Search Results

Search found 2446 results on 98 pages for 'nick martin'.

Page 13/98 | < Previous Page | 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20  | Next Page >

  • Game engine help

    - by Nick
    So, I am looking to start designing a video game. My biggest problem right now is choosing the right game engine. I am hiring a programmer, so the language doesn't really matter as much. What I need is an engine with these features, for very, very cheap: -Ability to create very realistic AI -Ability to display, hundreds, possibly thousands of characters Also, if anyone has any experience with Darkbasic Pro, if they could give me a basic run-through and review of it. Thanks a lot!

    Read the article

  • Small adventure game

    - by Nick Rosencrantz
    I'm making a small adventure game where the player can walk through Dungeons and meet scary characters: The whole thing is 20 java classes and I'm making this a standalone frame while it could very well be an applet I don't want to make another applet since I might want to recode this in C/C++ if the game or game engine turns out a success. The engine is the most interesting part of the game, it controls players and computer-controlled characters such as Zombies, Reptile Warriors, Trolls, Necromancers, and other Persons. These persons can sleep or walk around in the game and also pick up and move things. I didn't add many things so I suppose that is the next thing to do is to add things that can get used now that I already added many different types of walking persons. What do you think I should add and do with things in the game? The things I have so far is: package adventure; /** * The data type for things. Subclasses will be create that takes part of the story */ public class Thing { /** * The name of the Thing. */ public String name; /** * @param name The name of the Thing. */ Thing( String name ) { this.name = name; } } public class Scroll extends Thing { Scroll (String name) { super(name); } } class Key extends Thing { Key (String name) { super(name); } } The key is the way to win the game if you figure our that you should give it to a certain person and the scroll can protect you from necromancers and trolls. If I make this game more Dungeons and Dragons-inspired, do you think will be any good? Any other ideas that you think I could use here? The Threadwhich steps time forward and wakes up persons is called simulation. Do you think I could do something more advanced with this class? package adventure; class Simulation extends Thread { private PriorityQueue Eventqueue; Simulation() { Eventqueue = new PriorityQueue(); start(); } public void wakeMeAfter(Wakeable SleepingObject, double time) { Eventqueue.enqueue(SleepingObject, System.currentTimeMillis()+time); } public void run() { while(true) { try { sleep(5); //Sov i en halv sekund if (Eventqueue.getFirstTime() <= System.currentTimeMillis()) { ((Wakeable)Eventqueue.getFirst()).wakeup(); Eventqueue.dequeue(); } } catch (InterruptedException e ) { } } } } And here is the class that makes up the actual world: package adventure; import java.awt.*; import java.net.URL; /** * Subklass to World that builds up the Dungeon World. */ public class DungeonWorld extends World { /** * * @param a Reference to adventure game. * */ public DungeonWorld(Adventure a) { super ( a ); // Create all places createPlace( "Himlen" ); createPlace( "Stairs3" ); createPlace( "IPLab" ); createPlace( "Dungeon3" ); createPlace( "Stairs5" ); createPlace( "C2M2" ); createPlace( "SANS" ); createPlace( "Macsal" ); createPlace( "Stairs4" ); createPlace( "Dungeon2" ); createPlace( "Datorsalen" ); createPlace( "Dungeon");//, "Ljushallen.gif" ); createPlace( "Cola-automaten", "ColaAutomat.gif" ); createPlace( "Stairs2" ); createPlace( "Fable1" ); createPlace( "Dungeon1" ); createPlace( "Kulverten" ); // Create all connections between places connect( "Stairs3", "Stairs5", "Down", "Up" ); connect( "Dungeon3", "SANS", "Down", "Up" ); connect( "Dungeon3", "IPLab", "West", "East" ); connect( "IPLab", "Stairs3", "West", "East" ); connect( "Stairs5", "Stairs4", "Down", "Up" ); connect( "Macsal", "Stairs5", "South", "Norr" ); connect( "C2M2", "Stairs5", "West", "East" ); connect( "SANS", "C2M2", "West", "East" ); connect( "Stairs4", "Dungeon", "Down", "Up" ); connect( "Datorsalen", "Stairs4", "South", "Noth" ); connect( "Dungeon2", "Stairs4", "West", "East" ); connect( "Dungeon", "Stairs2", "Down", "Up" ); connect( "Dungeon", "Cola-automaten", "South", "North" ); connect( "Stairs2", "Kulverten", "Down", "Up" ); connect( "Stairs2", "Fable1", "East", "West" ); connect( "Fable1", "Dungeon1", "South", "North" ); // Add things // --- Add new things here --- getPlace("Cola-automaten").addThing(new CocaCola("Ljummen cola")); getPlace("Cola-automaten").addThing(new CocaCola("Avslagen Cola")); getPlace("Cola-automaten").addThing(new CocaCola("Iskall Cola")); getPlace("Cola-automaten").addThing(new CocaCola("Cola Light")); getPlace("Cola-automaten").addThing(new CocaCola("Cuba Cola")); getPlace("Stairs4").addThing(new Scroll("Scroll")); getPlace("Dungeon3").addThing(new Key("Key")); Simulation sim = new Simulation(); // Load images to be used as appearance-parameter for persons Image studAppearance = owner.loadPicture( "Person.gif" ); Image asseAppearance = owner.loadPicture( "Asse.gif" ); Image trollAppearance = owner.loadPicture( "Loke.gif" ); Image necromancerAppearance = owner.loadPicture( "Necromancer.gif" ); Image skeletonAppearance = owner.loadPicture( "Reptilewarrior.gif" ); Image reptileAppearance = owner.loadPicture( "Skeleton.gif" ); Image zombieAppearance = owner.loadPicture( "Zombie.gif" ); // --- Add new persons here --- new WalkingPerson(sim, this, "Peter", studAppearance); new WalkingPerson(sim, this, "Zombie", zombieAppearance ); new WalkingPerson(sim, this, "Zombie", zombieAppearance ); new WalkingPerson(sim, this, "Skeleton", skeletonAppearance ); new WalkingPerson(sim, this, "John", studAppearance ); new WalkingPerson(sim, this, "Skeleton", skeletonAppearance ); new WalkingPerson(sim, this, "Skeleton", skeletonAppearance ); new WalkingPerson(sim, this, "Skeleton", skeletonAppearance ); new WalkingPerson(sim, this, "Sean", studAppearance ); new WalkingPerson(sim, this, "Reptile", reptileAppearance ); new LabAssistant(sim, this, "Kate", asseAppearance); new LabAssistant(sim, this, "Jenna", asseAppearance); new Troll(sim, this, "Troll", trollAppearance); new Necromancer(sim, this, "Necromancer", necromancerAppearance); } /** * * The place where persons are placed by default * *@return The default place. * */ public Place defaultPlace() { return getPlace( "Datorsalen" ); } private void connect( String p1, String p2, String door1, String door2) { Place place1 = getPlace( p1 ); Place place2 = getPlace( p2 ); place1.addExit( door1, place2 ); place2.addExit( door2, place1 ); } } Thanks

    Read the article

  • Privacy Protection in Oracle IRM 11g

    - by martin.abrahams
    Another innovation in Oracle IRM 11g is an in-built privacy policy challenge. By design, one of the many things that Oracle IRM does, of course, is collect audit information about how and where sealed documents are being used - user names, machine identifiers and so on. Many customers consider that this has privacy implications that the user should be invited to accept as a condition of service use - for the protection of both of the user and the service from avoidable controversy. So, in 11g IRM, when a new user connects to a server for the first time, they can expect to see the following privacy policy dialog. The dialog provides a configurable URL that the customer can use to publish the privacy policy for their IRM service. The policy might clarify what data is being collected and stored, what use that data might be put to, and so on as required by the service owner's legal advisers. In previous releases, you could construct an equivalent capability, and some customers did, but this innovation makes it much easier to do - you simply write a privacy policy and publish it as a web page for which the dialog automatically provides a link. This is another example of how Oracle IRM anticipates not just the security requirements of a customer, but also the broader requirements of service provisioning.

    Read the article

  • How advanced are author-recognition methods?

    - by Nick Rtz
    From a written text by an author if a computer program analyses the text, how much can a computer program tell today about the author of some (long enough to be statistically significant) texts? Can the computer program even tell with "certainty" whether a man or a woman wrote this text based solely on the contents of the text and not an investigation such as ip numbers etc? I'm interested to know if there are algorithms in use for instance to automatically know whether an author was male or female or similar characteristics of an author that a computer program can decide based on analyses of the written text by an author. It could be useful to know before you read a message what a computer analyses says about the author, do you agree? If I for instance get a longer message from my wife that she has had an accident in Nigeria and the computer program says that with 99 % probability the message was written by a male author in his sixties of non-caucasian origin or likewise, or by somebody who is not my wife, then the computer program could help me investigate why a certain message differs in characteristics. There can also be other uses for instance just detecting outliers in a geographically or demographically bounded larger data set. Scam detection is the obvious use I'm thinking of but there could also be other uses. Are there already such programs that analyse a written text to tell something about the author based on word choice, use of pronouns, unusual language usage, or likewise?

    Read the article

  • Adventures in Scrum: Lesson 1 &ndash; The failed Sprint

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    I recently had a conversation with a product owner that wanted to have the Scrum team broken up into smaller units so that less time was wasted on the Scrum Ceremonies! Their complaint was around the need in Scrum to have the entire “Team” (7+-2) involved in the sizing of the work during the “Sprint Planning Meeting”.  The standard flippant answer of all Scrum professionals, “Well that's not Scrum”, does not get you any brownie points in these situations. The response could be “Well we are not doing Scrum then” which in turn leads to “We are doing Scrum…But, we have split the scrum team into units of 2/3 so that they can concentrate on a specific area of work”. While this may work, it is not Scrum and should not be called so… It is just a form of Agile. Don’t get me wrong at this stage, there is nothing wrong with Agile, just don’t call it Scrum. The reason that the Product Owner wants to do this is that, in effect, through a number of miscommunications and failings in our implementation of Scrum, there was NO unit of potentially Shippable software at the end of the first sprint. It does not matter to them that most Scrum teams will fail the first Sprint, even those that are high performing teams. Remember it is the product owners their money! We should NOT break up scrum teams into smaller units for the purpose of having less people tied up in the Scrum Ceremonies. The amount of backlog the Team selects is solely up to the Team… Only the Team can assess what it can accomplish over the upcoming Sprint. - Scrum Guide, Scrum.org The entire team must accept the work and in order to understand what they can accept they must be free to size it as a team. This both encourages common understanding and increases visibility on why team members think a task is of a particular size. This has the benefit of increasing the knowledge of the entire team in the problem domain. A new Team often first realizes that it will either sink or swim as a Team, not individually, in this meeting. The Team realizes that it must rely on itself. As it realizes this, it starts to self-organize to take on the characteristics and behaviour of a real Team. - Scrum Guide, Scrum.org This paragraph goes to the why of having the whole team at the meeting; The goal of Scrum it to produce a unit of potentially shippable software at the end of every Sprint. In order to achieve this we need high performing teams and this is what Scrum as a framework has been optimised to produce. I think that our Product Owner is understandably upset over loosing two weeks work and is losing sight the end goal of Scrum in the failures of the moment. As the man spending the money, I completely understand his perspective and I think that we should not have started Scrum on an internal project, but selected a customer  that is open to the ideas and complications of Scrum. So, what should we have NOT done on our first Scrum project: Should not have had 3 interns as the only on site resource – This lead to bad practices as the experienced guys were not there helping and correcting as they usually would. Should not have had the only experienced guys offsite – With both the experienced technical guys in completely different time zones it was difficult to get time for questions. Helping the guys on site was just plain impossible. Should not have used a part time ScrumMaster – Although the ScrumMaster attended all of the Ceremonies, because they are only in 2 full days of the week it makes it difficult for the team to raise impediments as they go. Should not have used a proxy product owner. – This was probably the worst decision that was made. Mainly because the proxy product owner did not have the same vision as the product owner. While Scrum does not explicitly reject the idea of a Proxy Product Owner, I do not think it works very well in practice. The “single wringable neck” needs to contain both the Money and the Vision as well as attending the required meetings. I will be brining all of these things up at the Sprint Retrospective and we will learn from our mistakes and move on. Do, Inspect then Adapt…   Technorati Tags: Scrum,Sprint Planing,Sprint Retrospective,Scrum.org,Scrum Guide,Scrum Ceremonies,Scrummaster,Product Owner Need Help? Professional Scrum Developer Training SSW has six Professional Scrum Developer Trainers who specialise in training your developers in implementing Scrum with Microsoft's Visual Studio ALM tools.

    Read the article

  • Programa Talleres FMW Junio 2010

    - by [email protected]
      PROGRAMA TALLERES FMW Junio 2010 Enterprise 2.0 TALLER FECHA LOCALIZACIÓN Gestion de Contenidos Web y Portales (UCM + WC Suite) 08/06/10 Madrid Digitalización (IPM) 09/06/10 Madrid Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) TALLER FECHA LOCALIZACIÓN Automatización de Procesos de Negocio con Oracle BPM 01/06/10 Madrid Oracle WebLogic 17/06/10 Madrid Inscribirse:

    Read the article

  • Extensible Metadata in Oracle IRM 11g

    - by martin.abrahams
    Another significant change in Oracle IRM 11g is that we now use XML to create the tamperproof header for each sealed document. This article explains what this means, and what benefit it offers. So, every sealed file has a metadata header that contains information about the document - its classification, its format, the user who sealed it, the name and URL of the IRM Server, and much more. The IRM Desktop and other IRM applications use this information to formulate the request for rights, as well as to enhance the user experience by exposing some of the metadata in the user interface. For example, in Windows explorer you can see some metadata exposed as properties of a sealed file and in the mouse-over tooltip. The following image shows 10g and 11g metadata side by side. As you can see, the 11g metadata is written as XML as opposed to the simple delimited text format used in 10g. So why does this matter? The key benefit of using XML is that it creates the opportunity for sealing applications to use custom metadata. This in turn creates the opportunity for custom classification models to be defined and enforced. Out of the box, the solution uses the context classification model, in which two particular pieces of metadata form the basis of rights evaluation - the context name and the document's item code. But a custom sealing application could use some other model entirely, enabling rights decisions to be evaluated on some other basis. The integration with Oracle Beehive is a great example of this. When a user adds a document to a Beehive workspace, that document can be automatically sealed with metadata that represents the Beehive security model rather than the context model. As a consequence, IRM can enforce the Beehive security model precisely and all rights configuration can actually be managed through the Beehive UI rather than the IRM UI. In this scenario, IRM simply supports the Beehive application, seamlessly extending Beehive security to all copies of workspace documents without any additional administration. Finally, I mentioned that the metadata header is tamperproof. This is obviously to stop a rogue user modifying the metadata with a view to gaining unauthorised access - reclassifying a board document to a less sensitive classifcation, for example. To prevent this, the header is digitally signed and can only be manipulated by a suitably authorised sealing application.

    Read the article

  • Guidance: How to layout you files for an Ideal Solution

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    Creating a solution and having it maintainable over time is an art and not a science. I like being pedantic and having a place for everything, no matter how small. For setting up the Areas to run Multiple projects under one solution see my post on  When should I use Areas in TFS instead of Team Projects and for an explanation of branching see Guidance: A Branching strategy for Scrum Teams. Update 17th May 2010 – We are currently trialling running a single Sprint branch to improve our history. Whenever I setup a new Team Project I implement the basic version control structure. I put “readme.txt” files in the folder structure explaining the different levels, and a solution file called “[Client].[Product].sln” located at “$/[Client]/[Product]/DEV/Main” within version control. Developers should add any projects you need to create to that solution in the format “[Client].[Product].[ProductArea].[Assembly]” and they will automatically be picked up and built automatically when you setup Automated Builds using Team Foundation Build. All test projects need to be done using MSTest to get proper IDE and Team Foundation Build integration out-of-the-box and be named for the assembly that it is testing with a naming convention of “[Client].[Product].[ProductArea].[Assembly].Tests” Here is a description of the folder layout; this content should be replicated in readme files under version control in the relevant locations so that even developers new to the project can see how to do it. Figure: The Team Project level - at this level there should be a folder for each the products that you are building if you are using Areas correctly in TFS 2010. You should try very hard to avoided spaces as these things always end up in a URL eventually e.g. "Code Auditor" should be "CodeAuditor". Figure: Product Level - At this level there should be only 3 folders (DEV, RELESE and SAFE) all of which should be in capitals. These folders represent the three stages of your application production line. Each of them may contain multiple branches but this format leaves all of your branches at the same level. Figure: The DEV folder is where all of the Development branches reside. The DEV folder will contain the "Main" branch and all feature branches is they are being used. The DEV designation specifies that all code in every branch under this folder has not been released or made ready for release. And feature branches MUST merge (Forward Integrate) from Main and stabilise prior to merging (Reverse Integration) back down into Main and being decommissioned. Figure: In the Feature branching scenario only merges are allowed onto Main, no development can be done there. Once we have a mature product it is important that new features being developed in parallel are kept separate. This would most likely be used if we had more than one Scrum team working on a single product. Figure: when we are ready to do a release of our software we will create a release branch that is then stabilised prior to deployment. This protects the serviceability of of our released code allowing developers to fix bugs and re-release an existing version. Figure: All bugs found on a release are fixed on the release.  All bugs found in a release are fixed on the release and a new deployment is created. After the deployment is created the bug fixes are then merged (Reverse Integration) into the Main branch. We do this so that we separate out our development from our production ready code.  Figure: SAFE or RTM is a read only record of what you actually released. Labels are not immutable so are useless in this circumstance.  When we have completed stabilisation of the release branch and we are ready to deploy to production we create a read-only copy of the code for reference. In some cases this could be a regulatory concern, but in most cases it protects the company building the product from legal entanglements based on what you did or did not release. Figure: This allows us to reference any particular version of our application that was ever shipped.   In addition I am an advocate of having a single solution with all the Project folders directly under the “Trunk”/”Main” folder and using the full name for the project folders.. Figure: The ideal solution If you must have multiple solutions, because you need to use more than one version of Visual Studio, name the solutions “[Client].[Product][VSVersion].sln” and have it reside in the same folder as the other solution. This makes it easier for Automated build and improves the discoverability of your code and its dependencies. Send me your feedback!   Technorati Tags: VS ALM,VSTS Developing,VS 2010,VS 2008,TFS 2010,TFS 2008,TFBS

    Read the article

  • How do I detect if I'm in a 'full screen' bash shell or GUI terminal window?

    - by Nick T
    I have some code in my .bashrc that sets the terminal window title using the currently running command and it works great in Unity, where the terminal is in a window. However, when I'm logging in with the Ctrl + Alt + F1 terminal (whatever it's called), my prompt gets filled with garbage that is various escape sequences that set the (nonexistent) window title. How can I detect from within a bash script if I'm in one or the other?

    Read the article

  • Access Control and Accessibility in Oracle IRM 11g

    - by martin.abrahams
    A recurring theme you'll find throughout this blog is that IRM needs to balance security with usability and manageability. One of the innovations in Oracle IRM 11g typifies this, as we have introduced a new right that may be included in any role - Accessibility. When creating or modifying a role, you simply select Accessibility along with Open, Print, Edit or whatever rights you want to include in the role. You might, for example, have parallel roles of Reader and Reader with Accessibility and Contributor and Contributor with Accessibility. The effect of the Accessibility right is to relax some of the protection of content in use such that selected users can use accessibility tools. For example, a user with the Accessibility right would be able to use the screen magnification tool, which IRM would ordinarily prevent because it involves screen capture. This new right makes it easy for you to apply security to documents yet, subject to suitable approval processes, cater for the fact that a subset of users might be disproportionately inconvenienced by some of the normal usage constraints. Rather than make those users put up with the restrictions, or perhaps exempt them from using sealed documents altogether, this new right allows you to accommodate them in a controlled manner, and to balance security with corporate accessibility goals.

    Read the article

  • Are there any companies using BDD in a .NET environment?

    - by Nick
    I've seen BDD in action (in this case using SpecFlow and Selenium in a .NET environment) for a small test project. I was very impressed - mainly due to the fact that the language used to specify the acceptance tests meant they engaged with the product owner much more easily. I'm now keen to bring this into my current organisation. However I'm asked 'who else uses this?' and 'show me some case-studies'. Unfortunately I cannot find any 'big names' (or even 'small names' for that matter!) of companies who are actively using BDD. I have two questions really: Is BDD adopted by companies out there? Who are they? How can BDD be implemented in an agile .NET environment and are there any significant drawbacks to doing it?

    Read the article

  • Suitability of ground fog using layered alpha quads?

    - by Nick Wiggill
    A layered approach would use a series of massive alpha-textured quads arranged parallel to the ground, intersecting all intervening terrain geometry, to provide the illusion of ground fog quite effectively from high up, looking down, and somewhat less effectively when inside the fog and looking toward the horizon (see image below). Alternatively, a shader-heavy approach would instead calculate density as function of view distance into the ground fog substrate, and output the fragment value based on that. Without having to performance-test each approach myself, I would like first to hear others' experiences (not speculation!) on what sort of performance impact the layered alpha texture approach is likely to have. I ask specifically due to the oft-cited impacts of overdraw (not sure how fill-rate bound your average desktop system is). A list of games using this approach, particularly older games, would be immensely useful: if this was viable on pre DX9/OpenGL2 hardware, it is likely to work fine for me. One big question is in regards to this sort of effect: (Image credit goes to Lume of lume.com) Notice how the vertical fog gradation is continuous / smooth. OTOH, using textured quad layers, I can only assume that layers would be mighty obvious when walking through them -- the more sparse they were, the more obvious this would be. This is in contrast to where fog planes are aligned to face the player every frame, where this coarseness would be much less obvious.

    Read the article

  • Hide email adress with JavaScript

    - by Martin Aleksander
    I read somewhere that hiding email address behind JavaScript code, could reduce spam bots harvesting the email address. <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> var a = "Red"; var t = "no"; var doc = document; var b = "ITpro"; var ad = a; ad += "@"; ad += b; ad += "."; ad += t; var mt = "ma"; mt += "il"; mt += "to"; var text = ""; if (text == null || text.length == 0) text = ad; doc.write("<"+"a hr"+"ef=\""+mt+":"+ad+"\">"+text+"</"+"a>"); </script> This will not display the actual email-address in the sourcecode of the page, but it will display and work like a normal link for human users. Is it any point of doing this? Will it reduce spam bots, or is it just nonsense that might slow down performance of the page because of the JavaScript?

    Read the article

  • Orthographic Projection Issue

    - by Nick
    I have a problem with my Ortho Matrix. The engine uses the perspective projection fine but for some reason the Ortho matrix is messed up. (See screenshots below). Can anyone understand what is happening here? At the min I am taking the Projection matrix * Transform (Translate, rotate, scale) and passing to the Vertex shader to multiply the Vertices by it. VIDEO Shows the same scene, rotating on the Y axis. http://youtu.be/2feiZAIM9Y0 void Matrix4f::InitOrthoProjTransform(float left, float right, float top, float bottom, float zNear, float zFar) { m[0][0] = 2 / (right - left); m[0][1] = 0; m[0][2] = 0; m[0][3] = 0; m[1][0] = 0; m[1][1] = 2 / (top - bottom); m[1][2] = 0; m[1][3] = 0; m[2][0] = 0; m[2][1] = 0; m[2][2] = -1 / (zFar - zNear); m[2][3] = 0; m[3][0] = -(right + left) / (right - left); m[3][1] = -(top + bottom) / (top - bottom); m[3][2] = -zNear / (zFar - zNear); m[3][3] = 1; } This is what happens with Ortho Matrix: This is the Perspective Matrix:

    Read the article

  • Unable to install Apache 2.2.22 in Ubuntu 12.04

    - by Martin Betz
    I am not able to install Apache 2.2 in Ubuntu 12.04. Here is a snippet from my console log (sorry, it is in German): apache2 : Hängt ab von: apache2-mpm-worker (= 2.2.22-1ubuntu1) soll aber nicht installiert werden oder apache2-mpm-prefork (= 2.2.22-1ubuntu1) aber 2.2.22-1ubuntu1.1 soll installiert werden ... That means like: apache2 depends from apa..worker, but that should not get installed OR from ap...prefork..ubuntu1, but ap...prefork..ubuntu1.1 should get installed. I have no idea how to tackle that issue..

    Read the article

  • Death March

    - by Nick Harrison
    It is a horrible sight to watch a project fail. There are few things as bad. Watching a project fail regardless of the reason is almost like sitting in a room with a "Dementor" from Harry Potter. It will literally suck all of the life and joy out of the room. Nearly every project that I have seen fail has failed because of political challenges or management challenges. Sometimes there are technical challenges that bring a project to its knees, but usually projects fail for less technical reasons. Here a few observations about projects failing for political reasons. Both the client and the consultants have to be committed to seeing the project succeed. Put simply, you cannot solve a problem when the primary stake holders do not truly want it solved. This could come from a consultant being more interested in extended the engagement. It could come from a client being afraid of what will happen to them once the problem is solved. It could come from disenfranchised stake holders. Sometimes a project is beset on all sides. When you find yourself working on a project that has this kind of threat, do all that you can to constrain the disruptive influences of the bad apples. If their influence cannot be constrained, you truly have no choice but to move on to a new project. Tough choices have to be made to make a project successful. These choices will affect everyone involved in the project. These choices may involve users not getting a change request through that they want. Developers may not get to use the tools that they want. Everyone may have to put in more hours that they originally planned. Steps may be skipped. Compromises will be made, but if everyone stays committed to the end goal, you can still be successful. If individuals start feeling disgruntled or resentful of the compromises reached, the project can easily be derailed. When everyone is not working towards a common goal, it is like driving with one foot on the break and one foot on the accelerator. Not only will you not get to where you are planning, you will also damage the car and possibly the passengers as well.   It is important to always keep the end result in mind. Regardless of the development methodology being followed, the end goal is not comprehensive documentation. In all cases, it is working software. Comprehensive documentation is nice but useless if the software doesn't work.   You can never get so distracted by the next goal that you fail to meet the current goal. Most projects are ultimately marathons. This means that the pace must be sustainable. Regardless of the temptations, you cannot burn the team alive. Processes will fail. Technology will get outdated. Requirements will change, but your people will adapt and learn and grow. If everyone on the team from the most senior analyst to the most junior recruit trusts and respects each other, there is no challenge that they cannot overcome. When everyone involved faces challenges with the attitude "This is my project and I will not let it fail" "You are my teammate and I will not let you fail", you will in fact not fail. When you find a team that embraces this attitude, protect it at all cost. Edward Yourdon wrote a book called Death March. In it, he included a graph for categorizing Death March project types based on the Happiness of the Team and the Chances of Success.   Chances are we have all worked on Death March projects. We will all most likely work on more Death March projects in the future. To a certain extent, they seem to be inevitable, but they should never be suicide or ugly. Ideally, they can all be "Mission Impossible" where everyone works hard, has fun, and knows that there is good chance that they will succeed. If you are ever lucky enough to work on such a project, you will know that sense of pride that comes from the eventual success. You will recognize a profound bond with the team that you worked with. Chances are it will change your life or at least your outlook on life. If you have not already read this book, get a copy and study it closely. It will help you survive and make the most out of your next Death March project.

    Read the article

  • Is there a constant for "end of time"?

    - by Nick Rosencrantz
    For some systems, the time value 9999-12-31 is used as the "end of time" as the end of the time that the computer can calculate. But what if it changes? Wouldn't it be better to define this time as a builtin variable? In C and other programming languages there usually is a variable such as MAX_INT or similar to get the largest value an integer could have. Why is there not a similar function for MAX_TIME i.e. set the variable to the "end of time" which for many systems usually is 9999-12-31. To avoid the problem of hardcoding to a wrong year (9999) could these systems introduce a variable for the "end of time"?

    Read the article

  • Corona SDK: Quality of support and resources?

    - by Nick Wiggill
    I've not used Corona SDK before and am looking into it for a friend. (He is also considering Unity.) I wonder what the support is like for Corona? While Unity has a great many customers and so the Unity team can often not address issues directly, the community at large is very helpful and there are many excellent resources: tutorials, forum posts, code resources. What is Corona like in this regard, and by comparison?

    Read the article

  • Is shipping a Clojure desktop app realistic?

    - by Cedric Martin
    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 limitation soon and switch to a newer Java and simply abandoning my users stuck with Java 5). I'm quickly getting up to speed with Clojure but I haven't really done lots of Clojure-to-Java and Java-to-Clojure yet and I was wondering if it was realistic to ship a Clojure desktop application instead of a Java application? The application I'm shipping is currently about 12 MB with all the .jar so adding Clojure doesn't seen to be too much of an issue. My plan would be to have Clojure call Java APIs: my application is already divided in several independent jars. If I understand correctly calling Clojure from Java is harder than calling Java code from Clojure which is why I'd basically rewrite all the UI (part of the UI, mixing Swing components and self-made BufferedImages needs to be rewritten anyway due to the rise of retina display), and do all the 'wiring' from Clojure. So that's the problem I'm facing: is it realistic to ship a Clojure desktop app? (it certainly doesn't seem to be very widespread but then shipping plain Java desktop apps ain't that common either and I'm doing it anyway) Technically, what would need to be done? (compared to shipping a Java app)

    Read the article

  • PHP may be executing as a "privileged" group and user, which could be a serious security vulnerability

    - by Martin
    I ran some security tests on a Ubuntu 12.04 Server, and I've got these warnings : PHP may be executing as a "privileged" group, which could be a serious security vulnerability. PHP may be executing as a "privileged" user, which could be a serious security vulnerability. In /etc/apache2/envvars, I have this: export APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data And all files in /var/www are having these user/group: www-data:www-data Am I setting this correctly? What should I do to fix this problem?

    Read the article

  • multipass shadow mapping renderer in XNA

    - by Nick
    I am wanting to implement a multipass renderer in XNA (additive blending combines the contributions from each light). I have the renderer working without any shadows, but when I try to add shadow mapping support I run into an issue with switching render targets to draw the shadow maps. When I switch render targets, I lose the contents of the backbuffer which ruins the whole additive blending idea. For example: Draw() { DrawAmbientLighting() foreach (DirectionalLight) { DrawDirectionalShadowMap() // <-- I lose all previous lighting contributions when I switch to the shadow map render target here DrawDirectionalLighting() } } Is there any way around my issue? (I could render all the shadow maps first, but then I have to make and hold onto a render target for each light that casts a shadow--is this the only way?)

    Read the article

  • Allocating Entities within an Entity System

    - by miguel.martin
    I'm quite unsure how I should allocate/resemble my entities within my entity system. I have various options, but most of them seem to have cons associated with them. In all cases entities are resembled by an ID (integer), and possibly has a wrapper class associated with it. This wrapper class has methods to add/remove components to/from the entity. Before I mention the options, here is the basic structure of my entity system: Entity An object that describes an object within the game Component Used to store data for the entity System Contains entities with specific components Used to update entities with specific components World Contains entities and systems for the entity system Can create/destroy entites and have systems added/removed from/to it Here are my options, that I have thought of: Option 1: Do not store the Entity wrapper classes, and just store the next ID/deleted IDs. In other words, entities will be returned by value, like so: Entity entity = world.createEntity(); This is much like entityx, except I see some flaws in this design. Cons There can be duplicate entity wrapper classes (as the copy-ctor has to be implemented, and systems need to contain entities) If an Entity is destroyed, the duplicate entity wrapper classes will not have an updated value Option 2: Store the entity wrapper classes within an object pool. i.e. Entities will be return by pointer/reference, like so: Entity& e = world.createEntity(); Cons If there is duplicate entities, then when an entity is destroyed, the same entity object may be re-used to allocate another entity. Option 3: Use raw IDs, and forget about the wrapper entity classes. The downfall to this, I think, is the syntax that will be required for it. I'm thinking about doing thisas it seems the most simple & easy to implement it. I'm quite unsure about it, because of the syntax. i.e. To add a component with this design, it would look like: Entity e = world.createEntity(); world.addComponent<Position>(e, 0, 3); As apposed to this: Entity e = world.createEntity(); e.addComponent<Position>(0, 3); Cons Syntax Duplicate IDs

    Read the article

  • Parallelism implies concurrency but not the other way round right?

    - by Cedric Martin
    I often read that parallelism and concurrency are different things. Very often the answerers/commenters go as far as writing that they're two entirely different things. Yet in my view they're related but I'd like some clarification on that. For example if I'm on a multi-core CPU and manage to divide the computation into x smaller computation (say using fork/join) each running in its own thread, I'll have a program that is both doing parallel computation (because supposedly at any point in time several threads are going to run on several cores) and being concurrent right? While if I'm simply using, say, Java and dealing with UI events and repaints on the Event Dispatch Thread plus running the only thread I created myself, I'll have a program that is concurrent (EDT + GC thread + my main thread etc.) but not parallel. I'd like to know if I'm getting this right and if parallelism (on a "single but multi-cores" system) always implies concurrency or not? Also, are multi-threaded programs running on multi-cores CPU but where the different threads are doing totally different computation considered to be using "parallelism"?

    Read the article

  • Can the Clojure set and maps syntax be added to other Lisp dialects?

    - by Cedric Martin
    In addition to create list using parentheses, Clojure allows to create vectors using [ ], maps using { } and sets using #{ }. Lisp is always said to be a very extensible language in which you can easily create DSLs etc. But is Lisp so extensible that you can take any Lisp dialect and relatively easily add support for Clojure's vectors, maps and sets (which are all functions in Clojure)? I'm not necessarily asking about cons or similar actually working on these functions: what I'd like to know is if the other could be modified so that the source code would look like Clojure's source code (that is: using matching [ ], { } and #{ } in addition to ( )). Note that if it cannot be done this is not a criticism of Lisp: what I'd like to know is, technically, what should be done or what cannot be done if one were to add such a thing.

    Read the article

  • How does one set up a MIDI keyboard

    - by Martin Owens -doctormo-
    I would like to set up my keyboard via my midi-sport 2x2, I've plugged everything in and even installed the midisport-firmware package which was not automatically installed for some reason. The goal is to have the computer produce a piano sound when keys of the keyboard are hit. If you can make this work without jack, that would be good too. Step by step instructions, the less complexity the better.

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20  | Next Page >