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  • Strategies to Defeat Memory Editors for Cheating - Desktop Games

    - by ashes999
    I'm assuming we're talking about desktop games -- something the player downloads and runs on their local computer. Many are the memory editors that allow you to detect and freeze values, like your player's health. How do you prevent cheating via memory-modifiation? What strategies are effective to combat this kind of cheating? For reference, I know that players can: - Search for something by value or range - Search for something that changed value - Set memory values - Freeze memory values I'm looking for some good ones. Two I use that are mediocre are: Displaying values as a percentage instead of the number (eg. 46/50 = 92% health) A low-level class that holds values in an array and moves them with each change. (For example, instead of an int, I have a class that's an array of ints, and whenever the value changes, I use a different, randomly-chosen array item to hold the value)

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  • Detecting Duplicates Using Oracle Business Rules

    - by joeywong-Oracle
    Recently I was involved with a Business Process Management Proof of Concept (BPM PoC) where we wanted to show how customers could use Oracle Business Rules (OBR) to easily define some rules to detect certain conditions, such as duplicate account numbers, duplicate names, high transaction amounts, etc, in a set of transactions. Traditionally you would have to loop through the transactions and compare each transaction with each other to find matching conditions. This is not particularly nice as it relies on more traditional approaches (coding) and is not the most efficient way. OBR is a great place to house these types’ of rules as it allows users/developers to externalise the rules, in a simpler manner, externalising the rules from the message flows and allows users to change them when required. So I went ahead looking for some examples. After quite a bit of time spent Googling, I did not find much out in the blogosphere. In fact the best example was actually from...... wait for it...... Oracle Documentation! (http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E28271_01/user.1111/e10228/rules_start.htm#ASRUG228) However, if you followed the link there was not much explanation provided with the example. So the aim of this article is to provide a little more explanation to the example so that it can be better understood. Note: I won’t be covering the BPM parts in great detail. Use case: Payment instruction file is required to be processed. Before instruction file can be processed it needs to be approved by a business user. Before the approval process, it would be useful to run the payment instruction file through OBR to look for transactions of interest. The output of the OBR can then be used to flag the transactions for the approvers to investigate. Example BPM Process So let’s start defining the Business Rules Dictionary. For the input into our rules, we will be passing in an array of payments which contain some basic information for our demo purposes. Input to Business Rules And for our output we want to have an array of rule output messages. Note that the element I am using for the output is only for one rule message element and not an array. We will configure the Business Rules component later to return an array instead. Output from Business Rules Business Rule – Create Dictionary Fill in all the details and click OK. Open the Business Rules component and select Decision Functions from the side. Modify the Decision Function Configuration Select the decision function and click on the edit button (the pencil), don’t worry that JDeveloper indicates that there is an error with the decision function. Then click the Ouputs tab and make sure the checkbox under the List column is checked, this is to tell the Business Rules component that it should return an array of rule message elements. Updating the Decision Service Next we will define the actual rules. Click on Ruleset1 on the side and then the Create Rule in the IF/THEN Rule section. Creating new rule in ruleset Ok, this is where some detailed explanation is required. Remember that the input to this Business Rules dictionary is a list of payments, each of those payments were of the complex type PaymentType. Each of those payments in the Oracle Business Rules engine is treated as a fact in its working memory. Implemented rule So in the IF/THEN rule, the first task is to grab two PaymentType facts from the working memory and assign them to temporary variable names (payment1 and payment2 in our example). Matching facts Once we have them in the temporary variables, we can then start comparing them to each other. For our demonstration we want to find payments where the account numbers were the same but the account name was different. Suspicious payment instruction And to stop the rule from comparing the same facts to each other, over and over again, we have to include the last test. Stop rule from comparing endlessly And that’s it! No for loops, no need to keep track of what you have or have not compared, OBR handles all that for you because everything is done in its working memory. And once all the tests have been satisfied we need to assert a new fact for the output. Assert the output fact Save your Business Rules. Next step is to complete the data association in the BPM process. Pay extra care to use Copy List instead of the default Copy when doing data association at an array level. Input and output data association Deploy and test. Test data Rule matched Parting words: Ideally you would then use the output of the Business Rules component to then display/flag the transactions which triggered the rule so that the approver can investigate. Link: SOA Project Archive [Download]

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  • jQuery mobile List-View is not working after adding some jquery code [closed]

    - by Kaidul Islam Sazal
    I am using jquery mobile and I have an array makeArrayin jquery and I have created few listview by the values of the array.Everything works fine.But the jquery mobile list-view style is not shown. Rather it is shown an ordinary list view. This is my code: $(document).ready(function(){ var url = "inventory/inventory.json"; var makeArray = new Array(); $.getJSON(url, function(data){ $.each(data, function(index, item){ if(($.inArray(item.make, makeArray)) == -1){ makeArray.push(item.make); $('.upper_case') .append('<li data-icon="list-arrow"> <a href="trade_form.php?='+ item.make +'"><img src="images/car_logo/buick.png" class="ui-li-thumb"/>' + item.make + '</a></li>'); } }); }); });

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  • Why can we delete some built-in properties of global object?

    - by demix
    I'm reading es5 these days and find that [[configurable]] attribute in some built-in properties of global object is set to true which means we can delete these properties. For example: the join method of Array.prototype object have attributes {[[Writable]]:true, [[Enumerable]]: false, [[Configurable]]: true} So we can easily delete the join method for Array like: delete Array.prototype.join; alert([1,2,3].join); The alert will display undefined in my chromium 17,firefox 9 ,ie 10,even ie6; In Chrome 15 & safari 5.1.1 the [[configurable]] attribute is set to true and delete result is also true but the final result is still function(){[native code]}. Seems like this is a bug and chromium fix it. I haven't notice that before. In my opinion, delete built-in functions in user's code is dangerous, and will bring out so many bugs when working with others.So why ECMAScript make this decision?

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  • Store and create game objects at positions along terrain

    - by Alex
    I have a circular character that rolls down terrain like that shown in the picture below. The terrain is created from an array holding 1000 points. The ground is drawn one screen width infront and one screen width behind. So as the character moves, edges are created infront and edges are removed behind. My problem is, I want to create box2d bodies at certain locations along the path and need a way to store these creator methods or objects. I need some way to store a position at which they are created and some pointer to a function to create them, once the character is in range. I guess this would be an array of some sort that is checked each time the ground is updated and then if in range, the function is executed and removed from the array. But I'm not sure if its even possible to store pointers to functions with parameters included... any help is much appreciated!

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  • How to implement Fog Of War with an shader?

    - by Cambrano
    Okay, I'm creating a RTS game and want to implement an AgeOfEmpires-like Fog Of War(FOW). That means a tile(or pixel) can be: 0% transparent (unexplored) 50% transparent black (explored but not in viewrange) 100% transparent(explored and in viewrange) RTS means I'll have many explorers (NPCs, buildings, ...). Okay, so I have an 2d array of bytes byte[,] explored. The byte value correlates the transparency. The question is, how do I pass this array to my shader? Well I think it is not possible to pass an entire array. So: what technique shall I use to let my shader know if a pixel/tile is visible or not?

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  • How best to merge/sort/page through tons of JSON arrays?

    - by Joshiatto
    Here's the scenario: Say you have millions of JSON documents stored as text files. Each JSON document is an array of "activity" objects, each of which contain a "created_datetime" attribute. What is the best way to merge/sort/filter/page through these activities via a web UI? For example, say we want to take a few thousand of the documents, merge them into a gigantic array, sort the array by the "created_datetime" attribute descending and then page through it 10 activities at a time. Also keep in mind that roughly 25% of these JSON documents are updated every day, and updates have to make it into the view within 5 minutes. My first thought is to parse all of the documents into an RDBMS table and then it would just be a simple query such as "select top 10 name, created_datetime from Activity where user_id=12345 order by created_datetime desc". Some have suggested I use NoSQL techniques such as hadoop or map/reduce instead. How exactly would this work? For more background, see: Why is NoSQL better for this scenario?

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  • Read an object from compressed file generated from ActionScript 3

    - by Last Chance
    I have made a simple game Map Editor and I want to save a array that contain map tile info to a file, as below: var arr:Array = [.....2d tile info in it...]; var ba:ByteArray = new ByteArray(); ba.writeObject(arr); ba.compress(); var file:File = new File(); file.save(ba); I had successfully saved a compressed object to a file. Now the problem is my server side need to read this file and decompress the array out from the file, then convert it to a Python list. Is that possible?

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  • Does it make a difference if I declare variables inside or outside a loop in Java?

    - by Puckl
    Does it make a difference if I declare variables inside or outside a loop in Java? Is this for(int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) { int temporaryValue = someMethod(); list.add(temporaryValue) } equal to this (with respect to memory usage)? int temporaryValue = 0; for(int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) { temporaryValue = someMethod(); list.add(temporaryValue) } And what if the temporary variable is for example an ArrayList? for(int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) { ArrayList<Integer> array = new ArrayList<Integer>(); fillArray(array); // do something with the array }

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  • What's a good way to store a series of interconnected pipe and tank objects?

    - by mars
    I am working on a puzzle game with a 6 by 6 grid of storage tanks that are connected to up to 4 tanks adjacent to them via pipes. The gameplay is concerned with combining what's in a tank with an adjacent tank via the pipe than interconnects them. Right now I store the tanks in a 6x6 array, vertical pipes in a 5x6 array, and horizontal pipes in a 6x5 array. Each tank has a reference to the object that contains both tanks and pipes and when a pipe needs to be animated filling with liquid, the selected tank just calls a method on the container object telling it to animate the pipes it is connected to (subtract 1 from row or column to find connected pipes). This feels like the wrong way of doing it, as I've also considered just giving each tank references to the pipes connected to it to access directly.

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  • how should I change the representation (not mimetype) of a resource?

    - by xenoterracide
    I'm looking at how I can change the representation of a payload at runtime for varied potential advantages, but I'm not sure how to do it. Specifically collections. Array of Pairs [{ <resource_uri> : { <entity> }, ...}] Array of Objects [<entity>,...] Array of Resources [<resource_uri>] Map of entities { <resource_uri> : { <entity> }, ... } My problem is, I'm not sure if I should put these different representations of the sets at different URI's, give them slightly varied mime types, e.g. application/foomap+json or perhaps use an optional query parameter ?format=map, or resource /entities/map. The UI is going to hide this, this is for programmatic web service access only (which the "UI's JS will have to call).

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  • C++ function returning pointer, why does this work ? [migrated]

    - by nashmaniac
    So heres a simple c++ function what it does it take an array of characters as its argument and a integer n and then creates a new character array with only n elements of the array. char * cutString(char * ch , int n){ char * p = new char[n]; int i ; for(i = 0 ; i < n ; i++) p[i] = ch[i]; while(i <= n ){ p[i++] = '\0'; } return p ; } this works just fine but if I change char * p = new char[n]; to char p[n]; I see funny characters what happens ? What difference does the former make also p is a temporary variable then how does the function returns it alright ?

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  • pascal triangle in php (anything wrong with this solution?) [migrated]

    - by zhenka
    I saw that one of the interview questions could be building a pascal triangle. Is there anything wrong with this particular solution I came up with? function pascal_r($r){ $local = array(); if($r == 1){ return array(array(1)); } else { $previous = pascal_r($r - 1); array_push($local, 1); for($i = 0; $i < $r - 2 && $r > 2; $i++){ array_push($local, $previous[$r-2][$i] + $previous[$r-2][$i + 1]); } array_push($local, 1); } array_push($previous, $local); return $previous; } print_r(pascal_r(100));

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  • When using RAID10 + BBWC why is it better to separate PostgreSQL data files from OS and transaction logs than to keep them all on the same array?

    - by Vlad
    I've seen the advice everywhere (including here and here): keep your OS partition, DB data files and DB transaction logs on separate discs/arrays. The general recommendation is to use RAID1 for OS, RAID10 for data (or RAID5 if load is very read-biased) and RAID1 for transaction logs. However, considering that you will need at least 6 or 8 drives to build this setup, wouldn't a RAID10 over 6-8 drives with BBWC perform better? What if the drives are SSDs? I'm talking here about internal server drives, not SAN.

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  • With XSLT, how can I use this if-test with an array, when search element is returned by a template call inside the for loop?

    - by codesforcoffee
    I think this simple example might ask the question a lot more clearly. I have an input file with multiple products. There are 10 types of product (2 product IDs is fine enough for this example), but the input will have 200 products, and I only want to output the info for the first product of each type. (Output info for the lowest priced one, so the first one will be the lowest price because I sort by Price first.) So I want to read in each product, but only output the product's info if I haven't already output a product with that same ID. I couldn't figure out how to get the processID template to return a value that I need to do my if-check on, that uses parameters from inside the for-each Product loop -then properly close the if tag in the right place so it won't output the open Product tag unless it passes the if test. I know the following code does not work, but it illustrates the idea and gives me a place to start: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output method="xml" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes" cdata-section-elements="prod_name adv_notes"/> <xsl:template match="/"> <List> <xsl:for-each select="ProductGroup"> <xsl:sort select="ActiveProducts/Product/Rate"/> <xsl:variable name="IDarray"> <xsl:for-each select="ActiveProducts/Product"> <xsl:variable name="CurrentID"> <xsl:call-template name="processID"> <xsl:with-param name="ProductCode" select="ProductCode" /> </xsl:call-template> </xsl:variable> <xsl:if test="not(contains($IDarray, $CurrentID))"> <child elem="{@elem}"> <xsl:select value-of="$CurrentID" /> </child> <Product> <xsl:attribute name="ID"> <xsl:select value-of="$CurrentID" /> </xsl:attribute> <prod_name> <xsl:value-of select="../ProductName"/> </prod_name> <rate> <xsl:value-of select="../Rate"/> </rate> </Product> </xsl:if> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:variable> </xsl:for-each> </List> </xsl:template> <xsl:template name="processID"> <xsl:param name="ProductCode"/> <xsl:choose> <xsl:when test="starts-with($ProductCode, '515')">5</xsl:when> <xsl:when test="starts-with($ProductCode, '205')">2</xsl:when> </xsl:choose> </xsl:template> Thanks so much in advance, I know some of the awesome programmers here can help! :) -Holly An input would look like this: <ProductGroup> <ActiveProducts> <Product> <ProductCode> 5155 </ProductCode> <ProductName> House </ProductName> <Rate> 3.99 </Rate> </Product> <Product> <ProductCode> 5158 </ProductCode> <ProductName> House </ProductName> <Rate> 4.99 </Rate> </Product> </ActiveProducts> </ProductGroup> <ProductGroup> <ActiveProducts> <Product> <ProductCode> 2058 </ProductCode> <ProductName> House </ProductName> <Rate> 2.99 </Rate> </Product> <Product> <ProductCode> 2055 </ProductCode> <ProductName> House </ProductName> <Rate> 7.99 </Rate> </Product> </ActiveProducts> </ProductGroup> 200 of those with different attributes. I have the translation working, just needed to add that array and if statement somehow. Output would be this for only that simple input file:

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  • Excel Solver vs Solver Foundation

    - by JoshReuben
    I recently read a book http://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Engineering-Cookbook-Cookbooks-OReilly/dp/0596008791/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296593374&sr=8-1 - the Excel Scientific and Engineering Cookbook.     The 2 main tools that this book leveraged were the Data Analysis Pack and Excel Solver. I had previously been aquanted with Microsoft Solver Foundation - this is a full fledged API for solving optimization problems, and went beyond being a mere Excel plugin - it exposed a C# programmatic interface for in process and a web service interface for out of process integration. were they the same? apparently not!   2 different solver frameworks for Excel: http://www.solver.com/index.html http://www.solverfoundation.com/ I contacted both vendors to get their perspectives.   Heres what the Excel Solver guys had to say:   "The Solver Foundation requires you to learn and use a very specific modeling language (OML). The Excel solver allows you to formulate your optimization problems without learning any new language simply by entering the formulas into cells on the Excel spreadsheet, something that nearly everyone is already familiar with doing.   The Excel Solver also allows you to seamlessly upgrade to products that combine Monte Carlo Simulation capabilities (our Risk Solver Premium and Risk Solver Platform products) which allow you to include uncertainty into your models when appropriate.   Our advanced Excel Solver Products also have a number of built in reporting tools for advanced analysis of the your model and it's results"           And Heres what the Microsoft Solver Foundation guys had to say:   "  With the release of Solver Foundation 3.0, Solver Foundation has the same kinds of solvers (plus a few more) than what is found in Excel Solver. I think there are two main differences:   1.      Problems are described differently. In Excel Solver the goals and constraints are specified inside the spreadsheet, in formulas. In Solver Foundation they are described either in .Net code that uses the Solver Foundation Services API, or using the OML modeling language in Excel. 2.      Solver Foundation’s primary strength is on solving large linear, mixed integer, and constraint models. That is, models that contain arbitrary nonlinear functions (such as trig functions, IF(), powers, etc) are handled a bit better by the Excel Solver at this point. "

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  • CUBEMEMBER and CUBEVALUE stop working after #PowerPivot upgrade to #Excel 2013

    - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)
    I found an issue upgrading an Excel workbook containing PowerPivot data from Excel 2010 to Excel 2013. All CUBEMEMBER and CUBEVALUE functions point to a cube name that has been changed between the two version – you have to no longer reference the PowerPivot Data name, replacing it with ThisWorkbookDataModel instead. I wrote an article describing the change that you have to manually make to these Excel formulas in this article on SQLBI web site.

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  • Dynamic Ranking with Excel and PowerPivot

    - by AlbertoFerrari
    Ranking is useful and, in our book , I and Marco provide a lot of information about how to perform ranking with PowerPivot. Nevertheless, there is an interesting scenario where ranking can be performed without complex DAX formulas, but with just some creative Excel usage. I would like to describe it here. Let us start with some words about the scenario: we want to rank products based on sales in a year (e.g. 2002) and see how the top 10 of these products performed in the following or preceding years....(read more)

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  • Crystal Reports: 3 New Uses For Sub Reports

    I hate sub reports and always consider them the last resort in any reporting solution. The negative effect on performance and maintainability is just not worth the easy ride they give the report writer. Nine times out of ten reporting requirements can be met using a little forethought and planning (and a solid understanding of formulas). With that said, there are a few novel ways of using sub reports which will not affect performance and actually prove a boon to the developer.

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  • How to Research Keywords - 3 Truths the Gurus Withheld

    Turns out the first valuable lesson I picked up on how to research keywords was the fact that information overload is the fastest way to kill your dreams when it comes to doing anything in your life, especially anything involving your business. Please, please don't make the mistakes that I have! There aren't any science or complex formulas there is simply processes that work if you work the processes.

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  • C#, Delegates and LINQ

    - by JustinGreenwood
    One of the topics many junior programmers struggle with is delegates. And today, anonymous delegates and lambda expressions are profuse in .net APIs.  To help some VB programmers adapt to C# and the many equivalent flavors of delegates, I walked through some simple samples to show them the different flavors of delegates. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; namespace DelegateExample { class Program { public delegate string ProcessStringDelegate(string data); public static string ReverseStringStaticMethod(string data) { return new String(data.Reverse().ToArray()); } static void Main(string[] args) { var stringDelegates = new List<ProcessStringDelegate> { //========================================================== // Declare a new delegate instance and pass the name of the method in new ProcessStringDelegate(ReverseStringStaticMethod), //========================================================== // A shortcut is to just and pass the name of the method in ReverseStringStaticMethod, //========================================================== // You can create an anonymous delegate also delegate (string inputString) //Scramble { var outString = inputString; if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(inputString)) { var rand = new Random(); var chs = inputString.ToCharArray(); for (int i = 0; i < inputString.Length * 3; i++) { int x = rand.Next(chs.Length), y = rand.Next(chs.Length); char c = chs[x]; chs[x] = chs[y]; chs[y] = c; } outString = new string(chs); } return outString; }, //========================================================== // yet another syntax would be the lambda expression syntax inputString => { // ROT13 var array = inputString.ToCharArray(); for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++) { int n = (int)array[i]; n += (n >= 'a' && n <= 'z') ? ((n > 'm') ? 13 : -13) : ((n >= 'A' && n <= 'Z') ? ((n > 'M') ? 13 : -13) : 0); array[i] = (char)n; } return new string(array); } //========================================================== }; // Display the results of the delegate calls var stringToTransform = "Welcome to the jungle!"; System.Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Cyan; System.Console.Write("String to Process: "); System.Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Yellow; System.Console.WriteLine(stringToTransform); stringDelegates.ForEach(delegatePointer => { System.Console.WriteLine(); System.Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Cyan; System.Console.Write("Delegate Method Name: "); System.Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Magenta; System.Console.WriteLine(delegatePointer.Method.Name); System.Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Cyan; System.Console.Write("Delegate Result: "); System.Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White; System.Console.WriteLine(delegatePointer(stringToTransform)); }); System.Console.ReadKey(); } } } The output of the program is below: String to Process: Welcome to the jungle! Delegate Method Name: ReverseStringStaticMethod Delegate Result: !elgnuj eht ot emocleW Delegate Method Name: ReverseStringStaticMethod Delegate Result: !elgnuj eht ot emocleW Delegate Method Name: b__1 Delegate Result: cg ljotWotem!le une eh Delegate Method Name: b__2 Delegate Result: dX_V|`X ?| ?[X ]?{Z_X!

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  • The long road to bug-free software

    - by Tony Davis
    The past decade has seen a burgeoning interest in functional programming languages such as Haskell or, in the Microsoft world, F#. Though still on the periphery of mainstream programming, functional programming concepts are gradually seeping into the imperative C# language (for example, Lambda expressions have their root in functional programming). One of the more interesting concepts from functional programming languages is the use of formal methods, the lofty ideal behind which is bug-free software. The idea is that we write a specification that describes exactly how our function (say) should behave. We then prove that our function conforms to it, and in doing so have proved beyond any doubt that it is free from bugs. All programmers already use one form of specification, specifically their programming language's type system. If a value has a specific type then, in a type-safe language, the compiler guarantees that value cannot be an instance of a different type. Many extensions to existing type systems, such as generics in Java and .NET, extend the range of programs that can be type-checked. Unfortunately, type systems can only prevent some bugs. To take a classic problem of retrieving an index value from an array, since the type system doesn't specify the length of the array, the compiler has no way of knowing that a request for the "value of index 4" from an array of only two elements is "unsafe". We restore safety via exception handling, but the ideal type system will prevent us from doing anything that is unsafe in the first place and this is where we start to borrow ideas from a language such as Haskell, with its concept of "dependent types". If the type of an array includes its length, we can ensure that any index accesses into the array are valid. The problem is that we now need to carry around the length of arrays and the values of indices throughout our code so that it can be type-checked. In general, writing the specification to prove a positive property, even for a problem very amenable to specification, such as a simple sorting algorithm, turns out to be very hard and the specification will be different for every program. Extend this to writing a specification for, say, Microsoft Word and we can see that the specification would end up being no simpler, and therefore no less buggy, than the implementation. Fortunately, it is easier to write a specification that proves that a program doesn't have certain, specific and undesirable properties, such as infinite loops or accesses to the wrong bit of memory. If we can write the specifications to prove that a program is immune to such problems, we could reuse them in many places. The problem is the lack of specification "provers" that can do this without a lot of manual intervention (i.e. hints from the programmer). All this might feel a very long way off, but computing power and our understanding of the theory of "provers" advances quickly, and Microsoft is doing some of it already. Via their Terminator research project they have started to prove that their device drivers will always terminate, and in so doing have suddenly eliminated a vast range of possible bugs. This is a huge step forward from saying, "we've tested it lots and it seems fine". What do you think? What might be good targets for specification and verification? SQL could be one: the cost of a bug in SQL Server is quite high given how many important systems rely on it, so there's a good incentive to eliminate bugs, even at high initial cost. [Many thanks to Mike Williamson for guidance and useful conversations during the writing of this piece] Cheers, Tony.

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  • DirectX particle system. ConstantBuffer

    - by Liuka
    I'm new in DirectX and I'm making a 2D game. I want to use a particle system to simulate a 3D starfield, so each star has to set its own constant buffer for the vertexshader es. to set it's world matrix. So if i have 500 stars (that move every frame) i need to call 500 times VSsetconstantbuffer, and map/unmap each buffer. with 500 stars i have an average of 220 fps and that's quite good. My bottelneck is Vs/PsSetconstantbuffer. If i dont call this function i have 400 fps(obliviously nothing is display, since i dont set the position of the stars). So is there a method to speed up the render of the particle system?? Ps. I'm using intel integrate graphic (hd 2000-3000). with a nvidia (or amd) gpu will i have the same bottleneck?? If, for example, i dont call setshaderresource i have 10-20 fps more (for 500 objcets), that is not 180.Why does SetConstantBuffer take so long?? LPVOID VSdataPtr = VSmappedResource.pData; memcpy(VSdataPtr, VSdata, CszVSdata); context->Unmap(VertexBuffer, 0); result = context->Map(PixelBuffer, 0, D3D11_MAP_WRITE_DISCARD, 0, &PSmappedResource); if (FAILED(result)) { outputResult.OutputErrorMessage(TITLE, L"Cannot map the PixelBuffer", &result, OUTPUT_ERROR_FILE); return; } LPVOID PSdataPtr = PSmappedResource.pData; memcpy(PSdataPtr, PSdata, CszPSdata); context->Unmap(PixelBuffer, 0); context->VSSetConstantBuffers(0, 1, &VertexBuffer); context->PSSetConstantBuffers(0, 1, &PixelBuffer); this update and set the buffer. It's part of the render method of a sprite class that contains a the vertex buffer and the texture to apply to the quads(it's a 2d game) too. I have an array of 500 stars (sprite setup with a star texture). Every frame: clear back buffer; draw the array of stars; present the backbuffer; draw also call the function update( which calculate the position of the sprite on screen based on a "camera class") Ok, create a vertex buffer with the vertices of each quads(stars) seems to be good, since the stars don't change their "virtual" position; so.... In a particle system (where particles move) it's better to have all the object in only one vertices array, rather then an array of different sprite/object in order to update all the vertices' position with a single setbuffer call. In this case i have to use a dynamic vertex buffer with the vertices positions like this: verticesForQuad={{ XMFLOAT3((float)halfDImensions.x-1+pos.x, (float)halfDImensions.y-1+pos.y, 1.0f), XMFLOAT2(1.0f, 0.0f) }, { XMFLOAT3((float)halfDImensions.x-1+pos.x, -(float)halfDImensions.y-1+pos.y, 1.0f), XMFLOAT2(1.0f, 1.0f) }, { XMFLOAT3(-(float)halfDImensions.x-1+pos.x, (float)halfDImensions.y-1.pos.y, 1.0f), XMFLOAT2(0.0f, 0.0f) }, { XMFLOAT3(-(float)halfDImensions.x-1.pos.x, -(float)halfDImensions.y-1+pos.y, 1.0f), XMFLOAT2(0.0f, 1.0f) }, ....other quads} where halfDimensions is the halfsize in pixel of a texture and pos the virtual position of a star. than create an array of verticesForQuad and create the vertex buffer ZeroMemory(&vertexDesc, sizeof(vertexDesc)); vertexDesc.Usage = D3D11_USAGE_DEFAULT; vertexDesc.BindFlags = D3D11_BIND_VERTEX_BUFFER; vertexDesc.ByteWidth = sizeof(VertexType)* 4*numStars; ZeroMemory(&resourceData, sizeof(resourceData)); resourceData.pSysMem = verticesForQuad; result = device->CreateBuffer(&vertexDesc, &resourceData, &CvertexBuffer); and call each frame Context->IASetVertexBuffers(0, 1, &CvertexBuffer, &stride, &offset); But if i want to add and remove obj i have to recreate the buffer each time, havent i?? There is a faster way? I think i can create a vertex buffer with a max size (es. 10000 objs) and when i update it set only the 250 position (for 250 onjs for example) and pass this number as the vertexCount to the draw function (numObjs*4), or i'm worng

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  • The long road to bug-free software

    - by Tony Davis
    The past decade has seen a burgeoning interest in functional programming languages such as Haskell or, in the Microsoft world, F#. Though still on the periphery of mainstream programming, functional programming concepts are gradually seeping into the imperative C# language (for example, Lambda expressions have their root in functional programming). One of the more interesting concepts from functional programming languages is the use of formal methods, the lofty ideal behind which is bug-free software. The idea is that we write a specification that describes exactly how our function (say) should behave. We then prove that our function conforms to it, and in doing so have proved beyond any doubt that it is free from bugs. All programmers already use one form of specification, specifically their programming language's type system. If a value has a specific type then, in a type-safe language, the compiler guarantees that value cannot be an instance of a different type. Many extensions to existing type systems, such as generics in Java and .NET, extend the range of programs that can be type-checked. Unfortunately, type systems can only prevent some bugs. To take a classic problem of retrieving an index value from an array, since the type system doesn't specify the length of the array, the compiler has no way of knowing that a request for the "value of index 4" from an array of only two elements is "unsafe". We restore safety via exception handling, but the ideal type system will prevent us from doing anything that is unsafe in the first place and this is where we start to borrow ideas from a language such as Haskell, with its concept of "dependent types". If the type of an array includes its length, we can ensure that any index accesses into the array are valid. The problem is that we now need to carry around the length of arrays and the values of indices throughout our code so that it can be type-checked. In general, writing the specification to prove a positive property, even for a problem very amenable to specification, such as a simple sorting algorithm, turns out to be very hard and the specification will be different for every program. Extend this to writing a specification for, say, Microsoft Word and we can see that the specification would end up being no simpler, and therefore no less buggy, than the implementation. Fortunately, it is easier to write a specification that proves that a program doesn't have certain, specific and undesirable properties, such as infinite loops or accesses to the wrong bit of memory. If we can write the specifications to prove that a program is immune to such problems, we could reuse them in many places. The problem is the lack of specification "provers" that can do this without a lot of manual intervention (i.e. hints from the programmer). All this might feel a very long way off, but computing power and our understanding of the theory of "provers" advances quickly, and Microsoft is doing some of it already. Via their Terminator research project they have started to prove that their device drivers will always terminate, and in so doing have suddenly eliminated a vast range of possible bugs. This is a huge step forward from saying, "we've tested it lots and it seems fine". What do you think? What might be good targets for specification and verification? SQL could be one: the cost of a bug in SQL Server is quite high given how many important systems rely on it, so there's a good incentive to eliminate bugs, even at high initial cost. [Many thanks to Mike Williamson for guidance and useful conversations during the writing of this piece] Cheers, Tony.

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