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  • High load (and high temp) with idle processes

    - by Nanne
    I've got a semi-old laptop (toshiba satellite a110-228), that's appointed 'laptop for the kids' by my sister. I've installed ubuntu netbook (10.10) on it because of the lack-of memory and it seems to work fine, accept from some heat-issues. These where never a problem under windows. It looks like I've got something similar to this problem: Load is generally 1 or higher, sometimes its stuck at 0.80, but its way to high. Top/htop only show a couple of percentage CPU use (which isn't too shocking, as i'm not doing anything). At this point all the software is stock, and i'd like to keep it that way because its supposed to be the easy-to-maintain kids computer. Now I'd like to find out: What could be the cause of the high load? Could it be as this thread implies, some driver, are there other options to check? How could I see what is really keeping the system hot and bothered? How to check what runs, etc etc? I'd like to pinpoint the culprint. further steps to take for debugging? The big bad internet leads me to believe that it might be the graphics drivers. The laptop has an Intel 945M chipset, but that doesn't seem to be one of the problem childs in this manner (I read a lot abotu ATI drivers that need special isntall). I'd not only welcome hints to directly solve this (duh) but also help in starting to debug what is going on. I am really hesitant in installing an older kernel, as I want it to be stock, and easy upgradeable (because I don't live near it, it should run without me ;) ) As an afterthought: to keep the whole thing cooler, can I 'amp up' the fancontrol? Its only going "airplane" mode when the computer is 95 Celcius, which is a tad late for my taste. Top: powertop:

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  • What ways are there to determine if an idea for change is viable or not?

    - by Kenneth
    A recent discussion on here about whether or not program windows should still be called screens or if we should have improved terminology got me thinking... Dangerous I know! People as a whole tend to be fairly resistant to change. We get comfortable in our niches and used to the way things are. While some changes lead to good results and improve our lives or the way things are done, others are clearly not enough of a change or overall bad and not even worth attempting. What guides can we use as we program to determine if an improvement (whether it be to coding style, terminology, user interface, language use, etc) is really an improvement or not? I'm sure to some extent nothing will replace the try-it-out approach but are there any tests or guides that can be used to eliminate certain ideas that would eventually turn out to be worthless or a waste of time to pursue? EDIT: For anyone who is wondering the discussion that brought this question up in my mind is found here: Does your organization still use the term "screens" to describe a user interface?

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  • Microphone - static background noise suppression

    - by user1873947
    My soundcard is Realtek ALC 892. On Windows 7 I use official Realtek drivers, on Linux I use PulseAudio (on Ubuntu 13.10). On both Windows and Linux, when I enable microphone boost +30db (required because my microphone is quiet), I get very annoying and loud background noise (I also confirmed the background noise with Audacity on both systems). However, Windows Realtek drivers have noise suppression option which works (after enabling it, Audacity shows no background noise and my ears also confirm that there is no background noise). My question is how can I enable background noise suppression in ALSA/PulseAudio? Is there any module I can install or maybe there is a setting for it that can be enabled in config file? I can't find solution for it and this is the only thing that prevents me from switching to Linux completely - as I talk using microphone a lot and on Windows the Realtek software removes the background noise completely and PulseAudio doesn't remove it, which means the recorded voice on Linux is very bad. I know I could buy better soundcard and microphone, but as I said, Windows Realtek drivers remove the noise on software level in real time (ie no noise when talking on TeamSpeak3/Steam/whatever voip programme) so I hope that there is such option on Linux as well. Thanks in advance! This is also crossposted on Unix StackExchange

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  • Am I wrong to disagree with A Gentle Introduction to symfony's template best practices?

    - by AndrewKS
    I am currently learning symfony and going through the book A Gentle Introduction to symfony and came across this section in "Chapter 4: The Basics of Page Creation" on creating templates (or views): "If you need to execute some PHP code in the template, you should avoid using the usual PHP syntax, as shown in Listing 4-4. Instead, write your templates using the PHP alternative syntax, as shown in Listing 4-5, to keep the code understandable for non-PHP programmers." Listing 4-4 - The Usual PHP Syntax, Good for Actions, But Bad for Templates <p>Hello, world!</p> <?php if ($test) { echo "<p>".time()."</p>"; } ?> (The ironic thing about this is that echo statement would look even better if time was variable declared in the controller, because then you could just embed the variable in the string instead of concatenating) Listing 4-5 - The Alternative PHP Syntax, Good for Templates <p>Hello, world!</p> <?php if ($test): ?> <p><?php echo time(); ?> </p><?php endif; ?> I fail to see how listing 4-5 makes the code "understandable for non-PHP programmers", and its readability is shaky at best. 4-4 looks much more readable to me. Are there any programmers who are using symfony that write their templates like those in 4-4 rather than 4-5? Are there reasons I should use one over the other? There is the very slim chance that somewhere down the road someone less technical could be editing it the template, but how does 4-5 actually make it more understandable to them?

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  • As a solo programmer, of what use can Gerrit be?

    - by s.d
    Disclaimer: I'm aware of the questions How do I review my own code? and What advantages do continuous integration tools offer on a solo project?. I do feel that this question aims at a different set of answers though, as it is about a specific software, and not about general musings about the use of this or that practice or tech stack. I'm a solo programmer for an Eclipse RCP-based project. To be able to control myself and the quality of my software, I'm in the process of setting up a CSI stack. In this, I follow the Eclipse Common Build Infrastructure guidelines, with the exception that I will use Jenkins rather than Hudson. Sticking to these guidelines will hopefully help me in getting used to the Eclipse way of doing things, and I hope to be able to contribute some code to Eclipse in the future. However, CBI includes Gerrit, a code review software. While I think it's really helpful for teams, and I will employ it as soon as the team grows to at least two developers, I'm wondering how I could use it while I'm still solo. Question: Is there a use case for Gerrit that takes into account solo developers? Notes: I can imagine reviewing code myself after a certain amount of time to gain a little distance to it. This does complicate the workflow though, as code will only be built once it's been passed through code review. This might prove to be a "trap" as I might be tempted to quickly push bad code through Gerrit just to get it built. I'm very interested in hearing how other solo devs have made use of Gerrit.

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  • Cluster Nodes as RAID Drives

    - by BuckWoody
    I'm unable to sleep tonight so I thought I would push this post out VERY early. When you don't sleep your mind takes interesting turns, which can be a good thing. I was watching a briefing today by a couple of friends as they were talking about various ways to arrange a Windows Server Cluster for SQL Server. I often see an "active" node of a cluster with a "passive" node backing it up. That means one node is working and accepting transactions, and the other is not doing any work but simply "standing by" waiting for the first to fail over. The configuration in the demonstration I saw was a bit different. In this example, there were three nodes that were actively working, and a fourth standing by for all three. I've put configurations like this one into place before, but as I was looking at their architecture diagram, it looked familar - it looked like a RAID drive setup! And that's not a bad way to think about your cluster arrangements. The same concerns you might think about for a particular RAID configuration provides a good way to think about protecting your systems in general. So even if you're not staying awake all night thinking about SQL Server clusters, take this post as an opportunity for "lateral thinking" - a way of combining in your mind the concepts from one piece of knowledge to another. You might find a new way of making your technical environment a little better. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • SO-overflow induced passivity - how to cope?

    - by Ruben
    After not really working on my pet project for a while, I discovered Stackoverflow and upon perusing it more intensely I was quite amazed. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so when I found eye-openers here highlighting many of the mistakes I made, I first wanted to fix everything. However, it's a pet project for a reason: I'm self-taught and I'm studying psychology, so programming skills can never become priority one (though it often helps, even in this field). Issues that stuck out were numerous security issues (e.g. CSRF-prevention and bcrypt eluded me) not object-oriented (at least the PHP part, the JS-part mostly is) no PHP framework used, so many of my DIY takes on commonly-tackled components (auth, ...) are either bad or inefficient really poor MySQL usage (no prepared statements, mysql extension, heard about setting proper indices two days ago) using mootools even though JQuery seems to be fashionable, so there's more probably always going to be better integration with services I'd like to use (like google visualization) So, my SO-induced frenzy turned into passivity. I can't do it all (soon) in the rather small amount of spare time I can spend on working on my project. I can leave some of the issues be in good conscience (speed stuff: an unfinished & unpublished project will never become popular, right?). No clear conscience without good security though and if I don't use a framework for auth and other complex stuff I'll regret having to do it myself. One obvious answer would probably be going open-source, but I think the project would need to become more impressive before others would commit to it. I can't afford to employ someone either. I do think the project deserves being worked on, though. How should I tackle it anyway? What's the best practice for little-practice people?

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  • wynapse.com down last night, SC tonight

    - by Dave Campbell
    In an industry segment that nobody is ever 'asleep', I suppose no time is a good time to take SQL Server down for upgrades, and I had forgotten that my host was going to be doing that. Last night about 9pm (Arizona), in the middle of working on a blog post, things started going wonky and I finally realized everything was ok except for SQL Server. I turned in a ticket on it and was reminded about the maintenance schedule... guess I file those away in memory and just assume they'll happen while I'm asleep :) So, looking at the schedule, it appears that SQL Server for SilverlightCream is going to be down tonight. Minimum is 9-12pm Arizona time... mileage and time may vary. Since all the posts are run through SC to get the Skim count, having SQL down sucks, but I'd rather we got maintenance than have to react to a crash because of something that wasn't maintained. I'll try to get the next 'Cream post out early so that the bulk of folks can dig through it prior to the outage. Meanwhile, for those of you in Phoenix, tonight is our Phoenix Silverlight User Group April meeting, and Joel Neubeck is going to be giving us the run-through on Windows Phone 7! We're not as advanced as those MVP rock-stars in California like Victor Gaudioso who streams his user group meeting, so you'll just have to show up for the goodness! And for anyone that's interested, here's some WP7 bling for your desktop... I want some of this real bad for my laptop! Get the full image in the post by Ozymandias:

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  • LinkedIn Woopsie with the Outlook 2010 Social Media Connector

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    I have always used the LinkedIn toolbar for Outlook to sort out, upload and sync my contacts. Because of this I have over 2000 contacts in my contacts list that I sync with my phone, Plaxo, live, Google and others. I got a surprise the other day when my LinkedIn account was suspended and I was unable to login.   Figure: Bad, account suspended   So I contacted LinkedIn customer services to find out what the problem is, and here is the response: Dear Martin, We have recently noticed a large number of page searches and profile views through your LinkedIn account. We are aware that you may be using an automated or manual process to systematically view LinkedIn web pages. The information within LinkedIn is provided by our users for usage on the site only. In order to protect user privacy, our User Agreement prohibits using: 1. Automated or manual means to view an excessively high number of profiles or mini-profiles. 2. Automated means to run searches to collect or store data obtained from our site. We have placed a restriction on your account until you agree to stop using these or similar methods to view pages on LinkedIn. We look forward to your reply to discuss this further. Sincerely, LinkedIn Privacy Team It looks like LinkedIn has suspended my account because of something that their component is doing! I do not know if this is an isolated case, or if it will happen more as more users get on Outlook 2010 and update to the new software, but watch out. Has anyone else been suspended who has installed the Office 2010 RTM and the LinkedIn Add-On? Technorati Tags: Fail,LinkedIn,Outlook 2010

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  • Managing JS and CSS for a static HTML web application

    - by Josh Kelley
    I'm working on a smallish web application that uses a little bit of static HTML and relies on JavaScript to load the application data as JSON and dynamically create the web page elements from that. First question: Is this a fundamentally bad idea? I'm unclear on how many web sites and web applications completely dispense with server-side generation of HTML. (There are obvious disadvantages of JS-only web apps in the areas of graceful degradation / progressive enhancement and being search engine friendly, but I don't believe that these are an issue for this particular app.) Second question: What's the best way to manage the static HTML, JS, and CSS? For my "development build," I'd like non-minified third-party code, multiple JS and CSS files for easier organization, etc. For the "release build," everything should be minified, concatenated together, etc. If I was doing server-side generation of HTML, it'd be easy to have my web framework generate different development versus release HTML that includes multiple verbose versus concatenated minified code. But given that I'm only doing any static HTML, what's the best way to manage this? (I realize I could hack something together with ERB or Perl, but I'm wondering if there are any standard solutions.) In particular, since I'm not doing any server-side HTML generation, is there an easy, semi-standard way of setting up my static HTML so that it contains code like <script src="js/vendors/jquery.js"></script> <script src="js/class_a.js"></script> <script src="js/class_b.js"></script> <script src="js/main.js"></script> at development time and <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.2/jquery.min.js"></script> <script src="js/entire_app.min.js"></script> for release?

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  • Missing Print Option in Google Maps? Here Is How You Find it.

    - by Gopinath
    Summary: Wondering how to print driving directions on new version of Google Directions as there is no print icon on maps home page? Its buried under layers and you can access it by  searching for required directions first and then click on List all steps to see Print icon on top right section. The classic version of Google Maps had  Print option in a prominent location on home page and it was easy to access it to print driving directions. But in the new version of Google Maps, for good or bad Google decided to remove Print option from the home screen.This left many Google Maps users wondering how to print driving directions. In the new version of Google Maps, the Print option is displayed only when you view the full list of driving directions. Here are the simple steps to be followed for printing driving directions on new Google Maps Open Google Maps. Search for directions and click List all steps in the directions card. Click printer icon in the top right corner. Tada!! You found a way to print your directions. Here is an nice animation of instructions to print directions provided by Google    

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  • What are benefit/drawbacks of classifying defects during a peer code review

    - by DXM
    About 3 months ago, our engineering group rolled out Review Board to be used for all peer code reviews. Today, I had a discussion with one of the people involved in that process and found out that we are already looking for a replacement (possibly something commercial) because of several missing features. One of the features that is apparently asked by many people is the ability to classify/categorize each code review comment (i.e. is it a style issue, coding convention, resource leak, logic error, crash... whatever). For those teams that regularly practice code review, is this categorization a common practice? Do you do it? have you done it in the past? Is it good/bad? On one hand, it gives the team some more metrics and possibly will indicate more specific areas where developers may potentially need to be trained in (at least that seems to be the argument). Are there other benefits? And on the other hand, and this is my concern, is that it will slow down code review process that much more. As a team lead, I've done a fairly large share of reviews, and I've always liked the ability, to highlight a chunk of code, hammer off a comment and move on as fast as possible. Although I haven't tried it personally, I have a feeling that expanding that combo box every time and scrolling/searching for the right category would feel like something is tripping you. Also if we start keeping metrics on this stuff, my other concern is that valuable code review meeting time will be spent on arguing whether something is a logic error or if it should be classified as a crash.

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  • Types of quotes for an HTML templating language

    - by Ralph
    I'm developing a templating language, and now I'm trying to decide on what I should do with quotes. I'm thinking about having 3 different types of quotes which are all handled differently: backtick ` double quote " single quote ' expand variables ? yes no escape sequences no yes ? escape html no yes yes Backticks Backticks are meant to be used for outputting JavaScript or unescaped HTML. It's often handy to be able to pass variables into JS, but it could also cause issues with things being treated as variables that shouldn't. My variables are PHP-style ($var) so I'm thinking that might mess with jQuery pretty bad... but if I disable variable expansion w/ backticks then, I'm not sure how would insert a variable into a JS code block? Single Quotes Not sure if escape sequences like \n should be treated as literals or converted. I find it pretty rare that I want to disable escape sequences, but if you do, you could use backticks. So I'm leaning towards "yes" for this one, but that would be contrary to how PHP does it. Double Quotes Pretty certain I want everything enabled for this one. Modifiers I'm also thinking about adding modifiers like @ or r in front of the string that would change some of these options to enable a few more combinations. I would need 9 different quotes or 3 quotes and 2 modifiers to get every combination wouldn't I? My language also supports "filters" which can be applied against any "term" (number, variable, string) so you could always write something like "blah blah $var blah"|expandvars Or "my string"|escapehtml Thoughts? What would you prefer? What would be least confusing/most intuitive?

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  • How&rsquo;s your Momma an&rsquo; them?

    - by Bill Jones Jr.
    When a Southern “boy” like me sees somebody that used to be, or should be, a close friend or relative that they haven’t seen in a long time, that’s a typical greeting.  Come to think of it, we were often related to close friends. So “back in the day”, we not only knew people but everybody close to them.  When I started driving, my Dad told me to always drive carefully in Polk county.  He said if I ran into anybody there, it was likely they would be related or close family friends. Not so much any more… the cities have gotten bigger and more people come south and stay.  One of the curses of air conditioning I guess. Anyway, it’s been a while.  So “How’s your Momma and them”?  Have you been waiting for me to blog again?  Too bad, I’m back anyway <smile>. Here in Charlotte we just had another great code camp.  The Enterprise Developers Guild is going strong, thanks to the help of a lot of dedicated people.  Mark Wilson, Brian Gough, Syl Walker, Ghayth Hilal, Alberto Botero, Dan Thyer, Jean Doiron, Matt Duffield all come to mind.  Plus all the regulars who volunteer for every special event we have. Brian Gough put on a successful SharePoint Saturday.  Rafael Salas and our friends at the local Pass SQL group had a great SQL Saturday.  Brian Hitney and Glen Gordon keep on doing their usual great job for developers in the southeast as our local Microsoft reps. Since my last post, I have the honor of being designated the INetA Membership Mentor for Georgia in addition to mentoring the groups in the Carolinas for the past several years.  Georgia could be a really good thing since my wife likes shopping in Atlanta, not to mention how much we both like Georgia in general.  As I recall, my Momma had people in Georgia.  Wonder how their “Mommas an’ them” are doing?   Bill J

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  • Representation of data in application versus database

    - by user1815201
    I'm going to make an application that will be given data to put in a database. The data will for the most part be the same, but the way it is formatted will vary a lot (could be in anything from text files to .xls to .doc). I'm not a very experienced developer, but I can see some potential issues and I want to minimize them. First off I have decided to use the DAO pattern, so that I can easily support new file formats or file suddenly formatted in different ways. What I really wonder about though, is how I should manage the data itself within my application. I'm thinking that the database DAO should have models representing each table of the database with the same relations between them, to make the uploading process easy. But should the filesystem DAO's have to use the same models? I can imaging that when the database changes, the change will suddenly propagate throughout the entire system, all DAOs and models alike. And that is obviously a bad thing. I'm a little bit tired and out of time. Will update with what ever questions you have. Thanks!

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  • Dapper and object validation/business rules enforcement

    - by Eugene
    This isn't really Dapper-specific, actually, as it relates to any XML-serializeable object.. but it came up when I was storing an object using Dapper. Anyways, say I have a user class. Normally, I'd do something like this: class User { public string SIN {get; private set;} public string DisplayName {get;set;} public User(string sin) { if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(sin)) throw new ArgumentException("SIN must be specified"); this.SIN = sin; } } Since a SIN is required, I'd just create a constructor with a sin parameter, and make it read-only. However, with a Dapper (and probably any other ORM), I need to provide a parameterless constructor, and make all properties writeable. So now I have this: class User: IValidatableObject { public int Id { get; set; } public string SIN { get; set; } public string DisplayName { get; set; } public IEnumerable<ValidationResult> Validate(ValidationContext validationContext) { // implementation } } This seems.. can't really pick the word, a bad smell? A) I'm allowing to change properties that should not be changed ever after an object has been created (SIN, userid) B) Now I have to implement IValidatableObject or something like that to test those properties before updating them to db. So how do you go about it ?

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  • how do I write a functional specification quickly and efficiently

    - by giddy
    So I just read some fabulous articles by Joel on specs here. (Was written in 2000!!) I read all 4 parts, but Im looking for some methodical approaches to writing my specs. Im the only lonely dev, working on this fairly complicated app (or family of apps) for a very well known finance company. I've never made something this serious, I started out writing something like a bad spec, an overview of some sorts, and it has wasted a LOT of my time. Ive also made 3 mockup-kinda-thingies for my client so I have a good understanding of what they want. Also released a preview (a throw away working app with the most basic workflow), and Ive only written and tested some of the very core/base systems. I think the mistake Ive been making so far is not writing a detailed spec, so Im getting to it now. So the whole thing comprises of An MVC website (for admins & data viewing) 2 Silverlight modules (For 2 specific tasks) 1 Desktop Application Im totally short on time, resources and need to get this done quick, also, need to make sure these guys read it up equally quick and painlessly. So how do I go about it, Im looking for any tips, any real world stuff, how do you guys usually do it? Do you make a mock screenie of every dialog/form/page? Im thinking of making a dummy asp.net web forms project, then filling in html files in folders and making it look like my mvc url structure. Then having a section in the spec for the website and write up a page for every URL Ive got with a screenie. For my win forms app, Ive made somewhat of a demo Win Form project, would I then put in a dialog or stucture everything as I would in the real app and then screen shot it?

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  • Teaching myself, as a physicist, to become a better programmer

    - by user787267
    I've always liked physics, and I've always liked coding, so when I got the offer for a PhD position doing numerical physics (details are not relevant, it's mostly parallel programming for a cluster) at a university, it was a no-brainer for me. However, as most physicists, I'm self taught. I don't have broad background knowledge about how to code in an object oriented way, or the name of that specific algorithm that optimizes the search in some kD tree. Since all my work so far has been more concerned about the physics and the scientific results, I undoubtedly have some bad habits - more so because my coding is my own, and not really teamwork. I have mostly used C since it is very straightforward and "what you write is what you get" - no need for fancy abstractions. However, I have recently switched to C++ since I'd like to learn more about the power that comes with abstraction, and it's pretty C-like (syntax-wise at least). How do I teach myself to code in a good, abstract way like a graduate in computer science? I know my code is efficient, but I want it to be elegant as well, and readable. Keep in mind that I don't have time to read several 1000-page tomes about abstract programming. I need to spend time on actual, physics related research (my supervisor would laugh at me if he knew I spent time thinking about how to program elegantly). How do I assess if my work is also good from a programmer's perspective?

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  • Why I love NUnit, NCover, CC Nant and friends

    - by gregarobinson
    I have used these opensource tools on past projects in different stages, but never all of them at once. I am on a project now where there is a build server, Subversion, Nant, NUnit with 100% NCover required coverage, CrusieControl, CCTray and Rhino Mockc.I was extending an Interface and concrete class in a solution I had never worked on before today. Automatic builds were turned off for the day for a special case QA test. I added my new members to the Interface, implemented them in the concrete class, did a local build, tested, all looked good, so I did a Subversion Update then Commit.  Around 4:30PM the automatic builds were turned back on. Right away the build failed for less than 100% code coverage on my last Commit. Turns out there was a project in the solution I modified that had numerous NUnit tests on the Interface/Concrete class I modified, 3 of which now failed. Now that is cool..of course i was frustrated as i wanted to go home..but..I did a bad thing..I did not run nant on the source prior to my Commit. Lesson learned, and a great lesson at that!   

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  • How to improve batching performance

    - by user4241
    Hello, I am developing a sprite based 2D game for mobile platform(s) and I'm using OpenGL (well, actually Irrlicht) to render graphics. First I implemented sprite rendering in a simple way: every game object is rendered as a quad with its own GPU draw call, meaning that if I had 200 game objects, I made 200 draw calls per frame. Of course this was a bad choice and my game was completely CPU bound because there is a little CPU overhead assosiacted in every GPU draw call. GPU stayed idle most of the time. Now, I thought I could improve performance by collecting objects into large batches and rendering these batches with only a few draw calls. I implemented batching (so that every game object sharing the same texture is rendered in same batch) and thought that my problems are gone... only to find out that my frame rate was even lower than before. Why? Well, I have 200 (or more) game objects, and they are updated 60 times per second. Every frame I have to recalculate new position (translation and rotation) for vertices in CPU (GPU on mobile platforms does not support instancing so I can't do it there), and doing this calculation 48000 per second (200*60*4 since every sprite has 4 vertices) simply seems to be too slow. What I could do to improve performance? All game objects are moving/rotating (almost) every frame so I really have to recalculate vertex positions. Only optimization that I could think of is a look-up table for rotations so that I wouldn't have to calculate them. Would point sprites help? Any nasty hacks? Anything else? Thanks.

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  • Day 6 - Game Menuing Woes and Future Screen Sneak Peeks

    - by dapostolov
    So, after my last post on Day 5 I dabbled with my game class design. I took the approach where each game objects is tightly coupled with a graphic. The good news is I got the menu working but not without some hard knocks and game growing pains. I'll explain later, but for now...here is a class diagram of my first stab at my class structure and some code...   Ok, there are few mistakes, however, I'm going to leave it as is for now... As you can see I created an inital abstract base class called GameSprite. This class when inherited will provide a simple virtual default draw method:        public virtual void DrawSprite(SpriteBatch spriteBatch)         {             spriteBatch.Draw(Sprite, Position, Color.White);         } The benefits of coding it this way allows me to inherit the class and utilise the method in the screen draw method...So regardless of what the graphic object type is it will now have the ability to render a static image on the screen. Example: public class MyStaticTreasureChest : GameSprite {} If you remember the window draw method from Day 3's post, we could use the above code as follows...         protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)         {             GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);             spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteBlendMode.AlphaBlend);             foreach(var gameSprite in ListOfGameObjects)            {                 gameSprite.DrawSprite(spriteBatch);            }             spriteBatch.End();             base.Draw(gameTime);         } I have to admit the GameSprite object is pretty plain as with its DrawSprite method... But ... we now have the ability to render 3 static menu items on the screen ... BORING! I want those menu items to do something exciting, which of course involves animation... So, let's have a peek at AnimatedGameSprite in the above game diagram. The idea with the AnimatedGameSprite is that it has an image to animate...such as ... characters, fireballs, and... menus! So after inheriting from GameSprite class, I added a few more options such as UpdateSprite...         public virtual void UpdateSprite(float elapsed)         {             _totalElapsed += elapsed;             if (_totalElapsed > _timePerFrame)             {                 _frame++;                 _frame = _frame % _framecount;                 _totalElapsed -= _timePerFrame;             }         }  And an overidden DrawSprite...         public override void DrawSprite(SpriteBatch spriteBatch)         {             int FrameWidth = Sprite.Width / _framecount;             Rectangle sourcerect = new Rectangle(FrameWidth * _frame, 0, FrameWidth, Sprite.Height);             spriteBatch.Draw(Sprite, Position, sourcerect, Color.White, _rotation, _origin, _scale, SpriteEffects.None, _depth);         } With these two methods...I can animate and image, all I had to do was add a few more lines to the screens Update Method (From Day 3), like such:             float elapsed = (float) gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds;             foreach (var item in ListOfAnimatedGameObjects)             {                 item.UpdateSprite(elapsed);             } And voila! My images begin to animate in one spot, on the screen... Hmm, but how do I interact with the menu items using a mouse...well the mouse cursor was easy enough... this.IsMouseVisible = true; But, to have it "interact" with an image was a bit more tricky...I had to perform collision detection!             mouseStateCurrent = Mouse.GetState();             var uiEnabledSprites = (from s in menuItems                                    where s.IsEnabled                                    select s).ToList();             foreach (var item in uiEnabledSprites)             {                 var r = new Rectangle((int)item.Position.X, (int)item.Position.Y, item.Sprite.Width, item.Sprite.Height);                 item.MenuState = MenuState.Normal;                 if (r.Intersects(new Rectangle(mouseStateCurrent.X, mouseStateCurrent.Y, 0, 0)))                 {                     item.MenuState = MenuState.Hover;                     if (mouseStatePrevious.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed                         && mouseStateCurrent.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released)                     {                         item.MenuState = MenuState.Pressed;                     }                 }             }             mouseStatePrevious = mouseStateCurrent; So, basically, what it is doing above is iterating through all my interactive objects and detecting a rectangle collision and the object , plays the state animation (or static image).  Lessons Learned, Time Burned... So, I think I did well to start, but after I hammered out my prototype...well...things got sloppy and I began to realise some design flaws... At the time: I couldn't seem to figure out how to open another window, such as the character creation screen Input was not event based and it was bugging me My menu design relied heavily on mouse input and I couldn't use keyboard. Mouse input, is tightly bound with graphic rendering / positioning, so its logic will have to be in each scene. Menu animations would stop mid frame, then continue when the action occured again. This is bad, because...what if I had a sword sliding onthe screen? Then it would slide a quarter of the way, then stop due to another action, then render again mid-slide... it just looked sloppy. Menu, Solved!? To solve the above problems I did a little research and I found some great code in the XNA forums. The one worth mentioning was the GameStateManagementSample. With this sample, you can create a basic "text based" menu system which allows you to swap screens, popup screens, play the game, and quit....basic game state management... In my next post I'm going to dwelve a bit more into this code and adapt it with my code from this prototype. Text based menus just won't cut it for me, for now...however, I'm still going to stick with my animated menu item idea. A sneak peek using the Game State Management Sample...with no changes made... Cool Things to Mention: At work ... I tend to break out in random conversations every-so-often and I get talking about some of my challenges with this game (or some stupid observation about something... stupid) During one conversation I was discussing how I should animate my images; I explained that I knew I had to use the Update method provided, but I didn't know how (at the time) to render an image at an appropriate "pace" and how many frames to use, etc.. I also got thinking that if a machine rendered my images faster / slower, that was surely going to f-up my animations. To which a friend, Sheldon,  answered, surely the Draw method is like a camera taking a snapshot of a scene in time. Then it clicked...I understood the big picture of the game engine... After some research I discovered that the Draw method attempts to keep a framerate of 60 fps. From what I understand, the game engine will even leave out a few calls to the draw method if it begins to slow down. This is why we want to put our sprite updates in the update method. Then using a game timer (provided by the engine), we want to render the scene based on real time passed, not framerate. So even the engine renders at 20 fps, the animations will still animate at the same real time speed! Which brings up another point. Why 60 fps? I'm speculating that Microsoft capped it because LCD's dont' refresh faster than 60 fps? On another note, If the game engine knows its falling behind in rendering...then surely we can harness this to speed up our games. Maybe I can find some flag which tell me if the game is lagging, and what the current framerate is, etc...(instead of coding it like I did last time) Sheldon, suggested maybe I can render like WoW does, in prioritised layers...I think he's onto something, however I don't think I'll have that many graphics to worry about such a problem of graphic latency. We'll see. People to Mention: Well,as you are aware I hadn't posted in a couple days and I was surprised to see a few emails and messenger queries about my game progress (and some concern as to why I stopped). I want to thank everyone for their kind words of support and put everyone at ease by stating that I do intend on completing this project. Granted I only have a few hours each night, but, I'll do it. Thank you to Garth for mailing in my next screen! That was a nice surprise! The Sneek Peek you've been waiting for... Garth has also volunteered to render me some wizard images. He was a bit shocked when I asked for them in 2D animated strips. He said I was going backward (and that I have really bad Game Development Lingo). But, I advised Garth that I will use 3D images later...for now...2D images. Garth also had some great game design ideas to add on. I advised him that I will save his ideas and include them in the future design document (for the 3d version?). Lastly, my best friend Alek, is going to join me in developing this game. This was a project we started eons ago but never completed because of our careers. Now, priorities change and we have some spare time on our hands. Let's see what trouble Alek and I can get into! Tonight I'll be uploading my prototypes and base game to a source control for both of us to work off of. D.

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  • Designing a Content-Based ETL Process with .NET and SFDC

    - by Patrick
    As my firm makes the transition to using SFDC as our main operational system, we've spun together a couple of SFDC portals where we can post customer-specific documents to be viewed at will. As such, we've had the need for pseudo-ETL applications to be implemented that are able to extract metadata from the documents our analysts generate internally (most are industry-standard PDFs, XML, or MS Office formats) and place in networked "queue" folders. From there, our applications scoop of the queued documents and upload them to the appropriate SFDC CRM Content Library along with some select pieces of metadata. I've mostly used DbAmp to broker communication with SFDC (DbAmp is a Linked Server provider that allows you to use SQL conventions to interact with your SFDC Org data). I've been able to create [console] applications in C# that work pretty well, and they're usually structured something like this: static void Main() { // Load parameters from app.config. // Get documents from queue. var files = someInterface.GetFiles(someFilterOrRegexPattern); foreach (var file in files) { // Extract metadata from the file. // Validate some attributes of the file; add any validation errors to an in-memory // structure (e.g. List<ValidationErrors>). if (isValid) { var fileData = File.ReadAllBytes(file); // Upload using some wrapper for an ORM or DAL someInterface.Upload(fileData, meta.Param1, meta.Param2, ...); } else { // Bounce the file } } // Report any validation errors (via message bus or SMTP or some such). } And that's pretty much it. Most of the time I wrap all these operations in a "Worker" class that takes the needed interfaces as constructor parameters. This approach has worked reasonably well, but I just get this feeling in my gut that there's something awful about it and would love some feedback. Is writing an ETL process as a C# Console app a bad idea? I'm also wondering if there are some design patterns that would be useful in this scenario that I'm clearly overlooking. Thanks in advance!

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  • To write or not to write: Frameworks [closed]

    - by caarlos0
    Today some friends and I started discussing frameworks.. Some of us strongly believe that in 99.9% of cases, writing a new framework is a bad idea. We believe that probably some of the millions of frameworks out there should fit our problem, and if not, some hack, API, or configuration should be enough. If not, we think that contributing to some framework, suggest features or something like that should be the best solution. The 0.1% is when none of the frameworks fit to our case. But, some of us say that it is better to have an "internal corporate framework" (for example), because it's faster to fix issues, creates a 100% fit with the app, because of the "learning" factor (when you improve your skills building a framework), etc. I think that to go out coding frameworks like there's no tomorrow is not the right way. I've seen a lot of small teams building their own framework just to spread the word: "we built our own framework, we rule, bro". Generally, the framework is crap, without any documentation, and only works for their own applications. Opinions are opinions, devs are devs, without the intention to start any kind of flame war, I ask: What do you think about that? What parameters you consider when building a framework? What do you think about all this?

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  • Doesn't installing "All locales" install necessary fonts too?

    - by its_me
    I recently noticed that my browsers rendered blank text (or invisible text?) on some websites in foreign languages, like Chinese. inside.com.tw, for example. Later I learnt that by default Debian only installs one locale (the one you choose during the installation process), and others need to be installed manually. So, I ran the command: # dpkg-reconfigure locales And selected All locales from the options screen that followed, and proceeded with the rest of the process, which also includes changing the default locale (which I set to en_US.UTF-8). Then I restarted my system. I still can't read the website that I mentioned earlier (inside.com.tw). Most of the text is blank, i.e. invisible. With the page translated by Chrome to my default language (en_US), the text is visible; BUT not in the original language. Why is this happening? Does this mean that installing locales isn't actually necessary, and all I have to do is install the fonts for all supported languages? If so, how do I install all the fonts necessary for All locales? UPDATE: An easy fix is to install the unifont package which adds support for all Unicode 5.1 characters. But the rendering is of very bad quality. So, how I install all font packages? I notice that there are three sets, ones starting with fonts-*, another with xfonts-*, and ttf-*? Which set should I exactly go with, and how do I install that set of fonts. Looking for a knowledgeable solution.

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  • Advices fo starting a video game design career

    - by Allen Gabriel Baker
    I'm 24 and have a passion for video games and game-design. I've decided I want to design video games as my career. I have no experience with designing video games or coding but I'm interested and willing to learn. I want a job at any level but what would I need to land a job? I have no college experience and I have no money. What is a cheap school, or do I really need to go to school for this, or can I learn on my own? Is it possible to do this with no money? I'm literally broke but I want this so bad I feel like its the only career I'll enjoy. I want to call up company's and ask them what they are looking for in someone they want to hire, is that a good idea? Also I don't know the history of video game design and I don't want to sound like a dummy when someone says something about this field or talks about a famous designer and I have no idea who they're talking about. So what is key info when it comes to this field and where should I find it? Hopefully some of you guys and girls can help me out: I know in the future I will create something everyone will enjoy and you guys will remember when you gave me advice and I will always remember you guys for helping me. I'm gifted I know I am and I want to share my gift with the rest of the world by making games that change the Industry. Help me out please.

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