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  • How can a non-technical person can learn to write a spec for small projects?

    - by Joseph Turian
    How can a non-technical person learn to write specs for small projects? A friend of mine is trying to outsource some development on a statistics project. In particular, he does a lot of work in excel, and wants to outsource the creation of scripts to do what he now does by hand. However, my friend is extremely non-technical. He is poor at writing technical specs. When he does write a spec, it is written the way you would describe doing something in excel (go to this cell and then copy the value to that cell). It is also overly verbose, and does examples several times. I'm not sure if he properly describes corner cases. The first project he outsourced was a failure. I think he overdescribed some details, but underdescribed corner cases. That and/or the coder he hired didn't think through the corner cases and ask appropriate questions. I'm not sure. I got on IM with him and it took me half an hour to dig out a description that should have taken five minutes or less to describe. I wrote the scripts for him at the end, but didn't examine why his process with the coder failed. He has asked me for help. However, I refuse to get involved, because taking his spec and translating it into clear requirements is 10x more work than executing on a clearly written spec. What is the right way for him to learn? Are there resources he could use? Are there ways he can learn from small, low-pressure practice projects with coders? [edit: Most of his scripts are statistical and data processing oriented. e.g. take this column and run an average over it. Remove these rows under these conditions. So the challenge is different than spec'ing a web app.]

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  • How to attach turrets to tiles in a tile based game

    - by Joseph St. Pierre
    I am a flash developer, and I am building a Tower Defense game. The world is being built through tiles, and I have gotten that accomplished easily. I have also gotten level changes and enemy spawning down as well. However, I wish the player to be able to spawn turrets, and have those turrets be on specific tiles, based upon where the player placed it. Here is my code: stop(); colOffset = 50; rowOffset = 50; guns = []; placed = true; dead = 0; spawned = 0; level = 1; interval = 350 / level; amount = level * 20; counter = 0; numCol = 14; numRow = 10; tiles = []; k = 0; create = false; tileName = new Array("road","grass","end", "start"); board = new Array( new Array(1,1,1,1,3,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1), new Array(1,1,1,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,1,1,1), new Array(1,1,1,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,1,1), new Array(1,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,1,1), new Array(1,1,1,0,1,0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,1), new Array(1,1,1,0,1,1,1,0,0,1,1,1,0,1), new Array(1,1,0,0,1,1,1,1,0,1,1,0,0,1), new Array(1,1,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,1,0,0,1,1), new Array(1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,1,1,1), new Array(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,1) ); buildBoard(); function buildBoard(){ for ( col = 0; col < numCol; col++){ for ( row = 0; row < numRow; row++){ _root.attachMovie("tile", "tile_" + col + "_" + row, _root.getNextHighestDepth()); theTile = eval("tile_" + col + "_" + row); theTile._x = (col * 50); theTile._y = (row * 50); theTile.row = row; theTile.col = col; tileType = board[row][col]; theTile.gotoAndStop(tileName[tileType]); tiles.push(theTile); } } } init(); function init(){ onEnterFrame = function(){ counter += 1; if ( spawned < amount && counter > 50){ min= _root.attachMovie("minion","minion",_root.getNextHighestDepth()); min._x = tile_4_0._x + 25; min._y = tile_4_0._y + 25; min.health = 100; choose = Math.round(Math.random()); if ( choose == 0 ){ min.waypointX = [ tile_4_1._x +25, tile_3_1._x + 25, tile_3_2._x + 25, tile_3_6._x + 25, tile_2_6._x + 25, tile_2_8._x + 25, tile_8_8._x + 25, tile_8_9._x + 25, tile_10_9._x + 25, tile_10_7._x + 25, tile_11_7._x + 25, tile_11_6._x + 25, tile_12_6._x + 25, tile_12_4._x + 25, tile_11_4._x + 25, tile_11_2._x + 25, tile_10_2._x + 25, tile_10_0._x + 25]; min.waypointY = [ tile_4_1._y +25, tile_3_1._y + 25, tile_3_2._y + 25, tile_3_6._y + 25, tile_2_6._y + 25, tile_2_8._y + 25, tile_8_8._y + 25, tile_8_9._y + 25, tile_10_9._y + 25, tile_10_7._y + 25, tile_11_7._y + 25, tile_11_6._y + 25, tile_12_6._y + 25, tile_12_4._y + 25, tile_11_4._y + 25, tile_11_2._y + 25, tile_10_2._y + 25, tile_10_0._y + 25]; } else if ( choose == 1 ){ min.waypointX = [ tile_4_1._x +25, tile_3_1._x + 25, tile_3_2._x + 25, tile_3_3._x + 25, tile_5_3._x + 25, tile_5_4._x + 25, tile_7_4._x + 25, tile_7_5._x + 25, tile_8_5._x + 25, tile_8_8._x + 25, tile_8_9._x + 25, tile_10_9._x + 25, tile_10_7._x + 25, tile_11_7._x + 25, tile_11_6._x + 25, tile_12_6._x + 25, tile_12_4._x + 25, tile_11_4._x + 25, tile_11_2._x + 25, tile_10_2._x + 25, tile_10_0._x + 25 ]; min.waypointY = [ tile_4_1._y +25, tile_3_1._y + 25, tile_3_2._y + 25, tile_3_3._y + 25, tile_5_3._y + 25, tile_5_4._y + 25, tile_7_4._y + 25, tile_7_5._y + 25, tile_8_5._y + 25, tile_8_8._y + 25, tile_8_9._y + 25, tile_10_9._y + 25, tile_10_7._y + 25, tile_11_7._y + 25, tile_11_6._y + 25, tile_12_6._y + 25, tile_12_4._y + 25, tile_11_4._y + 25, tile_11_2._y + 25, tile_10_2._y + 25, tile_10_0._y + 25 ]; } min.i = 0; counter = 0; spawned += 1; min.onEnterFrame = function(){ dx = this.waypointX[this.i] - this._x; dy = this.waypointY[this.i] - this._y; radians = Math.atan2(dy,dx); degrees = radians * 180 / Math.PI; xspeed = Math.cos(radians); yspeed = Math.sin(radians); this._x += xspeed; this._y += yspeed; if( this._x == this.waypointX[this.i] && this._y == this.waypointY[this.i]){ this.i++; } if ( this._x == tile_10_0._x + 25 && this._y == tile_10_0._y + 25){ this.removeMovieClip(); dead += 1; } } } if ( dead >= amount ){ dead = 0; level += 1; amount = level * 20; spawned = 0; } } btnM.onRelease = function(){ create = true; } } game.onEnterFrame = function(){ } It is possible for me however to complete this task, but only once. I am able to make the turret, drag it over to a tile, and have it attach itself to the tile. No problem. The issue is, I cannot do these multiple times. Please Help.

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  • Is there an alternative Skype client?

    - by Joseph
    I love Ubuntu, but one thing I think is a pain is skype for it. It's outdated, buggy and generally just not as smooth as a lot of the other Ubuntu software. Is there an alternative for it? I'm not speaking about another IM like AIM or Live Messenger. Put another piece of software like the native app that comes with Ubuntu, that allows me to sign into Skype as well? Or is there perhaps a plugin for the native Ubuntu chat app that allows Skype contacts, calling etc. etc.

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  • Refactoring this code that produces a reverse-lookup hash from another hash

    - by Frank Joseph Mattia
    This code is based on the idea of a Form Object http://blog.codeclimate.com/blog/2012/10/17/7-ways-to-decompose-fat-activerecord-models/ (see #3 if unfamiliar with the concept). My actual code in question may be found here: https://gist.github.com/frankjmattia/82a9945f30bde29eba88 The code takes a hash of objects/attributes and creates a reverse lookup hash to keep track of their delegations to do this. delegate :first_name, :email, to: :user, prefix: true But I am manually creating the delegations from a hash like this: DELEGATIONS = { user: [ :first_name, :email ] } At runtime when I want to look up the translated attribute names for the objects, all I have to go on are the delegated/prefixed (have to use a prefix to avoid naming collisions) attribute names like :user_first_name which aren't in sync with the rails i18n way of doing it: en: activerecord: attributes: user: email: 'Email Address' The code I have take the above delegations hash and turns it into a lookup table so when I override human_attribute_name I can get back the original attribute name and its class. Then I send #human_attribute_name to the original class with the original attribute name as its argument. The code I've come up with works but it is ugly to say the least. I've never really used #inject so this was a crash course for me and am quite unsure if this code effective way of solving my problem. Could someone recommend a simpler solution that does not require a reverse lookup table or does that seem like the right way to go? Thanks, - FJM

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  • Why is CSS3 doing animations?

    - by Joseph the Dreamer
    Like what the title says, why are there animations in CSS3? With basis from the "rule" of separation of concerns, HTML is the content, CSS is the style, and JavaScript is the interactive component. And by interactivity, one can conclude that anything moving due to any interaction, user or non-user triggered should be covered by JavaScript, not CSS. So why did they make CSS3 capable of doing animations? Doesn't it breach the rule, which is separation of concerns? Is there anything I missed that makes animations qualified to be classified as styles rather than interaction?

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  • Does this BSD-like license achieve what I want it to?

    - by Joseph Szymborski
    I was wondering if this license is: self defeating just a clone of an existing, better established license practical any more "corporate-friendly" than the GPL too vague/open ended and finally, if there is a better license that achieves a similar effect? I wanted a license that would (in simple terms) be as flexible/simple as the "Simplified BSD" license (which is essentially the MIT license) allow anyone to make modifications as long as I'm attributed require that I get a notification that such a derived work exists require that I have access to the source code and be given license to use the code not oblige the author of the derivative work to have to release the source code to the general public not oblige the author of the derivative work to license the derivative work under a specific license Here is the proposed license, which is just the simplified BSD with a couple of additional clauses (all of which are bolded). Copyright (c) (year), (author) (email) All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. The copyright holder(s) must be notified of any redistributions of source code. The copyright holder(s) must be notified of any redistributions in binary form The copyright holder(s) must be granted access to the source code and/or the binary form of any redistribution upon the copyright holder's request. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

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  • Programmatically syncing with remote servers

    - by Joseph
    My application generates text files that need to be synced with remote servers, which may be windows or linux. Sync has to happen without user's intervention. I tried with rsync but windows doesn't come with rsync by default. Also it is not possible to supply password in the command line for rsync. Currently I'm going with ftp. But that seems like an inefficient way. Is there a way to rsync without user intervention? What are the ways to sync with a remote server programmatically? App is on nodejs.

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  • Windows Server 2008 in KVM

    - by Joseph
    I've been working on getting a Windows Server 2008 KVM in my linux box running Ubuntu Server 12.04. I've got virt-install and virt-manager installed, got the install up and running via virt-install --connect qemu:///system -n winsvr2008 -r 1024 --vcpus=1 --disk path=/home/pwnd/vm/2008.img,size=30 -c /home/pwnd/en_windows_server_2008_with_sp2_x86_dvd_342333.iso --graphics vnc,listen=192.168.1.127 --noautoconsole --os-type=windows --os-variant=win2k8 --network=bridge:virbr0 --hvm -v and virsh vncdisplay winsvr2008 I can connect and view, but upon starting, I get hung up on please wait right after clicking Install. Any ideas?

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  • I cannot see the drives on my computer

    - by Joseph
    I'm a new Ubuntu user and I installed this Ubuntu 12.04 fromn a usb stick. It all went fine(I think) but as I notice, there are no drives shown on the menu. I tried some command in the terminal to see if the drives are available and yes, they are available. My problem is how to make these drives show up on the menu above. Sorry if this question is somewhat vague. (I removed the image because I am not allowed to add an image because I have insufficient reputation)

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  • Maintaining Two Separate Software Versions From the Same Codebase in Version Control

    - by Joseph
    Let's say that I am writing two different versions of the same software/program/app/script and storing them under version control. The first version is a free "Basic" version, while the second is a paid "Premium" version that takes the codebase of the free version and expands upon it with a few extra value-added features. Any new patches, fixes, or features need to find their way into both versions. I am currently considering using master and develop branches for the main codebase (free version) along side master-premium and develop-premium branches for the paid version. When a change is made to the free version and merged to the master branch (after thorough testing on develop of course), it gets copied over to the develop-premium branch via the cherry-pick command for more testing and then merged into master-premium. Is this the best workflow to handle this situation? Are there any potential problems, caveats, or pitfalls to be aware of? Is there a better branching strategy than what I have already come up with? Your feedback is highly appreciated! P.S. This is for a PHP script stored in Git, but the answers should apply to any language or VCS.

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  • Can I use Ubuntu One Icons for 3rd party thingy?

    - by Joseph Mills
    So I am wondering what the guide lines are for using Ubuntu One icons as I have heard from a number of people that Ubuntu One has some propitiatory things to it. So I am not sure if I am to use there logo in something like this http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~josephjamesmills/ubuntutv/fan_art/download/josephjamesmills%40gmail.com-20120728145710-sy00cvq1ja8o9qad/ubuntuoneactive.png-20120728145613-jtjdupswpqiocpb2-266/ubuntuone-active.png If That is OK ? I know that this might be a silly question but I do not want to get myself in trouble.Thanks so much for reading this and helping me with a project that helps others ;)

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  • Algorithm for flattening overlapping ranges

    - by Joseph
    I am looking for a nice way of flattening (splitting) a list of potentially-overlapping numeric ranges. The problem is very similar to that of this question: Fastest way to split overlapping date ranges, and many others. However, the ranges are not only integers, and I am looking for a decent algorithm that can be easily implemented in Javascript or Python, etc. Example Data: Example Solution: Apologies if this is a duplicate, but I am yet to find a solution.

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  • SIMPLEST way to set up password protection for a static site, with basic admin UI?

    - by Joseph Turian
    I have a static site. I would like the simplest approach to password protecting a directory, with a basic admin UI for adding/removing users. I will have so few users that I don't care about performance. I don't care if it's PHP or Django or whatever, I just want a complete software package. Apache basic auth isn't good, because you can't log out. Nor is there a UI for adding users. I tried throwing everything behind Django auth and serving the files through Django. However, Chrome treats all my text/css headers as text/plain, so I don't get any stylesheets showing. I can't use mod_xsendfile on my server because I can't reconfigure Apache to add new modules. I think this approach is overkill anyway. I can try configuring Nginx's X-Accel-Redirect, however that requires implementing all the Django code for auth myself, and I'd prefer an existing solution. However, this is my backup plan. Is there a code package that implements authentication with basic admin for a static site?

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  • How do I get a different type of scrollbars in 12.04? [closed]

    - by Joseph Garvin
    Possible Duplicate: How do I disable overlay scrollbars? By default 12.04 uses overlay scroll bars that do not suit my taste, and every method I've found so far of disabling them makes them broken in a different way. When I was using 11.10 this wasn't a problem because I could still change the GTK theme. In 12.04, the Appearance settings only contain a few stock themes, and other than the special purpose contrast ones they all have the overlay scroll bars. If I aptitude search gtk3 | grep theme I get no results so there appears to be no packaged alternative either. Most suggestions I've seen for disabling the overlay scroll bars involve uninstalling packages or editing files as root. I want to disable them just for the current user, not for everyone on the whole box; as should be the case for any theme/display setting. There is a gsettings command that temporarily disables the overlay scrollbars just for the current user, but this has two problems of its own: The setting doesn't stick after log off. Because who would want to save settings? The scroll bars put in place have no contrast. They have a black scroller on a black background and are completely unusable. In short what I'd like to know is how to disable overlay scroll bars such that: My preference is user specific. My preference is actually saved. The scroller can actually be seen against the background without having to use a special high contrast theme that makes my whole desktop look like a negative photo from Tron.

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  • How can I make refactoring a priority for my team?

    - by Joseph Garland
    The codebase I work with daily has no automated tests, inconsistent naming and tons of comments like "Why is this here?", "Not sure if this is needed" or "This method isn't named right" and the code is littered with "Changelogs" despite the fact we use source control. Suffice it to say, our codebase could use refactoring. We always have tasks to fix bugs or add new features, so no time is put aside to refactor code to be better and more modular, and it doesn't seem to be a high priority. How can I demonstrate the value of refactoring such that it gets added to our task lists? Is it worth it to just refactor as I go, asking for forgiveness rather than permission?

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  • Ubuntu 12.10 dual boot windows 7 not working

    - by Joseph
    When i install ubuntu, and the computer restarts it doesn't show the boot managaer so it always boots in windows 7. I tried to change the default os, and ubuntu wasn't even listed in it. Then I read a how to on it, it showed how to size the partions and make them correctly, but it still didn't work. I tried easyBCD and still no success. I've tried installing it about 4-5 times and i still can't get it. What can i do to fix it?

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  • Going from a math career to a cs career: how to do it?

    - by Joseph
    Hey, I'm looking for some advice on how to successfully make the transition from mathematics to CS. My academic background is in mathematics (BS and MSc), and I've taken loads of math courses as well. You name it, and I took it: Measure Theory, Algebra, PDES, Manifolds, Complex Analysis, etc. I progressed quite far along this track, and at one point, I thought I would be a professional mathematician...But around the time I was finishing my MSc, I really got sick of it. Studying very abstract mathematics was fun, but it really lost it's appeal to me. Outside of a couple hundred people, I'm not sure if anybody would understand my research. I did not want to be 60 years old and say that my only contribution to the world consisted of published papers. Anyways, I've been an off and on hobbyist programmer since 2002. I've programmed in C and Java (just small projects), and I really started to be drawn to the area as time passed. There's a real appeal to CS work because, well, it actually means something to other people out there! I enjoy all parts of it: designing webpages (a real artistic appeal). On the other end, I do enjoy toying with compilers and more nitty-gritty stuff as well. Suffice to say, I have broad interests out there. Anyways, I know it's a bit late, but I was wondering if there were other folks out there who made the change, and if so, how I could do so. I know I have some fairly big gaps to fill in terms of data structures, lack of internship experience, etc. But I really would like to make this work. So my question is simply: How can I make the switch from math to CS? To pay the bills, I'll be doing financial analysis for a company, but I'd like to eventually transition into a developer type position. I've been reading "Algorithm Design" by Tardos and doing all the problems. It's not hard to make progress since the problems are far more concrete than the stuff I've been doing the past six years. I feel I can make fairly rapid progress in picking up all the materials from data structures, etc. but none of it can substitute the past several years I've lost. Anyways, I'm eager to learn but would love some advice/concrete direction. Thanks, Joseph

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  • AlertDialog in if-stetement doesn't show()

    - by Steffen Kern
    I have the following code: public void button_login(View view) { // Instantiate an AlertDialog.Builder with its constructor AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this); builder.setPositiveButton(R.string.ok, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) { /* User clicked OK button */ } }); // Preserve EditText values. EditText ET_username = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.username); EditText ET_password = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.password); String str_username = ET_username.toString(); String str_password = ET_password.toString(); // Intercept missing username and password. if(str_username.length() == 0) { builder.setMessage(R.string.hint_username_empty); AlertDialog dialog = builder.create(); dialog.show(); } } I have an activity that includes the two EditText-Views and a button. When I click the button the shown method will be called. My problem: The AlertDialog doesnt show up! When I put the create and show at beginning like this: // Instantiate an AlertDialog.Builder with its constructor AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this); builder.setPositiveButton(R.string.ok, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) { /* User clicked OK button */ } }); builder.setMessage(R.string.hint_username_empty); AlertDialog dialog = builder.create(); dialog.show(); // Preserve EditText values. EditText ET_username = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.username); EditText ET_password = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.password); String str_username = ET_username.toString(); String str_password = ET_password.toString(); // Intercept missing username and password. if(str_username.length() == 0) { } } Then the Dialog shows up. Any ideas why the dialog doesnt show up in the first place? Greetz, Steffen

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  • Emulating old-school sprite flickering (theory and concept)

    - by Jeffrey Kern
    I'm trying to develop an oldschool NES-style video game, with sprite flickering and graphical slowdown. I've been thinking of what type of logic I should use to enable such effects. I have to consider the following restrictions if I want to go old-school NES style: No more than 64 sprites on the screen at a time No more than 8 sprites per scanline, or for each line on the Y axis If there is too much action going on the screen, the system freezes the image for a frame to let the processor catch up with the action From what I've read up, if there were more than 64 sprites on the screen, the developer would only draw high-priority sprites while ignoring low-priority ones. They could also alternate, drawing each even numbered sprite on opposite frames from odd numbered ones. The scanline issue is interesting. From my testing, it is impossible to get good speed on the XBOX 360 XNA framework by drawing sprites pixel-by-pixel, like the NES did. This is why in old-school games, if there were too many sprites on a single line, some would appear if they were cut in half. For all purposes for this project, I'm making scanlines be 8 pixels tall, and grouping the sprites together per scanline by their Y positioning. So, dumbed down I need to come up with a solution that.... 64 sprites on screen at once 8 sprites per 'scanline' Can draw sprites based on priority Can alternate between sprites per frame Emulate slowdown Here is my current theory First and foremost, a fundamental idea I came up with is addressing sprite priority. Assuming values between 0-255 (0 being low), I can assign sprites priority levels, for instance: 0 to 63 being low 63 to 127 being medium 128 to 191 being high 192 to 255 being maximum Within my data files, I can assign each sprite to be a certain priority. When the parent object is created, the sprite would randomly get assigned a number between its designated range. I would then draw sprites in order from high to low, with the end goal of drawing every sprite. Now, when a sprite gets drawn in a frame, I would then randomly generate it a new priority value within its initial priority level. However, if a sprite doesn't get drawn in a frame, I could add 32 to its current priority. For example, if the system can only draw sprites down to a priority level of 135, a sprite with an initial priority of 45 could then be drawn after 3 frames of not being drawn (45+32+32+32=141) This would, in theory, allow sprites to alternate frames, allow priority levels, and limit sprites to 64 per screen. Now, the interesting question is how do I limit sprites to only 8 per scanline? I'm thinking that if I'm sorting the sprites high-priority to low-priority, iterate through the loop until I've hit 64 sprites drawn. However, I shouldn't just take the first 64 sprites in the list. Before drawing each sprite, I could check to see how many sprites were drawn in it's respective scanline via counter variables . For example: Y-values between 0 to 7 belong to Scanline 0, scanlineCount[0] = 0 Y-values between 8 to 15 belong to Scanline 1, scanlineCount[1] = 0 etc. I could reset the values per scanline for every frame drawn. While going down the sprite list, add 1 to the scanline's respective counter if a sprite gets drawn in that scanline. If it equals 8, don't draw that sprite and go to the sprite with the next lowest priority. SLOWDOWN The last thing I need to do is emulate slowdown. My initial idea was that if I'm drawing 64 sprites per frame and there's still more sprites that need to be drawn, I could pause the rendering by 16ms or so. However, in the NES games I've played, sometimes there's slowdown if there's not any sprite flickering going on whereas the game moves beautifully even if there is some sprite flickering. Perhaps give a value to each object that uses sprites on the screen (like the priority values above), and if the combined values of all objects w/ sprites surpass a threshold, introduce the sprite flickering? IN CONCLUSION... Does everything I wrote actually sound legitimate and could work, or is it a pipe dream? What improvements can you all possibly think with this game programming theory of mine?

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  • Adding Chart to WordprocessingML

    - by kern
    I would like to generate an Open XML document containing a Chart using the Open Xml SDK 2. I found an SpreadsheetML example, but I can't work out how to add the chart in a .docx... Is there a good source for documentation/examples for the Open Xml SDK 2?

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  • 'Forward-Compatible' Program Design

    - by Jeffrey Kern
    The majority of my questions I've asked here so far on StackOverflow have been how to implement individual concepts and techniques towards developing a software-based NES clone via the XNA environment. The small samples that I've thrown together on my PC work relatively great and everything. Except I hit a brick wall. How do I merge all of these samples together. Having proof-of-concept is amazing, except when you need it to go beyond just that. I now have samples strewn about that I'm trying to merge, some of them incomplete. And now I'm stuck with the chicken-and-the-egg situation of where I would like to incorporate these samples together, to make sure they work, but I cannot without test data. And I don't have tools to create test data, because they'd need to be based off of the individual pieces that need to be put together. In my mind, I'm having nightmares with circular reference. For my sample data, I am hoping to save it in XML and write a specification - and then make sample data by hand - but I'm too paranoid of manually creating an XML file full of incorrect data and blaming it on my code, or vice-versa. It doesn't help that the end-result of my work is graphic-oriented, which makes it interseting how a graphic on the screen can be visualized in XML Nodes. I guess, my question is this: What design patterns and disciplines exist in the coding world that address this type of concern? I've always relied on brute-force coding and restarting a project with a whole new code base in attempts to further along my goals, but I doubt that would be the best way to do so. Within my college career, the majority of my programming was to work on simple projects that came out of a book, or with a given correct data set and a verifyable result. I don't have that, as my own design documents that I am going by could be terribly wrong.

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  • 'Bank Switching' Sprites on old NES applications

    - by Jeffrey Kern
    I'm currently writing in C# what could basically be called my own interpretation of the NES hardware for an old-school looking game that I'm developing. I've fired up FCE and have been observing how the NES displayed and rendered graphics. In a nutshell, the NES could hold two bitmaps worth of graphical information, each with the dimensions of 128x128. These are called the PPU tables. One was for BG tiles and the other was for sprites. The data had to be in this memory for it to be drawn on-screen. Now, if a game had more graphical data then these two banks, it could write portions of this new information to these banks -overwriting what was there - at the end of each frame, and use it from the next frame onward. So, in old games how did the programmers 'bank switch'? I mean, within the level design, how did they know which graphic set to load? I've noticed that Mega Man 2 bankswitches when the screen programatically scrolls from one portion of the stage to the next. But how did they store this information in the level - what sprites to copy over into the PPU tables, and where to write them at? Another example would be hitting pause in MM2. BG tiles get over-written during pause, and then get restored when the player unpauses. How did they remember which tiles they replaced and how to restore them? If I was lazy, I could just make one huge static bitmap and just grab values that way. But I'm forcing myself to limit these values to create a more authentic experience. I've read the amazing guide on how M.C. Kids was made, and I'm trying to be barebones about how I program this game. It still just boggles my mind how these programmers accomplisehd what they did with what they had. EDIT: The only solution I can think of would be to hold separate tables that state what tiles should be in the PPU at what time, but I think that would be a huge memory resource that the NES wouldn't be able to handle.

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  • Creating a Multiwindowed Cocoa Program - Launching Procedure Suggestions?

    - by Jeffrey Kern
    I'm porting an application I developed in Visual Studio 2008 over to Cocoa. I'm currently doing a 'learn-as-you-go' approach to Cocoa, so I can experiment with different ideas and techniques in smaller, simpler projects and eventually combine them into one big application. My program logic is as follows (in a dumbed-down sense). Items in the list are mandated by my boss. Application is started 1a. Verify CD program is in drive. Verify license. If found and is valid, skip to step 7 Display license agreement. Display serial number prompt. Verify and save serial number. Hide all prior windows. Load main application window Intercept requests and commands from main application window, including making a duplicate main application window Exit program when requested by user What would the best bet be for this type of application? From another question I asked, I found out that I should keep the 'main application' window in a separate XIB file from the rest, because I might need to clone and interact with it. I know that since Cocoa and Objective-C is based off of C, there is a Main method somewhere. But what would you all suggest as a starting place for an application like this?

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  • NES Programming - Nametables?

    - by Jeffrey Kern
    Hello everyone, I'm wondering about how the NES displays its graphical muscle. I've researched stuff online and read through it, but I'm wondering about one last thing: Nametables. Basically, from what I've read, each 8x8 block in a NES nametable points to a location in the pattern table, which holds graphic memory. In addition, the nametable also has an attribute table which sets a certain color palette for each 16x16 block. They're linked up together like this: (assuming 16 8x8 blocks) Nametable, with A B C D = pointers to sprite data: ABBB CDCC DDDD DDDD Attribute table, with 1 2 3 = pointers to color palette data, with < referencing value to the left, ^ above, and ' to the left and above: 1<2< ^'^' 3<3< ^'^' So, in the example above, the blocks would be colored as so 1A 1B 2B 2B 1C 1D 2C 2C 3D 3D 3D 3D 3D 3D 3D 3D Now, if I have this on a fixed screen - it works great! Because the NES resolution is 256x240 pixels. Now, how do these tables get adjusted for scrolling? Because Nametable 0 can scroll into Nametable 1, and if you keep scrolling Nametable 0 will wrap around again. That I get. But what I don't get is how to scroll the attribute table wraps around as well. From what I've read online, the 16x16 blocks it assigns attributes for will cause color distortions on the edge tiles of the screen (as seen when you scroll left to right and vice-versa in SMB3). The concern I have is that I understand how to scroll the nametables, but how do you scroll the attribute table? For intsance, if I have a green block on the left side of the screen, moving the screen to right should in theory cause the tiles to the right to be green as well until they move more into frame, to which they'll revert to their normal colors.

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