Search Results

Search found 8224 results on 329 pages for 'sometimes'.

Page 234/329 | < Previous Page | 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241  | Next Page >

• From Co-op to fulltime help with salary negotation [closed]

  - by Peter

  Hey I'm a coop student that worked at a particular medium size printing company for 8 months. I had a good time it was lax, sometimes insufficiently challenging but none the less I learned a whole lot. I stuck with them for another 5 months (including this month) at the same rate I was paid then, doing testing work, tool development, taking care of emergencies when the lead developers were away, and other smaller projects and now bigger projects and problem handling (bad printer output etc.). I know their website inside out (ecommerce), and I know their printing software inside out and have made many changes to them both without a hitch. I have also done a lot of refactoring of the existing code base which as far as Im concerned, I believe am the only one to do those sorts of restructuring even though there is constant talk about it. I guess the unit testing paid off and lets me see the value in modularity if even a tad more. Never the less I have faith in my skill and the restructuring I did turned out better than I had imagined . Now the problem is that I finish school next month and so I asked for a full time spot the month after. They have been expanding and have hired a new guy a few months after my coop spot, and just now they hired a new guy to deal with the CRM application. The lead developer who wrote all of the software had left 5 months ago so it was up to all of us to learn what he had done over 4 years (including db, networking). So now I'm afraid that if I assert myself for a salary similar to the other guys, which I believe I am certainly on par with, that I would be seen as ingrateful. It's hard to flip a switch and say, hey double my pay, although when I'm working with their bread and butter (printers) and writing new features, refactoring the whole application for extensibility. I love it regardless of pay. I also feel maybe I'm replaceeble, although nobody knows the website better than myself and the lead web dev (not by a long shot), and nobody knows the printer software/drivers better than myself. I just thought they would have brought up a raise earlier on, and now it feels like they don't value my work. I'm also tired of worrying about it. I think my question is, well what do I do next?

  Read the article

• Best Practices for serializing/persisting String Object Dictionary entities

  - by Mark Heath

  I'm noticing a trend towards using a dictionary of string to object (or sometimes string to string), instead of strongly typed objects. For example, the new Katana project makes heavy use of IDictionary<string,object>. This approach avoids the need to continually update your entity classes/DTOs and the database tables that persist them with new properties. It also avoids the need to create new derived entity types to support new types of entity, since the Dictionary is flexible enough to store any arbitrary properties. Here's a contrived example: class StorageDevice { public int Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } } class NetworkShare : StorageDevice { public string Path { get; set; } public string LoginName { get; set; } public string Password { get; set; } } class CloudStorage : StorageDevice { public string ServerUri { get; set } public string ContainerName { get; set; } public int PortNumber { get; set; } public Guid ApiKey { get; set; } } versus: class StorageDevice { public IDictionary<string, object> Properties { get; set; } } Basically I'm on the lookout for any talks, books or articles on this approach, so I can pick up on any best practices / difficulties to avoid. Here's my main questions: Does this approach have a name? (only thing I've heard used so far is "self-describing objects") What are the best practices for persisting these dictionaries into a relational database? Especially the challenges of deserializing them successfully with strongly typed languages like C#. Does it change anything if some of the objects in the dictionary are themselves lists of strongly typed entities? Should a second dictionary be used if you want to temporarily store objects that are not to be persisted/serialized across a network, or should you use some kind of namespacing on the keys to indicate this?

  Read the article

• Do other developers feel that as they get better, it becomes harder to get jobs?

  - by nbv4

  When I was starting out, it seemed I had a much better time getting interviews and passing them. But now that I'm more experienced, I'm finding that its harder and harder to find a job. Do other developers out there feel the same way? I'll give you an example. I did an interview last Wednesday. It was a small start-up with only one other engineer and the CEO. They flew me in from Ohio (they are SF based). When I got there, they had me write them a link shortener, which took me about 10 minutes to write. I was supposed to be there all day working on this. When I finished it early, the interviewer seemed kind of shocked. After that, we were talking, and I asked him what they use to store data. He told me Mongo. I ask why he decided to use mongo. He then stammered and mumbled his answer, which basically boiled down to "We're using it because Mongo is a the trendy database technology and we don't want to be left out", which I've found is pretty much most common reason people use NoSQL these days. The interviewer quickly ended the interview and pretty much shoved me out the door. I was supposed to have lunch with the CEO, but I he kicked me out before I had a chance. The intervier wasn't mean or rude, (and neither was I). After I got back to Ohio, I got an email from them saying "I wasn't a fit". This sot of thing happens to me all the time. I'm starting to think "not a fit" can sometimes mean "are too high of a skill level that we are". Is this all in my head, or do other experienced developers notice the same thing happening? Back when I used to struggle with coding problems, I would work with the interviewer and it would be a positive thing and I'd get hired. But now I usually blow through the coding part, and the interviewer being left speechless is working against me. Should I feign struggling with coding problems?

  Read the article

• Should I continue to pursue programming based on my experience?

  - by El Be

  The reason I ask this question is because I am not sure my troubles come from a lack of confidence, or something much deeper like lack of passion. I'm hoping experienced programmers and developers can help identify the cause of my troubles. To be brief my undergraduate major was in Computer Science, but in a small school and I had the highest gpa in my year in computer science. The first time I ever programmed was once in the 5th grade (using logo) and when I was a freshman in college. I enjoyed programming when I was in school. Then I did an internships where I was expected to produce image processing software and program microchips. I was unsuccessful and produced little results and I hated the job, because I had to figure out everything for myself, did not have any help, and there was a lot of pressure to produce results. Although I tried I could not figure out what to do and was stuck all the time and made me dislike the job. When the internship ended I went to a PhD program for computer science at a prestigious computer science school. I had a very hard time with the course, met people who have been programming since they were 6 and made plenty of applications in their spare time (which I never did, although I tried). I even met many sophomores who understood more than I did. The combination of this and other things have made me feel that programming is not for me, but sometimes I consider a career in programming. I still consider programming as a career because of the career potential (not only just because of money). Based on my experience do you believe my confidence has just been shaken and I should continue to prepare for a programming career, or do you see a lack of passion and it would make it tough to continue programming. thank you for reading and for your advice Thank you for everyone's advice so far! Also: I dropped out of the ph.D program for computer science and switched to a master's in computer graphics. Its more applied, but I still find it hard to be motivated (due to either lack of confidence or passion), but since programming is such a big field I am looking for that niche area that I feel good programming in.

  Read the article

• Top down space game control problem

  - by Phil

  As the title suggests I'm developing a top down space game. I'm not looking to use newtonian physics with the player controlled ship. I'm trying to achieve a control scheme somewhat similar to that of FlatSpace 2 (awesome game). I can't figure out how to achieve this feeling with keyboard controls as opposed to mouse controls though. Any suggestions? I'm using Unity3d and C# or javaScript (unityScript or whatever is the correct term) works fine if you want to drop some code examples. Edit: Of course I should describe FlatSpace 2's control scheme, sorry. You hold the mouse button down and move the mouse in the direction you want the ship to move in. But it's not the controls I don't know how to do but rather the feeling of a mix of driving a car and flying an aircraft. It's really well made. Youtube link: FlatSpace2 on iPhone I'm not developing an iPhone game but the video shows the principle of the movement style. Edit 2 As there seems to be a slight interest, I'll post the version of the code I've used to continue. It works good enough. Sometimes good enough is sufficient! using UnityEngine; using System.Collections; public class ShipMovement : MonoBehaviour { public float directionModifier; float shipRotationAngle; public float shipRotationSpeed = 0; public double thrustModifier; public double accelerationModifier; public double shipBaseAcceleration = 0; public Vector2 directionVector; public Vector2 accelerationVector = new Vector2(0,0); public Vector2 frictionVector = new Vector2(0,0); public int shipFriction = 0; public Vector2 shipSpeedVector; public Vector2 shipPositionVector; public Vector2 speedCap = new Vector2(0,0); void Update() { directionModifier = -Input.GetAxis("Horizontal"); shipRotationAngle += ( shipRotationSpeed * directionModifier ) * Time.deltaTime; thrustModifier = Input.GetAxis("Vertical"); accelerationModifier = ( ( shipBaseAcceleration * thrustModifier ) ) * Time.deltaTime; directionVector = new Vector2( Mathf.Cos(shipRotationAngle ), Mathf.Sin(shipRotationAngle) ); //accelerationVector = Vector2(directionVector.x * System.Convert.ToDouble(accelerationModifier), directionVector.y * System.Convert.ToDouble(accelerationModifier)); accelerationVector.x = directionVector.x * (float)accelerationModifier; accelerationVector.y = directionVector.y * (float)accelerationModifier; // Set friction based on how "floaty" controls you want shipSpeedVector.x *= 0.9f; //Use a variable here shipSpeedVector.y *= 0.9f; //<-- as well shipSpeedVector += accelerationVector; shipPositionVector += shipSpeedVector; gameObject.transform.position = new Vector3(shipPositionVector.x, 0, shipPositionVector.y); } }

  Read the article

• Is OOP hard because it is not natural?

  - by zvrba

  One can often hear that OOP naturally corresponds to the way people think about the world. But I would strongly disagree with this statement: We (or at least I) conceptualize the world in terms of relationships between things we encounter, but the focus of OOP is designing individual classes and their hierarchies. Note that, in everyday life, relationships and actions exist mostly between objects that would have been instances of unrelated classes in OOP. Examples of such relationships are: "my screen is on top of the table"; "I (a human being) am sitting on a chair"; "a car is on the road"; "I am typing on the keyboard"; "the coffee machine boils water", "the text is shown in the terminal window." We think in terms of bivalent (sometimes trivalent, as, for example in, "I gave you flowers") verbs where the verb is the action (relation) that operates on two objects to produce some result/action. The focus is on action, and the two (or three) [grammatical] objects have equal importance. Contrast that with OOP where you first have to find one object (noun) and tell it to perform some action on another object. The way of thinking is shifted from actions/verbs operating on nouns to nouns operating on nouns -- it is as if everything is being said in passive or reflexive voice, e.g., "the text is being shown by the terminal window". Or maybe "the text draws itself on the terminal window". Not only is the focus shifted to nouns, but one of the nouns (let's call it grammatical subject) is given higher "importance" than the other (grammatical object). Thus one must decide whether one will say terminalWindow.show(someText) or someText.show(terminalWindow). But why burden people with such trivial decisions with no operational consequences when one really means show(terminalWindow, someText)? [Consequences are operationally insignificant -- in both cases the text is shown on the terminal window -- but can be very serious in the design of class hierarchies and a "wrong" choice can lead to convoluted and hard to maintain code.] I would therefore argue that the mainstream way of doing OOP (class-based, single-dispatch) is hard because it IS UNNATURAL and does not correspond to how humans think about the world. Generic methods from CLOS are closer to my way of thinking, but, alas, this is not widespread approach. Given these problems, how/why did it happen that the currently mainstream way of doing OOP became so popular? And what, if anything, can be done to dethrone it?

  Read the article

• Partners - Steer Clear of the Unknown with Oracle Enterprise Manager12c and Plug-in Extensibility

  - by Get_Specialized!

  Imagine if you just purchased a new car and as you entered the vehicle to drive it home and you found there was no steering wheel. And upon asking the dealer you were told that it was an option and you had a choice now or later of a variety of aftermarket steering wheels that fit a wide variety of automobiles. If you expected the car to already have a steering wheel designed to manage your transportation solution, you might wonder why someone would offer an application solution where its management is not offered as an option or come as part of the solution... Using management designed to support the underlying technology and that can provide management and support  for your own Oracle technology based solution can benefit your business  a variety of ways: increased customer satisfaction, reduction of support calls, margin and revenue growth. Sometimes when something is not included or recommended , customers take their own path which may not be optimal when using your solution and has later impact on the customers satisfaction or worse a negative impact on their business. As an Oracle Partner, you can reduce your research, certification, and time to market by selecting and offering management designed, developed, and supported for Oracle product technology by Oracle with Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. For partners with solution specific management needs or seeking to differentiate themselves in the market, Enterprise Manager 12c is extensible and provides partners the opportunity to create their own plug-ins as well as a validation program for them.  Today a number of examples by partners are available and Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} more on the way from such partners as NetApp for NetApp storage and Blue Medora for VMware vSphere. To review and consider further for applicability to your solution, visit  the Oracle PartnerNetwork KnowledgeZone for Enterprise Manager under the Develop Tab http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/enterprisemanager

  Read the article

• Changing Your Design for Testability

  Sometimes I come across a way of putting something that it is pithy good, not Hallmark trite, but an impactful and concise way of clarifying a previously obscure concept. A recent one of these happy occurrences was when I was reading the excellent Art of Unit Testing by Roy Osherove. After going through the basics of why youd want to test code and how to do it, Roy confronts a frequent objection to having unit tests, that it ends up changing how you design your components: When we write unit tests for our code, we are adding another end user (the test) to the object model. That end user is just as important as the original one, but it has different goals when using the model.  The test has specific requirements from the object model that seem to defy the basic logic behind a couple of object-oriented principles, mainly encapsulation. [emphasis added by me] When I read this, something clicked for me. I used to find it persuasive that because unit tests caused you to change your design they were more disruptive than they were worth. The counter argument I heard is that the disruption was OK, because testable design was just obviously better. That argument was not convincing as it seemed like delusional arrogance to suggest that any one of type of design was just inherently better for the particular applications I was building. What was missing was that I was not thinking of unit tests as an additional and equal end user to my design. If I accepted that proposition, than it was indeed obvious that a testable design was better because now all users of my component would be satisfied. Have I accepted that proposition? Id phrase it slightly different. I find more and more that having unit tests helps me write better, less buggy code before it gets to production or QA. As I write more unit tests, it gets easier to see how to create testable components, so I dont feel like its taking me as much extra time up front. I pick and choose components that seem most likely to benefit from automated tests and it is working out nicely. If you already implement Test Driven Development, this whole post was probably a waste of your time <g> If you hate the idea of unit tests, well, probably not a great value prop for you either. However, if you are somewhere in between, at least take a minute and check out a sample chapter from Roys book at: http://www.manning.com/osherove/.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

  Read the article

• fdisk shows overlapping partitions

  - by Campa

  At every boot to start Ubuntu, a partition gets re-mounted more than 1 times, sometimes causing very long boots. Example below: > dmesg ... [ 21.472020] EXT4-fs (sda5): re-mounted. Opts: errors=remount-ro ... [ 42.021537] EXT4-fs (sda5): re-mounted. Opts: errors=remount-ro,commit=0 ... I suspect there is a problem of overlapping partitions here, regarding sda4 and sda5: > sudo fdisk -l Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 63 610469 305203+ de Dell Utility /dev/sda2 612352 32069631 15728640 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda3 * 32069632 238979788 103455078+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda4 238983166 625141759 193079297 5 Extended /dev/sda5 238983168 612630527 186823680 83 Linux /dev/sda6 612632576 625141759 6254592 82 Linux swap / Solaris Further details: > more /etc/fstab ... # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 # / was on /dev/sda6 during installation UUID=b33be99b-5c9e-449e-ad48-be608aeff001 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # swap was on /dev/sda7 during installation UUID=7c9071cc-b77b-40da-9f80-6b8a9a220cb1 none swap sw and > mount /dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0) proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw) none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw) none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw) udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620) tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755) none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880) none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev) binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/piero/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=piero) I am Running Ubuntu Oneiric + LXDE on Dell Studio XPS machine 64-bit, dual booting with Windows 7. A months ago, I resized the Ubuntu partition and maybe I messed up something by doing that. Do you have any idea, why this long booting is happening?

  Read the article

• Determining cause of random latency/loading issues

  - by Sherwin Flight

  I'm not sure exactly what details to post in regards to my issue, because I'm not sure what is relevant. Prior to the end of September my websites all loaded quickly, in almost all cases. Loading time wasn't usually more than a few seconds. However, since the end of September I noticed a big increase in page loading times. In some cases pages were taking 30 seconds or more to load. I do have a remote monitoring service monitoring some of the sites as well, and the image below shows the response times over the past month. The response times shown at the beginning of this graph were what the usual response times were prior to this issue occurring. You can see that there has been a significant increase in response times from the beginning to the end of this graph. The thing is, the problem is not happening 100% of the time. If I click through the site, or even just keep refreshing the page, about 25% of the time the pages load quickly, the remaining 75% of the time they load slowly. Sometimes the pages take so long to load that they time out, and don't load at all. I have contacted my hosting provider, and they said things at their end was fine. I don't believe the problem is my home internet provider, because all other websites load without a problem. The server is located in Texas, USA. This also raises another interesting point. My remote monitor checks my site from two locations, California, USA, and London, England. As you can see in the chart below the response time is actually shorter when checked from London, which doesn't seem to make sense, since the server is physically closer to the California monitoring location. I would have expected the London monitoring location to have higher response times since they are physically farther away. I should also point out that in some traceroute test I've done it seem like the first connection to the server seems to take the longest, then after that the rest of the page loads quickly. Below is a little chart showing the times for the first connection to the server. So, what could be causing this problem, and what steps can I take to resolve it or at least narrow down the problem? Sending the request to the server was very quick, and receiving the reply back seems pretty quick, but the WAIT time is really long. So it connects, sends the request, but then waits close to 30 seconds before it starts receiving data back. I am also aware that there are things I can do to speed up page loading times, like reducing the number of css/js files used on a page, compressing images, etc. This is not really what the source of the problem is though, because nothing has really changed on the site since before the problem started, and other sites on the same server are loading slowly as well. Any help or advice is much appreciated.

  Read the article

• What You Said: Staying Productive While Working from home

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Earlier this week we asked you to share your telecommuting/work-from-home productivity tips. Now we’re back with a tips and tricks roundup; read on to see how your fellow readers stay focused at home. By far and away the most common technique deployed as carefully isolating work from home life. Carol writes: I love working from home and have done so for 6 years now. I have a routine just as if I was going to an office, except my commute is 12 steps. I get ready for work, grab my purse and smart phone and go to up the steps to my office. I maintain a separate phone line and voice mail for work that I cannot answer from anywhere but my work desk. I use call forwarding when I travel so only my office phone number is published. I have VOIP phone service so I can forward calls from the internet if I forget, or need to change where the phone is forwarded. I do have a wired and wireless head set so I can go get a cold drink if on one of those long boring conference calls. I plan my ‘get off from work’ time and try to stick to it, as with any job some days I am late getting off, but it all works out. I make sure my office is for work only, any other computer play time is in a different part of the house on different computer. My office has laptop, dock, couple of monitors, multipurpose printer, fax, scanner, file cabinets – just like the office at a company. I just also happen to have a couple of golden retrievers that come to work with me and usually lay quietly until 5, and yes they know it is 5pm sometimes before I do. For me, one of the biggest concerns when working from home is not being unproductive, but the danger of never stopping work. You could keep going and going because let’s face it – the company will let you do it, so I set myself up to prevent that and maintain a separateness. HTG Explains: Does Your Android Phone Need an Antivirus? How To Use USB Drives With the Nexus 7 and Other Android Devices Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder?

  Read the article

• How do you take into account usability and user requirements for your application?

  - by voroninp

  Our team supports BackOffice application: a mix of WinForm and WPF windows. (about 80 including dialogs). Really a kind of a Swiss Army Knife. It is used by developers, tech writers, security developers, testers. The requirements for new features come quite often and sometimes we play Wizard of Oz to decide which GUI our users like the most. And it usually happens (I admit it can be just my subjective interpretation of the reality) that one tiny detail giving the flavor of good usability to our app requires a lot of time. This time is being spent on 'fighting' with GUI framework making it act like we need. And it very difficult to make estimations for this type of tasks (at least for me and most members of our team). Scrum poker is not a help either. Management often considers this usability perfectionism to be a waste of time. On the other hand an accumulated affect of features where each has some little usability flaw frustrates users. But the same users want frequent releases and instant bug fixes. Hence, no way to get the positive feedback: there is always somebody who is snuffy. I constantly feel myself as competing with ourselves: more features - more bugs/tasks/architecture. We are trying to outrun the cart we are pushing. New technologies arrive and some of them can potentially help to improve the design or decrease task implementation time but these technologies require learning, prototyping and so on. Well, that was a story. And now is the question: How do you balance between time pressure, product quality, users and management satisfaction? When and how do you decide to leave the problem with not a perfect but to some extent acceptable solution, how often do you make these decisions? How do you do with your own satisfaction? What are your priorities? P.S. Please keep in mind, we are a BackOffice team, we have neither dedicated technical writer nor GUI designer. The tester have joined us recently. We've much work to do and much freedom concerning 'how'. I like it because it fosters creativity but I don't want to become too nerdy perfectionist.

  Read the article

• Designing Snake AI

  - by Ronald

  I'm new to this gamedev stackechange but have used the math and cs sites before. So, I'm in a competition to create AI for a snake that will compete with 3 other snakes in 5 minute rounds where the rules are much like the traditional Nokia snake game except that there are 4 snakes, the board is 50x50 and there are a number of small obstacles on the field. Like the Nokia game, your snake grows when you get to the fruit and if you crash into yourself, another snake or the wall you die. The game runs with a 50ms delay between moves and the server sends the new game state every 50ms which the code must analyze and what not and output the next move. The winner is the snake who had the longest length at any point in the game. Tie breakers are decided by kills. So far what I have done is implemented an A* graph search from each snake to determine if my snake is the closest to the apple and if it is, it goes for the apple. Otherwise, I made a neat little algorithm to determine the emptiest area of the board, which my snake goes for, to anticipate the next apple. Other than this I have some small survivability checks to ensure my snake isn't walking into a trap that it can't get out and if it does get stuck, I have something to give it a better chance of getting out. ... Anyway, I've tested my snake on a test server and it does quite well. Generally, my strategy of only going for the apple when its a sure thing and finding space when its not makes it grow faster than any other snakes (some snakes do a similar thing but often just go to the middle or a corner) sometimes it wins these trial games but is more often than not beaten by the same snake who seems to have the edge on survivability(my snake grows quicker but then dies somehow and this other snake just plods slowly along and wins on consistency. So I was wondering about any ideas anyone has to try and improve my snake. Or maybe ideas at a new approach to take. My functions and classes are good so changes that might seem drastic shouldn't be too bad. I encourage all ideas. Any thoughts ??

  Read the article

• How do you make a bullet ricochet off a vertical wall?

  - by Bagofsheep

  First things first. I am using C# with XNA. My game is top-down and the player can shoot bullets. I've managed to get the bullets to ricochet correctly off horizontal walls. Yet, despite using similar methods (e.g. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3203952/mirroring-an-angle) and reading other answered questions about this subject I have not been able to get the bullets to ricochet off a vertical wall correctly. Any method I've tried has failed and sometimes made ricocheting off a horizontal wall buggy. Here is the collision code that calls the ricochet method: //Loop through returned tile rectangles from quad tree to test for wall collision. If a collision occurs perform collision logic. for (int r = 0; r < returnObjects.Count; r++) if (Bullets[i].BoundingRectangle.Intersects(returnObjects[r])) Bullets[i].doCollision(returnObjects[r]); Now here is the code for the doCollision method. public void doCollision(Rectangle surface) { if (Ricochet) doRicochet(surface); else Trash = true; } Finally, here is the code for the doRicochet method. public void doRicochet(Rectangle surface) { if (Position.X > surface.Left && Position.X < surface.Right) { //Mirror the bullet's angle. Rotation = -1 * Rotation; //Moves the bullet in the direction of its rotation by given amount. moveFaceDirection(Sprite.Width * BulletScale.X); } else if (Position.Y > surface.Top && Position.Y < surface.Bottom) { } } Since I am only dealing with vertical and horizontal walls at the moment, the if statements simply determine if the object is colliding from the right or left, or from the top or bottom. If the object's X position is within the boundaries of the tile's X boundaries (left and right sides), it must be colliding from the top, and vice verse. As you can see, the else if statement is empty and is where the correct code needs to go.

  Read the article

• Keeping your options open in a cloud solution

  - by BuckWoody

  In on-premises solutions we have the full range of options open for a given computing solution – but we don’t always take advantage of them, for multiple reasons. Data goes in a Relational Database Management System, files go on a share, and e-mail goes to the Exchange server. Over time, vendors (including ourselves) add in functionality to one product that allow non-standard use of the platform. For example, SQL Server (and Oracle, and others) allow large binary storage in or through the system – something not originally intended for an RDBMS to handle. There are certainly times when this makes sense, of course, but often these platform hammers turn every problem into a nail. It can make us “lazy” in our design – we sometimes don’t take the time to learn another architecture because the one we’ve spent so much time with can handle what we want to do. But there’s a distinct danger here. In nature, when a population shares too many of the same traits, it can cause a complete collapse if a situation exploits a weakness shared by that population. The same is true with not using the righttool for the job in a computing environment. Your company or organization depends on your knowledge as a professional to select the best mix of supportable, flexible, cost-effective technologies to solve their problems, whether you’re in an architect role or not.  So take some time today to learn something new. The way I do this is to select a given problem, and try to solve it with a technology I’m not familiar with. For instance – create a Purchase Order system in Excel, then in Hadoop or MongoDB, or even in flat-files using PowerShell as an interface. No, I’m not suggesting any of these architectures are the proper way to solve the PO problem, but taking something concrete that you know well and applying that meta-knowledge to another platform will assist you in exercising the “little grey cells” and help you and your organization understand what is open to you. And of course you can do all of this on-premises – but my recommendation is to check out a cloud platform (my suggestion would of course be Windows Azure :) ) and try it there. Most providers (including Microsoft) provide free time to do that.

  Read the article

• BoundingBox Intersection Problems

  - by Deukalion

  When I try to render two cubes, same sizes, one beside the other. With the same proportions (XYZ). My problem is, why do a Box1.BoundingBox.Contains(Box2.BoundingBox) == ContaintmentType.Intersects - when it clearly doesn't? I'm trying to place objects with BoundingBoxes as "intersection" checking, but this simple example clearly shows that this doesn't work. Why is that? I also try checking height of the next object to be placed, by checking intersection, adding each boxes height += (Max.Y - Min.Y) to a Height value, so when I add a new Box it has a height value. This works, but sometimes due to strange behavior it adds extra values when there isn't anything there. This is an example of what I mean: BoundingBox box1 = GetBoundaries(new Vector3(0, 0, 0), new Vector3(128, 64, 128)); BoundingBox box2 = GetBoundaries(new Vector3(128, 0, 0), new Vector3(128, 64, 128)); if (box1.Contains(box2) == ContainmentType.Intersects) { // This will be executed System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Intersects = True"); } if (box1.Contains(box2) == ContainmentType.Disjoint) { System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Disjoint = True"); } if (box1.Contains(box2) == ContainmentType.Contains) { System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Contains = True"); } Test Method: public BoundingBox GetBoundaries(Vector3 position, Vector3 size) { Vector3[] vertices = new Vector3[8]; vertices[0] = position + new Vector3(-0.5f, 0.5f, -0.5f) * size; vertices[1] = position + new Vector3(-0.5f, 0.5f, 0.5f) * size; vertices[2] = position + new Vector3(0.5f, 0.5f, -0.5f) * size; vertices[3] = position + new Vector3(0.5f, 0.5f, 0.5f) * size; vertices[4] = position + new Vector3(-0.5f, -0.5f, -0.5f) * size; vertices[5] = position + new Vector3(-0.5f, -0.5f, 0.5f) * size; vertices[6] = position + new Vector3(0.5f, -0.5f, -0.5f) * size; vertices[7] = position + new Vector3(0.5f, -0.5f, 0.5f) * size; return BoundingBox.CreateFromPoints(vertices); } Box 1 should start at x -64, Box 2 should start at x 64 which means they never overlap. If I add Box 2 to 129 instead it creates a small gap between the cubes which is not pretty. So, the question is how can I place two cubes beside eachother and make them understand that they do not overlap or actually intersect? Because this way I can never automatically check for intersections or place cube beside eachother.

  Read the article

• Creating a Yes/No MessageBox in a NuGet install/uninstall script

  - by ParadigmShift

  Sometimes getting a little feedback during the install/uninstall process of a NuGet package could be really useful. Instead of accounting for all possible ways to install your NuGet package for every user, you can simplify the installation by clarifying with the user what they want. This example shows how to generate a windows yes/no message box to get input from the user in the PowerShell install or uninstall script. We’ll use the prompt on the uninstall to confirm if the user wants to delete a custom setting that the initial install placed in their configuration.  Obviously you could use the prompt in any way you want. The objects of the message box are generated similar to the controls in the code behind of a WinForm. At the beginning of your script enter this: param($installPath, $toolsPath, $package, $project)   # Set up path variables $solutionDir = Get-SolutionDir $projectName = (Get-Project).ProjectName $projectPath = Join-Path $solutionDir $projectName   ################################################################################################ # WinForm generation for prompt ################################################################################################ function Ask-Delete-Custom-Settings { [void][reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname("System.Windows.Forms") [Void][reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname("System.Drawing")   $title = "Package Uninstall" $message = "Delete the customized settings?" #Create form and controls $form1 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Form $label1 = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Label $btnYes = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button $btnNo = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button   #Set properties of controls and form ############ # label1 # ############ $label1.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(12,9) $label1.Name = "label1" $label1.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(254,17) $label1.TabIndex = 0 $label1.Text = $message   ############# # btnYes # ############# $btnYes.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(156,45) $btnYes.Name = "btnYes" $btnYes.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(48,25) $btnYes.TabIndex = 1 $btnYes.Text = "Yes"   ########### # btnNo # ########### $btnNo.Location = New-Object System.Drawing.Point(210,45) $btnNo.Name = "btnNo" $btnNo.Size = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(48,25) $btnNo.TabIndex = 2 $btnNo.Text = "No"   ########### # form1 # ########### $form1.ClientSize = New-Object System.Drawing.Size(281,86) $form1.Controls.Add($label1) $form1.Controls.Add($btnYes) $form1.Controls.Add($btnNo) $form1.Name = "Form1" $form1.Text = $title #Event Handler $btnYes.add_Click({btnYes_Click}) $btnNo.add_Click({btnNo_Click}) return $form1.ShowDialog() } function btnYes_Click { #6 = Yes $form1.DialogResult = 6 } function btnNo_Click { #7 = No $form1.DialogResult = 7 } ################################################################################################ This has also wired up the click events to the form.  This is all it takes to create the message box. Now we have to actually use the message box and get the user’s response or this is all pointless.  We’ll then delete the section of the application/web configuration called <Custom.Settings> [xml] $configXmlContent = Get-Content $configFile   Write-Host "Please respond to the question in the Dialog Box." $dialogResult = Ask-Delete-Custom-Settings #6 = Yes #7 = No Write-Host "dialogResult = $dialogResult" if ($dialogResult.ToString() -eq "Yes") { Write-Host "Deleting customized settings" $customSettingsNode = $configXmlContent.configuration.Item("Custom.Settings") $configXmlContent.configuration.RemoveChild($customSettingsNode) $configXmlContent.Save($configFile) } if ($dialogResult.ToString() -eq "No") { Write-Host "Do not delete customized settings" } The part where I check if ($dialog.Result.ToString() –eq “Yes”) could just as easily check the value for either 6 or 7 (Yes or No).  I just personally decided I liked this way better.   Shahzad Qureshi is a Software Engineer and Consultant in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA His certifications include: Microsoft Certified System Engineer 3CX Certified Partner Global Information Assurance Certification – Secure Software Programmer – .NET He is the owner of Utah VoIP Store at http://www.utahvoipstore.com/ and SWS Development at http://www.swsdev.com/ and publishes windows apps under the name Blue Voice.

  Read the article

• Asynchronously returning a hierarchal data using .NET TPL... what should my return object "look" like?

  - by makerofthings7

  I want to use the .NET TPL to asynchronously do a DIR /S and search each subdirectory on a hard drive, and want to search for a word in each file... what should my API look like? In this scenario I know that each sub directory will have 0..10000 files or 0...10000 directories. I know the tree is unbalanced and want to return data (in relation to its position in the hierarchy) as soon as it's available. I am interested in getting data as quickly as possible, but also want to update that result if "better" data is found (better means closer to the root of c:) I may also be interested in finding all matches in relation to its position in the hierarchy. (akin to a report) Question: How should I return data to my caller? My first guess is that I think I need a shared object that will maintain the current "status" of the traversal (started | notstarted | complete ) , and might base it on the System.Collections.Concurrent. Another idea that I'm considering is the consumer/producer pattern (which ConcurrentCollections can handle) however I'm not sure what the objects "look" like. Optional Logical Constraint: The API doesn't have to address this, but in my "real world" design, if a directory has files, then only one file will ever contain the word I'm looking for.  If someone were to literally do a DIR /S as described above then they would need to account for more than one matching file per subdirectory. More information : I'm using Azure Tables to store a hierarchy of data using these TPL extension methods. A "node" is a table. Not only does each node in the hierarchy have a relation to any number of nodes, but it's possible for each node to have a reciprocal link back to any other node. This may have issues with recursion but I'm addressing that with a shared object in my recursion loop. Note that each "node" also has the ability to store local data unique to that node. It is this information that I'm searching for. In other words, I'm searching for a specific fixed RowKey in a hierarchy of nodes. When I search for the fixed RowKey in the hierarchy I'm interested in getting the results FAST (first node found) but prefer data that is "closer" to the starting point of the hierarchy. Since many nodes may have the particular RowKey I'm interested in, sometimes I may want to get a report of ALL the nodes that contain this RowKey.

  Read the article

• The Problem Should Define the Process, Not the Tool

  - by thatjeffsmith

  All around awesome tool, but not the only gadget in your toolbox.I’m stepping down from my SQL Developer pulpit today and standing up on my philosophical soap box. I’m frequently asked to help folks transition from one set of database tools over to Oracle SQL Developer, which I’m MORE than happy to do. But, I’m not looking to simply change the way people interact with Oracle database. What I care about is your productivity. Is there a faster, more efficient way for you to connect the dots, get from A to B, or just get home to your kids or to the pub for happy hour? If you have defined a business process around a specific tool, what happens when that tool ‘goes away?’ Does the business stop? No, you feel immediate pain until you are able to re-implement the process using another mechanism. Where I get confused, or even frustrated, is when someone asks me to redesign our tool to match their problem. Tools are just tools. Saying you ‘can’t load your data anymore because XYZ’ isn’t valid when you could easily do that same task via SQL*Loader, Create Table As Selects, or 9 other different mechanisms. Sometimes changes brings opportunity for improvement in the process. Don’t be afraid to step back and re-evaluate a problem with a fresh set of eyes. Just trying to replicate your process in another tool exactly as it was done in the ‘old tool’ doesn’t always make sense. Quick sidebar: scheduling a Windows program to kick off thousands if not millions of table inserts from Excel versus using a ‘proper’ server process using SQL*Loader and or external tables means sacrificing scalability and reliability for convenience. Don’t let old habits blind you to new solutions and possibilities. Of couse I’m not going to sit here and say that our tools aren’t deficient in some areas or can’t be improved upon. But I bet if we work together we can find something that’s not only better for the business, but is also better for you. What do you ‘miss’ since you’ve started using SQL Developer as your primary Oracle database tools? I’d love to start a thread here and share ideas on how we can better serve you and your organizations needs. The end solution might not look exactly what you have in mind starting out, but I had no idea I’d be a Product Manager when I started college either What can you no longer ‘do’ since you picked up SQL Developer? What hurts more than it should? What keeps you from being great versus just good?

  Read the article

• Accessing Controls Within A Gridview

  - by Bunch

  Sometimes you need to access a control within a GridView, but it isn’t quite as straight forward as just using FindControl to grab the control like you can in a FormView. Since the GridView builds multiple rows the key is to specify the row. In this example there is a GridView with a control for a player’s errors. If the errors is greater than 9 the GridView should display the control (lblErrors) in red so it stands out. Here is the GridView: <asp:GridView ID="gvFielding" runat="server" DataSourceID="sqlFielding" DataKeyNames="PlayerID" AutoGenerateColumns="false" >     <Columns>         <asp:BoundField DataField="PlayerName" HeaderText="Player Name" />         <asp:BoundField DataField="PlayerNumber" HeaderText="Player Number" />         <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Errors">             <ItemTemplate>                 <asp:Label ID="lblErrors" runat="server" Text='<%# EVAL("Errors") %>'  />             </ItemTemplate>         </asp:TemplateField>     </Columns> </asp:GridView> In the code behind you can add the code to change the label’s ForeColor property to red based on the amount of errors. In this case 10 or more errors triggers the color change. Protected Sub gvFielding_DataBound(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles gvFielding.DataBound     Dim errorLabel As Label     Dim errors As Integer     Dim i As Integer = 0     For Each row As GridViewRow In gvFielding.Rows         errorLabel = gvFielding.Rows(i).FindControl("lblErrors")         If Not errorLabel.Text = Nothing Then             Integer.TryParse(errorLabel.Text, errors)             If errors > 9 Then                 errorLabel.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.Red             End If         End If         i += 1     Next End Sub The main points in the DataBound sub is use a For Each statement to loop through the rows and to increment the variable i so you loop through every row. That way you check each one and if the value is greater than 9 the label changes to red. The If Not errorLabel.Text = Nothing line is there as a check in case no data comes back at all for Errors. Technorati Tags: GridView,ASP.Net,VB.Net

  Read the article

• Developing a Support Plan for Cloud Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  Last week I blogged about developing a High-Availability plan. The specifics of a given plan aren't as simple as "Step 1, then Step 2" because in a hybrid environment (which most of us have) the situation changes the requirements. There are those that look for simple "template" solutions, but unless you settle on a single vendor and a single way of doing things, that's not really viable. The same holds true for support. As I've mentioned before, I'm not fond of the term "cloud", and would rather use the tem "Distributed Computing". That being said, more people understand the former, so I'll just use that for now. What I mean by Distributed Computing is leveraging another system or setup to perform all or some of a computing function. If this definition holds true, then you're essentially creating a partnership with a vendor to run some of your IT - whether that be IaaS, PaaS or SaaS, or more often, a mix. In your on-premises systems, you're the first and sometimes only line of support. That changes when you bring in a Cloud vendor. For Windows Azure, we have plans for support that you can pay for if you like. http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/plans/ You're not off the hook entirely, however. You still need to create a plan to support your users in their applications, especially for the parts you control. The last thing they want to hear is "That's vendor X's problem - you'll have to call them." I find that this is often the last thing the architects think about in a solution. It's fine to put off the support question prior to deployment, but I would hold off on calling it "production" until you have that plan in place. There are lots of examples, like this one: http://www.va-interactive.com/inbusiness/editorial/sales/ibt/customer.html some of which are technology-specific. Once again, this is an "it depends" kind of approach. While it would be nice if there was just something in a box we could buy, it just doesn't work that way in a hybrid system. You have to know your options and apply them appropriately.

  Read the article

• Developing a Support Plan for Cloud Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  Last week I blogged about developing a High-Availability plan. The specifics of a given plan aren't as simple as "Step 1, then Step 2" because in a hybrid environment (which most of us have) the situation changes the requirements. There are those that look for simple "template" solutions, but unless you settle on a single vendor and a single way of doing things, that's not really viable. The same holds true for support. As I've mentioned before, I'm not fond of the term "cloud", and would rather use the tem "Distributed Computing". That being said, more people understand the former, so I'll just use that for now. What I mean by Distributed Computing is leveraging another system or setup to perform all or some of a computing function. If this definition holds true, then you're essentially creating a partnership with a vendor to run some of your IT - whether that be IaaS, PaaS or SaaS, or more often, a mix. In your on-premises systems, you're the first and sometimes only line of support. That changes when you bring in a Cloud vendor. For Windows Azure, we have plans for support that you can pay for if you like. http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/plans/ You're not off the hook entirely, however. You still need to create a plan to support your users in their applications, especially for the parts you control. The last thing they want to hear is "That's vendor X's problem - you'll have to call them." I find that this is often the last thing the architects think about in a solution. It's fine to put off the support question prior to deployment, but I would hold off on calling it "production" until you have that plan in place. There are lots of examples, like this one: http://www.va-interactive.com/inbusiness/editorial/sales/ibt/customer.html some of which are technology-specific. Once again, this is an "it depends" kind of approach. While it would be nice if there was just something in a box we could buy, it just doesn't work that way in a hybrid system. You have to know your options and apply them appropriately.

  Read the article

• Should i continue my self-taught coding practice or learn how to do coding professionally?

  - by G1i1ch

  Lately I've been getting professional work, hanging out with other programmers, and making friends in the industry. The only thing is I'm 100% self-taught. It's caused my style to extremely deviate from the style of those that are properly trained. It's the techniques and organization of my code that's different. It's a mixture of several things I do. I tend to blend several programming paradigms together. Like Functional and OO. I lean to the Functional side more than OO, but I see the use of OO when something would make more sense as an abstract entity. Like a game object. Next I also go the simple route when doing something. When in contrast, it seems like sometimes the code I see from professional programmers is complicated for the sake of it! I use lots of closures. And lastly, I'm not the best commenter. I find it easier just to read through my code than reading the comment. And most cases I just end up reading the code even if there are comments. Plus I've been told that, because of how simply I write my code, it's very easy to read it. I hear professionally trained programmers go on and on about things like unit tests. Something I've never used before so I haven't even the faintest idea of what they are or how they work. Lots and lots of underscores "_", which aren't really my taste. Most of the techniques I use are straight from me, or a few books I've read. Don't know anything about MVC, I've heard a lot about it though with things like backbone.js. I think it's a way to organize an application. It just confuses me though because by now I've made my own organizational structures. It's a bit of a pain. I can't use template applications at all when learning something new like with Ubuntu's Quickly. I have trouble understanding code that I can tell is from someone trained. Complete OO programming really leaves a bad taste in my mouth, yet that seems to be what EVERYONE else is strictly using. It's left me not that confident in the look of my code, or wondering whether I'll cause sparks when joining a company or maybe contributing to open source projects. In fact I'm rather scared of the fact that people will eventually be checking out my code. Is this just something normal any programmer goes through or should I really look to change up my techniques?

  Read the article

• Notes - Part I - Say Hello from Java

  - by Silviu Turuga

  Sometimes we need to take small notes to remember things, one way to do this is to use stick notes and have them all around our desktop. But what happening if you have a lot of notes and a small office? You'll need a piece of software that will sort things for you and also it will provide you a quick way to retrieve the notes when need. Did I mention that this will keep your desktop clean and also will reduce paper waste? During the next days we'll gonna create an application that will let you manage your notes, put them in different categories etc. I'll show you step by step what do you need to do and finally you'll have the application run on multiple systems, such as Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. The only pre-requisition for this lesson is to have JDK 7 with JavaFX installed and an IDE, preferably NetBeans. I'll call this application Notes…. Part I - Say Hello from Java  From NetBeans go to Files->New Project Chose JavaFX->JavaFX FXML Application Project Name: Notes FXML name: NotesUI Check Create Application Class and name it Main After this the project is created and you'll see the following structure As a best practice I advice you to have your code in your own package instead of the default one. right click on Source Packages and chose New->Java Package name it something like this: com.turuga.notes and click Next after the package is created, select all the 3 files from step #3 and drag them over the new package chose Refactor, as this will make sure all the references are correctly moved inside the new package now you should have the following structure if you'll try to run the project you'll get an error: Unable to find class: Main right click on project name Notes and click properties go to Run and you'll see Application Class set to Main, but because we have defined our own packages, this location has been change, so click on Browse and the correct one appear: com.turuga.notes.Main last modification before running the project is to right click on NotesUI.fxml and chose Edit (if you'll double click it will open in JavaFX Scene Builder) look around line 9 and change fx:controller="NotesUIController" to fx:controller="com.turuga.notes.NotesUIController" now you are ready to run it and you should see the following On the next lesson we'll continue to play with NetBeans and start working on the interface of our project

  Read the article

• Cannot boot from K/Ubuntu install disk on my UEFI system

  - by user93241

  I just got a new system and have been trying to get it set up w/ Win7 & Kubuntu dual-boot, but I've got a major problem. The BIOS of my motherboard (an Asus Crosshair 990FX) is strictly UEFI -- there is no legacy support mode available. I've been reading up on how to get Kubuntu installed in UEFI mode but no matter what I try I cannot seem to even boot into my install CD/USB key properly. I can get as far as the selection screen ("Try Kubuntu", "Install Kubuntu"...) but this screen starts off not appearing correctly. If I try moving the cursor around it sometimes seems to correct itself and show me my choices. But once I select "Try Kubuntu" it starts loading, the screen goes black and then proceeds to flicker -- about once every 5-10 seconds or so. This continues indefinitely. I've tried this with both Kubuntu & Ubuntu installation media, even the AMD64+Mac Ubuntu variety that is supposed to be a lot more flexible w.r.t. UEFI. The only hint I've had that the system might have booted correctly is a little drum sound that plays when booting from the Ubuntu install disk. Well, that and the fact that when I hit my system's power button it seems to shut down correctly, even ejecting the CD at the end. This might be a video driver issue; my system has two nVidia 550's, one of which is attached to my primary monitor. (The secondary isn't hooked up yet.) I'll keep looking over similar questions but any advice would be greatly appreciated. UPDATE: I've tried booting into my 12.04 install CD twice now, each time using two different options supplied by my BIOS. One seemed to offer the ability to boot into my CD under UEFI mode -- this didn't even produce the initial boot menu. The other method offers the ability to boot into my CD NOT under UEFI mode. This DOES produce the boot menu, but after this point it seems I still cannot get to a proper video mode to see what's going on.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241  | Next Page >