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  • Interpreting Others' Source Code

    - by Maxpm
    Note: I am aware of this question. This question is a bit more specific and in-depth, however, focusing on reading the actual code rather than debugging it or asking the author. As a student in an introductory-level computer science class, my friends occasionally ask me to help them with their assignments. Programming is something I'm very proud of, so I'm always happy to oblige. However, I usually have difficulty interpreting their source code. Sometimes this is due to a strange or inconsistent style, sometimes it's due to strange design requirements specified in the assignment, and sometimes it's just due to my stupidity. In any case, I end up looking like an idiot staring at the screen for several minutes saying "Uh..." I usually check for the common errors first - missing semicolons or parentheses, using commas instead of extractor operators, etc. The trouble comes when that fails. I often can't step through with a debugger because it's a syntax error, and I often can't ask the author because he/she him/herself doesn't understand the design decisions. How do you typically read the source code of others? Do you read through the code from top-down, or do you follow each function as it's called? How do you know when to say "It's time to refactor?"

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  • Can inbound links through template-based layouts result in penalties?

    - by Liam Sorsby
    So obviously link building is encouraged as long as it is natural, organic and has meaningful links with content relevant to your site. Obviously with the constant release of new updates to algorithms, Google is flagging sites for unnatural links to their sites. My Question is: Can this be caused by templating systems? With WordPress for example, where you can add a link on the footer and it is repeated throughout the entire website generating thousands of links? If we don't add any links, Good Content will be re-posted and linked to, surely if your content is constantly linked to this will flag your site for "unnatural" content as it's difficult to see if someone has been paid to write an article on your content. Or does Google just simply want us to audit some of the links to show we are making an effort? As you can tell we have had a Manual action for: Unnatural links to your site—impacts links. However, this seems to impact our website as well. Edit: To clarify the question: Can you get penalised for paying for advertising on a site that uses a templated sidebar. So when they create a new blog/page ect your link is also added onto the page hence resulting in 1000's of links to one page on our site. I know that one effect maybe a 0 pagerank web page linking to your page dilutes the PR of our page. However the links are only inbound not reciprocal

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  • How do I use depth testing and texture transparency together in my 2.5D world?

    - by nbolton
    Note: I've already found an answer (which I will post after this question) - I was just wondering if I was doing it right, or if there is a better way. I'm making a "2.5D" isometric game using OpenGL ES (JOGL). By "2.5D", I mean that the world is 3D, but it is rendered using 2D isometric tiles. The original problem I had to solve was that my textures had to be rendered in order (from back to front), so that the tiles overlapped properly to create the proper effect. After some reading, I quickly realised that this is the "old hat" 2D approach. This became difficult to do efficiently, since the 3D world can be modified by the player (so stuff can appear anywhere in 3D space) - so it seemed logical that I take advantage of the depth buffer. This meant that I didn't have to worry about rendering stuff in the correct order. However, I faced a problem. If you use GL_DEPTH_TEST and GL_BLEND together, it creates an effect where objects are blended with the background before they are "sorted" by z order (meaning that you get a weird kind of overlap where the transparency should be). Here's some pseudo code that should illustrate the problem (incidentally, I'm using libgdx for Android). create() { // ... // some other code here // ... Gdx.gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_DEPTH_TEST); Gdx.gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_BLEND); } render() { Gdx.gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL10.GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); Gdx.gl.glBlendFunc(GL10.GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL10.GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA); // ... // bind texture and create vertices // ... } So the question is: How do I solve the transparency overlap problem?

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  • Smarphone Apps. music, licenses and fees .. nightmare

    - by mm24
    I have recently asked a question about music in games like Guitar Hero. I have found that that in Europe (at least) if I do want to use a track composed by a musician member of a royalty collecting society I need to pay a flat fee to the society and not only to the member. So a "one-to-one" agreement is not valid and the society can come up to me and ask me for money for each download. Even if for FREE! This is a fee sheet list of the UK agency: for fee, see "Permanent download services" It is about 1,200 GBP for less than 22,000 copies and they DON'T specify anything more and they said me on the phone that I need to wait and see how many downloads I get before knowing the price. This is kind of crazy as If I give away the App for free I will have to PAY 1,200 GBP!! I am shocked and I feel very bad. One agency suggested me to use a fake name of the artist, but in this way is not fair to my collaborators as what they hope is that the App gets lots of downloads and in this way that other people will get to know about them and hopefully commission them more work. The other solution is to work only with non registered musicians. The question here to you is.. has anyone found a legal way to do use music from registered authors in a game?

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  • How do I check on non-transparent pixels in a bitmapdata?

    - by Opoe
    I'm still working on my window cleaning game from one of my previous questions I marked a contribution as my answer, but after all this time I can't get it to work and I have to many questions about this so I decided to ask some more about it. As a sequel on my mentioned previous question, my question to you is: How can I check whether or not a bitmapData contains non transparent pixels? Subquestion: Is this possible when the masked image is a movieclip? Shouldn't I use graphics instead? Information I have: A dirtywindow movieclip on the bottom layer and a clean window movieclip on layer 2(mc1) on the layer above. To hide the top layer(the dirty window) I assign a mask to it. Code // this creates a mask that hides the movieclip on top var mask_mc:MovieClip = new MovieClip(); addChild(mask_mc) //assign the mask to the movieclip it should 'cover' mc1.mask = mask_mc; With a brush(cursor) the player wipes of the dirt ( actualy setting the fill from the mask to transparent so the clean window appears) //add event listeners for the 'brush' brush_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN,brushDown); brush_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP,brushUp); //function to drag the brush over the mask function brushDown(dragging:MouseEvent):void{ dragging.currentTarget.startDrag(); MovieClip(dragging.currentTarget).addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,erase) ; mask_mc.graphics.moveTo(brush_mc.x,brush_mc.y); } //function to stop dragging the brush over the mask function brushUp(dragging:MouseEvent):void{ dragging.currentTarget.stopDrag(); MovieClip(dragging.currentTarget).removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,erase); } //fill the mask with transparant pixels so the movieclip turns visible function erase(e:Event):void{ with(mask_mc.graphics){ beginFill(0x000000); drawRect(brush_mc.x,brush_mc.y,brush_mc.width,brush_mc.height); endFill(); } }

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  • Biggest mistake you've ever made

    - by Rogue Coder
    Similar to the question I read on Server Fault, what is the biggest mistake you've ever made in an IT related position. Some examples from friends: I needed to do some work on a production site so I decided to copy over the live database to the beta site. Pretty standard, but when I went to the beta site it was still pulling out-of-date info. OOPS! I had copied the beta database over to the live site! Thank god for backups. And for me, I created a form for an event that was to be held during a specific time range. Participants would fill out the form for a chance to win, and we would send the event organizers a CSV from the database. I went into the database, and found ONLY 1 ENTRY, MINE. Upon investigating, it appears as though I forgot an auto increment key, and because of the server setup there was no way to recover the lost data. I am aware this question is similar to ones on Stack Overflow but the ones I found seemed to receive generic answers instead of actual stories :) What is the biggest coding error/mistake ever…

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  • How does a one-man developer do its games' sounds?

    - by Gustavo Maciel
    Before anything, that's not a "oh, where can I find resources?" question. Well, I've been curious about one thing in the indie games industry. For the development of the game, such tasks like game design, art, sketches, code programming and etc can be easily done by just one person. You can just take up a paper and pencil and you're a game designer. You can just take software like Photoshop or Paint and you're an artist, a scanner and you're a sketcher, a compiler and you're a programmer. For sound it's different. You may tell me: Well, follow the line, take a lot of instruments and record it. But all we know that things don't work this way. I can list up some changes for us: External noises are a big problem, sound effects can't be made with instruments, it can't sound like a recorded and clipped sound. Well I can imagine how they do this in large companies, with such big studios and etc. But to summarise, my question is: What's the best way for a one-man indie to do all its sound? Does he have to synthesize everything? Record and buy some crazy program for editing sounds?

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  • please help me understand libraries/includes

    - by fiftyeight
    I'm trying to understand how libraries work. for example I downloaded a tarball and extracted it. Now I do "./configure", it searches in pre-defined directories from what I understand for certain library files. What does it do then? it creates a makefile, and the makefile contains the paths to these libraries? than I do "make", it complies the source code and hard-codes the locations of the libraries? am I correct? I do not really understand if libraries are files with pre-defined paths or the OS somehow gives access to the libraries through system calls. another example, I complied something on my computer than moved it to a remote server, the executable needs mysql libraries to work, the server has mysql but for some reason when execute the file it tells me "can't find libmysqlclient.so.16". is there a solution for this? is there a way to know where is tries to locate this file or give it another path? I can't compile it on the server since it has no compiler and I don't have root access to install packages last question is if in the sequence "./configure","make","make install" the "make install" command is the only one that actually puts files outside the directory in which these files reside? if for example the software will be installed in /usr/local/ is the "make install" command the only one that will require "sudo" before it? let me see if I got it correctly: "./configure" creates the Makefile according to the location of various files on your system. "make" compiles the source code according to this makefile. and "make install" moves the files to their appropriate location. I know this has been very long I thank anyone who had the patience to read my question :)

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  • Euler Problem 1 : Code Optimization / Alternatives [on hold]

    - by Sudhakar
    I am new bee into the world of Datastructures and algorithms from ground up. This is my attempt to learn. If the question is very plain/simple . Please bear with me. Problem: Find the sum of all the multiples of 3 or 5 below 1000. Code i worte: package problem1; public class Problem1 { public static void main(String[] args) { //******************Approach 1**************** long start = System.currentTimeMillis(); int total = 0; int toSubtract = 0; //Complexity N/3 int limit = 10000; for(int i=3 ; i<limit ;i=i+3){ total = total +i; } //Complexity N/5 for(int i=5 ; i<limit ;i=i+5){ total = total +i; } //Complexity N/15 for(int i=15 ; i<limit ;i=i+15){ toSubtract = toSubtract +i; } //9N/15 = 0.6 N System.out.println(total-toSubtract); System.out.println("Completed in "+(System.currentTimeMillis() - start)); //******************Approach 2**************** for(int i=3 ; i<limit ;i=i+3){ total = total +i; } for(int i=5 ; i<limit ;i=i+5){ if ( 0 != (i%3)) total = total +i; } } } Question 1 - Which best approach from the above code and why ? 2 - Are there any better alternatives ?

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  • How can I give a basic idea of what I'm working on to a non programmer?

    - by Jesse
    As a relatively new programmer (1 year professionally, many years as an amateur) I've run into many situations that sent me running to Stack Overflow for answers that failed my meagre experiences. Tonight I received the hardest question ever. My wife asked me: What are you working on? The questions is deceptive in it's simplicity. A straight forward and truthful answer of "I'm working on a c# class module for monitoring database delivery times" is sure incite suggestion of attempts to confuse. My second instinct was to suggest that it couldn't really be explained to a layperson, after very brief consideration I came to the conclusion that this would likely result in a long and sleepless night on the sofa. The end result was a muddled answer along the lines of "something to monitor automatic things to make sure they're delivered on time". The reception was fairly chilly, I had to make many assurances that I was not insulting her ample intelligence. My question is thus, what is the best way to discuss your work as a programmer with your significant other who is not.

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  • Detecting Browser Types?

    - by Mike Schinkel
    My client has asked me to implement a browser detection system for the admin login with the following criteria, allow these: Internet Explorer 8 or newer Firefox 3.6 or newer Safari 5 or newer for Mac only And everything else should be blocked. They want me to implement a page telling the user what browser they need to upgrade/switch to in order to access the CMS. Basically I need to know the best way to detect these browsers with PHP, distinct from any other browsers, and I've read that browser sniffing per se is not a good idea. The CMS is WordPress but this is not a WordPress question (FYI I am a moderator on the WordPress Answers site.) Once I figure out the right technique to detect the browser I'm fully capable to make WordPress react as my client wants, I just need to know what the best ways are with PHP (or worse case jQuery, but I much prefer to do on the server) to figure how what works and what doesn't. Please understand that "Don't do it" is not an acceptable answer for this question. I know this client too well and when they ask me to implement something I need to do it (they are a really good client so I'm happy to do what they ask.) Thanks in advance for your expertise. -Mike

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  • Implementing the transport layer for a SIP UAC

    - by Jonathan Henson
    I have a somewhat simple, but specific, question about implementing the transport layer for a SIP UAC. Do I expect the response to a request on the same socket that I sent the request on, or do I let the UDP or TCP listener pick up the response and then route it to the correct transaction from there? The RFC does not seem to say anything on the matter. It seems that especially using UDP, which is connection-less, that I should just let the listeners pick up the response, but that seems sort of counter intuitive. Particularly, I have seen plenty of UAC implementations which do not depend on having a Listener in the transport layer. Also, most implementations I have looked at do not have the UAS receiving loop responding on the socket at all. This would tend to indicate that the client should not be expecting a reply on the socket that it sent the request on. For clarification: Suppose my transport layer consists of the following elements: TCPClient (Sends Requests for a UAC via TCP) UDPClient (Sends Requests for a UAC vid UDP) TCPSever (Loop receiving Requests and dispatching to transaction layer via TCP) UDPServer (Loop receiving Requests and dispatching to transaction layer via UDP) Obviously, the *Client sends my Requests. The question is, what receives the Response? The *Client waiting on a recv or recvfrom call on the socket it used to send the request, or the *Server? Conversely, the *Server receives my requests, What sends the Response? The *Client? doesn't this break the roles of each member a bit?

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  • How best to keep bumbling, non-technical managers at bay and still deliver good work?

    - by Curious
    This question may be considered subjective (I got a warning) and be closed, but I will risk it, as I need some good advice/experience on this. I read the following at the 'About' page of Fog Creek Software, the company that Joel Spolsky founded and is CEO of: Back in the year 2000, the founders of Fog Creek, Joel Spolsky and Michael Pryor, were having trouble finding a place to work where programmers had decent working conditions and got an opportunity to do great work, without bumbling, non-technical managers getting in the way. Every high tech company claimed they wanted great programmers, but they wouldn’t put their money where their mouth was. It started with the physical environment (with dozens of cubicles jammed into a noisy, dark room, where the salespeople shouting on the phone make it impossible for developers to concentrate). But it went much deeper than that. Managers, terrified of change, treated any new idea as a bizarre virus to be quarantined. Napoleon-complex junior managers insisted that things be done exactly their way or you’re fired. Corporate Furniture Police writhed in agony when anyone taped up a movie poster in their cubicle. Disorganization was so rampant that even if the ideas were good, it would have been impossible to make a product out of them. Inexperienced managers practiced hit-and-run management, issuing stern orders on exactly how to do things without sticking around to see the farcical results of their fiats. And worst of all, the MBA-types in charge thought that coding was a support function, basically a fancy form of typing. A blunt truth about most of today's big software companies! Unfortunately not every developer is as gutsy (or lucky, may I say?) as Joel Spolsky! So my question is: How best to work with such managers, keep them at bay and still deliver great work?

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  • Are Intel compilers really better than Microsoft ones?

    - by Rocket Surgeon
    Years ago I was surprised when discovered that Intel sells Studio compatible compilers. I tried it in particular for C/C++ as well as fantastic diagnostic tools. But the code was simply not that computationally intensive to notice the difference. The only impression was: did Intel really did it for me just now, Wow, amazing tools with nanoseconds resolution, unbeleivable. But the trial ended and team never seriously considered a purchase. From your experience, if license cost does not matter, which vendor is a winner ? It is not broad or vague question or attemt to spark a holy war. This sort of question about 2 very visible tools. Nobody likes when tools have any mysteries or surprises. And choices between best and best are always the pain. I also understand the "grass greener" argument. I want to hear all "what ifs" stories. What if Intel just locally optimizes it for the chip stepping of the month, and not every hardware target will actually work as well as Microsoft compiled ? What if AMD hardware is the target and everything will slow down for no reason ? Or on other hand, what if Intel's hardware has so many unnoticable opportunities, that Microsoft compiler writers are too slow to adopt and never implement in the compiler ? What if both are the same exactly, actually a single codebase just wrapped into 2 different boxes and licensed to both vendors by some 3rd party shop? And so on. But someone knows some answers.

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  • Making The EBS Upgrade From 11.5.10 Easier - Part III

    - by Annemarie Provisero
    ADVISOR WEBCAST: Making The EBS Upgrade From 11.5.10 Easier - Part III PRODUCT FAMILY: E-Business Suite July 19, 2011 at 8 am PT, 9 am MT, 11 am ET This one-hour session is recommended for technical users who are responsible for upgrading their E-Business Suite applications from Release 11.5.10 to Release 12.1.x. As you begin your upgrade process, there are a number of tools available to assist you in a successful upgrade. A successful upgrade requires careful planning, correct upgrade processing, detailed testing, and user (re)training prior to upgrade. Over three sessions we will discuss the tools that you can use to assist in your upgrade tasks. These tools are available to you via My Oracle Support and as part of the E-Business Suite product offerings. In this third session, we’ll cover the Best Practices for Using The Upgrade Tools. Additionally, this session includes an extended question and answer period. In the first part of the three-session series, we covered the following topics: Overview of Tools Available for Upgrading Upgrade versus Re-implementing Upgrade Community Upgrade Product Information Center Page Detailed Look at Upgrade Advisor In the second session, we covered the following topics: Recap of Part I Detailed Look at Maintenance Wizard Detailed Look at Patch Wizard A replay of those sessions is available via Note 740964.1, Advisor Webcast Archive. A short, live demonstration (only if applicable) and question and answer period will be included. Oracle Advisor Webcasts are dedicated to building your awareness around our products and services. This session does not replace offerings from Oracle Global Support Services. Click here to register for this session ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The above webcast is a service of the E-Business Suite Communities in My Oracle Support. For more information on other webcasts, please reference the Oracle Advisor Webcast Schedule.Click here to visit the E-Business Communities in My Oracle Support Note that all links require access to My Oracle Support.

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  • Test Data in a Distributed System

    - by Davin Tryon
    A question that has been vexing me lately has been about how to effectively test (end-to-end) features in a distributed system. Particuarly, how to effectively manage (through time) test data for feature testing. The system in question is a typical SOA setup. The composition is done in JavaScript when call to several REST APIs. Each service is built as an independent block. Each service has some kind of persistent storage (SQL Server in most cases). The main issue at the moment is how to approach test data when testing end-to-end features. Functional end-to-end testing occurs through the UI, and it is therefore necessary for test data to be set up before the test run (this could be manual or automated testing). As is typical in a distributed system, identifiers from one service are used as a link in another service. So, some level of synchronization needs to be present in the data to effectively test. What is the best way to manage and set up this data after a successful deployment to a test environment? For example, is it better to manage this test data inside each service? Or package it together with the testing suite? Does that testing suite exist as a separate project? I'm interested in design guidance about how to store and manage this test data as the application features evolve.

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  • How to use Pixel Bender (pbj) in ActionScript3 on large Vectors to make fast calculations?

    - by Arthur Wulf White
    Remember my old question: 2d game view camera zoom, rotation & offset using 'Filter' / 'Shader' processing? I figured I could use a Pixel Bender Shader to do the computation for any large group of elements in a game to save on processing time. At least it's a theory worth checking. I also read this question: Pass large array to pixel shader Which I'm guessing is about accomplishing the same thing in a different language. I read this tutorial: http://unitzeroone.com/blog/2009/03/18/flash-10-massive-amounts-of-3d-particles-with-alchemy-source-included/ I am attempting to do some tests. Here is some of the code: private const SIZE : int = Math.pow(10, 5); private var testVectorNum : Vector.<Number>; private function testShader():void { shader.data.ab.value = [1.0, 8.0]; shader.data.src.input = testVectorNum; shader.data.src.width = SIZE/400; shader.data.src.height = 100; shaderJob = new ShaderJob(shader, testVectorNum, SIZE / 4, 1); var time : int = getTimer(), i : int = 0; shaderJob.start(true); trace("TEST1 : ", getTimer() - time); } The problem is that I keep getting a error saying: [Fault] exception, information=Error: Error #1000: The system is out of memory. Update: I managed to partially workaround the problem by converting the vector into bitmapData: (Using this technique I still get a speed boost of 3x using Pixel Bender) private function testShader():void { shader.data.ab.value = [1.0, 8.0]; var time : int = getTimer(), i : int = 0; testBitmapData.setVector(testBitmapData.rect, testVectorInt); shader.data.src.input = testBitmapData; shaderJob = new ShaderJob(shader, testBitmapData); shaderJob.start(true); testVectorInt = testBitmapData.getVector(testBitmapData.rect); trace("TEST1 : ", getTimer() - time); }

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  • Securely automount encrypted drive at user login

    - by Tom Brossman
    An encrypted /home directory gets mounted automatically for me when I log in. I have a second internal hard drive that I've formatted and encrypted with Disk Utility. I want it to be automatically mounted when I login, just like my encrypted /home directory is. How do I do this? There are several very similar questions here, but the answers don't apply to my situation. It might be best to close/merge my question here and edit the second one below, but I think it may have been abandoned (and therefore never to be marked as accepted). This solution isn't a secure method, it circumvents the encryption. This one requires editing fstab, which necessitates entering an additional password at boot. It's not automatic like mounting /home. This question is very similar, but does not apply to an encrypted drive. The solution won't work for my needs. Here is one but it's for NTFS drives, mine is ext4. I can re-format and re-encrypt the second drive if a solution requires this. I've got all the data backed up elsewhere.

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  • Deleting a row from self-referencing table

    - by Jake Rutherford
    Came across this the other day and thought “this would be a great interview question!” I’d created a table with a self-referencing foreign key. The application was calling a stored procedure I’d created to delete a row which caused but of course…a foreign key exception. You may say “why not just use a the cascade delete option?” Good question, easy answer. With a typical foreign key relationship between different tables which would work. However, even SQL Server cannot do a cascade delete of a row on a table with self-referencing foreign key. So, what do you do?…… In my case I re-wrote the stored procedure to take advantage of recursion:   -- recursively deletes a Foo ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[usp_DeleteFoo]      @ID int     ,@Debug bit = 0    AS     SET NOCOUNT ON;     BEGIN TRANSACTION     BEGIN TRY         DECLARE @ChildFoos TABLE         (             ID int         )                 DECLARE @ChildFooID int                        INSERT INTO @ChildFoos         SELECT ID FROM Foo WHERE ParentFooID = @ID                 WHILE EXISTS (SELECT ID FROM @ChildFoos)         BEGIN             SELECT TOP 1                 @ChildFooID = ID             FROM                 @ChildFoos                             DELETE FROM @ChildFoos WHERE ID = @ChildFooID                         EXEC usp_DeleteFoo @ChildFooID         END                                    DELETE FROM dbo.[Foo]         WHERE [ID] = @ID                 IF @Debug = 1 PRINT 'DEBUG:usp_DeleteFoo, deleted - ID: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR, @ID)         COMMIT TRANSACTION     END TRY     BEGIN CATCH         ROLLBACK TRANSACTION         DECLARE @ErrorMessage VARCHAR(4000), @ErrorSeverity INT, @ErrorState INT         SELECT @ErrorMessage = ERROR_MESSAGE(), @ErrorSeverity = ERROR_SEVERITY(), @ErrorState = ERROR_STATE()         IF @ErrorState <= 0 SET @ErrorState = 1         INSERT INTO ErrorLog(ErrorNumber,ErrorSeverity,ErrorState,ErrorProcedure,ErrorLine,ErrorMessage)         VALUES(ERROR_NUMBER(), @ErrorSeverity, @ErrorState, ERROR_PROCEDURE(), ERROR_LINE(), @ErrorMessage)         RAISERROR (@ErrorMessage, @ErrorSeverity, @ErrorState)     END CATCH   This procedure will first determine any rows which have the row we wish to delete as it’s parent. It then simply iterates each child row calling the procedure recursively in order to delete all ancestors before eventually deleting the row we wish to delete.

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  • How to handle multiple effect files in XNA

    - by Adam 'Pi' Burch
    So I'm using ModelMesh and it's built in Effects parameter to draw a mesh with some shaders I'm playing with. I have a simple GUI that lets me change these parameters to my heart's desire. My question is, how do I handle shaders that have unique parameters? For example, I want a 'shiny' parameter that affects shaders with Phong-type specular components, but for an environment mapping shader such a parameter doesn't make a lot of sense. How I have it right now is that every time I call the ModelMesh's Draw() function, I set all the Effect parameters as so foreach (ModelMesh m in model.Meshes) { if (isDrawBunny == true)//Slightly change the way the world matrix is calculated if using the bunny object, since it is not quite centered in object space { world = boneTransforms[m.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateScale(scale) * rotation * Matrix.CreateTranslation(position + bunnyPositionTransform); } else //If not rendering the bunny, draw normally { world = boneTransforms[m.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateScale(scale) * rotation * Matrix.CreateTranslation(position); } foreach (Effect e in m.Effects) { Matrix ViewProjection = camera.ViewMatrix * camera.ProjectionMatrix; e.Parameters["ViewProjection"].SetValue(ViewProjection); e.Parameters["World"].SetValue(world); e.Parameters["diffuseLightPosition"].SetValue(lightPositionW); e.Parameters["CameraPosition"].SetValue(camera.Position); e.Parameters["LightColor"].SetValue(lightColor); e.Parameters["MaterialColor"].SetValue(materialColor); e.Parameters["shininess"].SetValue(shininess); //e.Parameters //e.Parameters["normal"] } m.Draw(); Note the prescience of the example! The solutions I've thought of involve preloading all the shaders, and updating the unique parameters as needed. So my question is, is there a best practice I'm missing here? Is there a way to pull the parameters a given Effect needs from that Effect? Thank you all for your time!

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  • Missing Package: header, Problem with MergeList, The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened

    - by Inbar Rose
    THIS IS NOT A DUPLICATE OF SIMILAR QUESTIONS (like this) I just had to write that first, there are tons of questions similar to this, all of them have the same redirect to an answer that does not solve my problem, because I don't have the same problem, just the same symptom. I write tests for my companies application. One of these tests tries to upgrade the application from a previous version to a new version to make sure nothing breaks. When I am installing an old version of the application, some weird stuff starts to happen. Sometimes everything goes Okay, and nothing is wrong, other times when trying to install I get this message (company app name censored): E: Encountered a section with no Package: header E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/XXX-amd64_Packages E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened. Using the solutions provided in the questions similar to this one (like this). Do not help, and the problem keeps repeating itself once it happens the first time. This has led me to believe something is wrong on the apt server where the package is being created, but searching these errors yields no information on anything beyond the "fix" suggested in the question I linked, the only other source of information I could find also did not help (here): So I am asking for information; What is the actual problem? What causes the problem? What can fix the problem? I hope this question is in good format, if there is a problem, or missing information I can move to chat.

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  • How to maintain symlinks in linux file manager?

    - by MountainX
    I want to use symlinks extensively. However, if I move the target file, the symlink becomes broken (unlike on Windows). That's not acceptable to me, so I either need a solution or I won't be able to use symlinks the way I wish to. Is there a solution that will work with Dolphin file manager? A command line solution is described on commandlinefu. In summary, it is something like one of these: lmv(){for a in ${@:1:$(expr $#-1)};do [ -e "$a" -a -e "${@:$#:1}" ] && mv "$a";"${@:$#:1}" && ln -s "${@:$#:1}"/"$(basename "$a")";"$(dirname "$a")";done} lmv(){for a in ${@:1:$(expr $#-1)};do [ -e "$a" -a -e "${@:$#}" ] && mv "$a";"${@:$#}" && ln -s "${@:$#}"/"$(basename "$a")";"$(dirname "$a")";done} But about half the time I'm using a file manager (Dolphin), so I need a complete solution to this problem. Is a solution available for a GUI file manager? EDIT: The context of this question is that I'm searching for an alternative to hardlinks. I previously asked this question about the pitfalls of hardlinks.

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  • Infrastructure to effectively set up experiements and learn from them

    - by David
    Open-org.com is in the early stages of creating our first product, a place on the web, where one can ask lawyers questions at a fraction of their normal costs. An early stage front page can be found here. I got inspired by this video, which is recommended by Jeff Atwood, which talks about getting feedback faster, which is the reason for this question. The problem Needless to say, we want our conversion rates to be as high as possible. Therefore, we want to be able to rapidly set up a new experiment where we change something on the site (like moving an image slightly, rewriting a sentence etc.). We then want to present the modified page to a random subset of the users. After that we will compare the conversion rates of the experiment with another version. I could very well imagine that we want to run 10-100 experiments simultaneously and it would be nice to have features, where experiments that obviously have worse results will be ended before schedule. My question Does infrastructure to support the whole process exist? A short description of our infrastructure... We use EC2 and PHP and have a script to automatically start up new instances with all needed software. Still, starting up a new server for every experiment, seems like a bit of overkill, so I am wondering what other options exist. Btw. If you feel like working for Open-org.com, you can pick a task, and start working, or suggest a new task. All profits are given out to the contributors.

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  • Google analytics - drop in traffic

    - by Andy
    Bit of a general question here. We are in the process of converting a number of our clients from older web sites to new ones. The problem we are getting, and sorry for being so general here, is we are getting a sharp decline in traffic as reported on Google Analytics. It's not a gradual decline, it seems to hit almost as soon as the new site goes live. I've just got a few questions to see if there is something we are doing wrong: a) We are using the same analytics accounts going from old to new site. Is this a bad idea? b) The actual analytics code is integrated into the pages using a server-side include. IS this a bad idea? c) We structure our sites differently to our old site. IE. The old sites would pretty must have all the web pages in the root directory, and hyperlinks would be linked to the page files: EG. <a href="somepage.aspx">Link</a> Our new sites now have a directory structure that pretty much reflects the navigation structure, and hyper links link to the pages directory instead of the actual page: EG. <a href="/new-items/shoes/">New shoes</a> Is this a bad idea. I'm really searching for a needle in a haystack here. Would appriciate any help or advice as to why we are getting such a sharp and sudden drop in traffic. Again, so this is such a general question. Thanks in advance.

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  • How can I downgrade a system that accidentally had backports installed?

    - by Glyph
    I installed a fresh Ubuntu system. Somehow - possibly through my own error - the backports repository got enabled. Then I did several upgrades. I noticed that this happened when networking suddenly stopped working, "Network Settings" now has an "(alpha)" in the title bar, "System Settings" ? "Network" now displays an error dialog saying "The system network services are not compatible with this version". Now, I've disabled the backports repository, and I'd like to restore my system to its previously-functional state. My question is twofold: How do I determine which packages were installed from backports? Can I automatically re-install all those packages (and purge their configuration) to get back to a sensible state? If the answer to 2 is "no" I can probably manually purge some things and reinstall, but it would be nice to have it handled automatically. Update: It wasn't an update that broke the network; it was apt-get install indicator-network, which installed something called "connman" and removed network-manager and network-manager-gnome. Nevertheless I am leaving the question up, since I am still interested in how I can purge packages from a particular source after accidentally adding that source, and how I can determine which packages were installed from where.

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