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• Is it common for a development position to be extremely mundane and not challenging at all? [closed]

  - by Kim Jong Woo

  Hi guys so I am working at this company as a web developer but after 1 week of working here, I realize the stuff I am doing seem to be very easy stuff compared to what my peers who have been around for longer are doing. I am way ahead of my schedule and finish my projects early but it's because the work is not at all hard or problem solving involved. So I am puzzled why I would be thanked over doing such menial tasks. Is this normal? This is driving me nuts, I ask to be given more work and I do get it and still finish it quickly and accurately. Now I am having this paranoia that they are just conspiring to use me for a short period of time and terminate me. Am I going too far with this? I keep losing sleep over this. On days when I have a full load of work to complete, this uneasiness goes away but so far I feel like I am not being allowed to pursue what I thought I would do like solving and designing solutions. A lot of it doesn't require any thinking, just cleaning up other people's code and closing bug tickets.

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• Basics of Website development [closed]

  - by user975234

  I have read this post: What should every programmer know about web development? but I have some more questions... I will be developing a content related website very soon and I am confused about some technology stuff. I am thinking about developing the site using ruby on rails. So when I'll be buying hosting, do I need to ask for something special? Like for example, we need to specify what kind of hosting we need, windows or linux. So for ruby on rails do I need some extra facilities from the hosting provider? Is ruby on rails a good choice for a large content related website? This may be a bit stupid but how do I choose my backend, scripting languages etc? Thing is I am really new to website development. And the flow of making websites is not clear. Any links will be helpful. EDIT: I know this question has been voted as non constructive. But if any one still has some precise knowledge about how the flow of website development goes, please comment your views.. That will be helpful!

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• What resources are there for creating a dedicated NES emulator box?

  - by normalocity

  Where do I start, and what communities should I get involved in, in order to achieve the following? Ideally, I'd like to have a box that does the following (doesn't have to do this out of the box, I'm just looking to be able to achieve these goals through configs and necessary dependencies): Either bypasses login, or auto login Auto-start FCEUX with options that will (a) automatically start a ROM of my choosing, and (b) go into full-screen mode. You can assume that before I get that far, I've already configured the input devices and video options. I'd like to create (or install, if it exists) a full-screen app that takes a list of ROMs, allows me to select one with a gamepad/arcade stick, and press a button to open that game Be able to map a button on a gamepad/arcade stick to the "Power off" or exit function of the emulator, such that it will take me back to the ROM selection screen. I've already successfully installed FCEUX and tested it with an arcade stick I own, so I'm not looking for an emulator installer guide. I don't know if the ROM selector app exists already, but I'm a Java developer, and could probably create one (so long as it's not too difficult to support controllers - I was thinking of using Slick2D for this - a gaming library that I'm already pretty familiar with). The goal would be a dedicated box that I have connected to my TV. I power it on. It boots up and starts the ROM selection app, which passes the proper parameters to FCEUX (or another emulator that I might switch to at a later time), and I'm ready to go. Basically an NES emulator as a real, living room console. Also, as far as mapping a controller button to functions in the app, well, I've also played around with hardware, and it would be pretty trivial for me to modify a gamepad to trigger key presses. I just don't want to go to that length if it's not necessary.

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• What kind of website or coding is suitable and safe for an artist's website

  - by Dan S

  I have a web design project that is related to a singer, and I used Joomla for my previous project and designed good music websites. But for this project I cannot find a suitable template to edit and use. As the website is so simple and does not have any special functionality, I'm thinking about creating a website with just simple CSS, html and jQuery. I'm Good at them and can make a perfect look but I am not sure about the security. In Joomla I use different security plugins but do not know about a client-side scripting. So generally I need your ideas, about the following questions: - Is Joomla and generally CMS a good option for a music website? - How famous artists' website is base on? CMS or Client-side scripting? - Do you recommend to create it manually without using and CMS or template? - An do you suggest WordPress for this type of websites? (The website will have these pages: Biography, News, Music (with a music player), Photos, videos and contacts). That's it! Thank you for all your responds, I had a look at Joomla and the only template I chose is This One which seems very simple, and I am worry about module position, because it seems does not have any module position at all. I tried to contact the provider but did not get any respond. Does anyone know about its module position, I mean is there any way to find them? An is it possible to create a 2-3 module positions? Also I had a look at ThemeForest's WordPress templates and it has such a great template. I think WordPress is more active in creating artistic templates. But is it secure and professional to use this CMS for a singer who is kinda famous it his country? I am talking about a template like this. Share your opinions guys.

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• Class Design for special business rules

  - by Samuel Front

  I'm developing an application that allows people to place custom manufacturing orders. However, while most require similar paperwork, some of them have custom paperwork that only they require. My current class design has a Manufacturer class, of which of one of the member variables is an array of RequiredSubmission objects. However, there are two issues that I am somewhat concerned about. First, some manufacturers are willing to accept either a standard form or their own custom form. I'm thinking of storing this in the RequiredSubmission object, with an array of alternate forms that are a valid substitute. I'm not sure that this is ideal, however. The major issue, however, is that some manufacturers have deadline cycles. For example, forms A, B and C have to be delivered by January 1, while payment must be rendered by January 10. If you miss those, you'll have to wait until the next cycle. I'm not exactly sure how I can get this to work with my existing classes—how can I say "this set of dates all belong to the same cycle, with date A for form A, date B for form B, etc." I would greatly appreciate any insights on how to best design these classes.

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• Seeking solution for printing-reporting .NET

  - by Parhs

  I am developing an application that prints in separate threads in extreme cases about 20-25 pages per minute to various thermal printers. Currently templates for these are XAML xps documents. All printers have graphics drivers that support EMF/GDI printing. So GDI-EMF is done by operating system resulting in slower performance. Sending raw text for printing is another good solution but doesnt work always , because some clients have old chinese thermal printer that nobody support thus impossible to change codepage / emulation. So it doesnt work always. Also most computers running my software are low end ATOM CPU. So I am thinking to return to GDI, EMF printing and have both Text-Only reports and EMF reports. Another reason i want EMF is because here receipts are signed by Electronic Fiscal Memory device.Most of these dont do good job extracting text from XPS as they dont follow the standard but how windows convert GDI to XPS.Even with text-only mode some of them dont support all character encodings and are impossible to send paper cut command after the sign. I know that using a reporting engine would solve rendering problem but I dont want to buy one. All I want is to be able to show tabular data and insert an image and replaced text.I know there is StringTemplate that could do the generation of template but the problem is i should parse somehow the template and render it using GDI commands. Is there any other solution/approach for this ? Or is there anything ready ?

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• OpenGL ES 2.0 texture distortion on large geometry

  - by Spruce

  OpenGL ES 2.0 has serious precision issues with texture sampling - I've seen topics with a similar problem, but I haven't seen a real solution to this "distorted OpenGL ES 2.0 texture" problem yet. This is not related to the texture's image format or OpenGL color buffers, it seems like it's a precision error. I don't know what specifically causes the precision to fail - it doesn't seem like it's just the size of geometry that causes this distortion, because simply scaling vertex position passed to the the vertex shader does not solve the issue. Here are some examples of the texture distortion: Distorted Texture (on OpenGL ES 2.0): http://i47.tinypic.com/3322h6d.png What the texture normally looks like (also on OpenGL ES 2.0): http://i49.tinypic.com/b4jc6c.png The texture issue is limited to small scale geometry on OpenGL ES 2.0, otherwise the texture sampling appears normal, but the grainy effect gradually worsens the further the vertex data is from the origin of XYZ(0,0,0) These texture issues do not occur on desktop OpenGL (works fine under Windows XP, Windows 7, and Mac OS X) I've only seen the problem occur on Android, iPhone, or WebGL(which is similar to OpenGL ES 2.0) All textures are power of 2 but the problem still occurs Scaling the vertex data - The values of a vertex's X Y Z location are in the range of: -65536 to +65536 floating point I realized this was large, so I tried dividing the vertex positions by 1024 to shrink the geometry and hopefully get more accurate floating point precision, but this didn't fix or lessen the texture distortion issue Scaling the modelview or scaling the projection matrix does not help Changing texture filtering options does not help Disabling mipmapping, or using GL_NEAREST/GL_LINEAR does nothing Enabling/disabling anisotropic does nothing The banding effect still occurs even when using GL_CLAMP Dividing the texture coords passed to the vertex shader and then multiplying them back to the correct values in the fragment shader, also does not work precision highp sampler2D, highp float, highp int - in the fragment or the vertex shader didn't change anything (lowp/mediump did not work either) I'm thinking this problem has to have been solved at one point - Seeing that OpenGL ES 2.0 -based games have been able to render large-scale, highly detailed geometry

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• Producer-consumer pattern with consumer restrictions

  - by Dan

  I have a processing problem that I am thinking is a classic producer-consumer problem with the two added wrinkles that there may be a variable number of producers and there is the restriction that no more than one item per producer may be consumed at any one time. I will generally have 50-100 producers and as many consumers as CPU cores on the server. I want to maximize the throughput of the consumers while ensuring that there are never more than one work item in process from any single producer. This is more complicated than the classic producer-consumer problem which I think assumes a single producer and no restriction on which work items may be in progress at any one time. I think the problem of multiple producers is relatively easily solved by enqueuing all work items on a single work queue protected by a critical section. I think the restriction on simultaneously processing work items from any single producer is harder because I cannot think of any solution that does not require each consumer to notify some kind of work dispatcher that a particular work item has been completed so as to lift the restriction on work items from that producer. In other words, if Consumer2 has just completed WorkItem42 from Producer53, there needs to be some kind of callback or notification from Consumer2 to a work dispatcher to allow the work dispatcher to release the next work item from Producer53 to the next available consumer (whether Consumer2 or otherwise). Am I overlooking something simple here? Is there a known pattern for this problem? I would appreciate any pointers.

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• RESTFul: state changing actions

  - by Miro Svrtan

  I'am planning to build RESTfull API but there are some architectural questions that are creating some problems in my head. Adding backend bussiness logic to clients is option that I would like to avoid since updating multiple client platforms is hard to maintain in real time when bussiness logic can rapidly change. Lets say we have article as a resource ( api/article ), how should we implement actions like publish, unpublish,activate or deactivate and so on but to try to keep it as simple as possible? 1) Should we use api/article/{id}/{action} since a lot of backend logic can happen there like pushing to remote locations or change of multiple properties. Probably the hardest thing here is that we need to send all article data back to API for updating and multiuser work could not be implemented. For instance editor could send 5 seconds older data and overwrite fix that some other journalist just did 2 seconds ago and there is no way that I could explain to clients this since those publishing an article is really not in any way connected to updating the content. 2) Creating new resource can also be an option, api/article-{action}/id , but then returned resource would not be article-{action} but article which I'am not sure if this is proper. Also in server side code article class is handling actuall work on both resource and I'm not sure if this goes against RESTfull thinking Any suggestions are welcomed..

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• Unity - Invert Movement Direction

  - by m41n

  I am currently developing a 2,5D Sidescroller in Unity (just starting to get to know it). Right now I added a turn-script to have my character face the appropriate direction of movement, though something with the movement itself is behaving oddly now. When I press the right arrow key, the character moves and faces towards the right. If I press the left arrow key, the character faces towards the left, but "moon-walks" to the right. I allready had enough trouble getting the turning to work, so what I am trying is to find a simple solution, if possible without too much reworking of the rest of my project. I was thinking of just inverting the movement direction for a specific input-key/facing-direction. So if anyone knows how to do something like that, I'd be thankful for the help. If it helps, the following is the current part of my "AnimationChooser" script to handle the turning: Quaternion targetf = Quaternion.Euler(0, 270, 0); // Vector3 Direction when facing frontway Quaternion targetb = Quaternion.Euler(0, 90, 0); // Vector3 Direction when facing opposite way if (Input.GetAxisRaw ("Vertical") < 0.0f) // if input is lower than 0 turn to targetf { transform.rotation = Quaternion.Lerp(transform.rotation, targetf, Time.deltaTime * smooth); } if (Input.GetAxisRaw ("Vertical") > 0.0f) // if input is higher than 0 turn to targetb { transform.rotation = Quaternion.Lerp(transform.rotation, targetb, Time.deltaTime * smooth); } The Values (270 and 90) and Axis are because I had to turn my model itself in the very first place to face towards any of the movement directions.

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• Which language is more suitable heavy file tasks?

  - by All

  I need to write a script (based on basic functions) to process /image/audio/video files. The process is mainly filesystem tasks and converts. The database of files has been stored by mysql. The script is simple but cause heavy tasks on the system; for example renaming/converting/copying thousands of file in a run. The script does not read the content of files into memory, it just manage the commands for sub-processes. The main weight is on the communication with filesystem. The script will be used regularly for new files. My concern is about performance. I am thinking of Shell script a complied language like C Please advise which programming language is more suitable for this purpose and why? UPDATE: An example is to scan a folder for images, convert them with ImageMagick, move files to destination folder, get file info, then update the database. As you can see, the process has no room for optimization, and most of languages have similar APIs for popular programs like ImageMagick, MySQL, etc. Thus, it can be written in any language. I just wish to reduce resource usage by speeding up the long loop. NOTE: I know that questions about comparing languages are not favorable, but I really had problem to choose, because the problems can appear in action.

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• Help me select a "Simpler" target to create a new language: .NET, LLVM, Go, Own VM

  - by mamcx

  Lets define "Simple". This is my first language. I have no previous experience I will not dedicate +4 years to learn it properly. I'm a professional software [developer], but as an amateur in this area, I want instant gratification. If the idea shows a future, I could rewrite it. I don't want to do everything from scratch. In fact, if there exists a way to get GO (for example), change its syntax, add some sugar, give some extra functions and leave intact everything else, that would be perfect! From the example of coffescript/scala I think is better to build on top of some rich runtime like .NET/GO so I don't need to rewrite everything. HOWEVER, if is better other way, no problem for the first try! I want it in a week. I need it in a week so it will really take a month. Then it truly takes 3 months. But I don't want to put more that 3 months on this. I could reduce the scope of my language, but I hope the tools will help me a lot... I want to build a new language. Similar to python, but typed. I wonder what to build it on top of. I like the idea of building on top of GO. To get their sane (IMHO) OO paradigm (I plan to do the same, using interfaces, not inheritance), get goroutines and some other stuff. In my naive thinking I imagine that spit another language could help me to debug it more easily. However, look like everyone is building on top of something like .NET (don't like Java), LLVM or make it own VM. I read http://createyourproglang.com/ (great!) and the part of the VM look "easy" to me. So, what I need is the proper criteria and question I need to know in advance to have a fair shot at make this.

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• I'm stuck on User Defined Session destop environment

  - by Dan

  I just installed Ubuntu for the first time dual boot so I get to choose Ubuntu or windows. I then changed the setting where is doesn't ask for my password when booting up. I then installed Edubuntu desktop package. I then hit system and logged out that way i could be at the loggin screen that also lets you select the desktop environment. Edubuntu was not there but User defined session was so i clicked that thinking that might be Edubuntu and logged in. Now im totally stuck. Only walpaper on the screen as i realize now that is normal for user defined session but there is no log out button to change desktop environments now and since I set it to not ask for password at boot up there is no option to change it at start up. If i hit ctrl+alt+del it only lets you shutdown, restart, suspend, or hybernate.... no logg out. I have hit every key on the keybourd hoping something will pop up. I thought this must be a simple noob mistake that there must be endless artiles about this so did searches on google and forums and was shocked to find nothing about this. My next step unless someone can help is to uninstall and reinstall.

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• Bright Minds in Singapore: Oracle Graduate Hiring

  - by user769227

   Last week I was in Singapore and had the opportunity to take part in our graduate interviewing that we are currently undertaking as part of our ASEAN hiring. I always feel fortunate to get the chance to meet and talk with students in the APAC region and taking time to meet some of the students we interviewed in Singapore last week is no exception. The excitement and enthusiasm of many of the students that I spoke to last week really stands out but what really brought some of them to the forefront for me was their creative ways of thinking and the level of professionalism that I saw in the students. Some of the presentation and communication skills that I saw displayed would rival experienced IT Consultants in the industry.  We still have more interviews to follow up from last week, but I am confident that of the students we had the chance to meet last week some of them will go on to have bright and successful careers here at Oracle.  To all the students that came in and spent the day with us, I want to thank you for giving us your time and for sharing your thoughts and ideas with us. From a business perspective I think you all will go on and do great things and from a personal stand point I enjoyed many of the conversations I had and feel lucky to meet with you. Best of luck with the remainder of your interviews and I hope to see some of you in the halls on my next visit to Singapore.

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• Working Abroad Advice Needed

  - by RBA

  Hi, First of all, Happy New Year everybody! I wish you for 2011 all the best! For several years I was thinking about to work abroad, and I want to make this step(to work in a/several foreign countries, for several years). I am a Software Developer with a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science, with a +4 years of experience in Delphi(and small working experience in other programming languages). Until now I've applied at aprox. 100 positions over the world, and I've been contacted by 4-5 hiring managers. Our technical discussions went good, but then we reached at working visa 'problem'. I don't have legal/health problems, but I don't poses a working permit in other countries except Romania. I've been reading several forums concerning the working visas (here I take out working visa for US or other 'hard to get visa' countries), and there are several steps which companies must do (so I can take out the bureaucracy problem) to make the papers. Concerning the cost of a visa, this goes up to one medium salary from that country(in most of the cases). I've been working for the last years with different clients, from a wide variety of countries, and I don't believe I will have problems with integration in a foreign country So, the problem is that the market don't need Delphi Developers (there is a small amount of open positions on the recruiting sites), and I should start learning other programming language(all the time is better to know other programming languages - but to master it, requires some time) with a higher market 'rank' (Java/C#/etc), OR the problem is only concerning the working visa, and maybe the reticence of the employer to foreign possible candidates? I'm asking this especially for those users who made this step in their life or they want to make it in the future. Best regards,

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• Mapping dynamic buffers in Direct3D11 in Windows Store apps

  - by Donnie

  I'm trying to make instanced geometry in Direct3D11, and the ID3D11DeviceContext1->Map() call is failing with the very helpful error of "Invalid Parameter" when I'm attempting to update the instance buffer. The buffer is declared as a member variable: Microsoft::WRL::ComPtr<ID3D11Buffer> m_instanceBuffer; Then I create it (which succeeds): D3D11_BUFFER_DESC instanceDesc; ZeroMemory(&instanceDesc, sizeof(D3D11_BUFFER_DESC)); instanceDesc.Usage = D3D11_USAGE_DYNAMIC; instanceDesc.ByteWidth = sizeof(InstanceData) * MAX_INSTANCE_COUNT; instanceDesc.BindFlags = D3D11_BIND_VERTEX_BUFFER; instanceDesc.CPUAccessFlags = D3D11_CPU_ACCESS_WRITE; instanceDesc.MiscFlags = 0; instanceDesc.StructureByteStride = 0; DX::ThrowIfFailed(d3dDevice->CreateBuffer(&instanceDesc, NULL, &m_instanceBuffer)); However, when I try to map it: D3D11_MAPPED_SUBRESOURCE inst; DX::ThrowIfFailed(d3dContext->Map(m_instanceBuffer.Get(), 0, D3D11_MAP_WRITE, 0, &inst)); The map call fails with E_INVALIDARG. Nothing is NULL incorrectly, and this being one of my first D3D apps I'm currently stumped on what to do next to track it down. I'm thinking I must be creating the buffer incorrectly, but I can't see how. Any input would be appreciated.

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• C++ Numerical Recipes &ndash; A New Adventure!

  - by JoshReuben

  I am about to embark on a great journey – over the next 6 weeks I plan to read through C++ Numerical Recipes 3rd edition http://amzn.to/YtdpkS I'll be reading this with an eye to C++ AMP, thinking about implementing the suitable subset (non-recursive, additive, commutative) to run on the GPU. APIs supporting HPC, GPGPU or MapReduce are all useful – providing you have the ability to choose the correct algorithm to leverage on them. I really think this is the most fascinating area of programming – a lot more exciting than LOB CRUD !!! When you think about it , everything is a function – we categorize & we extrapolate. As abstractions get higher & less leaky, sooner or later information systems programming will become a non-programmer task – you will be using WYSIWYG designers to build: GUIs MVVM service mapping & virtualization workflows ORM Entity relations In the data source SharePoint / LightSwitch are not there yet, but every iteration gets closer. For information workers, managed code is a race to the bottom. As MS futures are a bit shaky right now, the provider agnostic nature & higher barriers of entry of both C++ & Numerical Analysis seem like a rational choice to me. Its also fascinating – stepping outside the box. This is not the first time I've delved into numerical analysis. 6 months ago I read Numerical methods with Applications, which can be found for free online: http://nm.mathforcollege.com/ 2 years ago I learned the .NET Extreme Optimization library www.extremeoptimization.com – not bad 2.5 years ago I read Schaums Numerical Analysis book http://amzn.to/V5yuLI - not an easy read, as topics jump back & forth across chapters: 3 years ago I read Practical Numerical Methods with C# http://amzn.to/V5yCL9 (which is a toy learning language for this kind of stuff) I also read through AI a Modern Approach 3rd edition END to END http://amzn.to/V5yQSp - this took me a few years but was the most rewarding experience. I'll post progress updates – see you on the other side !

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• Dualboot harddisk encryption

  - by amfcosta

  I have a system with both Ubuntu 11.10 and Windows 7 and I want to encrypt the whole harddisk or at least some of my partitions. My partition table is something like this (the ones marked with * are the ones that need to be encrypted): Windows boot reserved partition *Windows system partition (ntfs) *Windows data partition (ntfs) Ubuntu root partition (ext4) *Ubuntu home partition (ext4) Ubuntu swap As I said I don't need to encrypt the whole disk. What is the best way to accomplish this? Maybe something (TrueCrypt?) where I enter the password before the system boots so that it decrypts the whole hdd? Or maybe individual encryption using Windows-only encryption (for Windows partitions) and Ubuntu home encryption (well, for Ubuntu home partition)? By the way, I almost always use Ubuntu, so it would be nice if I could continue to boot Ubuntu by default but have an option to boot Windows too (like in grub). EDIT: I was thinking of doing this: encrypting ubuntu home with eCryptfs (I think this is used to encrypt home when selected during installation). Encrypting Windows partitions with TrueCrypt. Still having Grub as a bootloader, when I choose ubuntu everything goes as normal (home is decrypted when login in). When I choose windows the TrueCrypt password prompt shows and windows boots.

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• What packages can i use to unroll a complete store with customer service?

  - by acidzombie24

  I havent bought the server yet (possible VPS) but i am thinking about using linux with apache and mono for asp.net support. I don't know much about this. What packages can i use together to have a store with customer support? What i like is 1) A store to purchase one item (its digital). More may be possible but they are likely to be addons which need the first item. 2) Have the the store send messages to my app which will generate registration key and deliver the digital item. 3) Create an account for that customer on a support site used for tickets 4) A Forum. I'd like a private forum for customers and may want their account to be disabled when their product license has expired. 5) A mailing list. I like non customers be able to subscribe to a list and i'd like to know if any customers are on it so i can send different emails to each if desired. Are there packages that make any of these easy? I dont mind writing glue code if i need to but i havent tried any stores, mailing list, ticket system but have installed a forum once long ago. My mail server will likely be through google apps.

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• Kids and programming: ScratchKara

  - by Mike Pagel

  Ever now and then I kept wondering how to share with my kids the excitement of creating something with your computer. Of course, today this is a bit more difficult, as they have seen 3D animation games and well-edited websites. I guess that's why they weren't all that hyped when I found my first computer model at our local recycling facilities (an 8-bit Laser VZ-200 with rubber keys). When I finally got it up and running with an old analog TV set they finally asked whether we could play soccer on it. Needless to say that my showing them how it remembers some BASIC commands and lists and executes them did not make any impression. So the question is for real: How do you get today's kids excited about programming? And just recently I looked again for environments that allow even young kids (mine are 7 and 9 years old now) to do something and have fun. Obviously any real, text-oriented programming language wouldn't work well. To cut it short: Something really nice was built by University of Oldenburg: ScratchKara. It is the perfect mixture of Kara, a simulation of a little ladybug and Scratch, an authoring environment from MIT. ScratchKara allows kids to initially simply explore how the bug moves and turns by pressing the action buttons, then move towards sequencing commands through drag & drop, and eventually end up building algorithms with procedures and functions. Even through it is built for kids and beginners, the environment comes with debugging and refactoring, which I found more than amazing. My kids love it and I have to admit I keep thinking about how to solve a bit more advanced problems with this language, which does not allow you to store any state information (other than your call stack). Yes, I am hooked, too... Once the language is understood you can then move to one of the original Kara versions, where you can define the bug's behavior through finite statemachines, Turing tables, Java and other textual languages. And from there, anything is possible.

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• Representing heightmaps, on disk and when drawing

  - by gardian06

  This is a conglomeration question when answering please specify which part you are addressing. I am looking at creating a maze type game that utilizes elevation. I have a few features I would like to have, but am unsure as to some of the implementation. I have done work doing fileIO maze generation (using a key to read the file, and then generate the level based on that file), but I am unsure how to think about this with elevation in the mix. I think height maps might be a good approach, but don't know how to represent them effectively. for a height map which is more beneficial XML(containing h[u,v] data and key definition), CSV (item1 is key reference, item2 is elevation), or another approach that I have not thought of yet? When it comes to placing the elevation values themselves what kind of deltah values are appropriate to have it noticeable at about a 60degree angle while not really effecting gravity driven physics (assuming some effect while moving up/down hill)? I am thinking of maybe going to procedural generation at some point, but am wondering if it is practical to have a procedurally generated grid (wall squares possibly same dimensions as the open space squares), or if designing to a thin wall open spaces is better? this decision will effect the amount of work need on the graphics end for uniform vs. irregular walls. EDIT: Game will be a elevation maze shooter. Levels/maps will be mazes with elevation the player has to negotiate. Elevations will have effects on "combat" vision, and movement.

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• No Worms Here: Early Bird Registration Begins for Oracle OpenWorld

  - by Oracle OpenWorld Blog Team

  Save US$500 with your Early Bird registration By Karen Shamban Early Birds for Oracle OpenWorld won’t catch any worms, but they will catch great savings: $US500! If you register now, those savings can be yours. If you're thinking about attending and wondering what’s happening as the preparation for OpenWorld continues, here’s a quick rundown: •    Review teams are selecting the presenters and topics that will provide attendees with superior technical session content •    Knowledgeable partners and sponsors are being engaged•    In-depth demos and labs are being developed•    Extraordinary experiences are being created•    Fantastic networking events are in the works Think you’d like to attend OpenWorld but concerned about time and budget being tight? If that’s the case, check out the Discover pass. It gives you access to keynotes, designated sessions, exhibition halls, the Oracle DEMOgrounds, and more. All for hundreds of dollars less than a full registration package. Want to be there? Learn more about registration options for Oracle OpenWorld. And remember, if you're going to register or have already, book your hotel room now. The best rooms go quickly and are gone before you know it. Have an Oracle OpenWorld topic you’d like to see covered in this blog? Comments welcome!   

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• Efficiency concerning thread granularity

  - by MaelmDev

  Lately, I've been thinking of ways to use multithreading to improve the speed of different parts of a game engine. What confuses me is the appropriate granularity of threads, especially when dealing with single-instruction-multiple-data (SIMD) tasks. Let's use line-of-sight detection as an example. Each AI actor must be able to detect objects of interest around them and mark them. There are three basic ways to go about this with multithreading: Don't use threading at all. Create a thread for each actor. Create a thread for each actor-object combination. Option 1 is obviously going to be the least efficient method. However, choosing between the next two options is more difficult. Only using one thread per actor is still running through every object in series instead of in parallel. However, are CPU's able to create and join threads in the granularity posed in Option 3 efficiently? It seems like that many calls to the OS could be really slow, and varying enormously between different hardware.

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• Working with fubar/refuctored code

  - by Keyo

  I'm working with some code which was written by a contractor who left a year ago leaving a number of projects with buggy, disgustingly bad code. This is what I call cowboy PHP, say no more. Ideally I'd like to leave the project as is and never touch it again. Things break, requirements change and it needs to be maintained. Part A needs to be changed. There is a bug I cannot reproduce. Part A is connect to parts B D and E. This kind of work gives me a headache and makes me die a little inside. It kills my motivation and productivity. To be honest I'd say it's affecting my mental health. Perhaps being at the start of my career I'm being naive to think production code should be reasonably clean. I would like to hear from anyone else who has been in this situation before. What did you do to get out of it? I'm thinking long term I might have to find another job. Edit I've moved on from this company now, to a place where idiots are not employed. The code isn't perfect but it's at least manageable and peer reviewed. There are a lot of people in the comments below telling me that software is messy like this. Sure I don't agree with the way some programmers do things but this code was seriously mangled. The guy who wrote it tried to reinvent every wheel he could, and badly. He stopped getting work from us because of his bad code that nobody on the team could stand. If it were easy to refactor I would have. Eventually after many 'just do this small 10minute change' situations had ballooned into hours of lost time (regardless of who on the team was doing the work) my boss finally caved in it was rewritten.

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• Best practice for designing a risk-style board game

  - by jyanks

  I'm just trying to figure out how to set up the code for a game like risk... I would like it to be extensible, so that I can have multiple maps (ie- World, North America, Eurasia, Africa) so hardcoding in the map doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense I'm a bit confused on how/where items should be stored/accessed. Here are the objects I see the game theoretically using: -Countries/Territories -Cities (Can be contained within territories) -Capitols -Connections -Continents -Map -Troops At the moment, I feel like: -A map should have a list of continents and countries. The continents would be more of a 'logical' thing where the continents would just be lists of countries that are checked for bonuses at the start of turns -Countries should have a list of countries that they're connected to for the connections What I can't figure out is: Where do I store the troops? Do I have an object for every single troop or do I just store the number of troops on a country object as an integer? What about capitols and cities? Do those just have a reference to the country they reside in? Is there anything I'm not seeing here that's going to screw me over in the long run with the way that I'm thinking about things now? Any advice would be appreciated.

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