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• How to organize a programming course?

  - by Bogdan Gavril

  I've been given the task to train our manual testers to become developers in test (write test automation!). some have basic programing knowledge (either dabbling in PHP or reading stuff) and some who have no experience. Note that I do have teaching experience, but with real students, not employees, and one concern is that they will not put extra hours except the 20% management gave them for the transition. Language to be taught and used: C# We have 8 hours per week to do this and should decide if they will make it in 2 months. I am thinking of a combined approach: use a manual such as Head First C# (although I'm not happy with the labs, they're mostly games and I don't want to add UI complexities) have them read from the manual do labs with them, solving more and more difficult problems and explain the theoretical stuff as well have them do a bigger project towards the end Some questions: do you have a better suggestion as far as manuals go? do you have a better aproach? Focus less on labs? what kind of assesments should I use and how often? should I let them do a bigger project (bank system or small game) and how much time should I invest in that? ideeas on labs? other resources ? Any other tips would be most welcomed! Thanks!

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• Styles of games that work at low-resolution

  - by Brendan Long

  I'm taking a class on compilers, and the goal is to write a compiler for Meggy Jr devices (Arduino). The goal is just to make a simple compilers with loops and variables and stuff. Obviously, that's lame, so the "real goal" is to make an impressive game on the device. The problem is that it only has 64 pixels to work with (technically 72, but the top 8 are single-color and not part of the main display, so they're really only useful for displaying things like money). My problem is thinking of something to do on a device that small. It doesn't really matter if it's original, but it can't be something that's already available. My first idea was "snake", but that comes with the SDK. Same with a side-scrolling shooter. Remaining ideas include a tower defense game (hard to write, hard to control), an RPG (same), tetris (lame).. The problem is that all of the games I like require a high-resolution screen because they have a lot of text. Even a really simple game like nethack would be hard because each creature would be a single color. tl;dr What styles of games require a. No text; and b. Few enough objects that representing them each with a single color is acceptable?

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• checking for collision detection

  - by bill

  I am trying to create a game where you have a player and you can move right,left, and jump. kind of like mario but its not a side scroller. also i want to use 2d array to make a tile map. my big problem is that i dont understand how to check for collision. i spend about 2 week thinking about this and i came up with 2 solution but they both have problems. let say my map is: 0 = sky 1 = player 2 = ground 00000 10002 22022 Solution 1: move the '1'(player) and update the map less say player wants to move right, then x+=grid[x+1][y] this make the collision easy bc you can just check if if(grid[x][y+1] == 2){ //player is standing on top of ground } problem with this when u hit right key player will move (x*Titlewidth) to right. and as you can see the animation wont look smooth. Solution 2: move player and dont update map player_x += 2 this will make the animation more smoother bc i am just moving 2 pixels. problem1: i cant update map bc if player some times will be middle of int(2d array). but thats ok sinces its not a side scroller so updating the map is not a big deal. problem2: only way to check for collision is to use java intersection method. but then player have to be atleast 1 or 2 pixel in ground in order to check for collision. and as you can see that wont look good too. plz note this is my first collision game in java. so plz try to explain alot otherwise i wont understand it.

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• Distributed transactions and queues, ruby, erlang

  - by chrispanda

  I have a problem that involves several machines, message queues, and transactions. So for example a user clicks on a web page, the click sends a message to another machine which adds a payment to the user's account. There may be many thousands of clicks per second. All aspects of the transaction should be fault tolerant. I've never had to deal with anything like this before, but a bit of reading suggests this is a well known problem. So to my questions. Am I correct in assuming that secure way of doing this is with a two phase commit, but the protocol is blocking and so I won't get the required performance? It appears that DBs like redis and message queuing system like Rescue, RabbitMQ etc don't really help me a lot - even if I implement some sort of two phase commit, the data will be lost if redis crashes because it is essentially memory-only. All of this has led me to look at erlang - but before I wade in and start learning a new language, I would really like to understand better if this is worth the effort. Specifically, am I right in thinking that because of its parallel processing capabilities, erlang is a better choice for implementing a blocking protocol like two phase commit, or am I confused?

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• Understanding Visitor Pattern

  - by Nezreli

  I have a hierarchy of classes that represents GUI controls. Something like this: Control-ContainerControl-Form I have to implement a series of algoritms that work with objects doing various stuff and I'm thinking that Visitor pattern would be the cleanest solution. Let take for example an algorithm which creates a Xml representaion of a hierarchy of objects. Using 'classic' approach I would do this: public abstract class Control { public virtual XmlElement ToXML(XmlDocument document) { XmlElement xml = document.CreateElement(this.GetType().Name); // Create element, fill it with attributes declared with control return xml; } } public abstract class ContainerControl : Control { public override XmlElement ToXML(XmlDocument document) { XmlElement xml = base.ToXML(document); // Use forech to fill XmlElement with child XmlElements return xml; } } public class Form : ContainerControl { public override XmlElement ToXML(XmlDocument document) { XmlElement xml = base.ToXML(document); // Fill remaining elements declared in Form class return xml; } } But I'm not sure how to do this with visitor pattern. This is the basic implementation: public class ToXmlVisitor : IVisitor { public void Visit(Form form) { } } Since even the abstract classes help with implementation I'm not sure how to do that properly in ToXmlVisitor. Perhaps there is a better solution to this problem. The reason that I'm considering Visitor pattern is that some algorithms will need references not available in project where the classes are implemented and there is a number of different algorithms so I'm avoiding large classes. Any thoughts are welcome.

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• SAP or Navision? Career Path

  - by codebased

  This could be tricky to ask; I may or may not ask this question here but I thought to give it a try. I've been in Software Industry since 2002 and now it has been a time that I'm at Senior level where I normally code, lead and define the architect; giving technical solutions to the management is one of my asset that I've earned during my services. Now it is the time to define the road map for the future, $$$. I am not in favor of Project Management roles. I've been thinking of going through the ERP and my current company does provide me an option to go for Navision/ Microsoft Dynamics. They are currently on 4.0 but they are planning to move for 2009 and also to build one of their own plug-in. Indeed the option is good because Microsoft is trying to accomplish the market for Dynamics products. However, they have less success in Australia. Now, Another option is with SAP where person can go with 200 K $ a year. Where as I'd doubt that if the same kind of growth, financial, is available for Microsoft geek. What is your opinion on Navision or SAP? If I try to completely move to SAP it could be bit challenging as market will consider me a fresher. However the return is quite good. Where in case of Microsoft, I think technology changes so fast that there is a less chance to grow in, within, the same experience; in other word, if any new framework comes in .net then market look for that person who knows this new framework and not .net But in case of SAP, where the base remain same and chances are to grab more money from the market. What would you do if you were me? In stackoverflow - Navision questions are 20+ where in SAP 200+///?? :-)

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• How do "custom software companies" deal with technical debt?

  - by andy

  What are "custom software companies"? By "custom software companies" I mean companies that make their money primarily from building custom, one off, bits of software. Example are agencies or middle-ware companies, or contractors/consultants like Redify. What's the opposite of "custom software companies"? The oposite of the above business model are companies that focus on long term products, whether they be deployable desktop/mobile apps, or SaaS software. A sure fire way to build up technical debt: I work for a company that attempts to focus on a suite of SaaS products. However, due to certain constraints we sometimes end up bending to the will of certain clients and we end building bits of custom software that can only be used for that client. This is a sure fire way to incur technical debt. Now we have a bit of software to maintain that adds nothing to our core product. If custom work is a sure fire way to build technical debt, how do agencies handle it? So that got me thinking. Companies who don't have a core product as the center of their business model, well they're always doing custom software work. How do they cope with the notion of technical debt? How does it not drive them into technical bankruptcy?

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• Blur gets displaced compared to original image

  - by user1294203

  I have implemented a SSAO and I'm using a blur step to smooth it out. The problem is that the blurred texture is slightly displaced compared to the original. I'm blurring using a 4x4 kernel since that was my noise kernel in SSAO. The following is the blurring shader: float result = 0.0; for(int i = 0; i < 4; i++){ for(int j = 0; j < 4; j++){ vec2 offset = vec2(TEXEL_SIZE.x * i, TEXEL_SIZE.y * j); result += texture(aoSampler, TexCoord + offset).r; } } out_AO = vec4(vec3(0.0), result * 0.0625); Where TEXEL_SIZE is one over my window resolution. I was thinking that this is was an error based on how OpenGL counts the Texel center, so I tried displacing the texture coordinate I was using by 0.5 * TEXEL_SIZE, but there was still a slight displacement. The texture input to my blur shader, has wrap parameters: glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_CLAMP); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_CLAMP); When I tell the blur shader to just output the the value of the pixel, the result is not displaced, so it must have something to do with how neighboring pixels are sampled. Any thoughts?

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• Can thousands of backlinks from the same site harm PageRank?

  - by Dejan Pelzel

  I just noticed that one particular site has almost 7000 backlinks linking back to our website. The site is something like a news aggregator and for each post they created around 20 (sometimes much more) backlinks back to our page and they basically linked over 400 pages. I am beginning to get concerned that this amount of links might harm our page. They seem to have more backlinks to our page than all the other pages combined and more backlinks that our website has pages. We have seen a massive negative effect going on for quite a while and the PageRank seems to have dropped to None (Not even 0). But I am not sure when and why exactly that happened seeing that PageRank updates take quite a while to appear. The site linking to us is otherwise pretty reputable and doesn't seem to be having any problems with their rank. (PR 6 actually) I was thinking of using the Google disavow tool for this site, but I don't want to make things even worse. Do you think these are harmful? If so, how do I fix this? Thanks :)

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• Performance due to entity update

  - by Rizzo

  I always think about 2 ways to code the global Step() function, both with pros and cons. Please note that AIStep is just to provide another more step for whoever who wants it. // Approach 1 step foreach( entity in entities ) { entity.DeltaStep( delta_time ); if( time_for_fixed_step ) entity.FixedStep(); if( time_for_AI_step ) entity.AIStep(); ... // all kind of updates you want } PRO: you just have to iterate once over all entities. CON: fidelity could be lower at some scenarios, since the entity.FixedStep() isn't going all at a time. // Approach 2 step foreach( entity in entities ) entity.DeltaStep( delta_time ); if( time_for_fixed_step ) foreach( entity in entities ) entity.FixedStep(); if( time_for_AI_step ) foreach( entity in entities ) entity.FixedStep(); // all kind of updates you want SEPARATED PRO: fidelity on FixedStep is higher, shouldn't be much time between all entities update, rather than Approach 1 where you may have to wait other updates until FixedStep() comes. CON: you iterate once for each kind of update. Also, a third approach could be a hybrid between both of them, something in the way of foreach( entity in entities ) { entity.DeltaStep( delta_time ); if( time_for_AI_step ) entity.AIStep(); // all kind of updates you want BUT FixedStep() } if( time_for_fixed_step ) { foreach( entity in entities ) { entity.FixedStep(); } } Just two loops, don't caring about time fidelity in nothing other than at FixedStep(). Any thoughts on this matter? Should it really matters to make all steps at once or am I thinking on problems that don't exist?

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• how do I write a functional spec quickly and efficiently

  - by giddy

  So I just read some fabulous articles by Joel on specs here. (Was written in 2000!!) I read all 4 parts, but Im looking for some methodical approaches to writing my specs. Im the only lonely dev, working on this fairly complicated app (or family of apps) for a very well known finance company. I've never made something this serious, I started out writing something like a bad spec, an overview of some sorts, and it has wasted a LOT of my time. Ive also made 3 mockup-kinda-thingies for my client so I have a good understanding of what they want. Also released a preview (a throw away working app with the most basic workflow), and Ive only written and tested some of the very core/base systems. I think the mistake Ive been making so far is not writing a detailed spec, so Im getting to it now. So the whole thing comprises of An MVC website (for admins & data viewing) 2 Silverlight modules (For 2 specific tasks) 1 Desktop Application Im totally short on time, resources and need to get this done quick, also, need to make sure these guys read it up equally quick and painlessly. So how do I go about it, Im looking for any tips, any real world stuff, how do you guys usually do it? Do you make a mock screenie of every dialog/form/page? Im thinking of making a dummy asp.net web forms project, then filling in html files in folders and making it look like my mvc url structure. Then having a section in the spec for the website and write up a page for every URL Ive got with a screenie. For my win forms app, Ive made somewhat of a demo Win Form project, would I then put in a dialog or stucture everything as I would in the real app and then screen shot it?

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• How to go from mainstream to indie development?

  - by Salano Software

  I'm currently working as a game programmer for a AAA-level developer and publisher - which falls into the 'nice problem to have' category, I know, except that I'm growing more and more disenchanted with the direction of both the company and the AAA portion of the industry as a whole. I don't see any games on the studio's calendar for the next several years that I'm actually interested in working on; it looks like a continuing parade of sequels, license extensions and largely-derivative work. Which isn't to say that there won't be interesting things to do on those projects; but more and more I find myself wanting to do something fundamentally different. It seems like the market's never been better for smaller-scale projects, and I'd love to jump into that (and I've done small demos for Android and have started digging into iOS), but I obviously can't put anything out while I'm working for the company, and I'm concerned that I shouldn't even do substantial development in my spare time on anything I'd eventually like to release on my own. At the same time, I'm leery of leaving the job I've got for hopefully-obvious reasons, especially without a specific plan in place. Has anyone out there got experience with 'going indie' out of a mainstream job, and does anyone have specific suggestions as to what the best approach is and what I should specifically be thinking about or be careful of?

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• New York Alt.NET Dinner

  - by Liam McLennan

  While I was in the New York area Stephen Bohlen graciously organised an Alt.NET dinner. I left Rockville Centre on the 17:15 train, thinking I had plenty of time to get to Toloache Mexican Bistro on W 50th St. However, when I changed at Penn Station I took the service downtown, instead of uptown. I corrected that mistake and made it to 51st St, but then ended up in completely the wrong place because I did not understand the street numbering system. For future reference I now have the following rules for NYC navigation: Uptown means North, Downtown means South Streets run East-West, Avenues North-South Street number are symmetrical on the 5th Avenue axis. That is, street numbers increase from zero both east and west of 5th Av. Having gotten totally confused I called Steve, who helped me find the restaurant. I still had my luggage, which we stowed in a corner. Over some descent Mexican food we had some great discussions about Alt.NET, the 2010 conference, and other things of interest to Alt.NET folks. Thanks to Steve for organising and to all the guys who turned up.

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• Best Persistence choice for J2EE-App with frequently changing Data Model

  - by Ben-G

  Whenever I develop a J2EE-Application, I at some point decide to switch from my dummy Persistence (Simply Using Lists and other Data Structures) to some Sort of Database Persistence. Mostly when I hope the Data Model is more or less complete. From this point on, changes to the data model become exhausting, but unluckily they occur rather often. I've used different Object-Relational-Mappers (iBatis, Hibernate) for my projects. They definitely reduce the pain coming with Data Model changes, but they anyway let me adjust code/configuration at 3 or 4 places for every single change. To me, that's cumbersome and error prone. I made a better experience with DB4O, which simply persists Java Objects as they are, but I believe it's performance does not scale for huge applications. Is there anyway to maintain performance while letting out all the ugly configuration work? I'm seeking a performant framework which really hides persistence from my code. Wish for thinking? Or am I missing out THE technology? Hope you can help.

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• Game Trees Conceptual Question

  - by Chris Corbin

  I am struggling to conceptually understand a question in a programming assignment for an algorithms class. The problem is dealing with a fictitious 2 player game, named Easy. The rules of the game are simple; each player may chose one of 4 integers {0-3} after which that integer is not available for the other player. The catch is, a player picks {0} it means they quit. The objective is for Player 1 to get {1} and Player 2 to get {2}, in which case they may win, however if both or neither succeed, then the game ends in a draw. I have been asked to draw the game tree for Easy, showing all nodes, which they explained as 4! = 24. Labeling the edges, which represent moves (selecting a number) and the leaves with who won (1 means Player 1 won, -1 means Player 2 won, and 0 means a tie). I have drawn out a game tree, which I believe is correct, however I am not 100% certain hence I am asking the question. My game tree only has 16 leaves. I am thinking that when a player picks {0}, and then quits, the game tree stops there? I don't see how it is possible to get to 24 leaves? Any help would be greatly appreciate, and if you need more information I would be happy to provide it. Thanks

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• SQL SERVER – What is the Maximum Relational Database Size Supported by Single Instance?

  - by Pinal Dave

  I often get asked following question? “How much data SQL Server can handle?” Every single time when I get this question – I ask back following question - “How much data your storage system can handle?” The reason I ask this question back is because in reality for enterprise systems the limitation of storage is no more an issue. The Matter of the fact most of the database is now a days limited by the size of the storage system. SQL Server is enterprise system and it is very mature product. Even though if you still want to know what is the actual limit here is the answer. SQL Server 2008R2, 2012 and 2014 have maximum capacity of 524 PB (Petabyte) in the Enterprise, BI and Standard edition. SQL Server Express has a limitation of 10 GB due to its nature. I guess, now when you look at my question it will make sense that it is all depending on the size of your storage system. I personally believe at this point of time 524 PB is quite a huge data, but we never know after 10 years when we read this blog post, we all may think what was I thinking actually. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Google music search: a better way to listen.

  - by anirudha

  somebody who want to listen music  pay much more to some online music store for online listening. otherwise they experience bad or low quality on YouTube. who is illegal  because uploader not have a permission or right to upload the document and their is no guarantee that they not put their ads or quality as same. now forget YouTube and all other because Google music search is much better just go their search the song by movies name or song and just click and listen. the quality is much better then other but it is not Google. the result they put comes from other website. i feel a thing goes wrong in Google music  search  that if i search “sajda” they never show me result about “sadka” because the word in common life use as same both. but the song may be starting from  “sajda” or “sadka”. i thing that they put the link that Do you means “Sadka” when i search sajda that it is better thing just like many online book store show the different keyword related to your keyword when you search their. like you search for a book on online book store they show you some different keyword when they serve the result and show related product or books when you go to a product page. after thinking all it is a better option for user to feel a better quality music without search hassle.

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• What functionality of an iPad can I use with Ubuntu?

  - by Andrew Ferrier

  What functionality of an iPad can I use with Ubuntu? I'm thinking about buying an iPad, but I only have Ubuntu PCs these days (no Windows, no Mac), and I'm nervous that it may be too reliant on the existence of iTunes. I'm less concerned about getting media onto and off it (and I have read that I can do this with libimobiledevice), but will I be able to activate it with iTunes? Does it need to be USB synced on a regular basis, or can I do most anything I want through the cloud (i.e. over wifi)? Edit: In answer to jrgifford's question, in theory, I'd like to do everything I would want to do with it were I using Windows/Mac. But more specifically, I think I'd want to: "Activate" it, if that's necessary Copy music / video onto it Install apps How much of this can I do without a Windows/Mac PC? Is it necessary to activate it? I don't think I'm that interested in backing it up (what would I back up?), but then again, maybe I'm confused as to how easy it is to get data on and off. Can I get a regular SFTP app for the iPad to copy data to my Ubuntu machine over wi-fi, for example?

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• What is the proper SEO handling of pages appearing in popups using IFRAMEs?

  - by Alexis Wilke

  I am working on a CMS which makes use of IFRAMEs to display some forms, for illustration, say a Search form. So the user clicks the Search button and the website reacts by opening a popup window which includes an IFRAME to the actual Search form. This means I have a "bare"¹ page with the search form. Page which, obviously, is directly accessible via its own URI. In terms of SEO, the forms have no content worthy of being indexed, so I was thinking to mark them as NOINDEX. Is that the correct way to handle such pages? From what I read on some other question, Google suggests to put links from IFRAMEs to other pages. However, I definitively do not want a user visible link to the Home page, or whatever page in link with the form, in the content of my forms because that could be misinterpreted by the user. However, if <link> tags would work too, which one should I use? (i.e. "top" would work, right? with the home page in there?) ¹ By bare I mean that the normal theme is not show, it will be a plain white background with just and only the simplest form.

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 20 for June 10-16, 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The top 20 most popular items shared via my social networks for the week of June 10-16, 2012. DevOps: Evolving to Handle Disruption | JP Morgenthal The Healthy Tension That Mobility Creates | Hernan Capdevila If you aren't among those finding bugs you might be among those complaining about them later | Markus Eisele ODTUG Kscope12 - June 24-28 - San Antonio, TX It's Alive! - The Oracle OpenWorld Content Catalog URGENT BULLETIN: Disable JRE Auto-Update for All E-Business Suite End-Users Aetna Dumps Its Siloed Enterprise Architecture for SOA | Stephanie Overby Condos and Clouds: Thinking about Cloud Computng by Looking at Condominiums | Pat Helland 5 minutes or less: Indexing Attributes in OID | Andre Correa Whole Lotta Virtualization Goin' On | Rick Ramsey The Road to a Cloud-Enabled, Infinitely Elastic Application Infrastructure | Andy Butler, Massimo Pezzini Migrating C/C++ embedded SQL code | Tom Laszewski Catching Up to Mobile Computing | Bob Rhubart Duke's Choice Award Nominations Close Friday! | Tori Wieldt Eclipse DemoCamp - June 2012 - Redwood Shores, CA BI Architecture Master Class for Partners - Oracle Architecture Unplugged ADF Tutorial Chapter 1: Introduction | Yannick Ongena OPN: Fusion Middleware Summer Camps in July in Lisbon and Munich Networking in VirtualBox | The Fat Bloke 2012 Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards - Win a FREE Pass to Oracle OpenWorld 2012 in San Francisco Thought for the Day "If the mind really is the finest computer, then there are a lot of people out there who need to be rebooted." — Tim Bryce Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• Should I pick up a functional programming language?

  - by Statement

  I have recently been more concerned about the way I write my code. After reading a few books on design patterns (and overzealous implementation of them, I'm sure) I have shifted my thinking greatly toward encapsulating that which change. I tend to notice that I write less interfaces and more method-oriented code, where I love to spruce life into old classes with predicates, actions and other delegate tasks. I tend to think that it's often the actions that change, so I encapsulate those. I even often, although not always, break down interfaces to a single method, and then I prefer to use a delegate for the task instead of forcing client code to create a new class. So I guess it then hit me. Should I be doing functional programming instead? Edit: I may have a misconception about functional programming. Currently my language of choice is C#, and I come from a C++ background. I work as a game developer but I am currently unemployed. I have a great passion for architecture. My virtues are clean, flexible, reusable and maintainable code. I don't know if I have been poisoned by these ways or if it is for the better. Am I having a refactoring fever or should I move on? I understand this might be a question about "use the right tool for the job", but I'd like to hear your thoughts. Should I pick up a functional language? One of my fear factors is to leave the comfort of Visual Studio.

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• Object behaviour or separate class?

  - by Andrew Stephens

  When it comes to OO database access you see two common approaches - the first is to provide a class (say "Customer") with methods such as Retrieve(), Update(), Delete(), etc. The other is to keep the Customer class fairly lightweight (essentially just properties) and perform the database access elsewhere, e.g. using a repository. This choice of approaches doesn't just apply to database access, it can crop up in many different OOD scenarios. So I was wondering if one way is preferable over the other (although I suspect the answer will be "it depends")! Another dev on our team argues that to be truly OO the class should be "self-contained", i.e. providing all the methods necessary to manipulate and interact with that object. I personally prefer the repository approach - I don't like bloating the Customer class with all that functionality, and I feel it results in cleaner code having it elsewhere, but I can't help thinking I'm seriously violating core OO concepts! And what about memory implications? If I retrieve thousands of Customer objects I'm assuming those with the data access methods will take up a lot more memory than the property-only objects?

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• 2D Collision masks for handling slopes

  - by JiminyCricket

  I've been looking at the example at: http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/tutorial/collision_2d_perpixel and am trying to figure out how to adjust the sprite once a collision has been detected. As David suggested at XNA 4.0 2D sidescroller variable terrain heightmap for walking/collision, I made a few sensor points (feet, sides, bottom center, etc.) and can easily detect when these points actually collide with non-transparent portions of a second texture (simple slope). I'm having trouble with the algorithm of how I would actually adjust the sprite position based on a collision. Say I detect a collision with the slope at the sprite's right foot. How can I scan the slope texture data to find the Y position to place the sprite's foot so it is no longer inside the slope? The way it is stored as a 1D array in the example is a bit confusing, should I try to store the data as a 2D array instead? For test purposes, I'm thinking of just using the slope texture alpha itself as a primitive and easy collision mask (no grass bits or anything besides a simple non-linear slope). Then, as in the example, I find the coordinates of any collisions between the slope texture and the sprite's sensors and mark these special sensor collisions as having occurred. Finally, in the case of moving up a slope, I would scan for the first transparent pixel above (in the texture's Ys at that X) the right foot collision point and set that as the new height of the sprite. I'm a little unclear also on when I should make these adjustments. Collisions are checked on every game.update() so would I quickly change the position of the sprite before the next update is called? I also noticed several people mention that it's best to separate collision checks horizontally and vertically, why is that exactly? Open to any suggestions if this is an inefficient or inaccurate way of handling this. I wish MSDN had provided an example of something like this, I didn't know it would be so much more complex than NES Mario style pure box platforming!

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• Why isn't Java used for modern web application development?

  - by Cliff

  As a professional Java programmer, I've been trying to understand - why the hate toward Java for modern web applications? I've noticed a trend that out of modern day web startups, a relatively small percentage of them appears to be using Java (compared to Java's overall popularity). When I've asked a few about this, I've typically received a response like, "I hate Java with a passion." But no one really seems to be able to give a definitive answer. I've also heard this same web startup community refer negatively to Java developers - more or less implying that they are slow, not creative, old. As a result, I've spent time working to pick up Ruby/Rails, basically to find out what I'm missing. But I can't help thinking to myself, "I could do this much faster if I were using Java," primarily due to my relative experience levels. But also because I haven't seen anything critical "missing" from Java, preventing me from building the same application. Which brings me to my question(s): Why is Java not being used in modern web applications? Is it a weakness of the language? Is it an unfair stereotype of Java because it's been around so long (it's been unfairly associated with its older technologies, and doesn't receive recognition for its "modern" capabilities)? Is the negative stereotype of Java developers too strong? (Java is just no longer "cool") Are applications written in other languages really faster to build, easier to maintain, and do they perform better? Is Java only used by big companies who are too slow to adapt to a new language?

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• Is there any simple game that involves psychological factors?

  - by Roman

  I need to find a simple game in which several people need to interact with each other. The game should be simple for an analysis (it should be simple to describe what happens in the game, what players did). Because of the last reason, the video games are not appropriate for my purposes. I am thinking of a simple, schematic, strategic game where people can make a limited set of simple moves. Moreover, the moves of the game should be conditioned not only by a pure logic (like in chess or go). The behavior in the game should depend on psychological factors, on relations between people. In more details, I think it should be a cooperation game where people make their decisions based on mutual trust. It would be nice if players can express punishment and forgiveness in the game. Does anybody knows a game that is close to what I have described above? ADDED I need to add that I need a game where actions of players are simple and easy to formalize. Because of that I cannot use verbal games (where communication between players is important). By simple actions I understand, for example, moves on the board from one position to another one, or passing chips from one player to another one and so on.

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