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• Putting Together a Game Design Team?

  - by Kaia

  I'm attempting to put together a game design team that is willing to help me design/program, test, and somewhat produce the game we make to the public. I need anyone who knows anything about programming/coding, designing, etc. Once we get it up and running and out into the world (over dramatic maybe? haha) I have ideas of generating a profit from it so there is a possibility of payment. My thinking on it (so far) is this: 2D (possibly. I haven't decided if I want it 2D or 3D. It really depends on what is easier) 3rd person. Adventure (I want there to be a point to it, but like a point with no real end) I want there to be a story to it. If you've ever played Dofus, think like that. There is a story to the game, but no real end. I want (if possible) to include mini-games. These could end up becoming a possible way for a player to aquire in-game money, quest items, etc. If anyone is interested in helping me create the story line/script (which we will finsih first, before creating the game) please contact me. I want to get this completed as soon as possible.

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• OpenGL + Allegro. Moving from software drawing X Y to openGL is confusing

  - by Aaron

  Having a fair bit of trouble. I'm used to Allegro and drawing sprites on a bitmap buffer at X Y coords. Now I've started a test project with OpenGL and its weird. Basically, as far as I know, theirs many ways to draw stuff in OpenGL. At the moment, I think I'm creating a Quad? Whatever that is, and I think Ive given it a texture of a bitmap and them im drawing that: GLuint gl_image; bitmap = load_bitmap("cat.bmp", NULL); gl_image = allegro_gl_make_texture_ex(AGL_TEXTURE_MASKED, bitmap, GL_RGBA); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, gl_image); glBegin(GL_QUADS); glColor4ub(255, 255, 255, 255); glTexCoord2f(0, 0); glVertex3f(-0.5, 0.5, 0); glTexCoord2f(1, 0); glVertex3f(0.5, 0.5, 0); glTexCoord2f(1, 1); glVertex3f(0.5, -0.5, 0); glTexCoord2f(0, 1); glVertex3f(-0.5, -0.5, 0); glEnd(); So yeah. So I got a few questions: Is this the best way of drawing a sprite? Is it suitable? The big question: Can anyone help / Does anyone know any tutorials on this weird coordinate thing? If it even is that. It's vastly different from XY, but I want to learn it. I was thinking maybe I could learn how this weird positioning stuff works, and then write a function to try and translate it to X and Y coords. Thats about it. I'm still trying to figure it all out on my own but any contributions you guys can make would be greatly appreciated =D Thanks!

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• 3D space game development

  - by user1693061

  I want to develop a 3D game (sci-fi type with spaceships) which can be played on multiplayer mode and by multiplayer i mean around 10 players for start as it will be a personal testing project and mostly educational. I have been searching for some days about the available languages and engines but i am kinda confused. Since i have been learning Java for my 1st year in I.T university and i have pretty good understanding i thought i would go with the Java language and develop that game on an applet so it could be played on a browser. After going through an applet game tutorial i understood how graphics work on an applet. So.. 1st question: Could an applet carry the burden of a 3D game especially on multiplayer? My thinking: It's a space game so the graphics should not be such a big problem since it wont be that crowded with entities apart from ships, planets and some effects. If the java applet is not the way for my project i would't mind "developing it on desktop"(i mean not making it a browser game). 2nd question: Should i use Unity engine for my purpose(space game)? If not name other language/engine combo.

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• Disallow robots.txt from being accessed in a browser but still accessible by spiders?

  - by Michael Irigoyen

  We make use of the robots.txt file to prevent Google (and other search spiders) from crawling certain pages/directories in our domain. Some of these directories/files are secret, meaning they aren't linked (except perhaps on other pages encompassed by the robots.txt file). Some of these directories/files aren't secret, we just don't want them indexed. If somebody browses directly to www.mydomain.com/robots.txt, they can see the contents of the robots.txt file. From a security standpoint, this is not something we want publicly available to anybody. Any directories that contain secure information are set behind authentication, but we still don't want them to be discoverable unless the user specifically knows about them. Is there a way to provide a robots.txt file but to have it's presence masked by John Doe accessing it from his browser? Perhaps by using PHP to generate the document based on certain criteria? Perhaps something I'm not thinking of? We'd prefer a way to centrally do it (meaning a <meta> tag solution is less than ideal).

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• Thoughts on exception handling.

  - by AndyScott

  Was working on a windows form app (something I haven't done in a while), adding threading and logging so that it would work a little more smoothly and have a record of who did what.  I was just about at the point where I was going to check it into source control when I noticed that the Output window was showing "A first chance exception of type 'System.InvalidCastException' occurred in mscorlib.dll", so I googled it.  In reading some threads about the error, I came across the following comment and it got me thinking: "In addition, while they should be avoided if possible, exceptions are a quite legitimate part of program execution. It's their going unhandled that is a real issue, because that means crashy, crashy." How do you normally use exception handling?  I feel that exceptions are intended to handle errors in code (in my experience generally related to bad data making its way into the system).  Now don't get me wrong, I understand that exceptions happen and should be dealt with, but I feel that they are a "last resort" to keep a program from crashing, but should never be a way to pass data or continue logical processing that could be handled in standard code flow. I mention this, because I have seen it done. What do you think?

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• How to change partitioning - may involve conversion of a partition from primary to extended

  - by george_k

  I am having trouble thinking through how I can achieve my partitioning goals. Now my partitions are: sda1 (winA) (primary) sda2 (winB) (primary) sda3 (/ for ubuntu) (primary) What I want to migrate into is (obviously partition numbers need not be exactly like that) sda1 (winA) (primary) sda2 (winB) (primary) sda3 (/boot) (primary) sda4 - extended which will contain sda5 (/home) sda6 (/ for ubuntu) sda7 (swap) I know I may be asking too much, but what would a way to do it? One way I have thought is Create a new primary partition for /boot and split it from the root partition into the new one. It shouldn't be too hard. Then the disk will have 4 primary partitions. Somehow convert the root ubuntu partition from primary to extended. Split that last partition in 3 extended partitions (root, /home, swap) and split the contents there. I am obviously stuck on the 2nd part. Another way could be (maybe easier): Create an extended partition (or two) Split /home there Somehow move everything except /boot to the extended partition. This way /boot will stay on the primary partition that exists now, and will be shrunk as needed, and everything else will end up to the extended partitions. This may sound better, but I'm not too sure how to do the 3rd part. Some details: The disk is almost empty, so I have space to move things around in it, shrink the ubuntu partition etc. I don't want to touch the windows partitions in any way. Reinstallation is not an option. Also using a different partitioning scheme with fewer partitions is not an option (for example not having a separate /boot) Any ideas?

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• How to stay creative when going through tough emotional times (divorce, family death, etc)? [closed]

  - by gaearon

  Hi everyone. I believe this is not a duplicate of motivation question because I want to especially emphasize the emotional breakdown. You may conquer lack of motivation by working harder and getting through the dip, however this was not the case when I was separating with my girlfriend. I actually liked the project, it was (and it still is!) my first programming job at an amazing workplace and I wasn't being pressured in any way but I found myself absolutely unable to code, blankly staring at the screen, my thoughts disorganized, the feeling of emptiness all in my chest. I could perform some straightforward coding but anything that involves creative thinking, designing abstractions, solving new problems and, worst of all, fixing bugs in legacy code, completely wiped out my brain to the point I started avoiding work, which I never have done before. Coffee only used to make it worse. Eventually I got over that, and I remember the happy day I solved a problem elegantly and thought—hell, first time in a month! Thankfully the project wasn't top priority and I had the time to catch up. I wonder now, was there any other way to boost my productivity back then? I bet people would say I should've taken a break—and I think I really should have—but what if I needed the money? Didn't want to lose my job? Are there any ways to trick your brain into being creative despite emotional losses? From your experience, would it be worth talking to my boss, collegues?

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• What should you do when presented with a horrible design?

  - by plua

  Our firm makes websites. We also design websites. But sometimes our client brings his/her own design. This is often made by an in-house designer, or it is the same design they used for something else. However, sometimes these designs look awful. And I am talking really unprofessional, unbalanced, uncool. But the client really wants this design. I really do not like working with a design that is so awful. It takes away all pleasure in coding. You code. You check the demo. Works great. Looks awful. It's just not fun. And ultimately the client might be happy, but 1) I do not feel proud of the final product and 2) the community sees you 'develop' ugly websites, which is bad for your image. Anybody experiencing this kind of stuff? What do you recommend? I've been thinking: Blocking these clients. If somebody has an 'own' design, ask to see it first. Then somehow politely decline. Drawback: you lose a client. Create a new design. Have our in-house designers work one something really cool. Drawbacks: client would need to pay for this (without asking for it), or it will be declined and the company loses time = money. And it might come as an insult if you propose a new design out of the blue. THEIR designer won't like it for sure. Put a clear disclaimer at the bottom of the site: Website design by XXXXX, Website development by US. Helps for the community-impact (if people pay attention), but not for the uneasy feeling.

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• generating maps

  - 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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• suggestions for lonewolf dev setup

  - by d33j

  I'm looking for some suggestions for a better development setup. Background: I'm a crusty old software engineer (mostly java of late) and I have around 50 - 100 incomplete java projects scattered everywhere, usb keys, HDDs, and spanning across 5 or 6 computers etc, which have been put on hold for a few years (ie: family). I have no version control at home. I've been using IntelliJ for around 10 years, so that's the only constant. I'm thinking of nominating one machine as a headless server to put all my projects on, maybe a ubuntu box, that way It won't matter which device I'm on, all my projects can be accessed (and I don't have to waste time actually looking for them). I don't need to access code over the net. These are my own 'happy place' projects so I only work on them when I'm at home, however I can see the benefit of the tasking app being online, that way if I think of something while on public transport lets say, I can add it then & there, but it's not a requirement. I can wait until I get home to create tasks. Summary: So I need some sort of version control so I can rollback mistakes, and some sort of simple tasking software where I can assign tasks for myself later on when I get time. I use Subversion, Sonar, Jira and Crucible at work but I think it's a little bit of an overkill for me though. What do you suggest?

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• Correct architecture for running and stopping complex tasks in the background

  - by Phonon

  I'm having trouble working out the correct architecture for the following task. I have a GUI in Windows Forms that contains a ListBox, listing certain architectural layouts. One an item in this list is selected, a custom Control displays an interactive visualization of the selected layout. Drawing of this interactive diagram is a CPU-intensive task, and can take up to a second on my machine. The kind of functionality I'm trying to achieve is that if a user wants to quickly scroll through the layouts in the ListBox (say, holding down the down arrow key), I don't want my computer to sit there thinking about how to draw the layout before it allows the user to do anything else. The obvious answer is, of course, to run the layout calculations in a separate thread. But how do I make that thread return a whole control? How do I make sure I'm not running two layout calculations at once? I'm fairly new to this complex GUI business. So the real question is what is the right architecture to implement something like this? This seems like something people do all the time, but finding any suggestions on how to do it properly is really difficult.

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• What technical details should a programmer of a web application consider before making the site public?

  - by Joel Coehoorn

  What things should a programmer implementing the technical details of a web application consider before making the site public? If Jeff Atwood can forget about HttpOnly cookies, sitemaps, and cross-site request forgeries all in the same site, what important thing could I be forgetting as well? I'm thinking about this from a web developer's perspective, such that someone else is creating the actual design and content for the site. So while usability and content may be more important than the platform, you the programmer have little say in that. What you do need to worry about is that your implementation of the platform is stable, performs well, is secure, and meets any other business goals (like not cost too much, take too long to build, and rank as well with Google as the content supports). Think of this from the perspective of a developer who's done some work for intranet-type applications in a fairly trusted environment, and is about to have his first shot and putting out a potentially popular site for the entire big bad world wide web. Also, I'm looking for something more specific than just a vague "web standards" response. I mean, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS over HTTP are pretty much a given, especially when I've already specified that you're a professional web developer. So going beyond that, Which standards? In what circumstances, and why? Provide a link to the standard's specification.

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• How exactly to implement multiple threads in a game

  - by xerwin

  So I recently started learning Java, and having a interest in playing games as well as developing them, naturally I want to create game in Java. I have experience with games in C# and C++ but all of them were single-threaded simple games. But now, I learned how easy it is to make threads in Java, I want to take things to the next level. I started thinking about how would I actually implement threading in a game. I read couple of articles that say the same thing "Usually you have thread for rendering, for updating game logic, for AI, ..." but I haven't (or didn't look hard enough) found example of implementation. My idea how to make implementation is something like this (example for AI) public class AIThread implements Runnable{ private List<AI> ai; private Player player; /*...*/ public void run() { for (int i = 0; i < ai.size(); i++){ ai.get(i).update(player); } Thread.sleep(/* sleep until the next game "tick" */); } } I think this could work. If I also had a rendering and updating thread list of AI in both those threads, since I need to draw the AI and I need to calculate the logic between player and AI(But that could be moved to AIThread, but as an example) . Coming from C++ I'm used to do thing elegantly and efficiently, and this seems like neither of those. So what would be the correct way to handle this? Should I just keep multiple copies of resources in each thread or should I have the resources on one spot, declared with synchronized keyword? I'm afraid that could cause deadlocks, but I'm not yet qualified enough to know when a code will produce deadlock.

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• Code execution time out occationally

  - by Athul k Surendran

  I am working on an e-commerce website. There is a case where I need to fetch the whole data in database through third-party API and send it to an indexing engine. This third-party API has many functions like getproducts, getproductprice, etc., and each of that functions will return the data in XML format. From there I will take charge, I will use various API calls and will handle the XML data with XSLT. And will write to a CSV file. This file will be uploaded to an Indexing engine. Right now I have details of 8000 products to feed the engine, and almost all time the this process takes about 15 min to complete, and sometimes fails. I can't find a better solution for this. I am thinking about handling the XML data in C# itself and get rid of XSLT. As I think, XSLT is far slower than C#. Is it a good Idea? Or what else I can do to solve this issue?

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• I can't program because the code I am using uses old coding styles. Is this normal to programmers? [closed]

  - by Renato Dinhani Conceição

  I'm in my first real job as programmer, but I can't solve any problems because of the coding style used. The code here: Does not have comments Does not have functions (50, 100, 200, 300 or more lines executed in sequence) Uses a lot of if statements with a lot of paths Has variables that make no sense (eg.: cf_cfop, CF_Natop, lnom, r_procod) Uses an old language (Visual FoxPro 8 from 2002), but there are new releases from 2007. I feel like I have gone back to 1970. Is it normal for a programmer familiar with OOP, clean-code, design patterns, etc. to have trouble with coding in this old-fashion way? EDIT: All the answers are very good. For my (un)hope, appears that there are a lot of this kind of code bases around the world. A point mentioned to all answers is refactor the code. Yeah, I really like to do it. In my personal project, I always do this, but... I can't refactor the code. Programmers are only allowed to change the files in the task that they are designed for. Every change in old code must be keep commented in the code (even with Subversion as version control), plus meta informations (date, programmer, task) related to that change (this became a mess, there are code with 3 used lines and 50 old lines commented). I'm thinking that is not only a code problem, but a management of software development problem.

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• How to implement "bullet time" in a multiplayer game?

  - by Tom

  I have never seen such a feature before, but it should provide an interesting gameplay opportunity. So yes, in a multiplayer/real-time environment (imagine FPS), how could I implement a slow motion/bullet time effect? Something like an illusion for the player that's currently slo-mo'ed. So everybody sees him "real-time", but he sees everything slowed down. Update A sidenote: keep in mind that a FPS game has to be balanced in order for it to be fun. So yes, this bullet time feature has to be solid, giving a small advantage to the "player", while not taking away from other players. Plus, there is a possibility that two players could activate their bullet time at the same time. Furthermore: I'm going to implement this in the future no matter what it takes. And, the idea is to build a whole new game engine for all this. If that gives new options, I'm more then interested in hearing the ideas. Meanwhile, here with my team we're thinking about this too, when our theory will be crafted, I'm going to share it here. Is this even possible? So, the question on "is this even possible" has been answered, now it's time to find the best solution. I'm keeping the "answer" until something exceptionally good comes up, like a prototype theory with something close to working pseudo code.

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• Understanding IDAT chunk of PNG file format

  - by DRapp

  From the sample image below, I have a border in yellow just for display purposes only. The actual .png file is a simple black/white image 3 pixels by 3 pixels. I was originally thinking to try as a 2x2, but that would not help trying to interpret low/hi vs hi/low drawing stream. At least this way, I would have two black, one white from the top, or one white, two black from the bottom.. So I read the chunks of data, get to the IDAT chunk, decode that (zlib) and come up with 12 bytes as follows 00 20 00 40 00 80 So, my question, how does the above get broken down into the 3x3 black and white sample... Also, it is saved in palette format and properly recognizes the bit depth of 1 and color palette of 2... color pallet[0] is RGBA all zeros. Palette1 has RGBA of 255, 255, 255, 0 I'll eventually get into the multiple other depth formats later, just wanted to start with what would expect to be the easiest. Part II. Any guidance on handling the other depth formats would help if anything special to be considered especially regarding alpha channel (which I am already looking for in the palette) that might trip me up.

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• Most suited technology for browser games?

  - by Tingle

  I was thinking about making a 2D MMO which I would in the long run support on various plattforms like desktop, mac, browser, android and ios. The server will be c++/linux based and the first client would go in the browser. So I have done some research and found that webgl and flash 11 support hardware accelerated rendering, I saw some other things like normal HTML5 painting. So my question is, which technology should I use for such a project? My main goal would be that the users have a hassle free experience using what there hardware can give them with hardware acceleration. And the client should work on the most basic out-of-the-box pc's that any casual pc or mac user has. And another criteria would be that it should be developer friendly. I've messed with webgl abit for example and that would require writing a engine from scratch - which is acceptable but not preferred. Also, in case of non-actionscript, which kind language is most prefered in terms of speed and flexability. I'm not to fond of javascript due to the garbage collector but have learned to work around it. Thank you for you time.

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• My computer will not reboot after fresh install of ubuntu 12.04LTS

  - by user170715

  I bought a new computer yesterday and it came with Windows 8. When installing Ubuntu, i choose the erase and install option thinking that Ubuntu would install easily like it did for my old laptop... After a successful install and following the instructions telling me to reboot to finish installation and remove installation media. It worked and my computer booted fine, however once I began installing updates via update manager and activating additional driver {ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver (post-release updates)} out of the following: Experimental AMD binary Xorg driver and kernel module ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver (*experimental*beta) ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver (post-release updates) Then reboot to finish making changes I reboot and get an error (Reboot and select proper boot device) At this point I was stuck, so I eventually reinstalled ubuntu and repeated the exacted same steps until right before i rebooted to finish making changes. However this time i used this Boot Repair tool sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair boot-repair After running the program i get a "boot successfully repaired" message. Then I try to reboot again and get the GNU Grub screen where it says would you like to boot: normal recovery memorytest Once it begins loading, you see the code moving across the screen then it pauses when it gets to and doesnt do anything. If someone could tell me how to fix this or get Windows 8 back soon, I'd appreciate it because like i said i just bought it yesterday and now i cant even use it.

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• Better way to go up/down slope based on yaw?

  - by CyanPrime

  Alright, so I got a bit of movement code and I'm thinking I'm going to need to manually input when to go up/down a slope. All I got to work with is the slope's normal, and vector, and My current and previous position, and my yaw. Is there a better way to rotate whether I go up or down the slope based on my yaw? Vector3f move = new Vector3f(0,0,0); move.x = (float)-Math.toDegrees(Math.cos(Math.toRadians(yaw))); move.z = (float)-Math.toDegrees(Math.sin(Math.toRadians(yaw))); move.normalise(); if(move.z < 0 && slopeNormal.z > 0 || move.z > 0 && slopeNormal.z < 0){ if(move.x < 0 && slopeNormal.x > 0 || move.x > 0 && slopeNormal.x < 0){ move.y += slopeVec.y; } } if(move.z > 0 && slopeNormal.z > 0 || move.z < 0 && slopeNormal.z < 0){ if(move.x > 0 && slopeNormal.x > 0 || move.x < 0 && slopeNormal.x < 0){ move.y -= slopeVec.y; } } move.scale(movementSpeed * delta); Vector3f.add(pos, move, pos);

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• What is wrong with my logic for the divide and conquer algorithm for Closest pair problem?

  - by Programming Noob

  I have been following Coursera's course on Algorithms and came up with a thought about the divide/conquer algorithm for the closest pair problem, that I want clarified. As per Prof Roughgarden's algorithm (which you can see here if you're interested): For a given set of points P, of which we have two copies - sorted in X and Y direction - Px and Py, the algorithm can be given as closestPair(Px,Py): Divide points into left half - Q, and right half - R, and form sorted copies of both halves along x and y directions - Qx,Qy,Rx,Ry Let closestPair(Qx,Qy) be points p1 and q1 Let closestPair(Rx,Ry) be p2,q2 Let delta be minimum of dist(p1,q1) and dist(p2,q2) This is the unfortunate case, let p3,q3 be the closestSplitPair(Px,Py,delta) Return the best result Now, the clarification that I want is related to step 5. I should say this beforehand, that what I'm suggesting, is barely any improvement at all, but if you're still interested, read ahead. Prof R says that since the points are already sorted in X and Y directions, to find the best pair in step 5, we need to iterate over points in the strip of width 2*delta, starting from bottom to up, and in the inner loop we need only 7 comparisions. Can this be bettered to just one? How I think is possible seemed a little difficult to explain in plain text, so I drew a diagram and wrote it on paper and uploaded it here: Since no one else came up with is, I'm pretty sure there's some error in my line of thought. But I have literally been thinking about this for HOURS now, and I just HAD to post this. It's all that is in my head. Can someone point out where I'm going wrong?

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• Would form keys reduce the amount of spam we receive?

  - by David Wilkins

  I work for a company that has an online store, and we constantly have to deal with a lot of spam product reviews, and bogus customer accounts. These are all created by automated systems and are more of a nuisance than anything. What I am thinking of (in lieu of captcha, which can be broken) is adding a sort of form key solution to all relevant forms. I know for certain some of the spammers are using XRumer, and I know they seldom request a page before sending us the form data (Is this the definition of CSRF?) so I would think that tying a key to each requested form would at least stem the tide. I also know the spammers are lazy and don't check their work, or they would see that we have never posted a spam review, and they have never gained any revenue from our site. Would this succeed in significantly reducing the volume of spam product reviews and customer account creations we are seeing? EDIT: To clarify what I mean by "Form Keys": I am referring to creating a unique identifier (or "key") that will be used as an invisible, static form field. This key will also be stored either in the database (relative to the user session) or in a cookie variable. When the form's target gets a request, the key must be validated for the form's data to be processed. Those pesky bots won't have the key because they don't load the javascript that generates the form (they just send a blind request to the target) and even if they did load the javascript once, they'd only have one valid key, and I'm not sure they even use cookies.

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• Handling deleted users - separate or same table?

  - by Alan Beats

  The scenario is that I've got an expanding set of users, and as time goes by, users will cancel their accounts which we currently mark as 'deleted' (with a flag) in the same table. If users with the same email address (that's how users log in) wish to create a new account, they can signup again, but a NEW account is created. (We have unique ids for every account, so email addresses can be duplicated amongst live and deleted ones). What I've noticed is that all across our system, in the normal course of things we constantly query the users table checking the user is not deleted, whereas what I'm thinking is that we dont need to do that at all...! [Clarification1: by 'constantly querying', I meant that we have queries which are like: '... FROM users WHERE isdeleted="0" AND ...'. For example, we may need to fetch all users registered for all meetings on a particular date, so in THAT query, we also have FROM users WHERE isdeleted="0" - does this make my point clearer?] (1) continue keeping deleted users in the 'main' users table (2) keep deleted users in a separate table (mostly required for historical book-keeping) What are the pros and cons of either approach?

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• What are some ways to separate game logic from animations and the draw loop?

  - by TMV

  I have only previously made flash games, using MovieClips and such to separate out my animations from my game logic. Now I am getting into trying my hand at making a game for Android, but the game programming theory around separating these things still confuses me. I come from a background of developing non game web applications so I am versed in more MVC like patterns and am stuck in that mindset as I approach game programming. I want to do things like abstract my game by having, for example, a game board class that contains the data for a grid of tiles with instances of a tile class that each contain properties. I can give my draw loop access to this and have it draw the game board based on the properties of each tile on the game board, but I don't understand where exactly animation should go. As far as I can tell, animation sort of sits between the abstracted game logic (model) and the draw loop (view). With my MVC mindset, it's frustrating trying to decide where animation is actually supposed to go. It would have quite a bit of data associated with it like a model, but seemingly needs to be very closely coupled with the draw loop in order to have things like frame independent animation. How can I break out of this mindset and start thinking about patterns that make more sense for games?

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• Forking a GPL dual licensed software with business owned copyrights

  - by Eric

  After receiving some threats of the copyrights holder of a dual licensed software(GPL2 and commercial) to buy the commercial version for projects in production, I am thinking to make a fork. In a case of GPL2 and commercially dual licensed with business owned copyrights software, is forking the GPL2 version an option? Also, is forking a good way to deal with such cases? Background information The software is a web CMS released under 2 versions a GPL2 free open source edition and a commercial edition including technical support and extra functionality. The problem is that now, basing their argumentation on the "distribution" definition of the GPL2, the company holding the copyrights argue that delivering the software and some extensions to a client is considered as a "distribution". And that such a "distribution" falls under the GPL2 obligation to release the custom made extension code. Custom made extensions are mainly designs, templates and very specific functionality. Basically they give me 3 choices: Buying the commercial licensed edition for projects based on the GPL in production, Deleting all the projects in production based on GPL2 version, Releasing all the extensions as GPL2 code. The first 2 options are nothing realistic for finished projects. The third option could be fine, but as most of the extensions are very specific, cleaning the code to make it usable by other users means lot of works and also I am not sure the clients will appreciate to have their website designs and specific functionality released publicly. The copyrights holding company even contacted some clients directly, giving them the "choice". I know that this is a very corporate interpretation of GPL2, and a such action is nothing close to legal, but as an independent developer, I don't want to take the risk to get involved in some long and tiring legal procedures. PS. This question was first asked on Stack Overflow where it felt out of the scope and closed, after reading the present site FAQ, discussing about software licensing seems fine.

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