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• looking for a clock widget that is unaffected by the mouse

  - by Joshua Robison

  Between screenlets, cairo-dock widgets and plasma-widgets. One of them's gotta have this function; A widget that hovers above everything on the desktop but is completely unaffected by the mouse. I would use this by making a clock hover above everything and semi transparent. I also want to be able to click on windows underneath the clock. After some experimentation, the screenlets widgets do not do what I am asking. I can make them float above everything on the screen but I am not able to click on windows underneath them. I need the widget to be COMPLETELY unaffected by the mouse.

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• What are the downsides to using dependency injection?

  - by kerry

  I recently came across an interesting question on stack overflow with some interesting reponses.  I like this post for three reasons. First, I am a big fan of dependency injection, it forces you to decouple your code, create cohesive interfaces, and should result in testable classes. Second, the author took the approach I usually do when trying to evaluate a technique or technology; suspend personal feelings and try to find some compelling arguments against it. Third, it proved that it is very difficult to come up with a compelling argument against dependency injection. What are the downsides to using dependency injection?

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• Alternatives to a leveling system

  - by Bane

  I'm currently designing a rough prototype of a mecha fighting game. These are the basics I came up with: Multiplayer (matchmaking for up to 10 people, for now) Browser based (HTML5) 2D (<canvas>) Persistent (as in, players have accounts and don't have to use a new mech each time they start a match) Players earn money upon destroying another mech, which is used to buy parts (guns, armor, boosters, etc) Simplicity (both of the game itself, and of the development of said game) No "leveling" (as in, players don't get awarded with XP) The last part is bothering me. At first, I wanted to have players gain experience points (XP) when destroying other mechs, but gaining two things at once (money and XP) seemed to be in conflict with my last point, which is simplicity. If I were to have a leveling system, that would require additional development. But, the biggest problem is that I simply couldn't fit it anywhere! Adding levels would require adding meaning to these levels, and most of the things that I hoped to achieve could already be achieved with the money mechanic I introduced. So I decided to drop leveling off completely. That, in turn, removed a fairly popular and robust mean of progression in games from my game (not that I would use it well anyway). Is there another way of progression in games, aside from leveling and XP points, that wouldn't get rendered redundant by my money mechanic, would be somehow meaningful (even on a symbolic level), and wouldn't be in conflict with my last point, which is simplicity?

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• Database Schema Usage

  - by CrazyHorse

  I have a question regarding the appropriate use of SQL Server database schemas and was hoping that some database gurus might be able to offer some guidance around best practice. Just to give a bit of background, my team has recently shrunk to 2 people and we have just been merged with another 6 person team. My team had set up a SQL Server environment running off a desktop backing up to another desktop (and nightly to the network), whilst the new team has a formal SQL Server environment, running on a dedicated server, with backups and maintenance all handled by a dedicated team. So far it's good news for my team. Now to the query. My team designed all our tables to belong to a 3-letter schema name (e.g. User = USR, General = GEN, Account = ACC) which broadly speaking relate to specific applications, although there is a lot of overlap. My new team has come from an Access background and have implemented their tables within dbo with a 3-letter perfix followed by "_tbl" so the examples above would be dbo.USR_tblTableName, dbo.GEN_tblTableName and dbo.ACC_tblTableName. Further to this, neither my old team nor my new team has gone live with their SQL Servers yet (we're both coincidentally migrating away from Access environments) and the new team have said they're willing to consider adopting our approach if we can explain how this would be beneficial. We are not anticipating handling table updates at schema level, as we will be using application-level logins. Also, with regards to the unwieldiness of the 7-character prefix, I'm not overly concerned myself as we're using LINQ almost exclusively so the tables can simply be renamed in the DMBL (although I know that presents some challenges when we update the DBML). So therefore, given that both teams need to be aligned with one another, can anyone offer any convincing arguments either way?

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• What is the best solution for document archiving?

  - by Anders Wallenquist

  I'm looking for a utility that helps me (and my colleagues) to archive documents in a systematic manner (Like Zeitgeist but permanent). The utility have to clean-out old document from desktops and store them on a server (as automatic as possible and consistent) maybe from just a few locations (Document directory) Documents shall be stored on cheap large media for many years to come - hard disk and file system maybe? Easy to maintain and manage for a small organization. Documents have to be easy to find and restore One systematic manner could be a directory-structure by year, month, user or user, year, month. Its a plus if documents could be linked to a project, if documents could be search-able and if document could also be mail, IM-discussions not only OpenOffice traditional documents. Any ideas?

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• Easy remote communication without WCF

  - by Ralf Westphal

  If you´ve read my previous posts about why I deem WCF more of a problem than a solution and how I think we should switch to asynchronous only communication in distributed application, you might be wondering, how this could be done in an easy way. Since a truely simple example to get started with WCF still is drawing quite some traffic to this blog, let me pick up on that and show you, how to accomplish the same but much easier with an async communication API. For simplicities sake let me put all...(read more)

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• What package is meant to replace thinkfinger in 11.10?

  - by misterhaan

  My laptop has a fingerprint reader that until 11.10 I used via thinkfinger. That package is no longer in the repositories, but I assume there’s a different package meant to support fingerprint readers in thinkfinger’s place. What is the recommended fingerprint reader package? Should I just find thinkfinger on my own and use that instead? Here’s my reader’s lsusb output: Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0483:2016 SGS Thomson Microelectronics Fingerprint Reader

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• Architecture for Social Graph data that has a Time Frame Associated?

  - by Jay Stevens

  I am adding some "social" type features to an existing application. There are a limited # of node & edge types. Overall the data itself is relatively small (50,000 - 70,000 for each type of node) there will be a number of edges (relationships) between them (almost all directional). This, I know, is relatively easy to represent with an SDF store (such as BrightstarDB) or something like Microsoft's Trinity (or really many of the noSQL options). The thing that, I think, makes this a unique use case is that each relationship will have a timeframe associated with it (start and end dates). Right now, I'm thinking of just storing this in a relational structure and dealing with the headaches of "traversing the graph", but I'm looking for suggestions on a better approach (both in terms of data structure and server): Column ================ From_Node_ID Relationship To_Node_ID StartDate EndDate Any suggestions or thoughts are welcomed.

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• How to develop RPG Damage Formulas?

  - by user127817

  I'm developing a classical 2d RPG (in a similar vein to final fantasy) and I was wondering if anyone had some advice on how to do damage formulas/links to resources/examples? I'll explain my current setup. Hopefully I'm not overdoing it with this question, and I apologize if my questions is too large/broad My Characters stats are composed of the following: enum Stat { HP = 0, MP = 1, SP = 2, Strength = 3, Vitality = 4, Magic = 5, Spirit = 6, Skill = 7, Speed = 8, //Speed/Agility are the same thing Agility = 8, Evasion = 9, MgEvasion = 10, Accuracy = 11, Luck = 12, }; Vitality is basically defense to physical attacks and spirit is defense to magic attacks. All stats have fixed maximums (9999 for HP, 999 for MP/SP and 255 for the rest). With abilities, the maximums can be increased (99999 for HP, 9999 for HP/SP, 999 for the rest) with typical values (at level 100) before/after abilities+equipment+etc will be 8000/20,000 for HP, 800/2000 for SP/MP, 180/350 for other stats Late game Enemy HP will typically be in the lower millions (with a super boss having the maximum of ~12 million). I was wondering how do people actually develop proper damage formulas that scale correctly? For instance, based on this data, using the damage formulas for Final Fantasy X as a base looked very promising. A full reference here http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/197344-final-fantasy-x/faqs/31381 but as a quick example: Str = 127, 'Attack' command used, enemy Def = 34. 1. Physical Damage Calculation: Step 1 ------------------------------------- [{(Stat^3 ÷ 32) + 32} x DmCon ÷16] Step 2 ---------------------------------------- [{(127^3 ÷ 32) + 32} x 16 ÷ 16] Step 3 -------------------------------------- [{(2048383 ÷ 32) + 32} x 16 ÷ 16] Step 4 --------------------------------------------------- [{(64011) + 32} x 1] Step 5 -------------------------------------------------------- [{(64043 x 1)}] Step 6 ---------------------------------------------------- Base Damage = 64043 Step 7 ----------------------------------------- [{(Def - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 8 ------------------------------------------ [{(34 - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 9 ------------------------------------------------- [(-246)^2) ÷ 110] + 16 Step 10 ---------------------------------------------------- [60516 ÷ 110] + 16 Step 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ [550] + 16 Step 12 ---------------------------------------------------------- DefNum = 566 Step 13 ---------------------------------------------- [BaseDmg * DefNum ÷ 730] Step 14 --------------------------------------------------- [64043 * 566 ÷ 730] Step 15 ------------------------------------------------------ [36248338 ÷ 730] Step 16 ------------------------------------------------- Base Damage 2 = 49655 Step 17 ------------ Base Damage 2 * {730 - (Def * 51 - Def^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 18 ---------------------- 49655 * {730 - (34 * 51 - 34^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 19 ------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1734 - 1156 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 20 ------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1734 - 105) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 21 ------------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1629) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 22 --------------------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - 162} ÷ 730 Step 23 ----------------------------------------------------- 49655 * 568 ÷ 730 Step 24 -------------------------------------------------- Final Damage = 38635 I simply modified the dividers to include the attack rating of weapons and the armor rating of armor. Magic Damage is calculated as follows: Mag = 255, Ultima is used, enemy MDef = 1 Step 1 ----------------------------------- [DmCon * ([Stat^2 ÷ 6] + DmCon) ÷ 4] Step 2 ------------------------------------------ [70 * ([255^2 ÷ 6] + 70) ÷ 4] Step 3 ------------------------------------------ [70 * ([65025 ÷ 6] + 70) ÷ 4] Step 4 ------------------------------------------------ [70 * (10837 + 70) ÷ 4] Step 5 ----------------------------------------------------- [70 * (10907) ÷ 4] Step 6 ------------------------------------ Base Damage = 190872 [cut to 99999] Step 7 ---------------------------------------- [{(MDef - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 8 ------------------------------------------- [{(1 - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 9 ---------------------------------------------- [{(-279.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 10 -------------------------------------------------- [(78064) ÷ 110] + 16 Step 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ [709] + 16 Step 12 --------------------------------------------------------- MDefNum = 725 Step 13 --------------------------------------------- [BaseDmg * MDefNum ÷ 730] Step 14 --------------------------------------------------- [99999 * 725 ÷ 730] Step 15 ------------------------------------------------- Base Damage 2 = 99314 Step 16 ---------- Base Damage 2 * {730 - (MDef * 51 - MDef^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 17 ------------------------ 99314 * {730 - (1 * 51 - 1^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 18 ------------------------------ 99314 * {730 - (51 - 1 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 19 --------------------------------------- 99314 * {730 - (49) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 20 ----------------------------------------------------- 99314 * 725 ÷ 730 Step 21 -------------------------------------------------- Final Damage = 98633 The problem is that the formulas completely fall apart once stats start going above 255. In particular Defense values over 300 or so start generating really strange behavior. High Strength + Defense stats lead to massive negative values for instance. While I might be able to modify the formulas to work correctly for my use case, it'd probably be easier just to use a completely new formula. How do people actually develop damage formulas? I was considering opening excel and trying to build the formula that way (mapping Attack Stats vs. Defense Stats for instance) but I was wondering if there's an easier way? While I can't convey the full game mechanics of my game here, might someone be able to suggest a good starting place for building a damage formula? Thanks

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• Is there a rule of thumb for what a bing map's zoom setting should be based on how many miles you want to display?

  - by Clay Shannon

  If a map contains pushpins/waypoints that span only a couple of miles, the map should be zoomed way in and show a lot of detail. If the pushpins/waypoints instead cover vast areas, such as hundreds or even thousands of miles, it should be zoomed way out. That's clear. My question is: is there a general guideline for mapping (no pun intended) Bing Maps zoom levels to a particular number of miles that separate the furthest apart points? e.g., is there some chart that has something like: Zoom level N shows 2 square miles Zoom level N shows 5 square miles etc.?

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• Converting a video file in arbitrary file format into MPEG4/H.264?

  - by knorv

  I want to convert a large number of video files in various formats into .mp4 files (container MPEG-4, codec H.264). I want to do this on an Ubuntu machine, using only command-line tools and I'm willing to install packages from main, restricted, universe and multiverse. Ideally I'd like to be able to do ... for VIDEO_FILE in *; do some_conversion_program $VIDEO_FILE $VIDEO_FILE.mp4 done ... and have all my video files in .mp4 format with container MPEG-4 and codec H.264. How would you tackle this problem on an Ubuntu machine? What packages do I need to install?

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• Equivalent to Freedom and/or Anti-Social?

  - by mummey

  Freedom: http://macfreedom.com/ Anti-Social: http://anti-social.cc/ Simply put: Where can I find a equivalent to either-or/both these apps? Note: Part of the appeal of these apps is allowing the user to explicitly make it extra difficult to re-enable these services. Unplugging the network cable might seem to achieve the same results from an glance, but the added difficulty in re-enabling those services is what makes these apps valuable.

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• What are the basic features of an email module in a common web application?

  - by Coral Doe

  When developing an email module, what are the features to have in mind, besides actual email sending? I am talking about an email module that notifies users of events and periodically sends reports. The only other feature I have in mind is maintaining grey/black lists for users that do illegal operations in the system or any other things that may lead to email/domain/IP banning. Is there an etiquette for developing email modules? Are there some references of requirements for such modules?

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• Penalty for collision during a racing game

  - by Arthur Wulf White

  In a racing game: How should we penalize the player for colliding head on into obstacles such as walls, trees and so on. What is the way it is done in your favorite racing game? How is it done in other successful racing games? Do you think temporarily disabling the engine for a second is too severe? If I do go that route, how would I convey the 'engine is disabled' to the player in a subtle and easily understood way? Is this 'too much' of a penalty? Would the slow-down from the collision be sufficient to discourage the player from driving too carelessly? Which one is more fun? Should I consider a health-bar and affect engine performance for 'low health' status? Could you offer examples of games that handle this well and one that do it poorly? Please share your experience with racing games obstacles and reference games you feel perform well in this aspect. I am sure we all enjoy our racing games differently and I would like to hear different opinions regarding this issue. I would also like to hear how you feel we should penalize or reward for colliding with other vehicles? Should enemy vehicles be destroyable? Should they slow down severely when they hit the back of your car or would that make the gameplay imbalanced?

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• Gathering all data in single iteration vs using functions for readable code

  - by user828584

  Say I have an array of runners with which I need to find the tallest runner, the fastest runner, and the lightest runner. It seems like the most readable solution would be: runners = getRunners(); tallestRunner = getTallestRunner(runners); fastestRunner = getFastestRunner(runners); lightestRunner = getLightestRunner(runners); ..where each function iterates over the runners and keeps track of the largest height, greatest speed, and lowest weight. Iterating over the array three times, however, doesn't seem like a very good idea. It would instead be better to do: int greatestHeght, greatestSpeed, leastWeight; Runner tallestRunner, fastestRunner, lightestRunner; for(runner in runners){ if(runner.height > greatestHeight) { greatestHeight = runner.height; tallestRunner = runner; } if(runner.speed > ... } While this isn't too unreadable, it can get messy when there is more logic for each piece of information being extracted in the iteration. What's the middle ground here? How can I use only a single iteration while still keeping the code divided into logical units?

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• C# XNA - Sky Sphere Question

  - by Wade

  I have been banging my head against the wall trying to get a sky sphere to work appropriately in XNA 4.0. I have the sphere loading correctly, and even textured, but i would like something a little more dynamic that can support a day/night cycle. My issue is that, while i know a good amount of C# and XNA, i know next to nothing about HLSL. (I could make an ambient light shader if my life depended on it...) I also have not been able to find a tutorial on how to build a sky sphere like this. Of course i don't expect to be able to make an amazing one right off the bat, i would like to start small, with a dynamic coloring sky i'll work out the clouds and sun later. My first question: Does anyone know of any good tutorial sites that could help me get a decent grasp around HLSL? Second: Does anyone have a good example of or know where to find one of a gradient sky using XNA and C#?

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• SDL to SFML simple question

  - by ultifinitus

  Hey! I've been working on a game in c++ for about a week and a half, and I've been using SDL. However, my current engine only needs the following from whatever library I use: enable double buffering load an image from path into something that I can apply to the screen apply an image to the screen with a certain x,y enable transparency on an image (possibly) image clipping, for sprite sheets. I am fairly sure that SFML has all of this functionality, I'm just not positive. Will someone confirm my suspicions? Also I have one or two questions regarding SFML itself. Do I have to do anything to enable hardware accelerated rendering? How quick is SFML at blending alpha values? (sorry for the less than intelligent question!)

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• Can I use access used by Visual Basic for building a database [on hold]

  - by user3413537

  I am the only programmer where I work (summer job) and I am a student with only a few years of programming experience. So I was asked to build a database and I am very excited about this project because hopefully I can learn a lot from this. Using this database my manager is supposed to be able to assign work (dealing with businesses) to different people within the company using an interface (all workers have a shared drive). When workers are done with that paperwork related to the business, they can check off that its done, add comments at the bottom of the interface, and then move on to the next business. The only experience I've had with databases is some querying with SQL, and I've built GUI interfaces with JAVA. The information on the interface will be populated from Excel so workers know what businesses they are dealing with. I've done some research and I believe the best way to build this would be building a GUI using Microsoft Visual Studio (Visual Basic) first, then figuring out a way to populate the Interface from Excel. Also because the data is pretty straight forward and not complicated I will be using MS Access to store and track the database. I know this won't be easy, but for all you geniuses out there, is this on the right path? Thanks.

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• POP Forums v10 beta posted for ASP.NET MVC 4

  - by Jeff

  Finally got some momentum and replaced the beta formerly known as v9.3. You can get it here, where you’ll find the information below. You can also read my previous post on why I ditched jQuery Mobile. This is the beta for POP Forums v10, with the mobile special sauce. It requires ASP.NET MVC 4 RC, which you can download here. Of course, feel free to submit bugs to the issue tracker. See a live demo here: http://popforums.com/Forums What's new? Uses a very light weight CSS and Javascript package to provide a touch-friendly interface for mobile devices. Numbers are formatted (sensitive to culture) when 1,000 or higher. CSS is more integration friendly, and specific to the ForumContainer element. Mail delivery from queue is now parallel, so you can specify a sending interval, and the number of messages to process on each interval. Background "services" refactored, and will only run with a call on app start to PopForumsActivation.StartServices(). This is partly to facilitate future use in Web farms/multiple Web roles. Update to jQuery v1.7.1. Replaced use of .live() with .on() in script, pursuant to jQuery update, which deprecates .live(). FIX: Bug in topic repository around caching keys for single-server data layer. FIX: Pager links on recent topics pointed to incorrect route. FIX: Deleting a post didn't update last user/post time. FIX: Ditched attempt at writing to event log with super failures, since almost no one has permission in production. FIX: Bug in grayed-out fields in admin mail setup. FIX: Weird color profiles would break loading of images for resize. FIX: TOS text on account sign-up was double encoded. Known issues None yet, but ditching jQuery Mobile from the previous beta turned out to be a good decision.

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• ASP.NET hosting: better, faster, cheaper

  - by Fabrice Marguerie

  After seven years with webhost4life, it was time to move on. Especially because of all the troubles with webhost4life due to their internal migration to a new hosting environment (the company has been bought out).I've just moved all my websites elsewhere. I'm now using Arvixe and OrcsWeb.I use OrcsWeb for metaSapiens.com. OrcsWeb kindly offers me free ASP.NET hosting because I'm a Microsoft MVP. I'd like to publicly thank OrcsWeb for this, and I invite you to have a look at what they have to offer.I use Arvixe for all my other websites, the major ones being SharpToolbox.com, JavaToolbox.com, AxToolbox.com, Proagora.com, LinqInAction.net, ClairDeBulle.com, and madgeek.com.Moving all my websites wasn't a walk in the park, but it was well worth it. Let's consider what I get with Arvixe:Unlimited diskspaceUnlimited data transferUnlimited domainsDedicated application poolsUnlimited POP3 and IMAP mailboxesUnlimited SQL Server 2008 databasesUnlimited MySQL 5 databases.NET 1.1, 2, 3.5 and 4Full trustIIS 7Daily backups A powerful and easy to use control panelAnd more!All of this for $8 per month. If you don't need all of the above features, you can even get an offer as cheap as $5 per month.You can even get better rates if you use coupon codes, such as TOPHOST (30% discount) or MVCHOSTING (20% discount).All in all, I paid only $134 for two years for a great hosting service!Maybe it's time for you to move too?Disclaimer: the links to OrcsWeb and Arvixe are affiliate links that may bring me some money home if you sign up.

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• AgileDotNet in Dallas

  - by PeterBrunone

  This conference was a big hit last time, and now it's better then ever.  If you're wondering about how Agile applies to your daily business, or if you just want to see how it looks when it's done right, you owe it to yourself to check out AgileDotNet on April 30th.

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• Architecting multi-model multi-DB ASP.NET MVC solution

  - by A. Murray

  I have an ASP.NET MVC 4 solution that I'm putting together, leveraging IoC and the repository pattern using Entity Framework 5. I have a new requirement to be able to pull data from a second database (from another internal application) which I don't have control over. There is no API available unfortunately for the second application and the general pattern at my place of work is to go direct to the database. I want to maintain a consistent approach to modeling the domain and use entity framework to pull the data out, so thus far I have used Entity Framework's database first approach to generate a domain model and database context over the top of this. However, I've become a little stuck on how to include the second domain model in the application. I have a generic repository which I've now moved out to a common DataAccess project, but short of creating two distinct wrappers for the generic repository (so each can identify with a specific database context), I'm struggling to see how I can elegantly include multiple models?

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• First Person Shooter game agent development

  - by LangerHansIslands

  I would like to apply (program) the Artificial intelligence methods to create a intelligent game bots for a first person shooter game. Do you have any knowledge from where can I start to develop as a Linux user? Do you have a suggestion for an easy-to-start game for which I can develop bots easily, caring more about the result of my algorithms rather than spending a lot of time dealing with the game code? I've read some publications about the applied methods to Quake 3 (c) and Open Arena. But I couldn't find the source codes and manuals describing how to start coding( for compiling, developing ai and etc.). I appreciate your help.

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• Advantages of Singleton Class over Static Class?

  Point 1)Singleton We can get the object of singleton and then pass to other methods.Static Class We can not pass static class to other methods as we pass objectsPoint 2) Singleton In future, it is easy to change the logic of of creating objects to some pooling mechanism. Static Class Very difficult to implement some pooling logic in case of static class. We would need to make that class as non-static and then make all the methods non-static methods, So entire your code needs to be changed.Point3:) Singleton Can Singletone class be inherited to subclass? Singleton class does not say any restriction of Inheritence. So we should be able to do this as long as subclass is also inheritence.There's nothing fundamentally wrong with subclassing a class that is intended to be a singleton. There are many reasons you might want to do it. and there are many ways to accomplish it. It depends on language you use.Static Class We can not inherit Static class to another Static class in C#. Think about it this way: you access static members via type name, like this: MyStaticType.MyStaticMember(); Were you to inherit from that class, you would have to access it via the new type name: MyNewType.MyStaticMember(); Thus, the new item bears no relationships to the original when used in code. There would be no way to take advantage of any inheritance relationship for things like polymorphism. span.fullpost {display:none;}

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• Review: Backbone.js Testing

  - by george_v_reilly

  Title: Backbone.js Testing Author: Ryan Roemer Rating: $stars(4.5) Publisher: Packt Copyright: 2013 ISBN: 178216524X Pages: 168 Keywords: programming, testing, javascript, backbone, mocha, chai, sinon Reading period: October 2013 Backbone.js Testing is a short, dense introduction to testing JavaScript applications with three testing libraries, Mocha, Chai, and Sinon.JS. Although the author uses a sample application of a personal note manager written with Backbone.js throughout the book, much of the material would apply to any JavaScript client or server framework. Mocha is a test framework that can be executed in the browser or by Node.js, which runs your tests. Chai is a framework-agnostic TDD/BDD assertion library. Sinon.JS provides standalone test spies, stubs and mocks for JavaScript. They complement each other and the author does a good job of explaining when and how to use each. I've written a lot of tests in Python (unittest and mock, primarily) and C# (NUnit), but my experience with JavaScript unit testing was both limited and years out of date. The JavaScript ecosystem continues to evolve rapidly, with new browser frameworks and Node packages springing up everywhere. JavaScript has some particular challenges in testing—notably, asynchrony and callbacks. Mocha, Chai, and Sinon meet those challenges, though they can't take away all the pain. The author describes how to test Backbone models, views, and collections; dealing with asynchrony; provides useful testing heuristics, including isolating components to reduce dependencies; when to use stubs and mocks and fake servers; and test automation with PhantomJS. He does not, however, teach you Backbone.js itself; for that, you'll need another book. There are a few areas which I thought were dealt with too lightly. There's no real discussion of Test-driven_development or Behavior-driven_development, which provide the intellectual foundations of much of the book. Nor does he have much to say about testability and how to make legacy code more testable. The sample Notes app has plenty of testing seams (much of this falls naturally out of the architecture of Backbone); other apps are not so lucky. The chapter on automation is extremely terse—it could be expanded into a very large book!—but it does provide useful indicators to many areas for exploration. I learned a lot from this book and I have no hesitation in recommending it. Disclosure: Thanks to Ryan Roemer and Packt for a review copy of this book.

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