QA tester and finally got a chance to write some automation tests scripts using C#. I didn't have any prior knowledge of C# but I was able to figure my way through it. Questions Given this context: Would anyone have any ideas as to what would be a good approach to learn enough to actually be able to work as a developer? Does anyone have any suggestions as to what kind of learning path to adopt and which approaches speed up learning curve? Would pursuing university course be helpful in terms of knowledge gained? Are certification exams a way to go for a beginner? Are community college courses useful? What about courses offered by private institutes/centers? Any suggestion for some good books?

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• Which of these URL scenarios is best for big link menus? [seo /user friendly urls]

  - by Sam

  Hi folks, a question about urls... me and a good friend of mine are exploring the possibilities of either of the three scenarios for a website where each webpage has a menusystem with about 130 links.: SCENARIO 1 the pages menu system has SHORT non-descriptive hyperlinks as well as a SHORT canonical: <a href:"design">dutch design</a> the pages canonical url points to e.g.: "design" OR SCENARIO 2 the pages menu system has SHORT non-descriptive hyperlinks wwith LONG canonical urls: <a href="design">dutch design</a> the pages canonical url points to: dutch-design-crazy-yes-but-always-honest OR SCENARIO 3 the pages menu system has LONG descriptive hyperlinks with LONG canonical urls: <a href="dutch-design-crazy-yes-but-always-honest">dutch design</a> the pages canonical url points to: dutch-design-crazy-yes-but-always-honest Currently we have scenario 2... should we progress to scenario 3? All three work fine and point via RewriteMod to the same page which is fetched underwater. Now, my question is which of these is better in terms of: userfriendlyness (page loading times, full url visible in url bar or not) seo friendlyness (proper indexing due to the urls containing descriptive relevant tags) other concerns we forgot like possible penalties for so many words in link hrefs?? Thanks very much for your suggestions: much appreciated!

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• How important is Domain knowledge vs. Technical knowledge?

  - by Mayank

  I am working on a Trading and Risk Management application and although from a C# background, I have been asked to work on SSIS packages. Now I can live with that. The pain point is that there is too much emphasis on business understanding. Trading (Energy Trading to be exact) is a HUGE area and understanding every little bit of it is overwhelming. But for the past two months I have been working on understanding the business terms - Mark To Market, Risk Metrics, Positions, PnL, Greeks, Instruments, Book Structure... every little detail (you get the point). Now IMHO, this is the job of a BA. Sure it is very important for developers to understand the business but where do you draw the line? When I talked to my manager about this, he almost mocked me by saying that anybody can learn a technology in a week. It's the business that's harder. My long term aspiration is to remain on the technical side, probably become an architect (if possible). If I wanted to focus so much on business I would have pursued an MBA! I want to know if I am wrong or too naive in understanding the business importance or is my frustration justified?

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• Do support sites like Stack Overflow upset the paid-support open source model?

  - by ajax81

  In order to stay relevant in the marketplace, I'm researching new business models for my software company. The open source model with paid support seems like a good fit for our product, but I have concerns about whether or not a paid support model is viable in an era where top-notch help is readily available for free on sites like those in the Stack Exchange network. Case in point -- I moved my employees to Ubuntu last year because I didn't want to pay for Win 7 licenses and new hardware (plus, the mono platform was highly attractive). My staff had no Linux experience, but were able to achieve relative competency in about 120 days with the help of AskUbuntu, Stack Overflow, and a few "For Dummies" books. We did employ an Ubuntu consultant for 7 days to provide training and support, but beyond that spent $0.00 on any kind of paid expertise. In regards to my due diligence, I ran a 3 month beta of the freemium-paid-support model with one of our smaller customers, and achieved mediocre results. I'd like to think its because our software is so stable and easy to use that the customer didn't need much paid support, but I suspect that they circumvented the terms of our SLA in the same manner that we did with the move to Ubuntu. Does anyone out there has any thoughts, advice, or experience relevant to the move I'm considering? What worked, what didn't, etc?

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• How do you support your code post employment end?

  - by James

  What is the process for leaving a company (or even a group/division) in terms of code support? Is it best to handle all questions? Do you give the remaining developers access to yourself as a future resource? If so, is there a way to not give full access? I've experienced first hand where answers about the general software arthitecture from the initial developer would be invaluable. I understand that if serious assistance is needed, than it becomes a typical case of employment negotiation as a support contract. However, should serious assistance be required, what steps can you make to ease that process of contacting you? I was thinking of doing something like making a (YOUR_NAME)_codesupport @ (YOUR_FAVORITE_EMAIL_CLIENT).com address. My Situation Specifics: I'm a co-op student, and as such bounce around companies on 4-month stints. This means introducing myself to a lot of new code bases, as well as leaving a fair share of orphaned code behind when I leave a company. I feel bad if I leave junk code around.

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• Effect of using dedicated NVidia card instead of Intel HD4000

  - by Sman789

  Short version: Can someone please advise me of the effect of adding a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M card to an Ubuntu laptop in terms of power consumption and performance gains/losses when doing general productivity tasks and booting up. Also, how good are the closed source, open source, and Bumblebee drivers for these newer cards compared to support for the Intel HD4000? Long version/Background, if any info here is helpful: I'm thinking of ordering a laptop from PC Specialist (a UK company who actually sell machines without Windows pre-installed) with the following specifications: Genesis IV: 15.6" AUO Matte 95% Gamut LED Widescreen (1920x1080) Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-3210M (2.50GHz) 3MB 4GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 4GB) 120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW) Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH Now, as I want this laptop mainly for work and not for games, I would be more than content with the HD4000 integrated chip which comes with the processor. However, for compatibility reasons, I am not able to get the specs I want unless I choose a NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M 1GB graphics card, which I don't have a great deal of use for. I'm willing to buy it, however, as it's still cheaper than any other laptop with the specs I want. However, I know that Linux power management isn't fantastic with open-source graphics drivers, and I don't much about Bumblebee. Basically, whilst I'm happy to 'tolerate' the card being there, I don't want to experience any negative effects on the rest of my system (battery, performance etc) and if there are likely to be any, I might reconsider my purchase. So if anyone can advise me on the effects, I would be very grateful, since I doubt I can just turn the card off. Thankyou for any assistance :)

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• Aberdeen 10/25 Webcast: Service Excellence and the Path to Business Transformation

  - by Charles Knapp

  The uncertain economy has had a sustained impact on service organizations and processes. The impact has contributed to new complexities - new customer engagement channels, enhanced user and customer expectations, rapidly evolving technologies, increased competition, and increased compliance and regulatory mandates. Yet many organizations have embraced these challenges by investing in and transforming customer service to evolve, differentiate, and thrive under current constraints. What is their secret? Transforming Support Centers into Profit Centers According to the recent Aberdeen research report, “Service Excellence and the Path to Business Transformation”, service is now viewed as a strategic profit center at nearly 70% of organizations. As customers demand improved service, in terms of speed, efficiency and reliability, an organization's success has become increasingly dependent on optimizing the customer ownership experience. Those service organizations focused on providing easy, consistent, and relevant interactions across the customer lifecycle, including service and support delivery, are experiencing higher levels of customer acquisition and retention and are achieving better revenue and margin growth rates.  Don't miss this opportunity to learn how to transform to provide the next generation of service offerings. Click here to register now for the webcast and download a complimentary copy of this informative new research paper.

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• How Can I Effectively Interview an Oracle Candidate?

  - by Tim Medora

  First, I browsed through SO for matching questions and didn't find one, but please point me in the right direction if this exact question has already been asked. I work with and around programmers of various skill levels on various platforms. I would consider my skills to be strong in terms of relational database design, query development, and basic performance tuning and administration. I'm mid-level when it comes to database theory. My team is looking to me to ensure that we have the best talent on staff, in this case, an engineer experienced in Oracle administration. To me, a well-rounded database administrator, regardless of platform, should also be competent in developing against the database so that is also a requirement. However my database skills are centralized around SQL Server 200x with experience in a few other products like SAP MaxDB, Access, and FoxPro. How can I thoroughly assess the skills of an Oracle engineer? I can ask high-level database theory questions and talk about routine tasks that are common across platforms, but I want to dig deep enough that I can be confident in the people I hire. Normally, I would alternate very specific questions that have a right/wrong answer with architectural questions that might have several valid answers. Does anyone have an interview template, specific questions, or any other knowledge that they can share? Even knowing the meaningful Oracle-related certifications would be a help. Thank you. EDIT: All the answers have been very helpful so far and I have given upvotes to everyone. I'm surprised that there are already 3 close votes on this question as "off topic". To be clear, I am specifically asking how a MS SQL Server engineer (like myself) can effectively interview a person with different but symbiotic skills. The question has already received specific, technical answers which have improved my own database design and programming skills. If this is more appropriate as a community wiki, please convert it.

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• Whether to separate out methods or not

  - by Skippy

  I am new to java and want to learn best coding practices and understand why one method is better than another, in terms of efficiency and as the coding becomes more complicated. This is just an example, but I can take the principles from here to apply elsewhere. I have need an option to display stuff, and have put the method stuff separately from the method to ask if the user wants to display the stuff, as stuff has a lot of lines of code. For readability I have done this: public static void displayStuff () { String input = getInput ("Display stuff? Y/N \n"); if (input..equalsIgnoreCase ("Y")) { stuff (); } else if (input.equalsIgnoreCase ("N")) { //quit program } else { //throw error System.out.print("Error! Enter Y or N: \n"); } } private static String stuff () { //to lots of things here return stuff (); } Or public static void displayStuff () { String input = getInput ("Display stuff? Y/N \n"); if (input..equalsIgnoreCase ("Y")) { //to lots of things here stuff; } else if (input.equalsIgnoreCase ("N")) { //quit program } else { //throw error System.out.print("Error! Enter Y or N: \n"); } } Is it better to keep them together and why? Also, should the second method be private or public, if I am asking for data within the class? I am not sure if this is on topic for here. please advise.

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• The Lease Standard Train is Back on Track

  - by Theresa Hickman

  As I was walking to the elevator, I ran into Seamus Moran, our resident accounting expert. Me: “Hi Seamus, where have you been? You don’t write, you don’t call, and you don’t send me flowers. I’ve been hearing more and more about the Lease Accounting topic. It looks like Congress is weighing in on it too and putting heat on FASB. According to a recent article in Reuters  “representatives Brad Sherman, a Democrat, and Republican John Campbell, have written to the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board warning of dire economic fallout from a plan to have companies put leases on their balance sheets." Here’s what Seamus had to say: Yes, but there have been some recent developments. The FASB and IASB cleared a logjam, resolved a final “content of the standard” issue, and articulated a way to move forward on Leases last Wednesday.  It looks like the Lease Standard Train is back on track.   We’ve just had a briefing from PwC. The Lease timeline now looks like this: Now to June 2012: The staff will write up the decisions June 2012: Boards will meet on “logistical” issues (glossed over) Oct, Nov, most likely December 2012: A New Lease Exposure Draft will be crafted January – April 2013: Public Comment period begins April to September 2013: Everyone to digest the comments and draft the final standard End of 2013 (Probably more like Early 2014): Publish the new Lease Accounting Standards 2015: Retroactive reporting 2017: New standard is effective It seems that leases under one year will be treated as “rent expense”. If it doesn’t cross two (annual) balance sheets, it doesn’t really matter. This is good news in terms of clarity, resolution, and moving forward on one of the last remaining items to converge the IFRS and U.S. GAAP standards. There are ambiguities, issues, concerns, et cetera, of course, and there are bright lines (“rules”) that bother the “no rules, please” people and ambiguities (“judgments”) that bother the “clarity, please” people, but at least the train isn’t falling off the tracks.  

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• Speed up ADF Mobile Deployment to Android with Keystore

  - by Shay Shmeltzer

  As you might have noticed from my latest ADF Mobile entries, I'm doing most of my ADF Mobile development on a windows machine and testing on an Android device. Unfortunately the Android/windows experience is not as fast as the iOS/Mac one. However, there is one thing I learned today that can make this a bit less painful in terms of the speed to deploy and test your application - and this is to use the "Release" mode when deploying your application instead of the "Debug" mode. To do this you'll first need to define a keystore, but as Joe from our Mobile team showed me today, this is quite easy. Here are the steps: Open a command line in your JDK bin directory (I just used the JDK that comes with the JDeveloper install). Issue the following command: keytool –genkey –v –keystore <Keystore Name>.keystore –alias <Alias Name> -keyalg RSA –keysize 2048 –validity 10000 Both keystore name and alias names are strings that you decide on. The keytool utility will then prompt you with various questions that you'll need to answer. Once this is done, the next step is to configure your JDeveloper preferences->ADF Mobile to add this keystore there under the release tab:  Then for your application specific deployment profile - switch the build mode from debug to release. The end result is a much smaller mobile application (for example from 60 to 21mb) and a much faster deployment cycle (for me it is about twice as fast as before).

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• How do I finish installing Sun JDK after cancelling out of the legal term screen?

  - by Ravi

  I am a newcomer to linux and have had lots of problems in installing java on my newly installed Ubuntu 11.10. I use a statistical programming environment called R and many of the packages there require java (the sun variety, I am told). I tried the following : sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/java sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts (after this, I wanted to continue with (but never got that far) : sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk After this, a window appeared with the heading, "Configuring jre", or something like that. Below was a long list of legal text about accepting Sun's terms. I did not know how to close this window (no obvious option like pressing return worked). After a long time, when nothing seemed to happen, I finally closed the window. After that, I could not open synaptic. I got the error message : dpkg was interrupted. You must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' I did this. But it does not help. I have java as a "broken" program. When I try to remove the program from synaptic, I get a message that I must reinstall it again.I do not know what I should do. I want to install jdk6. And also remove the open jdk which is still persistently present in my system. I tried the clean and purge command shown below. Next, I tried to remove the sun-java6-jre from synaptic. I get the following message :E: sun-java6-jre: Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should reinstall it before attempting a removal. When I tried to follow the procedure suggested in the related question (from the link suggested below), I get the following message on trying to install again :Could not mark all packages for installation or upgrade.The following packages have unresolvable dependancies. Make sure that all required repositories are added and enabled in the preferences. sun-java6-bin : Depends: sun-java6-jre but it is not going to be installed

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• Unreal 3 Editor (Unreal Tournament 3) Lifting vehicles (and spawners) using InterActors, strange collisions causing flying vehicles

  - by Gareth Jones

  Making a VCTF map with the Unreal Tournament 3 Editor, and thus have vehicles in it. Currently I have 2 walkways next to each other (Big enough for a vehicle). One of them (A InterActor) drops down, and a grate covers the hole until the vehicle respawns. Once its respawned the InterActor Walkway lifts the vehicle up (and the grate pulls back). However what I'm finding is that the vehicle seems to collide with something when it gets near the top. (Looks something like this: ----_ where _ is the moving InterActor and - is a walkway) I created a new map to test this, and found it seems the front of the scorpion collides with the walkway in front of it, however I don't know why, it physically (in terms of how it looks in game) does not touch the walkway in front of it, but its actions look like it has. Im using InterActors, and a vehicle spawner, looking like so How do I stop this from happening? Right now everything is perfect, except the vehicle keeps flying away every time its lifted up, likes it been forced in between the "lift" and another object!

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• Unicode license

  - by Eric Grange

  Unicode Terms of use (http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html) state that any software that uses their data files (or a modification of it) should carry the Unicode license references. It seems to me that most Unicode libraries have functions to check if a character is a digit, a letter, a symbol, etc. ans so will contain a modification of the Unicode Data Files (usually in the form of tables). Does that mean the license applies and all applications that use such Unicode libraries should carry the license? I've checked around, and it appears very few Unicode software do carry the license, though arguable most of those that didn't carry the license were from companies that were members of the Unicode consortium (do they get license exemption?). Some (f.i. Mozilla) are only "Liaison Members", and while their software do not carry the license (AFAICT), they do obviously rely on data derived from those data files. Is Mozilla in breach of the license? Should we carry the license in all apps that include any form of advanced Unicode support? (ie. are bound to rely on the Unicode data files) Or is there some form of broad exemption? (since very very few software out there carries the license)

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• Object construction design

  - by James

  I recently started to use c# to interface with a database, and there was one part of the process that appeared odd to me. When creating a SqlCommand, the method I was lead to took the form: SqlCommand myCommand = new SqlCommand("Command String", myConnection); Coming from a Java background, I was expecting something more similar to SqlCommand myCommand = myConnection.createCommand("Command String"); I am asking, in terms of design, what is the difference between the two? The phrase "single responsibility" has been used to suggest that a connection should not be responsible for creating SqlCommands, but I would also say that, in my mind, the difference between the two is partly a mental one of the difference between a connection executing a command and a command acting on a connection, the latter of which seems less like what I have been lead to believe OOP should be. There is also a part of me wondering if the two should be completely separate, and should only come together in some sort of connection.execute(command) method. Can anyone help clear up these differences? Are any of these methods "more correct" than the others from an OO point of view? (P.S. the fact that c# is used is completely irrelevant. It just highlighted to me that different approaches were used)

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• Lifting vehicles (and spawners) using InterActors, strange collisions causing flying vehicles

  - by Gareth Jones

  Making a VCTF map with the Unreal Tournament 3 Editor, and thus have vehicles in it. Currently I have 2 walkways next to each other (Big enough for a vehicle). One of them (A InterActor) drops down, and a grate covers the hole until the vehicle respawns. Once its respawned the InterActor Walkway lifts the vehicle up (and the grate pulls back). However what I'm finding is that the vehicle seems to collide with something when it gets near the top. (Looks something like this: ----_ where _ is the moving InterActor and - is a walkway) I created a new map to test this, and found it seems the front of the scorpion collides with the walkway in front of it, however I don't know why, it physically (in terms of how it looks in game) does not touch the walkway in front of it, but its actions look like it has. Im using InterActors, and a vehicle spawner, looking like so How do I stop this from happening? Right now everything is perfect, except the vehicle keeps flying away every time its lifted up, likes it been forced in between the "lift" and another object!

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• Adjusting the rate of movement of different objects on the same timer

  - by theUg

  I have a series of objects moving along the straight lines. I want to implement slight changes of velocity of each of the object. Constraint is existing model of animation. I am new to this, and not sure if it is the best way to accommodate varying speeds, but what do I know? It is a Java application that repaints the panel every time the timer expires. Timer is set via swing.Timer object that is set by timer delay constant. Every time the game is stepped objects’ coordinates advanced by an increment constant. Most of the objects are of the same class. Is there fairly easy way to refactor existing system to allow changing velocity for an individual object? Is there some obvious common solution I am not aware about? Idea I am having right now is to set timer delay fairly small, and only move objects every so many cycles of animation so that the apparent speed can be adjusted by varying how often they get moved. But that seems fairly involved, and I do not think it is the most elegant solution in terms of performance what with repainting the whole frame every 3-5 milliseconds. Can it be done by advancing the objects so many (varying) times during the certain interval (let’s say 35ms for something like 28fps), and use repaint() method to redraw just individual object? Do I need to mess with pausing animation for smoothness at higher redraw rates? Is it common practise to check for collision at larger step interval, but draw animation a lot more frequently?

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• How-To Geek is Hiring a Geeky Writer – Here Are the Details

  - by The Geek

  Think you have the perfect combination of geek knowledge and writing skills? We’re looking for an experienced writer to join our team, and here are all the details. We need a new writer to cover topics surrounding Windows 7 or 8, home networking, home routers, security, media, troubleshooting, mobile devices, and many similar topics. We are not looking for writers that focus solely on Linux or tech news writers. Please apply if you have the following qualities: You must be a geek at heart. You must be able to put in plenty of time, work, and dedication. If you’re too busy already, don’t apply. You must be able to write articles that are easy to understand. You must be creative. You must generate ideas for articles on your own, and take suggestions like a pro. You must be at least 18 years old. You must have solid English writing skills. You must be able to write tips, how-to articles, explainers, guides, instructional articles, etc. Again, we are not looking for tech news writers. Here’s a couple of our previous articles so you can get an idea of what we’re looking for in terms of quality and content. Please make sure to look through these before you decide to apply. How-to Article: Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Explainer: HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers? Explainer: HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows? How-To Article: How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot Our Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 is Now Available Everywhere

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• Question aboud Headings For Professionals <H1>... <H9> in SEO & Browsercompatibility Differences

  - by Sam

  We all know the importance ans significance of Headings for Professional Webmasters. These were known for professional developers as <h1>Heading 1</h1> h2 ... h6. As a daring webdeveloper I lately needed more short headings for complex structured document and i thought what the hell and went ahead and used in css h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6{ } h7{ } h8{ } h9{ } My experiment turned out to pay back. But only in Firefox, Safari, Chrome etc, not in Internet Explorer 8. Q1. Who(&When) decided that All headings should go upto h6, and not h4 or h7? Q2. Why h7 -h9 work perfect in all major browsers, except IE8? Q3. What is the significance for Bing,Yahoo and Googld in terms of recognition or headings h1 ~ h9? obviously h1 is more important than 2, but do they differentiate between h5 and h6? or not anymore after h3?

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• Engine for 2D Top-Down Physics-Based Skeletal Animation

  - by RylandAlmanza

  I just watched at the Sui Generis video, and was completely amazed. Specifically, the part where the big troll thing is beating up the player with his flail. This got me really excited, and I would like to try implementing something like this in a 2D Top-Down format. Something like this. That atloria example seems simple enough, but it's not exactly what I'm looking to make. I think atloria is using predefined animations, where as I would like to make something more physics-based like the Sui Generis engine does. So, I'm wondering what physics engines might work for something like this, and if I'd need to implement my own skeletal system, or if I could just use "joints" and such from the engine. The only experience I have in terms of physics engines is Box2D, which I've heard shouldn't be used for top-down settings, and I can think of a few reasons it wouldn't work out well. One of those reasons being gravity. In box 2D, gravity pulls towards a side of the screen (usually the bottom.) I wouldn't want my player's forearms constantly being pulled to one side. :) Also should mention that the programming language doesn't matter all that much to me. I'm currently playing with HTML5 stuff, though. :) Thanks in advance!

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• Switching mdadm to an external bitmap

  - by Oli

  I've just read this in another post about improving RAID5/6 write speeds: After increasing stripe cache & switching to external bitmap, my speeds are 160 Mb/s writes, 260 Mb/s reads. :-D I've already found out how to increase the stripe cache and this worked pretty well but I'd like to know more about an external bitmap. I have an incredibly fast (540MB/s) RAID0 SSD that would do well if a bitmap does what I think it does but I'm still very unsure. I've only known about them as long as I've known this post. A few questions: What is a bitmap (in terms of mdadm)? What are the advantages of an internal bitmap (over external)? What are the advantages of an external bitmap (over internal)? How do I switch between the two? I should add that while this is a I'm-bored-let's-break-something thread, I do value the data stored on the RAID array. If doing this is going to put data at significant risk, please let me know.

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• Kindle App for WP7 arrives

  - by dotgeek

  If you had asked me if I was interested in owning a Kindle device, then my response a couple months back would have been a flat out no back then. So what has changed between now on then you might be asking me then? I would have to say watching my wife enjoy the many books in digital form has peeked my interest to start with now. Was that enough for me to buy a Kindle though? Not just yet, but that is where the Windows Phone 7 comes in for me once again. It’s no secret that I’ve wanted this device and yes it does have a number of Apps that I think I’ll really enjoy. The latest must have App for me, will most certainly be the Kindle App for Windows Phone 7, released from Amazon today. I’ve already started playing around with the PC version of Kindle software and I’m looking at purchasing any future books in digital form now. So it’s a given once I have a Windows Phone 7 device, that I’ll be enjoying some of my favorite books, while I’m on the go I think and via this App. Tonight I actually had a chance to check out the WP7 Kindle App on a friends device and I was really pleased with how it looked and performed. Now if the planets could only manage to lineup for me and allow Verizon and Microsoft to come to terms on the releasing of WP7 CDMA devices, I just might be able to really enjoy some of this on my own. Do I rule out ever having an actual Kindle device? Not at all, but I do plan on having the WP7 device well before that day ever comes though.

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• Central renderer for a given scene

  - by Loggie

  When creating a central rendering system for all game objects in a given scene I am trying to work out the best way to go about passing the scene to the render system to be rendered. If I have a scene managed by an arbitrary structure, i.e., an octree, bsp trees, quad-tree, kd tree, etc. What is the best way to pass this to the render system? The obvious problem is that if simply given the root node of the structure, the render system would require an intrinsic knowledge of the structure in order to traverse the structure. My solution to this is to clip all objects outside the frustum in the scene manager and then create a list of the objects which are left and pass this simple list to the render system, be it an array, a vector, a linked list, etc. (This would be a structure required by the render system as a means to know which objects should be rendered). The list would of course attempt to minimise OpenGL state changes by grouping objects that require the same rendering operations to be performed on them. I have been thinking a lot about this and started searching various terms on here and followed any additional information/links but I have not really found a definitive answer. The case may be that there is no definitive answer but I would appreciate some advice and tips. My question is, is this a reasonable solution to the problem? Are there any improvements that I could make? Are there any caveats I should know about? Side question: Am I right in assuming that octrees, bsp trees, etc are all forms of BVH?

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• Strategy for versioning on a public repo

  - by biril

  Suppose I'm developing a (javascript) library which is hosted on a public repo (e.g. github). My aim in terms of how version numbers are assigned and incremented is to follow the guidelines of semantic versioning. Now, there's a number of files in my project which compose the actual lib and a number of files that 'support it', the latter being docs, a test suite, etc. My perspective this far has been that version numbers should only apply to the actual lib - not the project as a whole - since the lib alone is 'the unit' that defines the public API. However I'm not satisfied with this approach as, for example, a fix in the test suite constitutes an 'improvement' in my project, which will not be reflected in the version number (or the docs which contain a reference to it). On a more practical level, various tools, such as package managers, may (understandably) not play along with this strategy. For example, when trying to publish a change which is not reflected in the version number, npm publish fails with the suggestion "Bump the 'version' field set the --force flag, or npm unpublish". Am I doing it wrong?

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• Get to No as fast as possible

  - by Tim Hibbard

  There is a sales technique where the strategy is to get the customer to say “No deal” as soon as possible.  The idea being that by establishing terms that your customer is not comfortable with with, the sooner you can figure out what they will be willing to agree to.  The same principal can be applied to code design.  Instead of nested if…then statements, a code block should quickly eliminate the cases it is not equipped to handle and just focus on what it is meant to handle. This is code that will quickly become maintainable as requirements change: private void SaveClient(Client c) { if (c != null) { if (c.BirthDate != DateTime.MinValue) { foreach (Sale s in c.Sales) { if (s.IsProcessed) { SaveSaleToDatabase(s); } } SaveClientToDatabase(c); } } }   If an additional requirement comes along that requires the Client to have Manager approval or for a Sale to be under $20K, this code will get messy and unreadable. A better way to meet the same requirements would be: private void SaveClient(Client c) { if (c == null) { return; } if (c.BirthDate == DateTime.MinValue) { return; }   foreach (Sale s in c.Save) { if (!s.IsProcessed) { continue; } SaveSaleToDatabase(s); } SaveClientToDatabase(c); } This technique moves on quickly when it finds something it doesn’t like.  This makes it much easier to add a Manager approval constraint.  We would just insert the new requirement before the action takes place.

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