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• How do I communicate with an IronPython component in a C#/XNA game?

  - by Jonathan Hobbs

  My XNA game is component-oriented, and has various components for position, physics representation, rendering, etc, all of which extend a base Component class. The player and enemies also have controllers which are currently defined in C#. I'd like to turn them into Python scripts, but I'm not sure how to interact with those scripts. The examples in Embedding IronPython in a C# Application suggest I'd have to create a wrapper class (e.g. a Script component) which compiles a Python script, and call the Update methods of the component in the script Is this the most effective way of working with a Python object? I feel that I'm missing something in my research - there must be a way to load up a script, instantiate a Python object and then work directly with it from within C#. Or is the wrapper required?

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• Looking for Non Hosted Audio & Video Podcasting Solution for Church Websites

  - by motboys

  I am looking for a solution that will do the following: User uploads audio and/or video files with title, desc. image etc Solution embeds info into ID3 tags Solution generates RSS feed Solution embeds new content in our website Content on website is searchable This is for a couple of church websites I manage. I am looking for the ability to do the above with a sermon mp3 and also a video. At the moment we are doing it with multiple steps / people involved and I want to automate the process. I can't seem to find a solution that does all of the above. Thank you!

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• Rendering order in an Entity System

  - by Daedalus

  Say I use a basic ES approach, and also inside Systems I hold lists of all entities that Systems are required to process. How do I maintain this list of entities in desired rendering order, i.e. for a dumb 2D RenderingSystem? I saw this discussion, and what they suggest is to do something like Z ordering - what I would probably do is just to store a "layer" int in DrawableComponent and then, inside RenderingSystem, just sort entities by mentioned "layer" whenever the entity list for RenderingSystem changes. They also say we could just delete and recreate the entity whenever we want it on the top, but it seems too inflexible to me. How is this problem usually solved?

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• How to model interentity membership in entity-component architecture?

  - by croxis

  I'm falling in love with simple grace of entity-component design, although I still have issues breaking from MVC and OOP practices. Some of my game entities have membership relationships with each other (ex: a player is a member of a city, a city is a member of a nation), and I am unsure on the best way to implement it. My initial reaction is to have a a MemberOfCity component that points to the appropriate city component, but components are suppose to have no references to each other. My other option is to have a System do it, but that would require the system to persist data outside of a component. Is there a clean way to do this in an entity-component design, or am I trying to use a hammer on a screw and should use a hybrid/another approach?

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• How can I achieve strong typing with a component messaging system?

  - by Vaughan Hilts

  I'm looking at implementing a messaging system in my entity component system. I've deduced that I can use an event / queue for passing messages, but right now, I just use a generic object and cast out the data I want. I also considered using a dictionary. I see a lot of information on this, but they all involve a lot of casting and guessing. Is there any way to do this elegantly and keep strong typing on my messages?

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• Is this technique for stat tracking without a database workable?

  - by baptzmoffire

  If I wanted to create a chess game, for iOS, that tracked both player moves (for retracing the progression of a game and for player stats), what would be the simplest route to take? To clarify, I want to track not only the moves a player has made in a particular game, but how often that player has made that move in past games. For example I want to be able to track: How many times a given player has opened by moving the king pawn up two squares (e4) as white, on move number one. What is the percentage of time the player responds to white's e4 opening move, with moving his own king pawn to e5? What percentage of time does he respond by moving his queenside bishop pawn to c5? And so on. If it's not clear, the stat tracking system should also be able to report how many times this player, as black, move his queen to h1, on move number 30. I'm using Parse.com for my back-end as a server (BaaS) service. If I were to create a class that writes strings that identify move number, player color, moved piece, algebraic notation of the square (e.g. "d8") to a file, locally in the file system saves the file to Parse, and deletes the temporary file from file system upon opening the same game in my tableview (a la a "With Friends" game), download this file from Parse, parse through it and retrieve all stats/history, assign all relevant values to variables Is this plan viable, or is there an easier way?

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• Many sources of movement in an entity system

  - by Sticky

  I'm fairly new to the idea of entity systems, having read a bunch of stuff (most usefully, this great blog and this answer). Though I'm having a little trouble understanding how something as simple as being able to manipualate the position of an object by an undefined number of sources. That is, I have my entity, which has a position component. I then have some event in the game which tells this entity to move a given distance, in a given time. These events can happen at any time, and will have different values for position and time. The result is that they'd be compounded together. In a traditional OO solution, I'd have some sort of MoveBy class, that contains the distance/time, and an array of those inside my game object class. Each frame, I'd iterate through all the MoveBy, and apply it to the position. If a MoveBy has reached its finish time, remove it from the array. With the entity system, I'm a little confused as how I should replicate this sort of behavior. If there were just one of these at a time, instead of being able to compound them together, it'd be fairly straightforward (I believe) and look something like this: PositionComponent containing x, y MoveByComponent containing x, y, time Entity which has both a PositionComponent and a MoveByComponent MoveBySystem that looks for an entity with both these components, and adds the value of MoveByComponent to the PositionComponent. When the time is reached, it removes the component from that entity. I'm a bit confused as to how I'd do the same thing with many move by's. My initial thoughts are that I would have: PositionComponent, MoveByComponent the same as above MoveByCollectionComponent which contains an array of MoveByComponents MoveByCollectionSystem that looks for an entity with a PositionComponent and a MoveByCollectionComponent, iterating through the MoveByComponents inside it, applying/removing as necessary. I guess this is a more general problem, of having many of the same component, and wanting a corresponding system to act on each one. My entities contain their components inside a hash of component type - component, so strictly have only 1 component of a particular type per entity. Is this the right way to be looking at this? Should an entity only ever have one component of a given type at all times?

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• Using components in the XNA Game State Management example?

  - by Zolomon

  In the game state management example at the App Hub, they say that if you want to use components in the example you can extend the GameScreen to host other components inside itself. I'm having a very hard time trying to tie this up. I tried extending the GameScreen class by adding a public property of public List<DrawableGameCompnent> components { get; set; } and then add my components to that list when I initialize the current screen as well as looping over the components in the LoadContent, Update and Draw methods. However, this doesn't feel like the correct way to go - mainly because it doesn't work when I get to the implementation of my GameplayScreen. Any thoughts?

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• Buffer System For Items

  - by Ohmages

  I am going to reference this image of what I want to accomplish in JavaScript. This is the Diablo buffer system. This question may be a bit advanced (or possibly not even allowed). But I was wondering how you might go about implementing this type of system in a JavaScript game. Currently to implement such a system in JavaScript escapes me, and I am turning to SO to get some suggestions, ideas, and hopefully some insight in how I could accomplish this without being to costly on the CPU. Some thoughts of mine for implementing such a system would be to: Create DIVS within a DIV that hold each position of the inventory Go through each item you own in a container and see which DIV it belongs to Make said item images the DIVs image This type of system might possibly work if ALL items were 1x1, but for this example its not going to work out. I am at a complete lost of ideas how to even accomplish this. Although, maybe rendering directly to the canvas and checking mouse cords could work, there would more than likely be A HUGE annoyance when checking if other items are overlapping each other (meaning you cant place the item down, and possibly switching item with the cursor item ). That said, what am I left with? Do I need to makeshift my own hack system with messy code, or is there some source out there (that I don't know about) that has replicated this type of system in their own game. I would be very grateful to get some replies on how you might go about doing this, and will accept answers that can logically explain how you might implement such a system (code is not required). P.S. Id like to use pure JavaScript, and nothing else (even though it might be "reinventing the wheel", I also like to learn).

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• How relevant is PHP today for browser games?

  - by Bitgarden

  I was the lead developer of 2 moderately successful browser games quite a few years back, and plan on working on a new game soon. At the time, I wrote them in pure PHP (no template engine or anything of the sort). I'd like to start working on a new game, but have been out of the web development world for a while. Reading around, I hear a lot of good about Rails, Django, Node.js, etc., with which I have no experience (although I know my way around Python, Javascript, and the others quite well). So my question is the following- if I were to go in my old ways and go with PHP again, would I be making things hard for myself? Would picking something more "trendy" have a real impact on my development? In addition, does anyone have any pointers relating to specifically developing browser games with these more modern tools?

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• Empirical evidence regarding testability

  - by Xodarap

  A google scholar search turns up numerous papers on testability, including models for computing testability, recommendations for how ones code can be more testable, etc. They all come with the assertion that more testable code is more stable, but I can't find any studies which actually demonstrate this. Can someone link me to a study evaluating the effect of testable code vs. quality? The closest I can find is Improving the Testability of Object Oriented Systems, which discusses the relationship between design flaws and testability.

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• Handling game logic events by behavior components

  - by chehob

  My question continues on topic discussed here I have tried implementing attribute/behavior design and here is a quick example demonstrating the issue. class HealthAttribute : public ActorAttribute { public: HealthAttribute( float val ) : mValue( val ) { } float Get( void ) const { return mValue; } void Set( float val ) { mValue = val; } private: float mValue; }; class HealthBehavior : public ActorBehavior { public: HealthBehavior( shared_ptr< HealthAttribute > health ) : pHealth( health ) { // Set OnDamage() to listen for game logic event "DamageEvent" } void OnDamage( IEventDataPtr pEventData ) { // Check DamageEvent target entity // ( compare my entity ID with event's target entity ID ) // If not my entity, do nothing // Else, modify health attribute with received DamageEvent data } protected: shared_ptr< HealthAttribute > pHealth; }; My question - is it possible to get rid of this annoying check for game logic events? In the current implementation when some entity must receive damage, game logic just fires off event that contains damage value and the entity id which should receive that damage. And all HealthBehaviors are subscribed to the DamageEvent type, which leads to any entity possesing HealthBehavior call OnDamage() even if he is not the addressee.

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• Best way to calculate unit deaths in browser game combat?

  - by MikeCruz13

  My browser game's combat system is written and mechanically functioning well. It's written in PHP and uses a SQL database. I'm happy with the unit balance in relation to one another. I am, however, a little worried about how I'm calculating unit deaths when one player attacks another because the deaths seem to pile up a little fast for my taste. For this system, a battle doesn't just trigger, calculate winner, and end. Instead, it is allowed to go for several rounds (say one round every 15 mins.) until one side passes a threshold of being too strong for the other player and allows players to send reinforcements between rounds. Each round, units pair up and attack each other. Essentially what I do is calculate the damage: AP = Attack Points HP = Hit Points Units AP * Quantity * Random Factors * other factors (such as attrition) I take that and divide by the defending unit's HP to find the number of casualties of defending units. So, for example (simplified to take out some factors), if I have: 500 attackers with 50 AP vs 1000 defenders with 100 HP = 250 deaths. I wonder if that last step could be handled better to reduce the deaths piling up. Some ideas: I just change all the units with more HP? I make sure to set the Attacking unit's AP to be a max of the defender's HP to make sure they only kill 1 unit. (is that fair if I have less huge units vs many small units?) I spread the damage around more by including the defending unit's quantity more? i.e. in that scenario some are dead and some are 50% damage. (How would I track this every round?) Other better mathematical approaches?

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• What is the standard way of delivering HTML5 games to portals and such?

  - by Bane

  Let me explain what I mean by "standard way of delivering"... Think about Flash games sites. Flash games can be delivered as a single file, either hosted by the site, or, I guess, provided by someone else. HTML5 games, on the other hand, don't have something so standard. Usually, they have their own page, and portals just link to that page. I think that it greatly hinders the purpose of that portal, because, well, you want people to stay on your site and look for other games. Now, I think that a some kind of iframe way of delivering games would help solve this problem greatly. I saw some games doing that, and they were often included on tutorial sites to show a live example, which is obviously a great thing. So, is there a standard at all? Any suggestions? Can you create a game that just preloads itself in an iframe (I heard something about a "single document" or something)?

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• How to reduce the time it takes to load my web game? [closed]

  - by Danial

  I created a puzzle game with Unity and uploaded it to one server. This works fine, but I bought a new server and uploaded my game to it as well. There, the loading time is much longer. These are the servers: http://pinheadsinteractive.com/Mozzie/ (fast) http://operation-mozzie-free.com/ (slow) The Unity files are exactly the same from one server to the next. My client is dissatisfied with the new, slow loading time. So, how can I reduce the time my Unity game takes to load? Even in some cases they faced the problem that they could not load the game at all. For the the moment, I'm using an iframe on the new sever as a workaround, but the issue still remains unsolved.

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• Logic in Entity Components Sytems

  - by aaron

  I'm making a game that uses an Entity/Component architecture basically a port of Artemis's framework to c++,the problem arises when I try to make a PlayerControllerComponent, my original idea was this. class PlayerControllerComponent: Component { public: virtual void update() = 0; }; class FpsPlayerControllerComponent: PlayerControllerComponent { public: void update() { //handle input } }; and have a system that updates PlayerControllerComponents, but I found out that the artemis framework does not look at sub-classes the way I thought it would. So all in all my question here is should I make the framework aware of subclasses or should I add a new Component like object that is used for logic.

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• Getting Started with Component Architecture: DI?

  - by ashes999

  I just moved away from MVC towards something more component-architecture-like. I have no concept of messages yet (it's rough prototype code), objects just get internal properties and values of other classes for now. That issue aside, it seems like this is turning into an aspect-oriented-programming challenge. I've noticed that all entities with, for example, a position component will have similar properties (get/set X/Y/Z, rotation, velocity). Is it a common practice, and/or good idea, to push these behind an interface and use dependency injection to inject a generic class (eg. PositionComponent) which already has all the boiler-plate code? (I'm sure the answer will affect the model I use for message/passing)

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• Which game engine for HTML5 + Node.js

  - by Chrene

  I want to create a realtime multiplayer game using and HTML5. I want to use node.js as the server, and I only need to be able to render images in a canvas, play some sounds, and do some basic animations. The gameloop should be done in the server, and the client should do callback via sockets to render the canvas. I am not going to spend any money on the engine, and I don't want to use cocos2d-javascript.

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• Managing game objects/components

  - by Xeon06

  Good day everyone, By far the biggest problem that has always dawned on my when programming games is how to structure my code. It just becomes an incredible mess after a while. The reason for that is because I have no idea how different classes should interact with each other. Let's have an example. Say I have a class Player, a class PlayerInput and a class Map. The player class contains information as to the location of the player, whereas the player input class handles changing that location, but by first making sure it's within a walkable area from the map class. How to structure this? My usual approach is to pass those components as parameters in the constructors of the parameters that need them, like so: var map = new Map(); var player = new Player(); var input = new PlayerInput(player, map); The problem with that is that it quickly gets messy, when you add new components you have to go through your constructors and update them, and it doesn't work well if you have mirroring references: var physics = new Physics(input); //Oops, doesn't work var input = new Input(physics); So, how do you guys usually manage this? Thanks.

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• Is testable code actually more stable? [closed]

  - by Xodarap

  A google scholar search turns up numerous papers on testability, including models for computing testability, recommendations for how ones code can be more testable, etc. They all come with the assertion that more testable code is more stable, however I can't find any studies which actually demonstrate this. I tried looking for studies evaluating the effect of testable code vs. quality, however the closest I can find is Improving the Testability of Object Oriented Systems, which discusses the relationship between design flaws and testability. Is testable code is actually more stable? And why, or why not? Please back up your answers with references or evidence to back up your claim.

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• Tomcat - virtualhosting - name / ip / port - based

  - by lisak

  Hey, what are the usage scenarios for these kinds of virtual hosting ? Name Based - typical tomcat virtual hosting, one HOME instance with many contexts, each as an individual host IP based / port based - multiple instances of tomcat ( how is it with performance and memory consuption?) running on IP aliases (virtual IPs) for one network adapter, usually behind http apache server that can run name based virtual hostings. Otherwise I can't figure out how would I forward requests in iptables/firewall based on IP address, which is just one. How is IP based virtual hosting done as to Tomcat and multiple instances ? I'd like to hear some usage scenarios from your experience. How are you running your applications. Cause there are applications having it's own modified classloader and they are developed in a way to run alone withing a tomcat instance. Then there are trivial applications which can run within one instance without problems. Many thanks

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• Web-based document merge solution?

  - by rugcutter

  We are looking for a web-based document merge solution. Our application is a web-based project management tool built using Xataface - PHP on Windows IIS + mySQL. We have a function that allows the user to generate a status report in Microsoft Word format based on data in the tool. Currently this function is implemented using LiveDocX. We have a status report template, and LiveDocX performs the merge into the template using data from our project management tool. The main drawback is LiveDocx is web-service based. We are looking to replace LiveDocX in order to reduce our dependence on the up-time of a third-party web-service that we cannot control. Does anyone have any suggestions on a web based document merge solution that I can install on my IIS or PHP based server?

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• Entity Framework 4.3.1 Code based Migrations and Connector/Net 6.6

  - by GABMARTINEZ

   Code-based migrations is a new feature as part of the Connector/Net support for Entity Framework 4.3.1. In this tutorial we'll see how we can use it so we can keep track of the changes done to our database creating a new application using the code first approach. If you don't have a clear idea about how code first works we highly recommend you to check this subject before going further with this tutorial. Creating our Model and Database with Code First  From VS 2010  1. Create a new console application 2.  Add the latest Entity Framework official package using Package Manager Console (Tools Menu, then Library Package Manager -> Package Manager Console). In the Package Manager Console we have to type  Install-Package EntityFramework This will add the latest version of this library.  We will also need to make some changes to your config file. A <configSections> was added which contains the version you have from EntityFramework.  An <entityFramework> section was also added where you can set up some initialization. This section is optional and by default is generated to use SQL Express. Since we don't need it for now (we'll see more about it below) let's leave this section empty as shown below. 3. Create a new Model with a simple entity. 4. Enable Migrations to generate the our Configuration class. In the Package Manager Console we have to type  Enable-Migrations; This will make some changes in our application. It will create a new folder called Migrations where all the migrations representing the changes we do to our model.  It will also create a Configuration class that we'll be using to initialize our SQL Generator and some other values like if we want to enable Automatic Migrations.  You can see that it already has the name of our DbContext. You can also create you Configuration class manually. 5. Specify our Model Provider. We need to specify in our Class Configuration that we'll be using MySQLClient since this is not part of the generated code. Also please make sure you have added the MySql.Data and the MySql.Data.Entity references to your project. using MySql.Data.Entity;   // Add the MySQL.Data.Entity namespace public Configuration() { this.AutomaticMigrationsEnabled = false; SetSqlGenerator("MySql.Data.MySqlClient", new MySql.Data.Entity.MySqlMigrationSqlGenerator());    // This will add our MySQLClient as SQL Generator } 6. Add our Data Provider and set up our connection string <connectionStrings> <add name="PersonalContext" connectionString="server=localhost;User Id=root;database=Personal;" providerName="MySql.Data.MySqlClient" /> </connectionStrings> <system.data> <DbProviderFactories> <remove invariant="MySql.Data.MySqlClient" /> <add name="MySQL Data Provider" invariant="MySql.Data.MySqlClient" description=".Net Framework Data Provider for MySQL" type="MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlClientFactory, MySql.Data, Version=6.6.2.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d" /> </DbProviderFactories> </system.data> * The version recommended to use of Connector/Net is 6.6.2 or earlier. At this point we can create our database and then start working with Migrations. So let's do some data access so our database get's created. You can run your application and you'll get your database Personal as specified in our config file. Add our first migration Migrations are a great resource as we can have a record for all the changes done and will generate the MySQL statements required to apply these changes to the database. Let's add a new property to our Person class public string Email { get; set; } If you try to run your application it will throw an exception saying  The model backing the 'PersonelContext' context has changed since the database was created. Consider using Code First Migrations to update the database (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=238269). So as suggested let's add our first migration for this change. In the Package Manager Console let's type Add-Migration AddEmailColumn Now we have the corresponding class which generate the necessary operations to update our database. namespace MigrationsFromScratch.Migrations { using System.Data.Entity.Migrations; public partial class AddEmailColumn : DbMigration { public override void Up(){ AddColumn("People", "Email", c => c.String(unicode: false)); } public override void Down() { DropColumn("People", "Email"); } } } In the Package Manager Console let's type Update-Database Now you can check your database to see all changes were succesfully applied. Now let's add a second change and generate our second migration public class Person   {       [Key]       public int PersonId { get; set;}       public string Name { get; set; }       public string Address {get; set;}       public string Email { get; set; }       public List<Skill> Skills { get; set; }   }   public class Skill   {     [Key]     public int SkillId { get; set; }     public string Description { get; set; }   }   public class PersonelContext : DbContext   {     public DbSet<Person> Persons { get; set; }     public DbSet<Skill> Skills { get; set; }   } If you would like to customize any part of this code you can do that at this step. You can see there is the up method which can update your database and the down that can revert the changes done. If you customize any code you should make sure to customize in both methods. Now let's apply this change. Update-database -verbose I added the verbose flag so you can see all the SQL generated statements to be run. Downgrading changes So far we have always upgraded to the latest migration, but there may be times when you want downgrade to a specific migration. Let's say we want to return to the status we have before our last migration. We can use the -TargetMigration option to specify the migration we'd like to return. Also you can use the -verbose flag. If you like to go  back to the Initial state you can do: Update-Database -TargetMigration:$InitialDatabase  or equivalent: Update-Database -TargetMigration:0  Migrations doesn't allow by default a migration that would ocurr in a data loss. One case when you can got this message is for example in a DropColumn operation. You can override this configuration by setting AutomaticMigrationDataLossAllowed to true in the configuration class. Also you can set your Database Initializer in case you want that these Migrations can be applied automatically and you don't have to go all the way through creating a migration and updating later the changes. Let's see how. Database Initialization by Code We can specify an initialization strategy by using Database.SetInitializer (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg679461(v=vs.103)). One of the strategies that I found very useful when you are at a development stage (I mean not for production) is the MigrateDatabaseToLatestVersion. This strategy will make all the necessary migrations each time there is a change in our model that needs a database replication, this also implies that we have to enable AutomaticMigrationsEnabled flag in our Configuration class. public Configuration()         {             AutomaticMigrationsEnabled = true;             AutomaticMigrationDataLossAllowed = true;             SetSqlGenerator("MySql.Data.MySqlClient", new MySql.Data.Entity.MySqlMigrationSqlGenerator());    // This will add our MySQLClient as SQL Generator          } In the new EntityFramework section of your Config file we can set this at a context level basis.  The syntax is as follows: <contexts> <context type="Custom DbContext name, Assembly name"> <databaseInitializer type="System.Data.Entity.MigrateDatabaseToLatestVersion`2[[ Custom DbContext name, Assembly name],  [Configuration class name, Assembly name]],  EntityFramework" /> </context> </contexts> In our example this would be: The syntax is kind of odd but very convenient. This way all changes will always be applied when we do any data access in our application. There are a lot of new things to explore in EF 4.3.1 and Migrations so we'll continue writing some more posts about it. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments, also please check our forums here where we keep answering questions in general for the community.  Hope you found this information useful. Happy MySQL/.Net Coding! 

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• Cloud Based Load Testing Using TF Service &amp; VS 2013

  - by Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP]

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/06/30/cloud-based-load-testing-using-tf-service-amp-vs-2013.aspx One of the new features announced as part of the Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate Preview is ‘Cloud Based Load Testing’. In this blog post I’ll walk you through, What is Cloud Based Load Testing? How have I been using this feature? – Success story! Where can you find more resources on this feature? What is Cloud Based Load Testing? It goes without saying that performance testing your application not only gives you the confidence that the application will work under heavy levels of stress but also gives you the ability to test how scalable the architecture of your application is. It is important to know how much is too much for your application! Working with various clients in the industry I have realized that the biggest barriers in Load Testing & Performance Testing adoption are, High infrastructure and administration cost that comes with this phase of testing Time taken to procure & set up the test infrastructure Finding use for this infrastructure investment after completion of testing Is cloud the answer? 100% Visual Studio Compatible Scalable and Realistic Start testing in < 2 minutes Intuitive Pay only for what you need Use existing on premise tests on cloud There are a lot of vendors out there offering Cloud Based Load Testing, to name a few, Load Storm Soasta Blaze Meter Blitz And others… The question you may want to ask is, why should you go with Microsoft’s Cloud based Load Test offering. If you are a Microsoft shop or already have investments in Microsoft technologies, you’ll see great benefit in the natural integration this offers with existing Microsoft products such as Visual Studio and Windows Azure. For example, your existing Web tests authored in Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2012 will run on the cloud without requiring any modifications what so ever. Microsoft’s cloud test rig also supports API based testing, for example, if you are building a WPF application which consumes WCF services, you can write unit tests to invoke the WCF service, these tests can be run on the cloud test rig and loaded with ‘N’ concurrent users for performance testing. If you have your assets already hosted in the Azure and possibly in the same data centre as the Cloud test rig, your Azure app will not incur a usage cost because of the generated traffic since the traffic is coming from the same data centre. The licensing or pricing information on Microsoft’s cloud based Load test service is yet to be announced, but I would expect this to be priced attractively to match the market competition.   The only additional configuration required for running load tests on Microsoft Cloud based Load Tests service is to select the Test run location as Run tests using Visual Studio Team Foundation Service, How have I been using Microsoft’s Cloud based Load Test Service? I have been part of the Microsoft Cloud Based Load Test Service advisory council for the last 7 months. This gave the opportunity to see the product shape up from concept to working solution. I was also the first person outside of Microsoft to try this offering out. This gave me the opportunity to test real world application at various clients using the Microsoft Load Test Service and provide real world feedback to the Microsoft product team. One of the most recent systems I tested using the Load Test Service has been an insurance quote generation engine. This insurance quote generation engine is,   hosted in Windows Azure expected to get quote requests from across the globe expected to handle 5 Million quote requests in a day (not clear how this load will be distributed across the day) There was no way, I could simulate such kind of load from on premise without standing up additional hardware. But Microsoft’s Cloud based Load Test service allowed me to test my key performance testing scenarios, i.e. Simulate expected Load, Endurance Testing, Threshold Testing and Testing for Latency. Simulating expected load: approach to devising a load pattern My approach to devising a load test pattern has been to run the test scenario with 1 user to figure out the response time. Then work out how many users are required to reach the target load. So, for example, to invoke 1 quote from the quote engine software takes 0.5 seconds. Now if you do the math,   1 quote request by 1 user = 0.5 seconds   quotes generated by 1 user in 24 hour = 1 * (((2 * 60) * 60) * 24) = 172,800   quotes generated by 30 users in 24 hours = 172,800 * 30 =  5,184,000 This was a very simple example, if your application requires more concurrent users to test scenario’s such as caching, etc then you can devise your own load pattern, some examples of load test patterns can be found here.  Endurance Testing To test for endurance, I loaded the quote generation engine with an expected fixed user load and ran the test for very long duration such as over 48 hours and observed the affect of the long running test on the Azure infrastructure. Currently Microsoft Load Test service does not support metrics from the machine under test. I used Azure diagnostics to begin with, but later started using Cerebrata Azure Diagnostics Manager to capture the metrics of the machine under test. Threshold Testing To figure out how much user load the application could cope with before falling on its belly, I opted to step load the quote generation engine by incrementing user load with different variations of incremental user load per minute till the application crashed out and forced an IIS reset. Testing for Latency Currently the Microsoft Load Test service does not support generating geographically distributed load, I however, deployed the insurance quote generation engine in different Azure data centres and ran the same set of performance tests to measure for latency. Because I could compare load test results from different runs by exporting the results to excel (this feature is provided out of the box right from Visual Studio 2010) I could see the different in response times. More resources on Microsoft Cloud based Load Test Service A few important links to get you started, Download Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 Preview Getting started guide for load testing using Team Foundation Service Troubleshooting guide for FAQs and known issues Team Foundation Service forum for questions and support Detailed demo and presentation (link to Tech-Ed session recording) Detailed demo and presentation (link to Build session recording) There a few limits on the usage of Microsoft Cloud based Load Test service that you can read about here. If you have any feedback on Microsoft Cloud based Load Test service, feel free to share it with the product team via the Visual Studio User Voice forum. I hope you found this useful. Thank you for taking the time out and reading this blog post. If you enjoyed the post, remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Stay tuned!

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• What are the difference between: agent, actor, dataflow based programming?

  - by inf3rno

  What are the difference between the following terms? agent-based programming agent-based programming with microagents actor-based programming actor-based programming with lightweight actors dataflow based programming It is hard to find comparing articles and they are very similar. Afaik they have different constraints and they are implemented on a different abstraction level, but I need some reassurance...

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