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• Event Aggregator.. not getting a response, how to determine completion?

  - by Duncan_m

  I'm rewriting a vehicle tracking application, a google maps based thing.. The users are able to search for a vehicle by typing a few characters of the vehicles "callsign". My application is based around a sort of "event bus" within Backbone.. when a search occurs I send a message on the bus saying something like "does anyone match this?".. If a marker matches the search term it responds with a sort of "yes, I match!".. My challenge arises when no-one matches, I get no response.. it feels a little hacky to "wait a little while" and check if a response has been recieved.. The application is based around Backbone.js and using the Event Aggregator pattern described in the answer to this question on Stack Overflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7708195/access-function-in-one-view-from-another-in-backbone-js Is there a well defined design pattern that might assist me here? Sending a request for a response and not getting any responses?

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• When designing an application around Model-View-Controller (MVC), what is in your toolbox?

  - by ericgorr

  There are a lot of great explanations for what the Model-View-Controller design pattern is, but I am having trouble finding good resources showing how to use it in practice. So, when you are starting a new application (doesn't matter what it is), what is in your toolbox? For example, it was suggested that using UML collaboration diagrams ( http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/umlCollaborationDiagrams.pdf ) can be useful when designing an application around MVC, although, I am not certain exactly how or why this might be the case...? So, what is in your toolbox for MVC?

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• Distinguishing between sets of status reports

  - by user1769486

  I am working on an internal database monitoring system and am at a point where I sort of hit the wall in terms of application design. Basically I have an extensible plugin architecture where I shall have an OK, a warning or an error upon running a db verification. My first question whether it is sufficient to have only one status reported with an optional status message or provide the ability to have more than one returned (with attached messages) and then calculate an aggregated overall status. In particular in the latter case my second issue would be how to distinguish between two verification reports with the same status code (as it can come from different triggers). I would need to do this to see whether some change happened between the current and last verification. I could simply have string comparisons of the attached status messages mentioned above but that does not seem very reliable.

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• Wrappers/law of demeter seems to be an anti-pattern...

  - by Robert Fraser

  I've been reading up on this "Law of Demeter" thing, and it (and pure "wrapper" classes in general) seem to generally be anti patterns. Consider an implementation class: class Foo { void doSomething() { /* whatever */ } } Now consider two different implementations of another class: class Bar1 { private static Foo _foo = new Foo(); public static Foo getFoo() { return _foo; } } class Bar2 { private static Foo _foo = new Foo(); public static void doSomething() { _foo.doSomething(); } } And the ways to call said methods: callingMethod() { Bar1.getFoo().doSomething(); // Version 1 Bar2.doSomething(); // Version 2 } At first blush, version 1 seems a bit simpler, and follows the "rule of Demeter", hide Foo's implementation, etc, etc. But this ties any changes in Foo to Bar. For example, if a parameter is added to doSomething, then we have: class Foo { void doSomething(int x) { /* whatever */ } } class Bar1 { private static Foo _foo = new Foo(); public static Foo getFoo() { return _foo; } } class Bar2 { private static Foo _foo = new Foo(); public static void doSomething(int x) { _foo.doSomething(x); } } callingMethod() { Bar1.getFoo().doSomething(5); // Version 1 Bar2.doSomething(5); // Version 2 } In both versions, Foo and callingMethod need to be changed, but in Version 2, Bar also needs to be changed. Can someone explain the advantage of having a wrapper/facade (with the exception of adapters or wrapping an external API or exposing an internal one).

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• dynamic behavior of factory class

  - by manu1001

  I have a factory class that serves out a bunch of properties. Now, the properties might come either from a database or from a properties file. This is what I've come up with. public class Factory { private static final INSTANCE = new Factory(source); private Factory(DbSource source) { // read from db, save properties } private Factory(FileSource source) { // read from file, save properties } // getInstance() and getProperties() here } What's a clean way of switching between these behaviors based on the environment. I want to avoid having to recompile the class each time.

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• QuestionOrAnswer model?

  - by Mark

  My site has Listings. Users can ask Questions about listings, and the author of the listing can respond with an Answer. However, the Answer might need clarification, so I've made them recursive (you can "answer" an answer). So how do I set up the database? The way I have it now looks like this (in Django-style models): class QuestionOrAnswer(Model): user = ForeignKey(User, related_name='questions') listing = ForeignKey(Listing, related_name='questions') parent = models.ForeignKey('self', null=True, blank=True, related_name='children') message = TextField() But what bugs me is that listing is now an attribute of the answers as well (it doesn't need to be). What happens if the database gets mangled and an answer belongs to a different listing than its parent question? That just doesn't make any sense. We can separate it with polymorphism: QuestionOrAnswer user message created updated Question(QuestionOrAnswer) shipment Answer(QuestionOrAnswer) parent = ForeignKey(QuestionOrAnswer) And that ought to work, but now ever question and answer is split into 2 tables. Is it worth this overhead for clearly defined models?

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• Help naming a class that has a single public method called Execute()

  - by devoured elysium

  I have designed the following class that should work kind of like a method (usually the user will just run Execute()): public abstract class ??? { protected bool hasFailed = false; protected bool hasRun = false; public bool HasFailed { get { return hasFailed; } } public bool HasRun { get { return hasRun; } } private void Restart() { hasFailed = false; hasRun = false; } public bool Execute() { ExecuteImplementation(); bool returnValue = hasFailed; Restart(); return returnValue; } protected abstract void ExecuteImplementation(); } My question is: how should I name this class? Runnable? Method(sounds awkward)?

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• Minimize useless tweaking of a numeric app

  - by Potatoswatter

  I'm developing a numeric application (nonlinear optimizer), with a zillion knobs to tweak and rising. It's not my first foray into this domain, but this time there are even more variables in the code and I'm on a tight schedule. Don't want to waste time fiddling. Days or even months can potentially be wasted adjusting variables, recompiling, and reprocessing benchmark datasets. The resulting data is viewed and trouble spots are checked. The overall quality of the solution is reported by the program but the meaning of the report could change over time. (Numeric units for the report are one thing I'm trying to nail down.) One main problem is organizing result files to identify each with specific code changes. Note taking can be a pain, is there software to help with this? Are there agreed best practices to making this kind of development cycle reliably move forward? The solver package converges to its optimal solution with mechanical determination, but I'm all too familiar with the way an excess of design decisions can mire development.

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• Prioritize compiler functionality/tasks, when designing a new language

  - by Mahdi

  Well, the question should be so hard to ask and I expect couple of down votes, however, I'm really interested to have your ideas and recommendations. :) I've already made a very simple compiler, with a few and limited functionality. Now I'm getting more on it to make it more like a real-world compiler. I definitely need to start over 'cause I've much more experience and ideas in this area rather a few years ago. So, I want to know, right now, from the very first step again, which tasks/features for the new compiler should implement first and which tasks has lower priority rather than others? For example, I'd say, first I'd go to decide about the object-oriented structure for the new language, but you might say, hey, just go for a compiler that could define a variable, when you finished that, then start thinking about OOP designs ... I prefer to hear the pros and cons for your suggestions also. Actually I like to start from Bottom to Top, where I could add simplest tasks first, and later adding more complex ones, but I'm totally open for any new ideas, and really appreciate that. Also please consider that I'm thinking about the design concepts. Actually I expect answers like: Priority from Highest to Lowest: variables, because .... functions, because .... loops, because .... ... Not: define a syntax for your new language, and start parsing your source code ...

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• Struggling with the Single Responsibility Principle

  - by AngryBird

  Consider this example: I have a website. It allows users to make posts (can be anything) and add tags that describe the post. In the code, I have two classes that represent the post and tags. Lets call these classes Post and Tag. Post takes care of creating posts, deleting posts, updating posts, etc. Tag takes care of creating tags, deleting tags, updating tags, etc. There is one operation that is missing. The linking of tags to posts. I am struggling with who should do this operation. It could fit equally well in either class. On one hand, the Post class could have a function that takes a Tag as a parameter, and then stores it in a list of tags. On the other hand, the Tag class could have a function that takes a Post as a parameter and links the Tag to the Post. The above is just an example of my problem. I am actually running into this with multiple classes that are all similar. It could fit equally well in both. Short of actually putting the functionality in both classes, what conventions or design styles exist to help me solve this problem. I am assuming there has to be something short of just picking one? Maybe putting it in both classes is the correct answer?

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• From a DDD perspective is a report generating service a domain service or an infrastructure service?

  - by Songo

  Let assume we have the following service whose responsibility is to generate Excel reports: class ExcelReportService{ public String generateReport(String fileFormatFilePath, ResultSet data){ ReportFormat reportFormat = new ReportFormat(fileFormatFilePath); ExcelDataFormatterService excelDataFormatterService = new ExcelDataFormatterService(); FormattedData formattedData = excelDataFormatterService.format(data); ExcelFileService excelFileService = new ExcelFileService(); String reportPath= excelFileService.generateReport(reportFormat,formattedData); return reportPath; } } This is pseudo code for the service I want to design where: fileFormatFilePath: path to a configuration file where I'll keep the format of my excel file (headers, column widths, number of columns,..etc) data: the actual records returned from the database. This data can't be used directly coz I might need to make further calculations to the data before inserting them to the excel file. ReportFormat: Value object to hold the report format, has methods like getHeaders(), getColumnWidth(),...etc. ExcelDataFormatterService: a service to hold any logic that need to be applied to the data returned from the database before inserting it to the file. FormattedData: Value object the represents the formatted data to be inserted. ExcelFileService: a wrapper top the 3rd party library that generates the excel file. Now how do you determine whether a service is an infrastructure or domain service? I have the following 3 services here: ExcelReportService, ExcelDataFormatterService and ExcelFileService?

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• Implementing a ILogger interface to log data

  - by Jon

  I have a need to write data to file in one of my classes. Obviously I will pass an interface into my class to decouple it. I was thinking this interface will be used for testing and also in other projects. This is my interface: //This could be used by filesystem, webservice public interface ILogger { List<string> PreviousLogRecords {get;set;} void Log(string Data); } public interface IFileLogger : ILogger { string FilePath; bool ValidFileName; } public class MyClassUnderTest { public MyClassUnderTest(IFileLogger logger) {....} } [Test] public void TestLogger() { var mock = new Mock<IFileLogger>(); mock.Setup(x => x.Log(Is.Any<string>).AddsDataToList()); //Is this possible?? var myClass = new MyClassUnderTest(mock.Object); myClass.DoSomethingThatWillSplitThisAndLog3Times("1,2,3"); Assert.AreEqual(3,mock.PreviousLogRecords.Count); } This won't work I don't believe as nothing is storing the items so is this possible using Moq and also what do you think of the design of the interface?

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• Handling Types for Real and Complex Matrices in a BLAS Wrapper

  - by mga

  I come from a C background and I'm now learning OOP with C++. As an exercise (so please don't just say "this already exists"), I want to implement a wrapper for BLAS that will let the user write matrix algebra in an intuitive way (e.g. similar to MATLAB) e.g.: A = B*C*D.Inverse() + E.Transpose(); My problem is how to go about dealing with real (R) and complex (C) matrices, because of C++'s "curse" of letting you do the same thing in N different ways. I do have a clear idea of what it should look like to the user: s/he should be able to define the two separately, but operations would return a type depending on the types of the operands (R*R = R, C*C = C, R*C = C*R = C). Additionally R can be cast into C and vice versa (just by setting the imaginary parts to 0). I have considered the following options: As a real number is a special case of a complex number, inherit CMatrix from RMatrix. I quickly dismissed this as the two would have to return different types for the same getter function. Inherit RMatrix and CMatrix from Matrix. However, I can't really think of any common code that would go into Matrix (because of the different return types). Templates. Declare Matrix<T> and declare the getter function as T Get(int i, int j), and operator functions as Matrix *(Matrix RHS). Then specialize Matrix<double> and Matrix<complex>, and overload the functions. Then I couldn't really see what I would gain with templates, so why not just define RMatrix and CMatrix separately from each other, and then overload functions as necessary? Although this last option makes sense to me, there's an annoying voice inside my head saying this is not elegant, because the two are clearly related. Perhaps I'm missing an appropriate design pattern? So I guess what I'm looking for is either absolution for doing this, or advice on how to do better.

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• Parameterized Django models

  - by mgibsonbr

  In principle, a single Django application can be reused in two or more projects, providing functionality relevent to both. That implies that the same database structure (tables and relations) will be re-created identically in different databases, and most times this is not a problem (assuming the projects/databases are unrelated - for instance when someone downloads a complete app to use in their own projects). Sometimes, however, the models must be "tweaked" a little to better fit the problem needs. This can be accomplished by forking the app, but I wondered if there wouldn't be a better option in cases where the app designer can anticipate the most common customizations. For instance, if I have a model that could relate to another as one-to-one or one-to-many, I could specify the unique property as a parameter, that can be specified in the project's settings: class This(models.Model): other = models.ForeignKey(Other, unique=settings.OTHER_TO_THIS) Or if a model can relate to many others, I could create an intermediate table for each of them (thus enforcing referential integrity) instead of using generic fks: for related in settings.MODELS_RELATED_TO_OTHER: model_name = '%s_Other' % related globals()[model_name] = type(model_name, (models.Model,) { me:models.ForeignKey(find_model_class(related)), other:models.ForeignKey(Other), # Some other properties all intersection tables must have }) Etc. Let me stress out that I'm not proposing to change the models at runtime nor anything like that; once the parameters were defined and syncdb called for the first time, those parameters are not to be changed again (unless you're doing a schema migration). Is this a good design? Are there better ways to accomplish the same thing, or maybe drawbacks I coulnd't anticipate? This technique is meant to be used sparingly (only on apps meant to be reused in wildly different contexts, and only when a specific need of customization can be detected while the app model is being designed).

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• Best practice to collect information from child objects

  - by Markus

  I'm regularly seeing the following pattern: public abstract class BaseItem { BaseItem[] children; // ... public void DoSomethingWithStuff() { StuffCollection collection = new StuffCollection(); foreach(child c : children) c.AddRequiredStuff(collection); // do something with the collection ... } public abstract void AddRequiredStuff(StuffCollection collection); } public class ConcreteItem : BaseItem { // ... public override void AddRequiredStuff(StuffCollection collection) { Stuff stuff; // ... collection.Add(stuff); } } Where I would use something like this, for better information hiding: public abstract class BaseItem { BaseItem[] children; // ... public void DoSomethingWithStuff() { StuffCollection collection = new StuffCollection(); foreach(child c : children) collection.AddRange(c.RequiredStuff()); // do something with the collection ... } public abstract StuffCollection RequiredStuff(); } public class ConcreteItem : BaseItem { // ... public override StuffCollection RequiredStuff() { StuffCollection stuffCollection; Stuff stuff; // ... stuffCollection.Add(stuff); return stuffCollection; } } What are pros and cons of each solution? For me, giving the implementation access to parent's information is some how disconcerting. On the other hand, initializing a new list, just to collect the items is a useless overhead ... What is the better design? How would it change, if DoSomethingWithStuff wouldn't be part of BaseItem but a third class? PS: there might be missing semicolons, or typos; sorry for that! The above code is not meant to be executed, but just for illustration.

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• Classes as a compilation unit

  - by Yannbane

  If "compilation unit" is unclear, please refer to this. However, what I mean by it will be clear from the context. Edit: my language allows for multiple inheritance, unlike Java. I've started designing+developing my own programming language for educational, recreational, and potentially useful purposes. At first, I've decided to base it off Java. This implied that I would have all the code be written inside classes, and that code compiles to classes, which are loaded by the VM. However, I've excluded features such as interfaces and abstract classes, because I found no need for them. They seemed to be enforcing a paradigm, and I'd like my language not to do that. I wanted to keep the classes as the compilation unit though, because it seemed convenient to implement, familiar, and I just liked the idea. Then I noticed that I'm basically left with a glorified module system, where classes could be used either as "namespaces", providing constants and functions using the static directive, or as templates for objects that need to be instantiated ("actual" purpose of classes in other languages). Now I'm left wondering: what are the benefits of having classes as compilation units? (Also, any general commentary on my design would be much appreciated.)

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• DB Object passing between classes singleton, static or other?

  - by Stephen

  So I'm designing a reporting system at work it's my first project written OOP and I'm stuck on the design choice for the DB class. Obviously I only want to create one instance of the DB class per-session/user and then pass it to each of the classes that need it. What I don't know it what's best practice for implementing this. Currently I have code like the following:- class db { private $user = 'USER'; private $pass = 'PASS'; private $tables = array( 'user','report', 'etc...'); function __construct(){ //SET UP CONNECTION AND TABLES } }; class report{ function __construct ($params = array(), $db, $user) { //Error checking/handling trimed //$db is the database object we created $this->db = $db; //$this->user is the user object for the logged in user $this->user = $user; $this->reportCreate(); } public function setPermission($permissionId = 1) { //Note the $this->db is this the best practise solution? $this->db->permission->find($permissionId) //Note the $this->user is this the best practise solution? $this->user->checkPermission(1) $data=array(); $this->db->reportpermission->insert($data) } };//end report I've been reading about using static classes and have just come across Singletons (though these appear to be passé already?) so what's current best practice for doing this?

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• Tips for Making this Code Testable [migrated]

  - by Jesse Bunch

  So I'm writing an abstraction layer that wraps a telephony RESTful service for sending text messages and making phone calls. I should build this in such a way that the low-level provider, in this case Twilio, can be easily swapped without having to re-code the higher level interactions. I'm using a package that is pre-built for Twilio and so I'm thinking that I need to create a wrapper interface to standardize the interaction between the Twilio service package and my application. Let us pretend that I cannot modify this pre-built package. Here is what I have so far (in PHP): <?php namespace Telephony; class Provider_Twilio implements Provider_Interface { public function send_sms(Provider_Request_SMS $request) { if (!$request->is_valid()) throw new Provider_Exception_InvalidRequest(); $sms = \Twilio\Twilio::request('SmsMessage'); $response = $sms->create(array( 'To' => $request->to, 'From' => $request->from, 'Body' => $request->body )); if ($this->_did_request_fail($response)) { throw new Provider_Exception_RequestFailed($response->message); } $response = new Provider_Response_SMS(TRUE); return $response; } private function _did_request_fail($api_response) { return isset($api_response->status); } } So the idea is that I can write another file like this for any other telephony service provided that it implements Provider_Interface making them swappable. Here are my questions: First off, do you think this is a good design? How could it be improved? Second, I'm having a hard time testing this because I need to mock out the Twilio package so that I'm not actually depending on Twilio's API for my tests to pass or fail. Do you see any strategy for mocking this out? Thanks in advance for any advice!

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• 7 Web Design Tutorials from PSD to HTML/CSS

  - by Sushaantu

  Some time back when I was looking for some tutorials to create a website from scratch i.e. the process from designing the PSD to slice it and CSS/XHTML it, then not many quality results appeared. But that was like almost an year back and a lot of water has flown down the river Thanes since then. In this list I will give you links to some wonderful tutorials teaching you in a step by step way to design a website. These tutorials are ideal for someone who is learning web designing and has grasp of basic CSS, XHTML and little designing on Photoshop. How to Design and Code Web 2.0 Style Web Design Design a website from PSD to HTML Designing and Coding a Grunge Web Design from Scratch Creating a CSS layout from scratch Build a Sleek Portfolio Site from Scratch Designing and Coding a web design from scratch Design and Code a Dark and Sleek Web Design

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• Getting started with modern software architecture and design using a book

  - by bitbonk

  I am a rather oldschool developer with some basic knowledge of software design principles and a good background on classic (gof) design patterns. While I continue my life as such I see lots of strange buzzwords emerge: Aspectoriented Design, Componentoriented Design, Domain Driven Design, Domain Specific Languages, Serviceoriented (SOA) Design, Test Driven Design, Extreme Programming, Agile Development, Continuous Integration, Dependency Injection, Software Factories ... Is there good book around that I can take with me on a roadtrip while it is taking me on a trip through all (most) of the above, delivering an 10,000 foot view on modern software archiceture and desing principles and approaches.

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• Composite-like pattern and SRP violation

  - by jimmy_keen

  Recently I've noticed myself implementing pattern similar to the one described below. Starting with interface: public interface IUserProvider { User GetUser(UserData data); } GetUser method's pure job is to somehow return user (that would be an operation speaking in composite terms). There might be many implementations of IUserProvider, which all do the same thing - return user basing on input data. It doesn't really matter, as they are only leaves in composite terms and that's fairly simple. Now, my leaves are used by one own them all composite class, which at the moment follows this implementation: public interface IUserProviderComposite : IUserProvider { void RegisterProvider(Predicate<UserData> predicate, IUserProvider provider); } public class UserProviderComposite : IUserProviderComposite { public User GetUser(SomeUserData data) ... public void RegisterProvider(Predicate<UserData> predicate, IUserProvider provider) ... } Idea behind UserProviderComposite is simple. You register providers, and this class acts as a reusable entry-point. When calling GetUser, it will use whatever registered provider matches predicate for requested user data (if that helps, it stores key-value map of predicates and providers internally). Now, what confuses me is whether RegisterProvider method (brings to mind composite's add operation) should be a part of that class. It kind of expands its responsibilities from providing user to also managing providers collection. As far as my understanding goes, this violates Single Responsibility Principle... or am I wrong here? I thought about extracting register part into separate entity and inject it to the composite. As long as it looks decent on paper (in terms of SRP), it feels bit awkward because: I would be essentially injecting Dictionary (or other key-value map) ...or silly wrapper around it, doing nothing more than adding entires This won't be following composite anymore (as add won't be part of composite) What exactly is the presented pattern called? Composite felt natural to compare it with, but I realize it's not exactly the one however nothing else rings any bells. Which approach would you take - stick with SRP or stick with "composite"/pattern? Or is the design here flawed and given the problem this can be done in a better way?

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• IE Zero-Day Flaw Workaround Released, Patch Forthcoming

  Microsoft has released a workaround to help protect against a zero-day exploit in its Internet Explorer browser, and a full patch is in the works.

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• A sample Memento pattern: Is it correct?

  - by TheSilverBullet

  Following this query on memento pattern, I have tried to put my understanding to test. Memento pattern stands for three things: Saving state of the "memento" object for its successful retrieval Saving carefully each valid "state" of the memento Encapsulating the saved states from the change inducer so that each state remains unaltered Have I achieved these three with my design? Problem This is a zero player game where the program is initialized with a particular set up of chess pawns - the knight and queen. Then program then needs to keep adding set of pawns or knights and queens so that each pawn is "safe" for the next one move of every other pawn. The condition is that either both pawns should be placed, or none of them should be placed. The chessboard with the most number of non conflicting knights and queens should be returned. Implementation I have 4 classes for this: protected ChessBoard (the Memento) private int [][] ChessBoard; public void ChessBoard(); protected void SetChessBoard(); protected void GetChessBoard(int); public Pawn This is not related to memento. It holds info about the pawns public enum PawnType: int { Empty = 0, Queen = 1, Knight = 2, } //This returns a value that shown if the pawn can be placed safely public bool IsSafeToAddPawn(PawnType); public CareTaker This corresponds to caretaker of memento This is a double dimentional integer array that keeps a track of all states. The reason for having 2D array is to keep track of how many states are stored and which state is currently active. An example: 0 -2 1 -1 2 0 - This is current state. With second index 0/ 3 1 - This state has been saved, but has been undone private int [][]State; private ChessBoard [] MChessBoard; //This gets the chessboard at the position requested and assigns it to originator public ChessBoard GetChessBoard(int); //This overwrites the chessboard at given position public void SetChessBoard(ChessBoard, int); private int [][]State; public PlayGame (This is the originator) private bool status; private ChessBoard oChessBoard; //This sets the state of chessboard at position specified public SetChessBoard(ChessBoard, int); //This gets the state of chessboard at position specified public ChessBoard GetChessBoard(int); //This function tries to place both the pawns and returns the status of this attempt public bool PlacePawns(Pawn);

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• Microsoft Developing Patch for IE Zero-Day Flaw

  Software giant scrambles to deliver a workaround to protect against a zero-day exploit in its Internet Explorer browser, says it is developing a more permanent patch.

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• Is OOP hard because it is not natural?

  - by zvrba

  One can often hear that OOP naturally corresponds to the way people think about the world. But I would strongly disagree with this statement: We (or at least I) conceptualize the world in terms of relationships between things we encounter, but the focus of OOP is designing individual classes and their hierarchies. Note that, in everyday life, relationships and actions exist mostly between objects that would have been instances of unrelated classes in OOP. Examples of such relationships are: "my screen is on top of the table"; "I (a human being) am sitting on a chair"; "a car is on the road"; "I am typing on the keyboard"; "the coffee machine boils water", "the text is shown in the terminal window." We think in terms of bivalent (sometimes trivalent, as, for example in, "I gave you flowers") verbs where the verb is the action (relation) that operates on two objects to produce some result/action. The focus is on action, and the two (or three) [grammatical] objects have equal importance. Contrast that with OOP where you first have to find one object (noun) and tell it to perform some action on another object. The way of thinking is shifted from actions/verbs operating on nouns to nouns operating on nouns -- it is as if everything is being said in passive or reflexive voice, e.g., "the text is being shown by the terminal window". Or maybe "the text draws itself on the terminal window". Not only is the focus shifted to nouns, but one of the nouns (let's call it grammatical subject) is given higher "importance" than the other (grammatical object). Thus one must decide whether one will say terminalWindow.show(someText) or someText.show(terminalWindow). But why burden people with such trivial decisions with no operational consequences when one really means show(terminalWindow, someText)? [Consequences are operationally insignificant -- in both cases the text is shown on the terminal window -- but can be very serious in the design of class hierarchies and a "wrong" choice can lead to convoluted and hard to maintain code.] I would therefore argue that the mainstream way of doing OOP (class-based, single-dispatch) is hard because it IS UNNATURAL and does not correspond to how humans think about the world. Generic methods from CLOS are closer to my way of thinking, but, alas, this is not widespread approach. Given these problems, how/why did it happen that the currently mainstream way of doing OOP became so popular? And what, if anything, can be done to dethrone it?

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