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• What are the reasons for MMOs to have level caps [on hold]

  - by SamStephens

  In many MMOs players character progression is artificially capped, e.g. by level 60 or 90 or 100 or whatever. Why do MMOs have these level caps in the first place? Why not just allow characters to continue to arbitrary levels with a mathematically designed leveling system that keeps the leveling experience interesting and endless? Answers to this question may help us to see the reason behind the feature and decide if and how this should be implemented in our MMOs.

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• Relationships in a Chen ERD

  - by Nibroc A Rehpotsirhc

  I am working on a Chen ERD to model our organizations merchandise. Our central entity is a Style. We have supplemental entities of Color and Season. I am defining our assortment as the relationship between these three entities, and this relationship itself will have attributes and is defined by the three entities which participate in the mandatory relationship. The rules are; Many Styles can be offered in a Season, and a Style can be offered in many Seasons. Within a Season, a Style can be offered in Many Colors. I then have 2 other entities, one of which I believe is a weak entity, Climate, and the other may be weak, but I am not sure, this being Transaction Channel. I am thinking of these as relationships off of a relationship? Meaning, for a given Style/Color combination offered in a Season, it can be available through 1 or more Transaction Channels. Additionally, within a season, a given Style/Color combination can be intended for 1 or more Climates. Is it valid to have relationships off of relationships? Or does this requirement dictate that I should think of this Style/Color/Season relationship as an entity itself, and define the relationships to Climate and Transaction Channel off of this entity?

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• Easiest turn-base games you can think of?

  - by Edgar Miranda

  I'm planning to get into the process of programming multiplayer turn-base games. I would like to start off by making some of the simplest (yet fun) multiplayer turn-base games out there. What are some that you can provide? For example... Tic-Tac-Toe Rock-Paper-Scissors Checkers Some not so easy games... 4 in a row chess poker In terms of "ease" of implementation I'm mainly looking at logic. For example, Rock-Paper-Scissors has very simple logic, while chess has logic that is more complicated. So far I have the following: Hexagon Heroes of Might and Magic Nine Men's Morris Connect 4 21 (card game) Pen the Pig (The Dot game) Memory Match

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• Identifying the best pattern

  - by Daniel Grillo

  I'm developing a software to program a device. I have some commands like Reset, Read_Version, Read_memory, Write_memory, Erase_memory. Reset and Read_Version are fixed. They don't need parameters. Read_memory and Erase_memory need the same parameters that are Length and Address. Write_memory needs Lenght, Address and Data. For each command, I have the same steps in sequence, that are something like this sendCommand, waitForResponse, treatResponse. I'm having difficulty to identify which pattern should I use. Factory, Template Method, Strategy or other pattern.

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• How to keep balance / Unlock items / achievement rules

  - by Mark Knol

  I'm working on an engine for a game, too learn javascript and just because its fun. I'm a flashdeveloper, I know how to build websites. Now making games is a different challenge, javascript is a challenge, but I'd love to learn how to structure code and what patterns are common. I dont mind if the game ever finish, I'm mostly interested in the programming part of it. I dont have a particular endresult in mind, so I'll see where it takes me. I currently have a system where you can buy items. The items cost a specified amount of gold, silver, diamonds etc. When you have selected and bought the item, it takes time before getting rewarded. When time is over, you are getting rewarded with other properties (gold, energy, diamonds). For example, you can buy an apple for 50gold, It takes a minute, you get rewarded with 75energy. Or if you take a run, it cost 50energy, it takes 5minutes, reward is 25gold and 25silver. These definitions is what i call actions. Currently I already have a system where this already works and I can define as much actions with as much properties as I want. The definitions I have kinda looks like this: {id:101, category:544, onInit:{gold:-75}, onComplete:{energy:75}, time:2000, name:"Apple", locked: false} {id:102, category:544, onInit:{gold:-135}, onComplete:{energy:145}, time:2000, name:"Banana", locked: false} {id:106, category:302, onInit:{energy:-50, power: -25}, onComplete:{gold:100, diamonds:2}, time:10000, name:"Run", locked: false} {id:107, category:302, onInit:{energy:-70, silver: -55}, onComplete:{gold:100}, time:10000, name:"Dance", locked: false} {id:108, category:302, onInit:{energy:-230, power: -355}, onComplete:{gold:70, silver:70}, time:10000, name:"Fitness", locked: false} Now, I would love to add a system where I can lock/unlock the actions using achievement rules. Lets say, if you buy 10 apples, you unlock a new action, like bananas which cost more, and reward more. In the future I maybe want to restrict achievements and actions to levels. I am kinda stuck how to structure this. I have 2 questions: Which patterns are used to define achievements? How/where are they defined? Should it be part of the action, or should it be a separate controller? Is it a good idea to register all completed actions to it? I think I want multiple types of achievement rules, Id love to hear some ideas how to develop it. How do you create/find a good balance, so the user does not get stuck or can cheat by repeat a pattern of actions to get too much rewards. I know there is not a simple answer and i'm lacking of a good game-concept, but I wonder if anyone created such a game and how you dealed and played with it.

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• My Last "Catch-Up" Post for 2010 Content

  - by KKline

  I did a lot of writing in 2010. Unfortunately, I didn't do a good job of keeping all of that writing equally distributed throughout all of the channels where I'm active. So here are a few more posts from my blog, put on-line during the months of November and December 2010, that I didn't get posted here on SQLBlog.com: 1. It's Time to Upgrade! So many of my customers and many of you, dear readers, are still on SQL Server 2005. Join Kevin Kline , SQL Server MVP and SQL Server Technology Strategist...(read more)

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• Pattern for a class that does only one thing

  - by Heinzi

  Let's say I have a procedure that does stuff: void doStuff(initalParams) { ... } Now I discover that "doing stuff" is quite a compex operation. The procedure becomes large, I split it up into multiple smaller procedures and soon I realize that having some kind of state would be useful while doing stuff, so that I need to pass less parameters between the small procedures. So, I factor it out into its own class: class StuffDoer { private someInternalState; public Start(initalParams) { ... } // some private helper procedures here ... } And then I call it like this: new StuffDoer().Start(initialParams); or like this: new StuffDoer(initialParams).Start(); And this is what feels wrong. When using the .NET or Java API, I always never call new SomeApiClass().Start(...);, which makes me suspect that I'm doing it wrong. Sure, I could make StuffDoer's constructor private and add a static helper method: public static DoStuff(initalParams) { new StuffDoer().Start(initialParams); } But then I'd have a class whose external interface consists of only one static method, which also feels weird. Hence my question: Is there a well-established pattern for this type of classes that have only one entry point and have no "externally recognizable" state, i.e., instance state is only required during execution of that one entry point?

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• designing classes with similar goal but widely different decisional core

  - by Stefano Borini

  I am puzzled on how to model this situation. Suppose you have an algorithm operating in a loop. At every loop, a procedure P must take place, whose role is to modify an input data I into an output data O, such that O = P(I). In reality, there are different flavors of P, say P1, P2, P3 and so on. The choice of which P to run is user dependent, but all P have the same finality, produce O from I. This called well for a base class PBase with a method PBase::apply, with specific reimplementations of P1::apply(I), P2::apply(I), and P3::apply(I). The actual P class gets instantiated in a factory method, and the loop stays simple. Now, I have a case of P4 which follows the same principle, but this time needs additional data from the loop (such as the current iteration, and the average value of O during the previous iterations). How would you redesign for this case?

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• What's a good tool for Scrum Project Management in game development? [closed]

  - by BleakCabalist

  I'm looking for an efficient, easy-to-learn tool for Scrum project management not for proffesional use but to use it in my thesis concerning the use of Scrum in game development. Basically I want to visualize a production process of a hypothetical game. Some fragments of the production process should be really detailed to make my point, so basically user stories, tasks, burndown charts etc. are a must. I'm using Scrum, Kanban and some Lean practices for eliminating waste. I also want to use Extreme Programming practices in this production process including TDD and Continuous Integration. I have zero experience in proffesional project management so I need something that's fairly simple to use for a newb like me. Anyone can recommend a tool like that? For now I was thinking about TargetProcess and ScrumWorks. Thanks.

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• What is the best way to diagrammatically represent a system threading architecture?

  - by thegreendroid

  I am yet to find the perfect way to diagrammatically represent the overall threading architecture for a system (using UML or otherwise). I am after a diagramming technique that would show all the threads in a given system and how they interact with each other. There are a few similar questions - Drawing Thread Interaction, UML Diagrams of Multithreaded Applications and Intuitive UML Approach to Depict Threads but they don't fully answer my question. What are some of the techniques that you've found useful to depict the overall threading architecture for a system?

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• How do I explain the importance of NUNIT Test cases to my Colleagues [duplicate]

  - by JNL

  This question already has an answer here: How to explain the value of unit testing 6 answers I am currently working in Software Development for applications including lot of Mathematical Calculations. As a result there are lot of test cases that we need to consider. We donot have any NUNIT Test case system, I am wonderring how should I get the advantages of implementing the NUNIT testing in front of my colleagues and my boss. I am pretty sure, it would be of great help for our team. Any help regarding the same, will be higly appreciated.

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• Simplifying C++11 optimal parameter passing when a copy is needed

  - by Mr.C64

  It seems to me that in C++11 lots of attention was made to simplify returning values from functions and methods, i.e.: with move semantics it's possible to simply return heavy-to-copy but cheap-to-move values (while in C++98/03 the general guideline was to use output parameters via non-const references or pointers), e.g.: // C++11 style vector<string> MakeAVeryBigStringList(); // C++98/03 style void MakeAVeryBigStringList(vector<string>& result); On the other side, it seems to me that more work should be done on input parameter passing, in particular when a copy of an input parameter is needed, e.g. in constructors and setters. My understanding is that the best technique in this case is to use templates and std::forward<>, e.g. (following the pattern of this answer on C++11 optimal parameter passing): class Person { std::string m_name; public: template <class T, class = typename std::enable_if < std::is_constructible<std::string, T>::value >::type> explicit Person(T&& name) : m_name(std::forward<T>(name)) { } ... }; A similar code could be written for setters. Frankly, this code seems boilerplate and complex, and doesn't scale up well when there are more parameters (e.g. if a surname attribute is added to the above class). Would it be possible to add a new feature to C++11 to simplify code like this (just like lambdas simplify C++98/03 code with functors in several cases)? I was thinking of a syntax with some special character, like @ (since introducing a &&& in addition to && would be too much typing :) e.g.: class Person { std::string m_name; public: /* Simplified syntax to produce boilerplate code like this: template <class T, class = typename std::enable_if < std::is_constructible<std::string, T>::value >::type> */ explicit Person(std::string@ name) : m_name(name) // implicit std::forward as well { } ... }; This would be very convenient also for more complex cases involving more parameters, e.g. Person(std::string@ name, std::string@ surname) : m_name(name), m_surname(surname) { } Would it be possible to add a simplified convenient syntax like this in C++? What would be the downsides of such a syntax?

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• What are good reasons to use explicit interface implementation for the sole purpose of hiding members?

  - by Nathanus

  During one of my studies into the intricacies of C#, I came across an interesting passage concerning explicit interface implementation. While this syntax is quite helpful when you need to resolve name clashes, you can use explicit interface implementation simply to hide more "advanced" members from the object level. The difference between allowing the use of object.method() or requiring the casting of ((Interface)object).method() seems like mean-spirited obfuscation to my inexperienced eyes. The text noted that this will hide the method from Intellisense at the object level, but why would you want to do that if it was not necessary to avoid name conflicts?

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• Examples of Liskov Substitution

  - by james lewis

  I'm facilitating a session next week on the Liskov Substitution Principle and I was wondering if anyone had any examples of violations 'from the trenches'? I'm looking for something other than uncle Bob's rectangle - square problem and the persistent set problem he talks about in A-PPP (although that is a great example). So far I'm using the example of a (very simple) List and an IndexedList as the 'correct' use of inheritance. And the addition of a Set to this hierarchy as a violation (as a Set is distinct; strengthening the pre condition of the Add method). I've also taken this great example and it's solution from this question Both those examples are great but I'm looking for something more subtle and harder to spot. So far I've come up with nothing so if you've got a great, subtle example post it up. Also, any metaphors you've come across that helped you understand LSP would be really useful too.

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• Algorithm for dynamically calculating a level based on experience points?

  - by George

  One of the struggles I've always had in game development is deciding how to implement experience points attributed to gaining a level. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to gaining a level in many of the games I've played, so I assume they have a static dictionary table which contains experience points vs. the level. e.g. Experience Level 0 1 100 2 175 3 280 4 800 5 ...There isn't a rhyme or reason why 280 points is equal to level 4, it just is. I'm not sure how those levels are decided, but it certainly wouldn't be dynamic. I've also thought about the possibility of exponential levels, as not to have to keep a separate lookup table, e.g. Experience Level 0 1 100 2 200 3 400 4 800 5 1600 6 3200 7 6400 8 ...but that seems like it would grow out of control rather quickly, as towards the upper levels, the enemies in the game would have to provide a whopping amount of experience to level -- and that would be to difficult to control. Leveling would become an impossible task. Does anyone have any pointers, or methods they use to decide how to level a character based on experience? I want to be fair in leveling and I want to stay ahead of the players as not to worry about constantly adding new experience/level lookups.

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• Best Creational Pattern for loggers in a multi-threaded system?

  - by Dipan Mehta

  This is a follow up question on my past questions : Concurrency pattern of logger in multithreaded application As suggested by others, I am putting this question separately. As the learning from the last question. In a multi-threaded environment, the logger should be made thread safe and probably asynchronous (where in messages are queued while a background thread does writing releasing the requesting object thread). The logger could be signleton or it can be a per-group logger which is a generalization of the above. Now, the question that arise is how does logger should be assigned to the object? There are two options I can think of: 1. Object requesting for the logger: Should each of the object call some global API such as get_logger()? Such an API returns "the" singleton or the group logger. However, I feel this involves assumption about the Application environment to implement the logger -which I think is some kind of coupling. If the same object needs to be used by other application - this new application also need to implement such a method. 2. Assign logger through some known API The other alternative approach is to create a kind of virtual class which is implemented by application based on App's own structure and assign the object sometime in the constructor. This is more generalized method. Unfortunately, when there are so many objects - and rather a tree of objects passing on the logger objects to each level is quite messy. My question is there a better way to do this? If you need to pick any one of the above, which approach is would you pick and why? Other questions remain open about how to configure them: How do objects' names or ID are assigned so that will be used for printing on the log messages (as the module names) How do these objects find the appropriate properties (such as log levels, and other such parameters) In the first approach, the central API needs to deal with all this varieties. In the second approach - there needs to be additional work. Hence, I want to understand from the real experience of people, as to how to write logger effectively in such an environment.

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• Can you point me to a nontrivial strategy pattern implementation?

  - by Eugen Martynov

  We are faced implementing a registration workflow with many branches. There are three main flows which in some conditions lead to one another. Each flow has at least four different steps; some steps interact with the server, and every step adds more information to the state. Also the requirement is to have it persistent between sessions, so if the user closes the app (this is a mobile app), it will restore the process from the last completed step with the state from the previous session. I think this could benefit from the use of the strategy pattern, but I've never had to implement it for such a complex case. Does anyone know of any examples in open source or articles from which I could find inspiration? Preferably the examples would be from a live/working/stable application. I'm interested in Java implementation mostly; we are developing for Java mobile phones: android, blackberry and J2ME. We have an SDK which is quite well separated from platform specific implementations, but examples in C++, C#, Objective-C or Python would be acceptable.

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• Is is common to use the command pattern for property get/sets?

  - by k rey

  Suppose I have a controller class with a bunch of properties. Each time a property is changed, I would like to update the model. Now also suppose that I use the command pattern to perform model updates. Is it common to use command classes within property get and sets of the controller class or is there a better way? Here is an example of what I am currently using: class MyController { private int _myInt; public int MyInt { get { return _myInt; } set { MyCommand cmd = new MyCommand(); cmd.Argument = _myInt; cmd.Execute(); // Command object updates the model } } }

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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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• Improving Click and Drag with C++

  - by Josh

  I'm currently using SFML 2.0 to develop a game in C++. I have a game sprite class that has a click and drag method. The method works, but there is a slight problem. If the mouse moves too fast, the object the user selected can't keep up and is left behind in the spot where the mouse left its bounds. I will share the class definition and the given function implementation. Definition: class codePeg { protected: FloatRect bounds; CircleShape circle; int xPos, yPos, xDiff, yDiff, once; int xBase, yBase; Vector2i mousePos; Vector2f circlePos; public: void init(RenderWindow& Window); void draw(RenderWindow& Window); void drag(RenderWindow& Window); void setPegPosition(int x, int y); void setPegColor(Color pegColor); void mouseOver(RenderWindow& Window); friend int isPegSelected(void); }; Implementation of the "drag" function: void codePeg::drag(RenderWindow& Window) { mousePos = Mouse::getPosition(Window); circlePos = circle.getPosition(); if(Mouse::isButtonPressed(Mouse::Left)) { if(mousePos.x > xPos && mousePos.y > yPos && mousePos.x - bounds.width < xPos && mousePos.y - bounds.height < yPos) { if(once) { xDiff = mousePos.x - circlePos.x; yDiff = mousePos.y - circlePos.y; once = 0; } xPos = mousePos.x - xDiff; yPos = mousePos.y - yDiff; circle.setPosition(xPos, yPos); } } else { once = 1; xPos = xBase; yPos = yBase; xDiff = 0; yDiff = 0; circle.setPosition(xBase, yBase); } Window.draw(circle); } Like I said, the function works, but to me, the code is very ugly and I think it could be improved and could be more efficient. The only thing I can think of as to why the object cannot keep up with the mouse is that there are too many function calls and/or checks. The user does not really have to mouse the mouse "fast" for it to happen, I would say at an average pace the object is left behind. How can I improve the code so that the object remains with the mouse when it is selected? Any help improving this code or giving advice is greatly appreciated.

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• Get Info From Database, or Build Inferred Info?

  - by Zaemz

  Does it make more sense to store and retrieve properties or information directly related to an item in a database, or, say in such a case that a product's ID could describe information about it, should the information be gathered from that? Example: Item SKU -- 4HBU12 4 - is the number of motors H - the voltage B - the color, blue U - the model 12 - the length Should I store those individual attributes as well as the SKU, or should I store only the SKU and build the attributes from it?

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• Using MVC with a retained mode renderer

  - by David Gouveia

  I am using a retained mode renderer similar to the display lists in Flash. In other words, I have a scene graph data structure called the Stage to which I add the graphical primitives I would like to see rendered, such as images, animations, text. For simplicity I'll refer to them as Sprites. Now I'm implementing an architecture which is becoming very similar to MVC, but I feel that that instead of having to create View classes, that the sprites already behave pretty much like Views (except for not being explicitly connected to the Model). And since the Model is only changed through the Controller, I could simply update the view together with the Model in the controller, as in the example below: Example 1 class Controller { Model model; Sprite view; void TeleportTo(Vector2 position) { model.Position = view.Position = position; } } The alternative, I think, would be to create View classes that wrap the sprites, make the model observable, and make the view react to changes on the model. This seems like a lot of extra work and boilerplate code, and I'm not seeing the benefits if I'm just going to have one view per controller. Example 2 class Controller { Model model; View view; void TeleportTo(Vector2 position) { model.Position = position; } } class View { Model model; Sprite sprite; View() { model.PropertyChanged += UpdateView; } void UpdateView() { sprite.Position = model.Position; } } So, how is MVC or more specifically, the View, usually implemented when using a retained-mode renderer? And is there any reason why I shouldn't stick with example 1?

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• Ensuring non conflicting components in a modular system

  - by Hailwood

  So lets say we are creating a simple "modular system" framework. The bare bones might be the user management. But we want things like the Page Manager, the Blog, the Image Gallery to all be "optional" components. So a developer could install the Page Manager to allow their client to add a static home page and about page with content they can easily edit with a wysiwyg editor. The developer could then also install the Blog component to allow the client to add blog entries. The developer could then also install the Gallery component to allow the client to show off a bunch of images. The thing is, all these components are designed to be independent, so how do we go about ensuring they don't clash? E.g. ensuring the client doesn't create a /gallery page with the Page Manager and then wonder why the gallery stopped working, or the same issue with the Blog component, assuming we allow the users to customize the URL structure of the blog (because remember, the Page Manager doesn't necessarily have to be there, so we might not wan't our blog posts to be Date/Title formatted), likewise our clients aren't always going to be happy to have their pages under pages/title formatting. My core question here is, when building a modular system how to we ensure that the modules don't conflict without restricting functionality? Do we just leave it up to the clients/developer using the modules to ensure they get setup in a way that does not conflict?

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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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• Better solution then simple factory method when concrete implementations have different attributes

  - by danip

  abstract class Animal { function eat() {..} function sleep() {..} function isSmart() } class Dog extends Animal { public $blnCanBark; function isSmart() { return $this->blnCanBark; } } class Cat extends Animal { public $blnCanJumpHigh; function isSmart() { return $this->blnCanJumpHigh; } } .. and so on up to 10-20 animals. Now I created a factory using simple factory method and try to create instances like this: class AnimalFactory { public static function create($strName) { switch($strName) { case 'Dog': return new Dog(); case 'Cat': return new Cat(); default: break; } } } The problem is I can't set the specific attributes like blnCanBark, blnCanJumpHigh in an efficient way. I can send all of them as extra params to create but this will not scale to more then a few classes. Also I can't break the inheritance because a lot of the basic functionality is the same. Is there a better pattern to solve this?

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