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• null values vs "empty" singleton for optional fields

  - by Uko

  First of all I'm developing a parser for an XML-based format for 3D graphics called XGL. But this question can be applied to any situation when you have fields in your class that are optional i.e. the value of this field can be missing. As I was taking a Scala course on coursera there was an interesting pattern when you create an abstract class with all the methods you need and then create a normal fully functional subclass and an "empty" singleton subclass that always returns false for isEmpty method and throws exceptions for the other ones. So my question is: is it better to just assign null if the optional field's value is missing or make a hierarchy described above and assign it an empty singleton implementation?

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• What makes game sound effects "good"?

  - by you786

  I'm making a small game, and I've found some free sound effects that I'd like to use. The issue is that I can't get the sound effects to sound like they "belong" in my game. I don't know what to look for that can make sound effects match the rest of my game style. I have some ideas on what affects the meshing of audio with graphics. For example, I have a feeling that the current SFX I may be too "realistic" for my graphical style, which is pretty cartoon-like. Also, is there a golden standard for what volume various SFX should be at? (for example, I am thinking that footsteps or other common sounds should be at barely audible volumes, while enemy deaths or something that is a "big deal" should be louder). I found a similar question about graphics, I'm looking for a similar response with sound effects.

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• Reusable skill class structure

  - by Martino Wullems

  Hello, Pretty new to the whole game development scene, but I have experience in other branches of programming. Anyway, I was wondering what methods are used to implement a skill structure. I imagine a skill in itself would a class. I'm using actionscript 3 for this project btw. public class Skill { public var power:int; public var delay:int; public var cooldown:int; public function Attack(user:Mob, target:Mob) { } } } Each skill would extend the Skill class and add it's own functionality. public class Tackle extends Skill { public function Tackle(user:Mob, target:Mob) { super(user, target); executeAttack(); } private function executeAttack():void { //multiply user.strength with power etc //play attack animation } } } This where I get stuck. How do I termine which mobs has which skills? And which skill will they later be able to retrieve (by reaching a certain level etc). How does the player actually execute the skill and how is it determine if it hits. It's all very new to me so I have no idea where to begin. Any links would also be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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• Isn't MVC anti OOP?

  - by m3th0dman

  The main idea behind OOP is to unify data and behavior in a single entity - the object. In procedural programming there is data and separately algorithms modifying the data. In the Model-View-Controller pattern the data and the logic/algorithms are placed in distinct entities, the model and the controller respectively. In an equivalent OOP approach shouldn't the model and the controller be placed in the same logical entity?

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• CircuitLab Offers Easy Circuit Building on the Web and iPad

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you like to sketch out your circuit designs rapidly, cleanly, and on the web or your iPad, CircuitLab makes it dead simple. The free tool includes an easy drag-and-drop interface, circuit analysis, easy printing, and more. Watch the video above to see the creators of CircuitLab whipping up a simple circuit to showcase the app, then hit up the link below to try it out. CircuitLab [via Hacked Gadgets] How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It? HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me?

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• Is it possible to calculate or mathematically prove if a game is balanced / fair?

  - by Lurca

  This question is not focussed on video games but games in general. I went to a boardgame trade fair yesterday and asked myself if there is a way to calculate the fairness of a game. Sure, some of them require a good portion of luck, but it might be possible to calculate if some character is overpowered. Especially in role-playing games and trading card games. How, for example, can the creators of "Magic: The Gathering" make sure that there isn't the "one card that beats them all", given the impressive number of available cards?

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• Best practices for using namespaces in C++.

  - by Dima

  I have read Uncle Bob's Clean Code a few months ago, and it has had a profound impact on the way I write code. Even if it seemed like he was repeating things that every programmer should know, putting them all together and putting them into practice does result in much cleaner code. In particular, I found breaking up large functions into many tiny functions, and breaking up large classes into many tiny classes to be incredibly useful. Now for the question. The book's examples are all in Java, while I have been working in C++ for the past several years. How would the ideas in Clean Code extend to the use of namespaces, which do not exist in Java? (Yes, I know about the Java packages, but it is not really the same.) Does it make sense to apply the idea of creating many tiny entities, each with a clearly define responsibility, to namespaces? Should a small group of related classes always be wrapped in a namespace? Is this the way to manage the complexity of having lots of tiny classes, or would the cost of managing lots of namespaces be prohibitive?

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• Naming a predicate: "precondition" or "precondition_is_met"?

  - by RexE

  In my web app framework, each page can have a precondition that needs to be satisfied before it can be displayed to the user. For example, if user 1 and user 2 are playing a back-and-forth role-playing game, user 2 needs to wait for user 1 to finish his turn before he can take his turn. Otherwise, the user is displayed a waiting page. This is implemented with a predicate: def precondition(self): return user_1.completed_turn The simplest name for this API is precondition, but this leads to code like if precondition(): ..., which is not really obvious. Seems to me like it is more accurate to call it precondition_is_met(), but not sure about that either. Is there a best practice for naming methods like this?

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• Customer won't decide, how to deal?

  - by Crazy Eddie

  I write software that involves the use of measured quantities, many input by the user, most displayed, that are fed into calculation models to simulate various physical thing-a-majigs. We have created a data type that allows us to associate a numeric value with a unit, we call these "quantities" (big duh). Quantities and units are unique to dimension. You can't attach kilogram to a length for example. Math on quantities does automatic unit conversion to SI and the type is dimension safe (you can't assign a weight to a pressure for example). Custom UI components have been developed that display the value and its unit and/or allow the user to edit them. Dimensionless quantities, having no units, are a single, custom case implemented within the system. There's a set of related quantities such that our target audience apparently uses them interchangeably. The quantities are used in special units that embed the conversion factors for the related quantity dimensions...in other words, when using these units converting from one to another simply involves multiplying the value by 1 to the dimensional difference. However, conversion to/from the calculation system (SI) still involves these factors. One of these related quantities is a dimensionless one that represents a ratio. I simply can't get the "customer" to recognize the necessity of distinguishing these values and their use. They've picked one and want to use it everywhere, customizing the way we deal with it in special places. In this case they've picked one of the dimensions that has a unit...BUT, they don't want there to be a unit (GRR!!!). This of course is causing us to implement these special overrides for our UI elements and such. That of course is often times forgotten and worse...after a couple months everyone forgets why it was necessary and why we're using this dimensional value, calling it the wrong thing, and disabling the unit. I could just ignore the "customer" and implement the type as the dimensionless quantity, which makes most sense. However, that leaves the team responsible for figuring it out when they've given us a formula using one of the other quantities. We have to not only figure out that it's happening, we have to decide what to do. This isn't a trivial deal. The other option is just to say to hell with it, do it the customer's way, and let it waste continued time and effort because it's just downright confusing as hell. However, I can't count the amount of times someone has said, "Why is this being done this way, it makes no sense at all," and the team goes off the deep end trying to figure it out. What would you do? Currently I'm still attempting to convince them that even if they use terms interchangeably, we at the least can't do that within the product discussion. Don't have high hopes though.

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• What every beginner should know about website development? [closed]

  - by user975234

  I am a novice at building websites and considering to make one. But there is a lot of confusion that's going on right now. I guess every beginner faces them. Few questions that come up are: I have an idea and a need a website. That's all i know right now. But how do i start ? HTML is for sure the basic language but there are a hell of other technologies too. What is actually asp, php, ruby etc? How do i choose the right one from them? Other than asp, php there is javascript and other languages under the same belt. What are they used for? Hosting. When i am choosing the host, what considerations i have to keep in mind ? What support do i need from them (other than getting some important space obviously!). I am considering of making the website in ruby on rails. I don't know about php and what effect it would have if i choose ruby over php. I thought about ruby just because its new and i dont want to learn some thing "not new"! :P Moreover what is a framework and how does a framework effect my development process? These three questions are just to explain my "confusion" better. There is obviously a lot more to it. Just to try to answer how the flow of website development goes keeping in mind my questions!

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• Permissions and MVC

  - by not-rightfold

  I’m in the progress of developing a web application. This web application is mostly a CRUD interface, although some users are only allowed to perform some actions and see only some parts of views. What would be a reasonable way to handle user permissions, given that some parts of views are not available to users? I was thinking of having a function hasPermission(permission) that returns true iff the current user has the given permission, although it would require conditionals around all parts of views that are only visible to some users. For example: {% if has_permission('view_location') %} {{ product.location }} {% endif %} I’m fearing this will become an ugly and unreadable mess, especially since these permissions can get kind of complicated. How is this problem commonly solved in web applications? I’m considering using Haskell with Happstack or Python with Django.

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• Map Library: Client-side or Server-side?

  - by Mahdi

  As I have already asked here, I have to implement a Multi-Platform Map application. Now I have Mapstraction as an option which uses Javascript to implement the desired functionality. My question is, "Is there any reason/benefit to implement such a library (let say, Adapters) in Server-side (in my case, PHP)?" As these maps are all based on Javascript, there is a big reason to use Javascript again to make the adapter also, so it would not be dependent to PHP, Java, or .NET for example. But is that all? I wish to hear your ideas and comments also. :)

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• Code and Slides: Techniques, Strategies, and Patterns for Structuring JavaScript Code

  - by dwahlin

  This presentation was given at the spring 2012 DevConnections conference in Las Vegas and is based on my Structuring JavaScript Code course from Pluralsight. The goal of the presentation is to show how closures combined with code patterns can be used to provide structure to JavaScript code and make it more re-useable, maintainable, and less susceptible to naming conflicts.  Topics covered include: Closures Using Object literals Namespaces The Prototype Pattern The Revealing Module Pattern The Revealing Prototype Pattern View more of my presentations here. Sample code from the presentation can be found here. Check out the full-length course on the topic at Pluralsight.com.

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• What is the ideal length of a method?

  - by iPhoneDeveloper

  In object-oriented programming, there is no exact rule on the maximum length of a method , but I still found these two qutes somewhat contradicting each other, so I would like to hear what you think. In Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship, Robert Martin says: The first rule of functions is that they should be small. The second rule of functions is that they should be smaller than that. Functions should not be 100 lines long. Functions should hardly ever be 20 lines long. and he gives an example from Java code he sees from Kent Beck: Every function in his program was just two, or three, or four lines long. Each was transparently obvious. Each told a story. And each led you to the next in a compelling order. That’s how short your functions should be! This sounds great, but on the other hand, in Code Complete, Steve McConnell says something very different: The routine should be allowed to grow organically up to 100-200 lines, decades of evidence say that routines of such length no more error prone then shorter routines. And he gives a reference to a study that says routines 65 lines or long are cheaper to develop. So while there are diverging opinions about the matter, is there a functional best-practice towards determining the ideal length of a method for you?

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• What good books are out there on program execution models? [on hold]

  - by murungu

  Can anyone out there name a few books that address the topic of program execution models?? I want a book that can answer questions such as... What is the difference between interpreted and compiled languages and what are the performance consequences at runtime?? What is the difference between lazy evaluation, eager evaluation and short circuit evaluation?? Why would one choose to use one evaluation strategy over another?? How do you simulate lazy evaluation in a language that favours eager evaluation??

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• How can I selectively update XNA GameComponents?

  - by Bill

  I have a small 2D game I'm working on in XNA. So far, I have a player-controlled ship that operates on vector thrust and is terribly fun to spin around in circles. I've implemented this as a DrawableGameComponent and registered it with the game using game.Components.Add(this) in the Ship object constructor. How can I implement features like pausing and a menu system with my current implementation? Is it possible to set certain GameComponents to not update? Is this something for which I should even be using a DrawableGameComponent? If not, what are more appropriate uses for this?

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• Is it evil to model JSON responses to classes when they are mostly smilar?

  - by Aybe

  Here's the problem : While implementing a C# wrapper for an online API (Discogs) I've been faced to a dilemma : quite often the responses returned have mostly similar members and while modeling these responses to classes, some questions surfaces on which way to go would be the best. Example : Querying for a 'release' or a 'master' will return an object that contains an array of 'artist', however these 'artists' do not exactly have the same members. Currently I decided to represent these 'artists' as a single 'Artist' class, against having respective 'ReleaseArtist' and 'MasterArtist' classes which soon becomes very confusing even though another problem arises : when a category (master or release) does not return these members, they will be null. Though it might sound confusing as well I find it less confusing than the former situation as I've tackled the problem by simply not showing null members when visualizing these objects. Is this the right approach to follow ? An example of these differences : public class Artist { public List<Alias> Aliases { get; set; } public string DataQuality { get; set; } public List<Image> Images { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public List<string> NameVariations { get; set; } public string Profile { get; set; } public string Realname { get; set; } public string ReleasesUrl { get; set; } public string ResourceUrl { get; set; } public string Uri { get; set; } public List<string> Urls { get; set; } } public class ReleaseArtist { public string Join { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public string Anv { get; set; } public string Tracks { get; set; } public string Role { get; set; } public string ResourceUrl { get; set; } public int Id { get; set; } }

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• Creating user UI using Flixel

  - by Jamie Read

  I am new to game development but familiar with programming languages. I have started using Flixel and have a working Breakout game with score and lives. What I am trying to do is add a Start Screen before actually loading the game. I have a create function that adds all the game elements to the stage: override public function create():void // all game elements { How can I add this pre-load Start Screen? I'm not sure if I have to add in the code to this create function or somewhere else and what code to actually add. Eventually I would also like to add saving, loading, options and upgrades too. So any advice with that would be great. Here is my main game.as: package { import org.flixel.*; public class Game extends FlxGame { private const resolution:FlxPoint = new FlxPoint(640, 480); private const zoom:uint = 2; private const fps:uint = 60; public function Game() { super(resolution.x / zoom, resolution.y / zoom, PlayState, zoom); FlxG.flashFramerate = fps; } } } Thanks.

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• How to have operations with character/items in binary with concrete operations?

  - by Piperoman

  I have the next problem. A item can have a lot of states: NORMAL = 0000000 DRY = 0000001 HOT = 0000010 BURNING = 0000100 WET = 0001000 COLD = 0010000 FROZEN = 0100000 POISONED= 1000000 A item can have some states at same time but not all of them Is impossible to be dry and wet at same time. If you COLD a WET item, it turns into FROZEN. If you HOT a WET item, it turns into NORMAL A item can be BURNING and POISON Etc. I have tried to set binary flags to states, and use AND to combine different states, checking before if it is possible or not to do it, or change to another status. Does there exist a concrete approach to solve this problem efficiently without having an interminable switch that checks every state with every new state? It is relatively easy to check 2 different states, but if there exists a third state it is not trivial to do.

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• Frames per Second and Updates per Second [on hold]

  - by matt murray

  So this is more a general resources question, as I am seeking knowledge on how best to conserve resources in a game (I am writing in Java, and please this is not a thread on what language I should write it in, I have already chosen Java) so that the updates and frames per second could be the highest they could be. In general I am just searching for any articles you may have, any personal experience, anything what so ever that could be of use to a pretty new Java game developer on the subject! Thanks in advance!

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• Which data structure you will use to for a witness list?

  - by mateen

  I'm making a game where the plot is a bank robbery. Lots of people witness that robbery. The game will load a list of suspects, while the players (witnesses) will have to identify the suspects of this robbery. The game should load a list of suspects to identify the one as quickly as possible. Admin can add/remove suspects in the lists and two or more lists of suspects can also be merged into one (to show it to the player). The question is which data structure will be suitable to develop the lists?

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• Should I incorporate exit cost into choosing a solution

  - by Mr Happy

  I'm currently choosing between two viable software designs/solutions. Solution 1 is easy to implement, but will lock some data in a propriaty format, and will be hard to change later. Solution 2 is hard to implement, but will be a lot easier to change later on. Should I go YAGNI on this or should I incorporate the exit cost in the decision making? Or asked differently, is the exit cost part of the TCO? I'm thinking of going back to the customer with this to ask wether or not he thinks the exit costs are relevant, but I'd like to know what the community thinks first. P.S. Is exit cost the correct term?

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• Where can I hire local programmers with very specific skillsets?

  - by Lostsoul

  I have been browsing the site and haven't found a exact fit to this question so I'll post it but if its already answered(since I'm sure its a common problem, then let me know). I have a business and want to create a totally different product in a different industry than I'm currently in, so I learned how to program and created a working prototype. I have a bit of savings and am getting some cash flow from my current business so I can go out and hire a developer(in the future hopefully it can be permenant but right now I just need a person willing to work on contract and code on weekends or their spare time and I just want to pay in cash instead of equity or future promises). At first I wasn't sure what kind of developer to hire but this question helped me understand I should target specific skills I need as opposed to general programmers. This poses a problem for me since general programmers are everywhere but if I want specific skills I'm unsure how to get them. I thought about a list of approaches but it doesn't feel complete or effective since it seems to be assuming good developers are actively looking. If it helps I want someone local(since this is my first developer hire) and looking for skills like cuda, hadoop, hbase, java and c. Any suggestions? As a FYI, I have been thinking of approaching it as: Go to meet ups for one or more skills I need. Use LinkedIn to find people with the skills I need Search for job postings that contain skills I need and then use linkedIn to reach out to that firms employees since many profiles on linkedin are not very updated or detailed but job postings generally are. Send postings to universities and maybe find a student who loves technology so much they learned these tools on their own. Post on job board. Not sure how successful it will be to post to monster. Use Craigslist, not sure if a highly skilled developer would go here for work. What am I missing? I could be wrong but it seems like good/smart/able developers aren't hunting for work non-stop(especially in this tech job market). Plus most successful people I know have work/life balance so I'm not sure if the best ones really care about code after work. Lastly, most of the skills I need aren't used in big corporations so not sure how aggressively smart developers at small shops look for work. I don’t really know any developers personally, so but should I be using the above plan or if they live balanced lives should I be looking outside of the regular resources(and instead focus on asking around my gym or my accountant or something)? Sorry, I'm making huge assumptions here, I guess because developers are a total mystery to me. I kind of wish Jane Goodall wrote a book on understanding developers social behaviour better :-p

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• Relationship between Repository and Unit of Work

  - by NullOrEmpty

  I am going to implement a repository, and I would like to use the UOW pattern since the consumer of the repository could do several operations, and I want to commit them at once. After read several articles about the matter, I still don't get how to relate this two elements, depending on the article it is being done in a way u other. Sometimes the UOW is something internal to the repository: public class Repository { UnitOfWork _uow; public Repository() { _uow = IoC.Get<UnitOfWork>(); } public void Save(Entity e) { _uow.Track(e); } public void SubmittChanges() { SaveInStorage(_uow.GetChanges()); } } And sometimes it is external: public class Repository { public void Save(Entity e, UnitOfWork uow) { uow.Track(e); } public void SubmittChanges(UnitOfWork uow) { SaveInStorage(uow.GetChanges()); } } Other times, is the UOW whom references the Repository public class UnitOfWork { Repository _repository; public UnitOfWork(Repository repository) { _repository = repository; } public void Save(Entity e) { this.Track(e); } public void SubmittChanges() { _repository.Save(this.GetChanges()); } } How are these two elements related? UOW tracks the elements that needs be changed, and repository contains the logic to persist those changes, but... who call who? Does the last make more sense? Also, who manages the connection? If several operations have to be done in the repository, I think using the same connection and even transaction is more sound, so maybe put the connection object inside the UOW and this one inside the repository makes sense as well. Cheers

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• In-Game Encyclopedias

  - by SHiNKiROU

  There are some games where there is an in-game encyclopedia where you can know many things about characters and settings of the game. For example, the Codex in Mass Effect. I want to know if it is exclusive to Bioware, and get inspired about other encyclopedia systems. What are some other examples of in-game encyclopedias? How effective is it? I also want some examples where the in-game encyclopedia is not effective at all or an ignored feature

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