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  • Why do programmers write applications and then make them free?

    - by Ken
    As an entrepreneur/programmer who makes a good living from writing and selling software, I'm dumbfounded as to why developers write applications and then put them up on the Internet for free. You've found yourself in one of the most lucrative fields in the world. A business with 99% profit margin, where you have no physical product but can name your price; a business where you can ship a buggy product and the customer will still buy it. Occasionally some of our software will get a free competitor, and I think, this guy is crazy. He could be making a good living off of this but instead chose to make it free. Do you not like giant piles of money? Are you not confident that people would pay for it? Are you afraid of having to support it? It's bad for the business of programming because now customers expect to be able to find a free solution to every problem. (I see tweets like "is there any good FREE software for XYZ? or do I need to pay $20 for that".) It's also bad for customers because the free solutions eventually break (because of a new OS or what have you) and since it's free, the developer has no reason to fix it. Customers end up with free but stale software that no longer works and never gets updated. Customer cries. Developer still working day job cries in their cubical. What gives? PS: I'm not looking to start an open-source/software should be free kind of debate. I'm talking about when developers make a closed source application and make it free.

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  • Big GRC: Turning Data into Actionable GRC Intelligence

    - by Jenna Danko
    While it’s no longer headline news that Governments have carried out large scale data-mining programmes aimed at terrorism detection and identifying other patterns of interest across a wide range of digital data sources, the debate over the ethics and justification over this action, will clearly continue for some time to come. What is becoming clear is that these programmes are a framework for the collation and aggregation of massive amounts of unstructured data and from this, the creation of actionable intelligence from analyses that allowed the analysts to explore and extract a variety of patterns and then direct resources. This data included audio and video chats, phone calls, photographs, e-mails, documents, internet searches, social media posts and mobile phone logs and connections. Although Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) professionals are not looking at the implementation of such programmes, there are many similar GRC “Big data” challenges to be faced and potential lessons to be learned from these high profile government programmes that can be applied a lot closer to home. For example, how can GRC professionals collect, manage and analyze an enormous and disparate volume of data to create and manage their own actionable intelligence covering hidden signs and patterns of criminal activity, the early or retrospective, violation of regulations/laws/corporate policies and procedures, emerging risks and weakening controls etc. Not exactly the stuff of James Bond to be sure, but it is certainly more applicable to most GRC professional’s day to day challenges. So what is Big Data and how can it benefit the GRC process? Although it often varies, the definition of Big Data largely refers to the following types of data: Traditional Enterprise Data – includes customer information from CRM systems, transactional ERP data, web store transactions, and general ledger data. Machine-Generated /Sensor Data – includes Call Detail Records (“CDR”), weblogs and trading systems data. Social Data – includes customer feedback streams, micro-blogging sites like Twitter, and social media platforms like Facebook. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that data volume is growing 40% per year, and will grow 44x between 2009 and 2020. But while it’s often the most visible parameter, volume of data is not the only characteristic that matters. In fact, according to sources such as Forrester there are four key characteristics that define big data: Volume. Machine-generated data is produced in much larger quantities than non-traditional data. This is all the data generated by IT systems that power the enterprise. This includes live data from packaged and custom applications – for example, app servers, Web servers, databases, networks, virtual machines, telecom equipment, and much more. Velocity. Social media data streams – while not as massive as machine-generated data – produce a large influx of opinions and relationships valuable to customer relationship management as well as offering early insight into potential reputational risk issues. Even at 140 characters per tweet, the high velocity (or frequency) of Twitter data ensures large volumes (over 8 TB per day) need to be managed. Variety. Traditional data formats tend to be relatively well defined by a data schema and change slowly. In contrast, non-traditional data formats exhibit a dizzying rate of change. Without question, all GRC professionals work in a dynamic environment and as new services, new products, new business lines are added or new marketing campaigns executed for example, new data types are needed to capture the resultant information.  Value. The economic value of data varies significantly. Typically, there is good information hidden amongst a larger body of non-traditional data that GRC professionals can use to add real value to the organisation; the greater challenge is identifying what is valuable and then transforming and extracting that data for analysis and action. For example, customer service calls and emails have millions of useful data points and have long been a source of information to GRC professionals. Those calls and emails are critical in helping GRC professionals better identify hidden patterns and implement new policies that can reduce the amount of customer complaints.   Now on a scale and depth far beyond those in place today, all that unstructured call and email data can be captured, stored and analyzed to reveal the reasons for the contact, perhaps with the aggregated customer results cross referenced against what is being said about the organization or a similar peer organization on social media. The organization can then take positive actions, communicating to the market in advance of issues reaching the press, strengthening controls, adjusting risk profiles, changing policy and procedures and completely minimizing, if not eliminating, complaints and compensation for that specific reason in the future. In this one example of many similar ones, the GRC team(s) has demonstrated real and tangible business value. Big Challenges - Big Opportunities As pointed out by recent Forrester research, high performing companies (those that are growing 15% or more year-on-year compared to their peers) are taking a selective approach to investing in Big Data.  "Tomorrow's winners understand this, and they are making selective investments aimed at specific opportunities with tangible benefits where big data offers a more economical solution to meet a need." (Forrsights Strategy Spotlight: Business Intelligence and Big Data, Q4 2012) As pointed out earlier, with the ever increasing volume of regulatory demands and fines for getting it wrong, limited resource availability and out of date or inadequate GRC systems all contributing to a higher cost of compliance and/or higher risk profile than desired – a big data investment in GRC clearly falls into this category. However, to make the most of big data organizations must evolve both their business and IT procedures, processes, people and infrastructures to handle these new high-volume, high-velocity, high-variety sources of data and be able integrate them with the pre-existing company data to be analyzed. GRC big data clearly allows the organization access to and management over a huge amount of often very sensitive information that although can help create a more risk intelligent organization, also presents numerous data governance challenges, including regulatory compliance and information security. In addition to client and regulatory demands over better information security and data protection the sheer amount of information organizations deal with the need to quickly access, classify, protect and manage that information can quickly become a key issue  from a legal, as well as technical or operational standpoint. However, by making information governance processes a bigger part of everyday operations, organizations can make sure data remains readily available and protected. The Right GRC & Big Data Partnership Becomes Key  The "getting it right first time" mantra used in so many companies remains essential for any GRC team that is sponsoring, helping kick start, or even overseeing a big data project. To make a big data GRC initiative work and get the desired value, partnerships with companies, who have a long history of success in delivering successful GRC solutions as well as being at the very forefront of technology innovation, becomes key. Clearly solutions can be built in-house more cheaply than through vendor, but as has been proven time and time again, when it comes to self built solutions covering AML and Fraud for example, few have able to scale or adapt appropriately to meet the changing regulations or challenges that the GRC teams face on a daily basis. This has led to the creation of GRC silo’s that are causing so many headaches today. The solutions that stand out and should be explored are the ones that can seamlessly merge the traditional world of well-known data, analytics and visualization with the new world of seemingly innumerable data sources, utilizing Big Data technologies to generate new GRC insights right across the enterprise.Ultimately, Big Data is here to stay, and organizations that embrace its potential and outline a viable strategy, as well as understand and build a solid analytical foundation, will be the ones that are well positioned to make the most of it. A Blueprint and Roadmap Service for Big Data Big data adoption is first and foremost a business decision. As such it is essential that your partner can align your strategies, goals, and objectives with an architecture vision and roadmap to accelerate adoption of big data for your environment, as well as establish practical, effective governance that will maintain a well managed environment going forward. Key Activities: While your initiatives will clearly vary, there are some generic starting points the team and organization will need to complete: Clearly define your drivers, strategies, goals, objectives and requirements as it relates to big data Conduct a big data readiness and Information Architecture maturity assessment Develop future state big data architecture, including views across all relevant architecture domains; business, applications, information, and technology Provide initial guidance on big data candidate selection for migrations or implementation Develop a strategic roadmap and implementation plan that reflects a prioritization of initiatives based on business impact and technology dependency, and an incremental integration approach for evolving your current state to the target future state in a manner that represents the least amount of risk and impact of change on the business Provide recommendations for practical, effective Data Governance, Data Quality Management, and Information Lifecycle Management to maintain a well-managed environment Conduct an executive workshop with recommendations and next steps There is little debate that managing risk and data are the two biggest obstacles encountered by financial institutions.  Big data is here to stay and risk management certainly is not going anywhere, and ultimately financial services industry organizations that embrace its potential and outline a viable strategy, as well as understand and build a solid analytical foundation, will be best positioned to make the most of it. Matthew Long is a Financial Crime Specialist for Oracle Financial Services. He can be reached at matthew.long AT oracle.com.

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  • (Quaternion based) Trouble moving foward based on model rotation

    - by ChocoMan
    Using quaternions, I'm having trouble moving my model in its facing direction. Currently the model moves can move in all cardinal directions with no problems. The problem comes when I rotate the move as it still travelling in the direction of world space. Meaning, if I'm moving forward, backward or any other direction while rotating the model, the model acts like its a figure skater spinning while traveling in the same direction. How do I update the direction of travel proper with the facing direction of the model? Rotates model on Y-axis: Yaw = pController.ThumbSticks.Right.X * MathHelper.ToRadians(speedAngleMAX); AddRotation = Quaternion.CreateFromYawPitchRoll(yaw, 0, 0); ModelLoad.MRotation *= AddRotation; MOrientation = Matrix.CreateFromQuaternion(ModelLoad.MRotation); Moves model forward: // Move Forward if (pController.IsButtonDown(Buttons.LeftThumbstickUp)) { SpeedX = (float)(Math.Sin(ModelLoad.ModelRotation)) * FWDSpeedMax * pController.ThumbSticks.Left.Y * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; SpeedZ = (float)(Math.Cos(ModelLoad.ModelRotation)) * FWDSpeedMax * pController.ThumbSticks.Left.Y * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; // Update model position ModelLoad._modelPos += Vector3.Forward * SpeedZ; ModelLoad._modelPos += Vector3.Left * SpeedX; }

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  • NetBeans at JavaOne Latin America 2012

    - by TinuA
    The place to be in early December is Sao Paolo, Brazil, for JavaOne 2012 Latin America (pt_ BR site)--and the NetBeans team will be making the trip!Drop-in on technical sessions and hands-labs that show the latest features of the NetBeans IDE in action. Watch demos of HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript support in NetBeans IDE 7.3 (Release: Winter 2013) and find out how developers can easily and quickly create rich Web and mobile applications. Discover how the IDE provides the best and latest support for building JavaEE and JavaFX 2.0 applications, and join the conversation about what's up ahead for NetBeans development.With over 50 technical sessions, tons of demos and labs, JavaOne Latin America is the conference to attend to enhance your coding skills and mingle with experts and developers from the Oracle and Java communities. Mark your calendars and check out NetBeans IDE in the following sessions! Tuesday, December 4 12:15 - 13:15 Designing Java EE Applications in the Age of CDI Speakers: Michel Graciano, Consultant, Summa Technologies do Brasil; Michael Santos, TecSinapse Mezanino: Sala 14 Wednesday, December 5 10:00 - 11:00 Make Your Clients Richer: JavaFX and the NetBeans Platform Speakers: Gail Anderson, Director of Research; Paul Anderson, Director of Training, Anderson Software Group, Inc. Mezanino: Sala 12 Thursday, December 6 13:45 - 14:45 Unlocking the Java Platform with NetBeans Speaker: John Jullion-Ceccarelli, Software Development Director, Oracle Keynote Hall 15:00 - 16:00 Project EASEL: Developing and Managing HTML5 in a Java World Speaker: John Jullion-Ceccarelli, Software Development Director, Oracle Mezanino: Sala 14 See full conference schedule for detailed agenda. Get more JavaOne news.

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  • JEE frameworks, a road map to learn? and should I learn them?

    - by vibhor
    Background Information I have been into programming since past 1 years professionally, my day to day work includes writing BIRT reports, designing and validating forms using JEE (struts/spring, hibernate). I don't have a comp Sci 4 year degree (Electronics), so I have very Limited experience in comp Sci. Question JEE frameworks (struts1/2, spring, hibernate etc) are hot nowadays, however java world have a tendency of building A4j, B4J... mayway4J kind of stuff (and I am tired of it). AFAIK, frameworks are nothing but bunch of XML config files and hundreds of classes built to cram (by developer). And sooner then later a new framework come into picture that says I am the best among all. So My Question is - 1.What will you do to learn a framework (many frameworks) considering that it can be obsolete till you'll be master in it (Learning frameworks can take significant amount of time)? 2.Considering early into your career, will you give a damn that how well someone knows framework (knowing frame work is important but still..) and why/how should I learn a framework knowing I have to (un)learn it in order to learn other one (plenty of of 4Js....)? I am just trying to get a big picture, that, if you're in place of me, what would be your learning/cramming strategy (Road map)? I am not intended to start a holy war between A versus B, (frameworks are more or less essential).

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  • How can I generate a view or projection matrix for OpenGL 3.+

    - by Ken
    I'm transitioning from OpenGL 2 to OpenGL 3.+ and to GLSL 1.5. I'm trying to avoid using the deprecated features. My question how do we now generate the view or projection matrix. I was using the matrix stack to calculate the projection matrix for me; GLfloat ptr[16]; gluPerspective(...); glGetFloatv(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, ptr); //then pass ptr via a uniform to the shader But obviously the matrix stack is deprecated. So this approach is not the best an option going forward. I have the 'Red Book', 7th ed, which covers 3.0 & 3.1 and it still uses the deprecated matrix functions in it's examples. I could write some utility-code myself to generate the matrices. But I don't want to re-invent this particular wheel, especially when this functionality is required for every 3D graphics program. What is the accepted way to generate world,view & projection matrices for OpenGL? Is there an emerging 'standard' library for this? Or is there some other hidden (to me) functionality in OpenGL/GLSL which I have overlooked?

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  • Java Spotlight Episode 102: Freescale on Embedded Java and Java Embedded @ JavaOne

    - by Roger Brinkley
    An interview with Michael O'Donnell of Freescale on Embedded Java and Embedded Java @ JavaOne. Part of this podcast was recorded live at the JavaOne 2012 Glassfish Party at the Thirsty Bear. Right-click or Control-click to download this MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the Java Spotlight Podcast Feed to get the latest podcast automatically. If you use iTunes you can open iTunes and subscribe with this link:  Java Spotlight Podcast in iTunes. Show Notes News Oracle Java ME Embedded 3.2 Java Embedded Server 7.0 Events Oct 3-4, Java Embedded @ JavaONE, San Francisco Oct 15-17, JAX London Oct 30-Nov 1, Arm TechCon, Santa Clara Oct 22-23, Freescale Technology Forum - Japan, Tokyo Oct 31, JFall, Netherlands Nov 2-3, JMagreb, Morocco Nov 13-17, Devoxx, Belgium Feature InterviewFreescale is the global leader in embedded processing solutions, advancing the automotive, consumer, industrial and networking markets. From microprocessors and microcontrollers to sensors, analog ICs and connectivity – our technologies are the foundation to the innovations that make our world greener, safer, healthier and more connected. Michael O'Donnell, is the Director of Software Ecosystem Alliances. The upcoming Freescale Technology Forum - Japan in Tokyo, Japan is an excellent way for developers to learn more about Freescale and Java. What’s Cool Glassfish Party - 6th year Geek Bike Ride

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  • How not to suffer from ideologists when you're a pragmatic person?

    - by Lukas Eder
    My story: I'm a pragmatic person. Sometimes, the most simple solution to a problem to get the job done is the one that fits best for me, if its not an utter blasphemy and reproach to any design principles. Check out my answer to this question on stackoverflow. Simple. Works. Was accepted. Could be improved. Is clearly not perfect. And along comes this guy. He downvotes me, comments on the question how his answer is better, more accurate etc and calls me "plain wrong". Reminds me of this comic strip. :-) While on stackoverflow I can laugh at these things because those people are far away, in the real world I'm suffering from ideologies every now and then. Heck, I'm not creating a miracle piece of software, I need to keep that huge legacy thing running, and it's an adventure to me every day. I don't have the time or passion to beautify my code (or other people's code) to that extent. My question(s): How do you deal with ideologies / ideologists, when you're a pragmatic person? How do you deal with pragmatism / pragmatists, when you're an ideologic person? I'm interested in both point of views. Tell me your experience. But please, be fair, somewhat objective, and understand that you may NOT be entirely correct and your opinion is NOT the only true one... :-)

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  • Engineering as a Service

    - by jgelhaus
    Oracle Exadata Database Machine is known for great compute performance, and over the past few years, it has also become known as a great platform for any type of Oracle Database workload, from data warehousing to online transaction processing (OLTP). But now organizations are turning to Oracle Exadata for business efficiencies and private cloud solutions—for consolidation and database as a service (DBaaS). University of Minnesota For an inside look at how DBaaS is working in the real world, it’s worth checking into the University of Minnesota’s database hotel.  With more than 50,000 students, the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis is one of the largest universities in the United States. The university’s centralized IT group not only has to support all those students but also must provide support and services to more than 40 departments and colleges within the university. They have two Exadata Database Machine X2-2 half-rack systems from Oracle, with four database nodes each and roughly 30 terabytes of usable disk space for each of the Oracle Exadata systems. The university is using Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) for high availability and the Data Guard feature of Oracle Database, Enterprise Edition, for disaster recovery capabilities. The deployment has been live in production since May 2011. Overhead Door When it comes to overhead, revolving, sliding, or other specialty residential and commercial doors, Overhead Door is the worldwide leader. But when they needed to open doors with their customers through a better, faster, and more agile IT infrastructure, Overhead Door turned to Oracle and Oracle Exadata. Oracle Exadata Database Machine plays an important part in Overhead Door’s IT and business strategy. The organization has two Exadata Database Machine X2-2s deployed, one in production and one in development and testing Read the full Oracle Magazine article Engineering as a Service

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  • Edd strikes again &ndash; IronRuby for Rubyists on InfoQ

    - by Eric Nelson
    Colleague, friend and generally top guy on IronRuby Edd Morgan has just been published over on InfoQ. To wet the appetite… a snippet or three. IronRuby for Rubyists IronRuby is Microsoft's implementation of the Ruby language we all know and love with the added bonus of interoperability with the .NET framework — the Iron in the name is actually an acronym for 'Implementation running on .NET'. It's supported by the .NET Common Language Runtime as well as, albeit unofficially, the Mono project. You'd be forgiven for harbouring some question in your mind about running a dynamic language such as Ruby atop the CLR - that's where the DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime) comes in. The DLR is Microsoft's way of providing dynamic language capability on top of the CLR. Both IronRuby and the DLR are, as part of Microsoft's commitment to open source software, available as part of the Microsoft Public License on GitHub and CodePlex respectively… And Metaprogramming with IronRuby The art and science of metaprogramming — especially in Ruby, where it's an absolute joy — is something that could very easily span an entire article. As you would hope, IronRuby code is fully able to manipulate itself allowing you to bend your classes to your whim just as you would expect with a good dynamic language… And Riding the irails? So let's get to the point. I think it's a solid bet to make that a large proportion of Ruby programmers are familiar with the Rails framework - perhaps it's even safe to assume that most were first led to the Ruby language by the siren song of the Rails framework itself. Long story short, IronRuby is compatible enough to run your Rails app… Now… get yourself over to the full article and also check out some of Edds other work below. Related Links: 5 Steps to getting started with IronRuby Mini Book Review of IronRuby Unleashed by Shay Friedman Guest Post: Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the ‘Hello World of WPF’ – also by Edd Getting PhP and Ruby working on Windows Azure and SQL Azure Guest Post: What's IronRuby, and how do I put it on Rails? – also by Edd

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  • Oracle Social @ OpenWorld

    - by me
     Hi there -  Wanna know what going on at Oracle Open World and Social?  Here are the hot tips!  Do you want to see  the Oracle Social Engagement Center in action ? You can explore the power of social publishing (Vitrue)  and the live social  monitoring (Collective Intellect) of  the Social Buzz around OpenWorld.Let's see if you appear in the Tweeter stream . Visit us  at Moscone South main entrance (foursquare place)  and meet  the Oracle Social Geeks  @Radu43, @peterreiser, @dankmbp and team. Are you a  social developer  and want to discover Oracle Social Network (OSN) ? cool - you can still  join the OSN Developers Challenge , take the OSN technical preview tour and meet our WebCenter evangelists Jake (@theappslab) and @noelportugal. Do you want to meet the Oracle Social Geeks and have some fun?  Then join us at the Social Plaza @ Oracle OpenWorld event on Tuesday, October 2, Noon–8:00 p.m. at the  Mint Plaza, Fifth Street between Mission and Market. cu you all at #oow

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  • Announcing Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting

    - by Theresa Hickman
    Oracle just launched a new product called Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting designed to help company’s track and report their greenhouse emissions at the operational level.  Companies around the world are facing increasing pressure to improve their energy efficiency and reduce waste in their operations. Also, new worldwide greenhouse gas legislation is putting added pressure on companies to report the impact of their emissions and energy usage on the environment. Today, companies undergo extensive and expensive data audits to maintain a ledger of up-to-date emissions factors that compare figures on an annual basis. Existing “ad hoc” approaches utilizing manual or niche solutions have a high operational cost and weak data security and audit-ability. The ideal solution is to embed environmental usage within the mainstream business operations, such as recording energy usage at the time of invoice entry, and then report on those results. This is precisely what Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting is designed to do. You can now capture environmental data either electronically or manually; convert that to greenhouse gas emissions; comply with mandatory and voluntary greenhouse gas reporting schemes; and identify opportunities for CO2 emissions and cost reductions.   Oracle recently acquired the intellectual property for this solution which works with both Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Release 9.0. For more information, visit Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting.

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  • I don't know C. And why should I learn it?

    - by Stephen
    My first programming language was PHP (gasp). After that I started working with JavaScript. I've recently done work in C#. I've never once looked at low or mid level languages like C. The general consensus in the programming-community-at-large is that "a programmer who hasn't learned something like C, frankly, just can't handle programming concepts like pointers, data types, passing values by reference, etc." I do not agree. I argue that: Because high level languages are easily accessible, more "non-programmers" dive in and make a mess In order to really get anything done in a high level language, one needs to understand the same similar concepts that most proponents of "learn-low-level-first" evangelize about. Some people need to know C; those people have jobs that require them to write low to mid-level code. I'm sure C is awesome, and I'm sure there are a few bad programmers who know C. Why the bias? As a good, honest, hungry programmer, if I had to learn C (for some unforeseen reason), I would learn C. Considering the multitude of languages out there, shouldn't good programmers focus on learning what advances us? Shouldn't we learn what interests us? Should we not utilize our finite time moving forward? Why do some programmers disagree with this? I believe that striving for excellence in what you do is the fundamental deterministic trait between good programmers and bad ones. Does anyone have any real world examples of how something written in a high level language—say Java, Pascal, PHP, or Javascript—truely benefitted from a prior knowledge of C? Examples would be most appreciated.

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  • how to move the camera behind a model with the same angle? in XNA

    - by Mehdi Bugnard
    I meet are having difficulty in moving my camera behind an object in a 3D world. I would create two view mode. 1: for fps (first person). 2nd: external view behind the character (second person). I searched the net some example but it does not work in my project. Here is my code used to change view if F2 is pressed //Camera double X1 = this.camera.PositionX; double X2 = this.player.Position.X; double Z1 = this.camera.PositionZ; double Z2 = this.player.Position.Z; //Verify that the user must not let the press F2 if (!this.camera.IsF2TurnedInBoucle) { // If the view mode is the second person if (this.camera.ViewCamera_type == CameraSimples.ChangeView.SecondPerson) { this.camera.ViewCamera_type = CameraSimples.ChangeView.firstPerson; //Calcul position - ?? Here my problem double direction = Math.Atan2(X2 - X1, Z2 - Z1) * 180.0 / 3.14159265; //Calcul angle - ?? Here my problem this.camera.position = .. this.camera.rotation = .. this.camera.MouseRadian_LeftrightRot = (float)direction; } //IF mode view is first person else { //....

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  • Is '@' Error Suppression a Valid Technique for Testing for an Optional Array Key?

    - by MikeSchinkel
    Rarst and I were debating offline about the use of the '@' error suppression operator in PHP, specifically for use to test for existence of "optional" array keys, i.e. array keys that are being used as a switch here a their lack of existence in the array is functionally equivalent to the array having the key with a value equaling false. Here is pseudo-code for this scenario: function do_something( $args = array() ) { if ( @$args['switch'] ) { // Do something with this switch } // continue on... } vs. this approach: function do_something( $args = array() ) { if ( ! empty( $args['switch'] ) && $args['switch'] ) { // Do something with this switch } // continue on... } Of course in most use-cases, suppressing errors would not be A Good Thing(tm). However in this use-case where an array is passed with an optional element, it seems to me that it is actually a very good technique but I could be wrong and would like to hear other's opinions on the subject before I make up my mind. I do know that there are alleged performance hits for using the former approach but I'd like to know how they compare with the alternative and if they performance hits really matter in real world scenarios? P.S. I decided to post this because, after debating this offline with Rarst, he asked a more general question here on Programmers but didn't actually give a detailed example of the specific use-case we were debating. And since I'm pretty sure he'll want to use the out-of-context answers on that other question as justification for why the above is "bad" I decided I needed to get opinions on this specific use-case.

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  • Happy New Year! Back to school :)

    - by Jim Wang
    A brand new year is upon us and it’s time to get cracking with WebMatrix again…and go back to school :).  Last year we ran a successful product walkthrough for WebMatrix Beta 2 with our students from around the world, gathering awesome feedback for the final version of WebMatrix which is coming soon!  I’d like to take this chance to thank all the students who participated in this effort…you have really helped make the final product much better than it would have been otherwise. In 2011, we’re looking, as always, at bigger and better things.  One of the ideas that has been floating around is the concept of a WebMatrix college course that you could take for actual credit.  Of course, this is going to require coordination with college educators, but we think we’re up to the challenge :) If your school is still using an antiquated language to teach their web development 101 course, and you’d like to switch to WebMatrix, we’d like to hear your voice – better yet if you have contacts from your school and would like to be one of the first to give the program a try!  Comment on this post or email wptsdrext at microsoft.com.  We look forward to partnering with you guys ^^.

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  • Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience White Papers by Anna M. Wichansky

    - by JuergenKress
    The Applications User Experience group has created a series of white papers to better communicate the world-class user experience features of the Oracle Fusion Applications, and to describe the process we used to design them. These papers not only explain why the Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience is designed the way it is, but also the data collection, modeling, and testing efforts of our unique, user-focused design process, which contributed to its refinement. The documents we are sharing with product announcement are: Applications User Experience Research and Design Process White Paper New Oracle Fusion Applications: An End-User Experience Designed for Productivity Why Oracle Expects Productivity Gains with Fusion Applications Closing the Deal: the Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management User Experience Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management: Designed for a Productive Workforce Get It Done Fast, Get It Done Right: The Oracle Fusion Financials User Experience Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience Design Patterns: Productivity Realized Oracle Fusion Procurement: Changing the Way You Buy and Sell Putting the User into Oracle Fusion Applications User Assistance Read the full article here. WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. BlogTwitterLinkedInMixForumWiki Technorati Tags: User Experience,Design patterns,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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  • Python or Ruby in 2011.

    - by Sleeper Smith
    What I'm really asking is, in the current services and technologies provided, which is a more "useful" language? Which one has more opportunity? Some background info first. I'm a .net C# dev for 5 years. Having done a few projects on Amazon AWS, I'm looking to start a few projects of my own. But Azure's too expensive, and AWS has too much management overhead. My current choice is Google App Engine and Python. Logical enough. But what I want to ask here is this: In Linux world, which is more useful? Recently heard about Heroku for Ruby. How viable is this? Looking at the pricing model indicates that it's more expensive. Which one has more up-to-date and exciting open source projects? For instance Trac is just plain out dated compared to Redmine. One of the big reason pulling me for Ruby is Redmine. Implementations? IronPython/IronRuby/JRuby etc etc. Which one is more standardised and more implementation agnostic? Which one is easier to port between Windows/Linux? Anyway, your input and thoughts are greatly appreciated. thanks.

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  • Algorithm allowing a good waypoint path following?

    - by Thierry Savard Saucier
    I'm more looking into how should I implement this, either a tutorial or even the name of the concept I'm missing. I'm pretty sure some basic pathfinding algorithm could help me here, but I dont know which one ... I have a worldmap, with different cities on it. The player can choose a city from a menu, or click on an available cities on the world map, and the toon should walk over there. But I want him to follow a predefine path. Lets say our hero is on the city 1. He clicks on city 4. I want him to follow the path to city 2 and from there to city 4. I was handling this easily with arrow movement (left right top bottom) since its a single check. Now I'm not sure how I should do this. Should I loop threw each possible path and check which one leads me to D the fastest ... and if I do how do I avoid running in circle forever with cities 1-5-2 ?

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  • SQL Server 2008 R2: These are a Few of My Favorite Things

    - by smisner
    This month's T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Jorge Segarra (blog | twitter) who decided that we should write about our favorite new feature in SQL Server 2008 R2. The majority of my published works concentrates on Reporting Services, so the obious answer for me is about favorite new features is...Reporting Services. I can't pick just one thing in Reporting Services, so instead I thought I'd compile a list of my posts of the new features in Reporting Services 2008 R2: Map Wizard for spatial data (The World is But a Stage) Pagination features (I've Got Your Page Number) Lookup functions (Look Up, Look Down, Look All Around - Part I, Part II, Part III) Test Connection button (Testing, Testing 1-2-3) Conditional formatting based on format, i.e. RenderFormat (As You Like It) And I wrote an overview of the business intelligence features in SQL Server 2008 R2 for Microsoft Press in the free e-book, Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, if you're curious about what else is new in both the BI platform as well as the relational engine. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Additional new content SOA Partner Community

    - by JuergenKress
    Oracle Reference Architecture: Application Infrastructure Foundation One of the earliest additions to the IT Strategies from Oracle library, this paper describes the concepts and capabilities of the application infrastructure and defines the platform on which solutions are built. Read it. Scaling Service Oriented Architecture What is scaling, and what does it mean to a service oriented architecture? Author Philip Wik explores those issues and proposes Oracle-based solutions to SOA scaling and a SOA scaling roadmap. Read it. SOA, Cloud, and Service Technologies: A Conversation with Thomas Erl Thomas Erl, the world's best selling SOA author, is joined by Oracle SOA experts Tim Hall and Demed L'Her for a wide ranging four-part conversation on the evolution of SOA and the emergence of the architect in the era of cloud computing. Listen to the Podcast & Read a Transcript Cloud e-book Invite your customers to download this Cloud e-book, packed with multi-media resources to educate your customers on the value of Oracle Cloud computing. Assessment: Are you Leading or Lagging when it comes to SOA and BPM? Take the online SOA Assessment and BPM Assessment. New Collateral: Whitepaper Series: The Promise of BPM Technology for Financial Services Institutions - Resource Kit Whitepaper: Reaching Process Excellence with Process Accelerators - PDF Demystifying Cloud Integration: Whitepapers, webcasts, and customer case studies - Resource Kit Whitepaper: Leveraging Governance to sustain Enterprise Architecture - PDF Article: Rethink SOA: A Recipe for Business Transformation - Article Oracle SOA Resource Kit Oracle SOA Governance Resource Kit Oracle BPM Resource Kit SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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  • In the days of modern computing, in 'typical business apps' - why does performance matter?

    - by Prog
    This may seem like an odd question to some of you. I'm a hobbyist Java programmer. I have developed several games, an AI program that creates music, another program for painting, and similar stuff. This is to tell you that I have an experience in programming, but not in professional development of business applications. I see a lot of talk on this site about performance. People often debate what would be the most efficient algorithm in C# to perform a task, or why Python is slow and Java is faster, etc. What I'm trying to understand is: why does this matter? There are specific areas of computing where I see why performance matters: games, where tens of thousands of computations are happening every second in a constant-update loop, or low level systems which other programs rely on, such as OSs and VMs, etc. But for the normal, typical high-level business app, why does performance matter? I can understand why it used to matter, decades ago. Computers were much slower and had much less memory, so you had to think carefully about these things. But today, we have so much memory to spare and computers are so fast: does it actually matter if a particular Java algorithm is O(n^2)? Will it actually make a difference for the end users of this typical business app? When you press a GUI button in a typical business app, and behind the scenes it invokes an O(n^2) algorithm, in these days of modern computing - do you actually feel the inefficiency? My question is split in two: In practice, today does performance matter in a typical normal business program? If it does, please give me real-world examples of places in such an application, where performance and optimizations are important.

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  • Skanska Builds Global Workforce Insight with Cloud-Based HCM System

    - by HCM-Oracle
    By David Baum - Originally posted on Profit Peter Bjork grew up building things. He started his work life learning all sorts of trades at his father’s construction company in the northern part of Sweden. So in college, it was natural for him to pursue a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering—but he broke new ground when he added a master’s degree in finance to his curriculum vitae. Written on a traditional résumé, Bjork’s current title (vice president of information systems strategies) doesn’t reveal the diversity of his experience—that he’s adept with hammer and nails as well as rows and columns. But a big part of his current job is to work with his counterparts in human resources (HR) designing, building, and deploying the systems needed to get a complete view of the skills and potential of Skanska’s 22,000-strong white-collar workforce. And Bjork believes that complete view is essential to Skanska’s success. “Our business is really all about people,” says Bjork, who has worked with Skanska for 16 years. “You can have equipment and financial resources, but to truly succeed in a business like ours you need to have the right people in the right places. That’s what this system is helping us accomplish.” In a global HR environment that suffers from a paradox of high unemployment and a scarcity of skilled labor, managers need to have a complete understanding of workforce capabilities to develop management skills, recruit for open positions, ensure that staff is getting the training they need, and reduce attrition. Skanska’s human capital management (HCM) systems, based on Oracle Talent Management Cloud, play a critical role delivering that understanding. “Skanska’s philosophy of having great people, encouraging their development, and giving them the chance to move across business units has nurtured a culture of collaboration, but managing a diverse workforce spread across the globe is a monumental challenge,” says Annika Lindholm, global human resources system owner in the HR department at Skanska’s headquarters just outside of Stockholm, Sweden. “We depend heavily on Oracle’s cloud technology to support our HCM function.” Construction, Workers For Skanska’s more than 60,000 employees and contractors, managing huge construction projects is an everyday job. Beyond erecting signature buildings, management’s goal is to build a corporate culture where valuable talent can be sought out and developed, bringing in the right mix of people to support and grow the business. “Of all the companies in our space, Skanska is probably one of the strongest ones, with a laser focus on people and people development,” notes Tom Crane, chief HR and communications officer for Skanska in the United States. “Our business looks like equipment and material, but all we really have at the end of the day are people and their intellectual capital. Without them, second only to clients, of course, you really can’t achieve great things in the high-profile environment in which we work.” During the 1990s, Skanska entered an expansive growth phase. A string of successful acquisitions paved the way for the company’s transformation into a global enterprise. “Today the company’s focus is on profitable growth,” continues Crane. “But you can’t really achieve growth unless you are doing a very good job of developing your people and having the right people in the right places and driving a culture of growth.” In the United States alone, Skanska has more than 8,000 employees in four distinct business units: Skanska USA Building, also known as the Construction Manager, builds everything at ground level and above—hospitals, educational facilities, stadiums, airport terminals, and other massive projects. Skanska USA Civil does everything at ground level and below, such as light rail, water treatment facilities, power plants or power industry facilities, highways, and bridges. Skanska Infrastructure Development develops public-private partnerships—projects in which Skanska adds equity and also arranges for outside financing. Skanska Commercial Development acts like a commercial real estate developer, acquiring land and building offices on spec or build-to-suit for its clients. Skanska's international portfolio includes construction of the new Meadowlands Stadium. Getting the various units to operate collaboratatively helps Skanska deliver high value to clients and shareholders. “When we have this collaboration among units, it allows us to enrich each of the business units and, at the same time, develop our future leaders to be more facile in operating across business units—more accepting of a ‘one Skanska’ approach,” explains Crane. Workforce Worldwide But HR needs processes and tools to support managers who face such business dynamics. Oracle Talent Management Cloud is helping Skanska implement world-class recruiting strategies and generate the insights needed to drive quality hiring practices, internal mobility, and a proactive approach to building talent pipelines. With their new cloud system in place, Skanska HR leaders can manage everything from recruiting, compensation, and goal and performance management to employee learning and talent review—all as part of a single, cohesive software-as-a-service (SaaS) environment. Skanska has successfully implemented two modules from Oracle Talent Management Cloud—the recruiting and performance management modules—and is in the process of implementing the learn module. Internally, they call the systems Skanska Recruit, Skanska Talent, and Skanska Learn. The timing is apropos. With high rates of unemployment in recent years, there have been many job candidates on the market. However, talent scarcity continues to frustrate recruiters. Oracle Taleo Recruiting Cloud Service, one of the applications in the Oracle Talent Management cloud portfolio, enables Skanska managers to create more-intelligent recruiting strategies, pulling high-performer profile statistics to create new candidate profiles and using multitiered screening and assessments to ensure that only the best-suited candidate applications make it to the recruiter’s desk. Tools such as applicant tracking, interview management, and requisition management help recruiters and hiring managers streamline the hiring process. Oracle’s cloud-based software system automates and streamlines many other HR processes for Skanska’s multinational organization and delivers insight into the success of recruiting and talent-management efforts. “The Oracle system is definitely helping us to construct global HR processes,” adds Bjork. “It is really important that we have a business model that is decentralized, so we can effectively serve our local markets, and interact with our global ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems as well. We would not be able to do this without a really good, well-integrated HCM system that could support these efforts.” A key piece of this effort is something Skanska has developed internally called the Skanska Leadership Profile. Core competencies, on which all employees are measured, are used in performance reviews to determine weak areas but also to discover talent, such as those who will be promoted or need succession plans. This global profiling system brings consistency to the way HR professionals evaluate and review talent across the company, with a consistent set of ratings and a consistent definition of competencies. All salaried employees in Skanska are tied to a talent management process that gives opportunity for midyear and year-end reviews. Using the performance management module, managers can align individual goals with corporate goals; provide clear visibility into how each employee contributes to the success of the organization; and drive a strategic, end-to-end talent management strategy with a single, integrated system for all talent-related activities. This is critical to a company that is highly focused on ensuring that every employee has a development plan linked to his or her succession potential. “Our approach all along has been to deploy software applications that are seamless to end users,” says Crane. “The beauty of a cloud-based system is that much of the functionality takes place behind the scenes so we can focus on making sure users can access the data when they need it. This model greatly improves their efficiency.” The employee profile not only sets a competency baseline for new employees but is also integrated with Skanska’s other back-office Oracle systems to ensure consistency in the way information is used to support other business functions. “Since we have about a dozen different HR systems that are providing us with information, we built a master database that collects all the information,” explains Lindholm. “That data is sent not only to Oracle Talent Management Cloud, but also to other systems that are dependent on this information.” Collaboration to Scale Skanska is poised to launch a new Oracle module to link employee learning plans to the review process and recruitment assessments. According to Crane, connecting these processes allows Skanska managers to see employees’ progress and produce an updated learning program. For example, as employees take classes, supervisors can consult the Oracle Talent Management Cloud portal to monitor progress and align it to each individual’s training and development plan. “That’s a pretty compelling solution for an organization that wants to manage its talent on a real-time basis and see how the training is working,” Crane says. Rolling out Oracle Talent Management Cloud was a joint effort among HR, IT, and a global group that oversaw the worldwide implementation. Skanska deployed the solution quickly across all markets at once. In the United States, for example, more than 35 offices quickly got up to speed on the new system via webinars for employees and face-to-face training for the HR group. “With any migration, there are moments when you hold your breath, but in this case, we had very few problems getting the system up and running,” says Crane. Lindholm adds, “There has been very little resistance to the system as users recognize its potential. Customizations are easy, and a lasting partnership has developed between Skanska and Oracle when help is needed. They listen to us.” Bjork elaborates on the implementation process from an IT perspective. “Deploying a SaaS system removes a lot of the complexity,” he says. “You can downsize the IT part and focus on the business part, which increases the probability of a successful implementation. If you want to scale the system, you make a quick phone call. That’s all it took recently when we added 4,000 users. We didn’t have to think about resizing the servers or hiring more IT people. Oracle does that for us, and they have provided very good support.” As a result, Skanska has been able to implement a single, cost-effective talent management solution across the organization to support its strategy to recruit and develop a world-class staff. Stakeholders are confident that they are providing the most efficient recruitment system possible for competent personnel at all levels within the company—from skilled workers at construction sites to top management at headquarters. And Skanska can retain skilled employees and ensure that they receive the development opportunities they need to grow and advance.

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  • Capitalizing on JavaScript's prototypal inheritance

    - by keithjgrant
    JavaScript has a class-free object system in which objects inherit properties directly from other objects. This is really powerful, but it is unfamiliar to classically trained programmers. If you attempt to apply classical design patterns directly to JavaScript, you will be frustrated. But if you learn to work with JavaScript's prototypal nature, your efforts will be rewarded. ... It is Lisp in C's clothing. -Douglas Crockford What does this mean for a game developer working with canvas and HTML5? I've been looking over this question on useful design patterns in gaming, but prototypal inheritance is very different than classical inheritance, and there are surely differences in the best way to apply some of these common patterns. For example, classical inheritance allows us to create a moveableEntity class, and extend that with any classes that move in our game world (player, monster, bullet, etc.). Sure, you can strongarm JavaScript to work that way, but in doing so, you are kind of fighting against its nature. Is there a better approach to this sort of problem when we have prototypal inheritance at our fingertips?

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  • Gemalto Mobile Payment Platform on Oracle T4

    - by user938730
    Gemalto is the world leader in digital security, at the heart of our rapidly evolving digital society. Billions of people worldwide increasingly want the freedom to communicate, travel, shop, bank, entertain and work – anytime, everywhere – in ways that are convenient, enjoyable and secure. Gemalto delivers on their expanding needs for personal mobile services, payment security, identity protection, authenticated online services, cloud computing access, eHealthcare and eGovernment services, modern transportation solutions, and M2M communication. Gemalto’s solutions for Mobile Financial Services are deployed at over 70 customers worldwide, transforming the way people shop, pay and manage personal finance. In developing markets, Gemalto Mobile Money solutions are helping to remove the barriers to financial access for the unbanked and under-served, by turning any mobile device into a payment and banking instrument. In recent benchmarks by our Oracle ISVe Labs, the Gemalto Mobile Payment Platform demonstrated outstanding performance and scalability using the new T4-based Oracle Sun machines running Solaris 11. Using a clustered environment on a mid-range 2x2.85GHz T4-2 Server (16 cores total, 128GB memory) for the application tier, and an additional dedicated Intel-based (2x3.2GHz Intel-Xeon X4200) Oracle database server, the platform processed more than 1,000 transactions per second, limited only by database capacity --higher performance was easily achievable with a stronger database server. Near linear scalability was observed by increasing the number of application software components in the cluster. These results show an increase of nearly 300% in processing power and capacity on the new T4-based servers relative to the previous generation of Oracle Sun CMT servers, and for a comparable price. In the fast-evolving Mobile Payment market, it is crucial that the underlying technology seamlessly supports Service Providers as the customer-base ramps up, use cases evolve and new services are launched. These benchmark results demonstrate that the Gemalto Mobile Payment Platform is designed to meet the needs of any deployment scale, whether targeting 5 or 100 million subscribers. Oracle Solaris 11 DTrace technology helped to pinpoint performance issues and tune the system accordingly to achieve optimal computation resources utilization.

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