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• Which numeral systems are useful in computer science?

  - by authchir

  I am wondering which numeral system different programmers are using, or would use if their language has support for them. As an example, in C++ we can use: Octal by prefixing with 0 (e.g. 0377) Decimal by default (e.g. 255) Hexadecimal by prefixing with 0x (e.g. 0xff) When working with bitmask, I am using hexadecimal but would sometimes want to be able to express binary numbers directly. I know some programming language support it with 0b syntax (e.g. 0b11111111). Is there any other numeric system useful in some computer science domain (e.g. cryptography, codecs, 3D graphics, etc)?

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• Java word scramble game [closed]

  - by Dan

  I'm working on code for a word scramble game in Java. I know the code itself is full of bugs right now, but my main focus is getting a vector of strings broken into two separate vectors containing hints and words. The text file that the strings are taken from has a colon separating them. So here is what I have so far. public WordApp() { inputRow = new TextInputBox(); inputRow.setLocation(200,100); phrases = new Vector <String>(FileUtilities.getStrings()); v_hints = new Vector<String>(); v_words = new Vector<String>(); textBox = new TextBox(200,100); textBox.setLocation(200,200); textBox.setText(scrambled + "\n\n Time Left: \t" + seconds/10 + "\n Score: \t" + score); hintBox = new TextBox(200,200); hintBox.setLocation(300,400); hintBox.hide(); Iterator <String> categorize = phrases.iterator(); while(categorize.hasNext()) { int index = phrases.indexOf(":"); String element = categorize.next(); v_words.add(element.substring(0,index)); v_hints.add(element.substring(index +1)); phrases.remove(index); System.out.print(index); } The FileUtilities file was given to us by the pofessor, here it is. import java.util.*; import java.io.*; public class FileUtilities { private static final String FILE_NAME = "javawords.txt"; //------------------ getStrings ------------------------- // // returns a Vector of Strings // Each string is of the form: word:hint // where word contains no spaces. // The words and hints are read from FILE_NAME // // public static Vector<String> getStrings ( ) { Vector<String> words = new Vector<String>(); File file = new File( FILE_NAME ); Scanner scanFile; try { scanFile = new Scanner( file); } catch ( IOException e) { System.err.println( "LineInput Error: " + e.getMessage() ); return null; } while ( scanFile.hasNextLine() ) { // read the word and follow it by a colon String s = scanFile.nextLine().trim().toUpperCase() + ":"; if( s.length()>1 && scanFile.hasNextLine() ) { // append the hint and add to collection s+= scanFile.nextLine().trim(); words.add(s); } } // shuffle Collections.shuffle(words); return words; } }

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• Of which bad practice is require calling functions in order a sign?

  - by stijn

  Sometimes I find myself writing comments on class methods like this: class A : public Base { public: /** * Sets variable; * should be called before ImplementsInterfaceMtehod(), * else has no effect. */ void SetSomeVariable( var_type value ); virtual void ImplementsInterfaceMethod(); } The callers of Base::ImplementsInterfaceMethod obviously do not know about the variable, and should not. But the users of A should set the variable if they want it to take effect. It is not required to set the variable (else it could be a parameter for the constructor), so I cannot throw exceptions in ImplementsInterfaceMethod if it is not set. Is this a sign of some typical bad practice? Is there a better way than writing a comment as shown to deal with this?

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• Should I limit my type name suffix vocabulary when using OOP?

  - by Den

  My co-workers tend to think that it is better to limit non-domain type suffixes to a small fixed set of OOP-pattern inspired words, e.g.: *Service *Repository *Factory *Manager *Provider I believe there is no reason to not extend that set with more names, e.g. (some "translation" to the previous vocabulary is given in brackets): *Distributor (= *DistributionManager or *SendingService) *Generator *Browser (= *ReadonlyRepositoryService) *Processor *Manipulator (= *StateMachineManager) *Enricher (= *EnrichmentService) (*) denotes some domain word, e.g. "Order", "Student", "Item" etc. The domain is probably not complex enough to use specialized approaches such as DDD which could drive the naming.

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• Interface extension

  - by user877329

  Suppose that I have an input stream interface, which defines a method for reading data. I also have a seekable interface which defines a method for seeking. A natural way of defining a input file is then to implement both input stream and seekable. I want to construct a data decoder from the input stream interface so I can read data from a file or from another stream. The problem is that I also want to implement seek functionality to the data decoder, since I want to be able to step individual records not raw bytes. This is not possible if I only provide an input stream, which does not have the bytewise seek method. Should I skip the seekable interface and add the seek method to input stream instead and force all streams to at least leave it as a nop.

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• I've been told that Exceptions should only be used in exceptional cases. How do I know if my case is exceptional?

  - by tieTYT

  My specific case here is that the user can pass in a string into the application, the application parses it and assigns it to structured objects. Sometimes the user may type in something invalid. For example, their input may describe a person but they may say their age is "apple". Correct behavior in that case is roll back the transaction and to tell the user an error occurred and they'll have to try again. There may be a requirement to report on every error we can find in the input, not just the first. In this case, I argued we should throw an exception. He disagreed, saying, "Exceptions should be exceptional: It's expected that the user may input invalid data, so this isn't an exceptional case" I didn't really know how to argue that point, because by definition of the word, he seems to be right. But, it's my understanding that this is why Exceptions were invented in the first place. It used to be you had to inspect the result to see if an error occurred. If you failed to check, bad things could happen without you noticing. Without exceptions every level of the stack needs to check the result of the methods they call and if a programmer forgets to check in one of these levels, the code could accidentally proceed and save invalid data (for example). Seems more error prone that way. Anyway, feel free to correct anything I've said here. My main question is if someone says Exceptions should be exceptional, how do I know if my case is exceptional?

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• Abstract Factory Method and Polymorphism

  - by Scotty C.

  Being a PHP programmer for the last couple of years, I'm just starting to get into advanced programming styles and using polymorphic patterns. I was watching a video on polymorphism the other day, and the guy giving the lecture said that if at all possible, you should get rid of if statements in your code, and that a switch is almost always a sign that polymorphism is needed. At this point I was quite inspired and immediately went off to try out these new concepts, so I decided to make a small caching module using a factory method. Of course the very first thing I have to do is create a switch to decide what file encoding to choose. DANG! class Main { public static function methodA($parameter='') { switch ($parameter) { case 'a': $object = new \name\space\object1(); break; case 'b': $object = new \name\space\object2(); break; case 'c': $object = new \name\space\object3(); break; default: $object = new \name\space\object1(); } return (sekretInterface $object); } } At this point I'm not really sure what to do. As far as I can tell, I either have to use a different pattern and have separate methods for each object instance, or accept that a switch is necessary to "switch" between them. What do you guys think?

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• When module calling gets ugly

  - by Pete

  Has this ever happened to you? You've got a suite of well designed, single-responsibility modules, covered by unit tests. In any higher-level function you code, you are (95% of the code) simply taking output from one module and passing it as input to the next. Then, you notice this higher-level function has turned into a 100+ line script with multiple responsibilities. Here is the problem. It is difficult (impossible) to test that script. At least, it seems so. Do you agree? In my current project, all of the bugs came from this script. Further detail: each script represents a unique solution, or algorithm, formed by using different modules in different ways. Question: how can you remedy this situation? Knee-jerk answer: break the script up into single-responsibility modules. Comment on knee-jerk answer: it already is! Best answer I can come up with so far: create higher-level connector objects which "wire" modules together in particular ways (take output from one module, feed it as input to another module). Thus if our script was: FooInput fooIn = new FooInput(1, 2); FooOutput fooOutput = fooModule(fooIn); Double runtimevalue = getsomething(fooOutput.whatever); BarInput barIn = new BarInput( runtimevalue, fooOutput.someOtherValue); BarOutput barOut = barModule(BarIn); It would become with a connector: FooBarConnectionAlgo fooBarConnector = new fooBarConnector(fooModule, barModule); FooInput fooIn = new FooInput(1, 2); BarOutput barOut = fooBarConnector(fooIn); So the advantage is, besides hiding some code and making things clearer, we can test FooBarConnectionAlgo. I'm sure this situation comes up a lot. What do you do?

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• Could someone explain in detail simplex /or perlin noise?

  - by Ryan Szemplinski

  I am really interested in perlin/simplex noise but I am having a difficult time understanding it. I am not very good at math but I am willing to learn because it interests me greatly. If someone is willing to dedicate there time into this I would be immensely appreciative of this. To be more concise, an explanation of functions and some calculation inside the functions would be nice to understand. Thanks in advance!

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• what knowledge would I need to make a good simulation games

  - by Skeith

  I have an idea for a game like theme park but don't know how simulation games are made. I am not some noob on his first game so I appreciated constructive answers instead of "its hard, don't do it". What I want is to know how simulation game mechanics are put together. I figure it would be heaver on the AI than normal games and not knowing much about AI would like to know some programming techniques I should look into for this style game. specific techniques please not just a book on ai. what sort of architecture would be used? I guess it would have some sort of probability engine with pre designed events that are triggered based on the AI state. Would it use a FSM or be purely event driven ? Any information on how a sims game functions would be cool.

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• How to do a multishot in xna?

  - by DeVonte

  I am trying to simulate a gun in which shoots multiple bullets at the same time(similar to a spread out shot). I am thinking I have to create another bullet array then do the same as I have below but in a different direction. Here is what I have so far: foreach (GameObject bullet in bullets) { // Find a bullet that isn't alive if (!bullet.alive) { //And set it to alive bullet.alive = true; if (flip == SpriteEffects.FlipHorizontally) //Facing right { float armCos = (float)Math.Cos(arm.rotation - MathHelper.PiOver2); float armSin = (float)Math.Sin(arm.rotation - MathHelper.PiOver2); // Set the initial position of our bullets at the end of our gun arm // 42 is obtained by taking the width of the Arm_Gun texture / 2 // and subtracting the width of the Bullet texture / 2. ((96/2)=(12/2)) bullet.position = new Vector2( arm.position.X + 42 * armCos, arm.position.Y + 42 * armSin); // And give it a velocity of the direction we're aiming. // Increae/decrease speed by changeing 15.0f bullet.Velocity = new Vector2( (float)Math.Cos(arm.rotation - MathHelper.PiOver4 + MathHelper.Pi + MathHelper.PiOver2), (float)Math.Sin(arm.rotation - MathHelper.PiOver4 + MathHelper.Pi + MathHelper.PiOver2)) * 15.0f; } else //Facing left { float armCos = (float)Math.Cos(arm.rotation + MathHelper.PiOver2); float armSin = (float)Math.Sin(arm.rotation + MathHelper.PiOver2); //Set the initial position of our bullet at the end of our gun arm //42 is obtained be taking the width of the Arm_Gun texture / 2 //and subtracting the width of the Bullet texture / 2. ((96/2)-(12/2)) bullet.position = new Vector2( arm.position.X - 42 * armCos, arm.position.Y - 42 * armSin); //And give it a velocity of the direction we're aiming. //Increase/decrease speed by changing 15.0f bullet.Velocity = new Vector2( -armCos, -armSin) * 15.0f; } return; }// End if }// End foreach

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• Query something and return the reason if nothing has been found

  - by Daniel Hilgarth

  Assume I have a Query - as in CQS that is supposed to return a single value. Let's assume that the case that no value is found is not exceptional, so no exception will be thrown in this case. Instead, null is returned. However, if no value has been found, I need to act according to the reason why no value has been found. Assuming that the Query knows the reason, how would I communicate it to the caller of the Query? A simple solution would be not return the value directly but a container object that contains the value and the reason: public class QueryResult { public TValue Value { get; private set; } public TReason ReasonForNoValue { get; private set; } } But that feels clumsy, because if a value is found, ReasonForNoValue makes no sense and if no value has been found, Value makes no sense. What other options do I have to communicate the reason? What do you think of one event per reason? For reference: This is going to be implemented in C#.

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• How to explain bad software to non-technical people?

  - by mtutty

  In discussing software development with non-technical people (customers, business owners, project sponsors, etc.), I often resort to analogies and metaphors. It's relatively easy and effective to use a "house" or other metaphor for describing the size and complexity of new development. However, we often inherit someone else's code or data, and this approach doesn't seem to hold up as well when trying to explain why we're gutting something that already seems to work. Of course we can point to cycle time and cost to be saved in the future but this generally means nothing to business folks. I know doctors can say "just take this pill," but I'm not sure that software devs have the same authority. Ideas? EDIT: Let me add a bit to the discussion. The specific project I'm talking about has customers that don't realize (or care) about specific aspects of the system we're retiring (i.e., they think it was just fine): The system would save a NEW RECORD every time someone updated a field The system contained tables for reference data. These tables had new records added every day, even though they were duplicates of previous records. And there was no way to tie the reference data used for a particular case at the time it was closed. This is like 99% of the data in the old system. The field NAMES also have spaces, apostrophes and other inappropriate characters in them, making everything harder to work with. In addition to the incredible amount of duplicate data, they have around 1000 XLS files with data they want added to the system. Previously, they would do a spreadsheet for each case in the database, IN ADDITION TO what they typed into the database. Getting rid of this old, unneeded information and piping in the XLS data comprises about 80% of the total project effort, and was not something we could accurately predict. I'm trying to find a concrete way to describe how bad this thing was, mostly so that the customer will understand why the migration process has been so time-consuming. The actual coding was done pretty quickly and the new system works fine, but without the old data they won't be happy. Sorry to get into the weeds, but most of the answers I've seen so far are pretty basic scope/schedule/cost things. I've been doing this for 15 years, so this really is more of a reflective, philosophical question - but without some of the details it can be difficult to really appreciate the awful beauty of this problem.

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• How can you predict the time it will take for two processes in two different machines in a cluster to communicate?

  - by Dokkat

  I am trying to develop a computing application which needs a lot of memory (500gb). Buying a single machine for that is overly expensive. I can, though, buy ~100 small instances on Digital Ocean or similar, divide the memory in blocks and use TCP to emulate shared memory between the instances. Now, my question is: how can I measure/predict the time it will take for two processes in two different machines like that to share information, in comparison to IPC and shared memory? Are there rules of thumb? I don't want exact values, but knowing more or less how much faster one is would be very helpful in visualising the feasibility of this approach.

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• Story and news-feed ideas for social network games

  - by arpine

  I am currently working on a educational and fun 2-in-1 game. As I am not a professional, I need advice on story and news-feed. The goal is simple-get richer, the story is about a worker who is trying to get over his/her financial problems and become rich. During the whole gaming process there is a news-feed (every day there are a couple of fresh news about what is going on). The news are fresh and individual so I need to write about 2000 pieces of news for 2 year gaming, maybe more. The problem is that I am not sure whether repetitive news can interest in this game. What can be done to make the news-making process easier but not boring from the point of view of the player?

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• Should I close database connections after use in PHP?

  - by Sprottenwels

  I wonder if I should close any unnecessary database connection inside of my PHP scripts. I am aware of the fact that database connections are closed implicitly when the block stops executing and 'manually' closing the connections could kinda bloat the codebase with unnecessary code. But shouldn't I do so in order to make by code as readable and as easy understandable as possible, while also preventing several possible issues during run time? Also, if I would do, would it be enough to unset() my database object?

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• Concurrency pattern of logger in multithreaded application

  - by Dipan Mehta

  The context: We are working on a multi-threaded (Linux-C) application that follows a pipeline model. Each module has a private thread and encapsulated objects which do processing of data; and each stage has a standard form of exchanging data with next unit. The application is free from memory leak and is threadsafe using locks at the point where they exchange data. Total number of threads is about 15- and each thread can have from 1 to 4 objects. Making about 25 - 30 odd objects which all have some critical logging to do. Most discussion I have seen about different levels as in Log4J and it's other translations. The real big questions is about how the overall logging should really happen? One approach is all local logging does fprintf to stderr. The stderr is redirected to some file. This approach is very bad when logs become too big. If all object instantiate their individual loggers - (about 30-40 of them) there will be too many files. And unlike above, one won't have the idea of true order of events. Timestamping is one possibility - but it is still a mess to collate. If there is a single global logger (singleton) pattern - it indirectly blocks so many threads while one is busy putting up logs. This is unacceptable when processing of the threads are heavy. So what should be the ideal way to structure the logging objects? What are some of the best practices in actual large scale applications? I would also love to learn from some of the real designs of large scale applications to get inspirations from!

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• Versioning APIs

  - by Sharon

  Suppose that you have a large project supported by an API base. The project also ships a public API that end(ish) users can use. Sometimes you need to make changes to the API base that supports your project. For example, you need to add a feature that needs an API change, a new method, or requires altering of one of the objects, or the format of one of those objects, passed to or from the API. Assuming that you are also using these objects in your public API, the public objects will also change any time you do this, which is undesirable as your clients may rely on the API objects remaining identical for their parsing code to work. (cough C++ WSDL clients...) So one potential solution is to version the API. But when we say "version" the API, it sounds like this also must mean to version the API objects as well as well as providing duplicate method calls for each changed method signature. So I would then have a plain old clr object for each version of my api, which again seems undesirable. And even if I do this, I surely won't be building each object from scratch as that would end up with vast amounts of duplicated code. Rather, the API is likely to extend the private objects we are using for our base API, but then we run into the same problem because added properties would also be available in the public API when they are not supposed to be. So what is some sanity that is usually applied to this situation? I know many public services such as Git for Windows maintains a versioned API, but I'm having trouble imagining an architecture that supports this without vast amounts of duplicate code covering the various versioned methods and input/output objects. I'm aware that processes such as semantic versioning attempt to put some sanity on when public API breaks should occur. The problem is more that it seems like many or most changes require breaking the public API if the objects aren't more separated, but I don't see a good way to do that without duplicating code.

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• Self-Executing Anonymous Function vs Prototype

  - by Robotsushi

  In Javascript there are a few clearly prominent techniques for create and manage classes/namespaces in javascript. I am curious what situations warrant using one technique vs. the other. I want to pick one and stick with it moving forward. I write enterprise code that is maintained and shared across multiple teams, and I want to know what is the best practice when writing maintainable javascript ? I tend to prefer Self-Executing Anonymous Functions however I am curious what the community vote is on these techniques. Prototype : function obj() { } obj.prototype.test = function() { alert('Hello?'); }; var obj2 = new obj(); obj2.test(); Self-Closing Anonymous Function : //Self-Executing Anonymous Function (function( skillet, $, undefined ) { //Private Property var isHot = true; //Public Property skillet.ingredient = "Bacon Strips"; //Public Method skillet.fry = function() { var oliveOil; addItem( "\t\n Butter \n\t" ); addItem( oliveOil ); console.log( "Frying " + skillet.ingredient ); }; //Private Method function addItem( item ) { if ( item !== undefined ) { console.log( "Adding " + $.trim(item) ); } } }( window.skillet = window.skillet || {}, jQuery )); //Public Properties console.log( skillet.ingredient ); //Bacon Strips //Public Methods skillet.fry(); //Adding Butter & Fraying Bacon Strips //Adding a Public Property skillet.quantity = "12"; console.log( skillet.quantity ); //12 //Adding New Functionality to the Skillet (function( skillet, $, undefined ) { //Private Property var amountOfGrease = "1 Cup"; //Public Method skillet.toString = function() { console.log( skillet.quantity + " " + skillet.ingredient + " & " + amountOfGrease + " of Grease" ); console.log( isHot ? "Hot" : "Cold" ); }; }( window.skillet = window.skillet || {}, jQuery )); //end of skillet definition try { //12 Bacon Strips & 1 Cup of Grease skillet.toString(); //Throws Exception } catch( e ) { console.log( e.message ); //isHot is not defined } I feel that I should mention that the Self-Executing Anonymous Function is the pattern used by the jQuery team. Update When I asked this question I didn't truly see the importance of what I was trying to understand. The real issue at hand is whether or not to use new to create instances of your objects or to use patterns which do not require constructors of the use of the new keyword. I added my own answer, because in my opinion we should make use of patterns which don't use the new keyword. For more information please see my answer.

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• Why do old programming languages continue to be revised?

  - by SunAvatar

  This question is not, "Why do people still use old programming languages?" I understand that quite well. In fact the two programming languages I know best are C and Scheme, both of which date back to the 70s. Recently I was reading about the changes in C99 and C11 versus C89 (which seems to still be the most-used version of C in practice and the version I learned from K&R). Looking around, it seems like every programming language in heavy use gets a new specification at least once per decade or so. Even Fortran is still getting new revisions, despite the fact that most people using it are still using FORTRAN 77. Contrast this with the approach of, say, the typesetting system TeX. In 1989, with the release of TeX 3.0, Donald Knuth declared that TeX was feature-complete and future releases would contain only bug fixes. Even beyond this, he has stated that upon his death, "all remaining bugs will become features" and absolutely no further updates will be made. Others are free to fork TeX and have done so, but the resulting systems are renamed to indicate that they are different from the official TeX. This is not because Knuth thinks TeX is perfect, but because he understands the value of a stable, predictable system that will do the same thing in fifty years that it does now. Why do most programming language designers not follow the same principle? Of course, when a language is relatively new, it makes sense that it will go through a period of rapid change before settling down. And no one can really object to minor changes that don't do much more than codify existing pseudo-standards or correct unintended readings. But when a language still seems to need improvement after ten or twenty years, why not just fork it or start over, rather than try to change what is already in use? If some people really want to do object-oriented programming in Fortran, why not create "Objective Fortran" for that purpose, and leave Fortran itself alone? I suppose one could say that, regardless of future revisions, C89 is already a standard and nothing stops people from continuing to use it. This is sort of true, but connotations do have consequences. GCC will, in pedantic mode, warn about syntax that is either deprecated or has a subtly different meaning in C99, which means C89 programmers can't just totally ignore the new standard. So there must be some benefit in C99 that is sufficient to impose this overhead on everyone who uses the language. This is a real question, not an invitation to argue. Obviously I do have an opinion on this, but at the moment I'm just trying to understand why this isn't just how things are done already. I suppose the question is: What are the (real or perceived) advantages of updating a language standard, as opposed to creating a new language based on the old?

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• Syncing client and server CRUD operations using json and php

  - by Justin

  I'm working on some code to sync the state of models between client (being a javascript application) and server. Often I end up writing redundant code to track the client and server objects so I can map the client supplied data to the server models. Below is some code I am thinking about implementing to help. What I don't like about the below code is that this method won't handle nested relationships very well, I would have to create multiple object trackers. One work around is for each server model after creating or loading, simply do $model->clientId = $clientId; IMO this is a nasty hack and I want to avoid it. Adding a setCientId method to all my model object would be another way to make it less hacky, but this seems like overkill to me. Really clientIds are only good for inserting/updating data in some scenarios. I could go with a decorator pattern but auto generating a proxy class seems a bit involved. I could use a generic proxy class that uses a __call function to allow for original object data to be accessed, but this seems wrong too. Any thoughts or comments? $clientData = '[{name: "Bob", action: "update", id: 1, clientId: 200}, {name:"Susan", action:"create", clientId: 131} ]'; $jsonObjs = json_decode($clientData); $objectTracker = new ObjectTracker(); $objectTracker->trackClientObjs($jsonObjs); $query = $this->em->createQuery("SELECT x FROM Application_Model_User x WHERE x.id IN (:ids)"); $query->setParameters("ids",$objectTracker->getClientSpecifiedServerIds()); $models = $query->getResults(); //Apply client data to server model foreach ($models as $model) { $clientModel = $objectTracker->getClientJsonObj($model->getId()); ... } //Create new models and persist foreach($objectTracker->getNewClientObjs() as $newClientObj) { $model = new Application_Model_User(); .... $em->persist($model); $objectTracker->trackServerObj($model); } $em->flush(); $resourceResponse = $objectTracker->createResourceResponse(); //Id mappings will be an associtave array representing server id resources with client side // id. //This method Dosen't seem to flexible if we want to return additional data with each resource... //Would have to modify the returned data structure, seems like tight coupling... //Ex return value: //[{clientId: 200, id:1} , {clientId: 131, id: 33}];

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• Have you worked with a well designed application?

  - by Vilx-

  Inspired by this question, I started wondering - is there or has there ever been such a thing as a "well designed application"? One where the architecture would be perfect and no refactoring would ever be needed; code would be easy to read and understand even for someone new to the project; changes could be done with a 100% certainty that they won't break anything; etc? I must admit that whatever codebases I've worked with, they've all been more or less a mess. Even code that I start myself only stays organized at the start, and then slowly deteriorates as the time passes. I'm even starting to accept this as part of life and can't figure out whether I should be worried about that or not. So... is there such a thing as a "well designed application"? Or is all our code so shitty that there isn't even a point in trying to make it better, because it will never be good anyway?

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• How to store prices that have effective dates?

  - by lal00

  I have a list of products. Each of them is offered by N providers. Each providers quotes us a price for a specific date. That price is effective until that provider decides to set a new price. In that case, the provider will give the new price with a new date. The MySQL table header currently looks like: provider_id, product_id, price, date_price_effective Every other day, we compile a list of products/prices that are effective for the current day. For each product, the list contains a sorted list of the providers that have that particular product. In that way, we can order certain products from whoever happens to offer the best price. To get the effective prices, I have a SQL statement that returns all rows that have date_price_effective >= NOW(). That result set is processed with a ruby script that does the sorting and filtering necessary to obtain a file that looks like this: product_id_1,provider_1,provider_3,provider8,provider_10... product_id_2,provider_3,provider_2,provider1,provider_10... This works fine for our purposes, but I still have an itch that a SQL table is probably not the best way to store this kind of information. I have that feeling that this kind of problema has been solved previously in other more creative ways. Is there a better way to store this information other than in SQL? or, if using SQL, is there a better approach than the one I'm using?

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• How to verify the Liskov substitution principle in an inheritance hierarchy?

  - by Songo

  Inspired by this answer: Liskov Substitution Principle requires that Preconditions cannot be strengthened in a subtype. Postconditions cannot be weakened in a subtype. Invariants of the supertype must be preserved in a subtype. History constraint (the "history rule"). Objects are regarded as being modifiable only through their methods (encapsulation). Since subtypes may introduce methods that are not present in the supertype, the introduction of these methods may allow state changes in the subtype that are not permissible in the supertype. The history constraint prohibits this. I was hoping if someone would post a class hierarchy that violates these 4 points and how to solve them accordingly. I'm looking for an elaborate explanation for educational purposes on how to identify each of the 4 points in the hierarchy and the best way to fix it. Note: I was hoping to post a code sample for people to work on, but the question itself is about how to identify the faulty hierarchies :)

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• Algorithms or patterns for a linked question and answer cost calculator

  - by kmc

  I've been asked to build an online calculator in PHP (and the Laravel framework). It will take the answers to a series of questions to estimate the cost of a home extension. For example, a couple of questions may be: What is the lie of your property? Flat, slightly inclined, heavily inclined. (these suggestive values could have specific values in the underlying calculator like, 0 degrees, 5 degrees, 10 degrees. What is your current flooring system? Wooden, or concrete? These would then impact the results of other questions. Once the size of the extension has been input, the lie of the land will affect how much site works will cost, and how much rubbish collection will cost. The second question will impact the cost of the extensions flooring, as stumping and laying floorboards is a different cost to laying foundations and a concrete slab. It will also influence what heating and cooling systems are available in the calculator. So it's VERY interlinked. The answer to any question can influence the options of other questions, and the end result. I'm having trouble figuring out an approach to this that will allow new options and questions to be plugged in at a later stage without having things too coupled. The Observer pattern, or Laravel's events may be handy, but currently the sheer breadth of the calculator has me struggling to gather my thoughts and see a sensible implementation. Are there any patterns or OO approaches that may help? Thanks!

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