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• Best practice for designing a risk-style board game

  - by jyanks

  I'm just trying to figure out how to set up the code for a game like risk... I would like it to be extensible, so that I can have multiple maps (ie- World, North America, Eurasia, Africa) so hardcoding in the map doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense I'm a bit confused on how/where items should be stored/accessed. Here are the objects I see the game theoretically using: -Countries/Territories -Cities (Can be contained within territories) -Capitols -Connections -Continents -Map -Troops At the moment, I feel like: -A map should have a list of continents and countries. The continents would be more of a 'logical' thing where the continents would just be lists of countries that are checked for bonuses at the start of turns -Countries should have a list of countries that they're connected to for the connections What I can't figure out is: Where do I store the troops? Do I have an object for every single troop or do I just store the number of troops on a country object as an integer? What about capitols and cities? Do those just have a reference to the country they reside in? Is there anything I'm not seeing here that's going to screw me over in the long run with the way that I'm thinking about things now? Any advice would be appreciated.

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• Collision detection code style

  - by Marian Ivanov

  Not only there are two useful broad-phase algorithms and a lot of useful narrowphase algorithms, there are also multiple code styles. Arrays vs. calling Make an array of broadphase checks, then filter them with narrowphase checks, then resolve them. function resolveCollisions(thingyStructure * a,thingyStructure * b,int index){ possibleCollisions = getPossibleCollisions(b,a->get(index)); for(i=0; i<possibleCollitionsNumber; i++){ if(narrowphase(possibleCollisions[i],a[index])) { collisions->push(possibleCollisions[i]); }; }; for(i=0; i<collitionsNumber; i++){ //CODE FOR RESOLUTION }; }; Make the broadphase call the narrowphase, and the narrowphase call the resolution function resolveCollisions(thingyStructure * a,thingyStructure * b,int index){ broadphase(b,a->get(index)); }; function broadphase(thingy * with, thingy * what){ while(blah){ //blahcode narrowphase(what,collidingThing); }; }; Events vs. in-the-loop Fire an event. This abstracts the check away, but it's trickier to make an equal interaction. a[index] -> collisionEvent(eventdata); //much later int collisionEvent(eventdata){ //resolution gets here } Resolve the collision inside the loop. This glues narrowphase and resolution into one layer. if(narrowphase(possibleCollisions[i],a[index])) { //CODE GOES HERE }; The questions are: Which of the first two is better, and how am I supposed to make a zero-sum Newtonian interaction under B1.

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• Set iPhone Style Location Based Alerts On Your Android Device With Google Now

  - by Gopinath

  Location based alerts of iPhone are very useful. You can set an alert to popup as soon as you reach a specific location like “Pickup milk and eggs” when I’m near a grocery store. This feature was missing in Android for a long time, but last week at Google I/O conference Google released an update to Google Now which supports location based alerts. To setup a location based alert 1. Launch Google Now 2. Type or say add reminder 3. By default it shows time based alert interface, switch it location based by touching Location icon 4. Set reminder text, choose a location and touch Set reminder 5. Your alert is set now and as soon as you are close by the specified location, you’ll see an alert on your device. This is a nice feature and I’m using it quite often for the past couple of days.  There are couple of things missing from the current version of Google Now location based alerts– recurring alerts and ability to set alerts on leaving a specific location. It is not possible to recur location based alerts. You will be alerted only once as soon as you reach the location and it is not possible to repeat the alert next time you visit the location. Lets say you want to be reminded to say hi to friend’s parents whenever you are travelling close by their home. It does not work. The second missing feature is something basic and some how Google did not incorporate in their first iteration. Lets say you are at office now and you want to set up alert to pickup flowers when you leave office. Sounds like a simple use case for location based alerts right? But there is no way to set this type of alerts. Google Now alerts you as soon as you reach a location, but not when you leave a location. Do you have an Android that supports Google Now? If so what are your thoughts on location based alerts?

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• After login I only get a terminal window

  - by Ambidex

  First of, let me tell you I'm a n00b at ubuntu. I have updated my Ubuntu mediacenter to a later version of ubuntu, currently at 12.04. I'm working through a lot of updates to get to the latest. But since my first update I got the new login screen (lightdm?) and my autologin wasen't working anymore. So I Googled how I could make lightdm autologin. I've managed this by making my /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf look as follows: [SeatDefaults] greeter-session=unity-greeter user-session=ubuntu autologin-user=my_user autologin-userutologin-user=-timeout=0 Which seemed to work... But now that it automatically logs in, I seem to get the following type of screen (through nomachine remote desktop client): Sorry... I am unable to post my screenshot here because I do not have the 10 reputation points in askubuntu yet.... darn it... But the screen has a terminal at the top left of the screen (not an actual "window"), and the ubuntu loading screen is still behind it. I've tried running startx as you can see. But, this seems to actually be x server. But if I run unity --reset, it seems that a lot of the desktop gets restored, but... with a lot of errors and warnings and the next time I boot, it's the same story all over again. Also, when I close the terminal window after getting my desktop back, I get thrown back at the login screen. Please bear with my lack of knowledge of ubuntu and it's underlying unix. I thank you in advance.

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• Does anyone prefer proportional fonts?

  - by Jason Baker

  I was reading the wikipedia article on programming style and noticed something in an argument against vertically aligned code: Reliance on mono-spaced font; tabular formatting assumes that the editor uses a fixed-width font. Most modern code editors support proportional fonts, and the programmer may prefer to use a proportional font for readability. To be honest, I don't think I've ever met a programmer who preferred a proportional font. Nor can I think of any really good reasons for using them. Why would someone prefer a proportional font?

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• Minecraft style XNA game collision?

  - by Levi

  I've been trying to get this working for ages now, I can detect if there's a solid block at any place on the map and I can check how far something is inside of it, but I don't understand how to fix the collision. I've tried loads of ways and all of them end up by the player getting stuck, glitching around, incorrect responses and I really have no idea how to go about this :/. int Chnk = Utility.GetChunkFromPosition(origin); if (Chnk == -1) return; Vector3 Pos = Utility.GetCubeVectorFromPosition(origin); if (GlobalWorld.LoadedChunks[Chnk].Blocks[(byte)Pos.X, (byte)Pos.Y, (byte)Pos.Z] != 0) { isInIllegalState = true; if (velocity.Y < 0f) velocity.Y = 0f; } while (isInIllegalState) { if (GlobalWorld.LoadedChunks[Chnk].Blocks[(byte)Pos.X, (byte)origin.Y, (byte)Pos.Z] != 0) origin.Y = (int)(origin.Y + 1); else isInIllegalState = false; } if (origin.Y < Chunk.YSize - 2 && GlobalWorld.LoadedChunks[Chnk].Blocks[(byte)Pos.X, (byte)(origin.Y + playerHeight.Y), (byte)Pos.Z] != 0) { velocity.Y = 0f; //Acceleration.Y = 0f; origin.Y = (int)origin.Y;// -0.5f; } for (int x = -1; x <= 1; x+=2) { for (int z = -1; z <= 1; z += 2) { Vector3 CornerPosition = new Vector3(boundingSize * x, 0, boundingSize * z); bool CorrectX = false; bool CorrectZ = false; Vector3 RoundedOrigin = Utility.RoundVector(origin); Vector3 RoundedCorner = Utility.RoundVector(origin + CornerPosition); byte BlockAdjacent = Utility.GetCubeFromPosition(origin + CornerPosition); if (BlockAdjacent == 0) continue; if (RoundedCorner.X != RoundedOrigin.X && RoundedCorner.Z != RoundedOrigin.Z) { CorrectX = true; CorrectZ = true; } if (RoundedCorner.Z != RoundedOrigin.Z && RoundedCorner.X == RoundedOrigin.X) CorrectZ = true; if (RoundedCorner.X != RoundedOrigin.X && RoundedCorner.Z == RoundedOrigin.Z) CorrectX = true; if (CorrectX && CornerPosition.X > 0) { if (origin.X > 0f) origin.X = (int)(origin.X + 1) - boundingSize; else origin.X = (int)origin.X - boundingSize; } else if (CorrectX && CornerPosition.X < 0) { if (origin.X > 0f) origin.X = (int)(origin.X) + boundingSize; else origin.X = (int)(origin.X - 1) + boundingSize; } if (CorrectZ && CornerPosition.Z > 0) { if (origin.Z > 0f) origin.Z = (int)(origin.Z + 1) - boundingSize; else origin.Z = (int)origin.Z - boundingSize; } else if (CorrectZ && CornerPosition.Z < 0) { if (origin.Z > 0f) origin.Z = (int)(origin.Z) + boundingSize; else origin.Z = (int)(origin.Z - 1) + boundingSize; } } }

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• OOP private method parameters coding style

  - by Jake

  After coding for many years as a solo programmer, I have come to feel that most of the time there are many benefits to write private member functions with all of the used member variables included in the parameter list, especially development stage. This allow me to check at one look what member variables are used and also allow me to supply other values for tests and debugging. Also, a change in code by removing a particular member variable can break many functions. In this case however, the private function remains isolated am I can still call it using other values without fixing the function. Is this a bad idea afterall, especially in a team environment? Is it like redundant or confusing, or are there better ways?

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• Generating grammatically correct MUD-style attack descriptions

  - by Extrakun

  I am currently working on a text based game, where the outcome of a combat round goes something like this %attacker% inflicts a serious wound (12 points damage) on %defender% Right now, I just swap %attacker% with the name of the attacker, and %defender% for the name of the defender. However, the description works, but don't read correctly. Since the game is just all text, I don't want to resort to generic descriptions (Such as "You use Attack on Goblin for 5 damage", which arguably solve the problem) How do I generate correct descriptions for cases where %attacker% refers to "You", the player? "You inflicts..." is wrong "Bees", or other plural? I need somehow to know I should prefix the name with a "The " If %attacker% is a generic noun, such as "Goblin", it will read weird as opposed to %attacker% being a name. Compare "Goblin inflicts..." vs. "Aldraic Swordbringer inflicts...." How does text-based games usually resolve such issues?

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• Looking for a small, light scene graph style abstraction lib for shader based OpenGL

  - by Pris

  I'm looking for a 'lean and mean' c/c++ scene graph library for OpenGL that doesn't use any deprecated functionality. It should be cross platform (strictly speaking I just dev on Linux so no love lost if it doesn't work on Windows), and it should be possible to deploy to mobile targets (ie OpenGLES2, and no crazy mandatory dependencies that wouldn't port well to modern mobile frameworks like iOS, Android, etc), with a license that's compatible with closed source software (LGPL or more liberal). Specific nice-to-haves would be: Cameras and Viewers (trackball, fly-by, etc) Object transform hierarchies (if B is a child of A, and you move A, B has the same transform applied to it) Simple animation Scene optimization (frustum culling, use VBOs, minimize state changes, etc) Text I've played around with OpenSceneGraph a lot and it's pretty amazing for fixed function pipeline stuff, but I've had a few of problems using it with the programmable pipeline and after going through their mailing list, it seems several people have had similar issues (going back years). Kitware's VES looks neat (http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/VES), but VES + VTK is pretty heavy. VTK is also typically for analyzing scientific data and I've read that it's not that appropriate for a general use case (not that great at rendering a lot of objects on scene,etc) I'm currently looking at VisualizationLibrary (http://www.visualizationlibrary.org/documentation/pag_gallery.html) which looks like it offers some of the functionality I'd like, but it doesn't explicitly support mobile targets. Other solutions like Ogre, Horde3D, Irrlicht, etc tend to be full on game engines and that's not really what I'm looking for. I'd like some suggestions for other libraries that I may have missed... please note I'm not willing to roll my own solution from scratch.

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• ways to program glitch style effects

  - by okkk

  Most tutorials for generating glitch art usually has to do with some form of manipulation of the compression of files. Should my goal instead to replicate the look of these glitches in shaders or is it somehow possible to authentically generate the compression artifacts in real time? Example: This effect which I'm particularly interested is referred to as datamoshing. It does "things" using the p-frames of a video (frames that I think store just the change in pixels). I feel like I need a better understanding of both graphics programming and data-compression.

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• Handling window resize with arbitrary aspect ratios

  - by DormoTheNord

  I'm currently making a 2D game using SFML. I want the aspect ratio to be maintained when the user resizes the window. I also want the game to work with any arbitrary aspect ratio (like any media player would). Here is the code I have so far: void os::GameEngine::setCameraViewport() { sf::FloatRect tempViewport; float viewAspectRatio = (float)aspectRatio.x / aspectRatio.y; float screenAspectRatio = (float)gameWindow.getSize().x / gameWindow.getSize().y; if (viewAspectRatio > screenAspectRatio) { // Viewport is wider than screen, fit on X } else if (viewAspectRatio < screenAspectRatio) { // Screen is wider than viewport, fit on Y } else // window aspect ratio matches view aspect ratio { tempViewport.height = 1; tempViewport.width = 1; tempViewport.left = 0; tempViewport.top = 0; } viewport = tempViewport; camera.setViewport(viewport); gameWindow.setView(camera); } The problem is I'm having trouble with the logic to determine the properties of the viewport.

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• Is SVN out of style?

  - by jitbit

  It's been only several years since I migrated from Visual Source Safe to SVN. And SVN for me is still kinda "WOW! I can do so many things! SVN is so cool!" But many people around me keep saying "SVN? Really? Meh..." And there's so many of them that I'm worried. Should I move my team to Git / Mercurial or some other fancy thing? I know I sound ridiculous and the obvious answer would be "stay with what works for YOU". SVN does work for me... But every time I create a new project in my repository I keep asking myself - may be this was the time to move? So... Is SVN really that bad? Do I miss a huge opportunity by sticking with it?

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• Force Your Mac to Sort Folders on Top of Files (Windows Style)

  - by Eric Z Goodnight

  Even die-hard Mac converts have their issues with Mac OS, and one of those problems is that OS X lists folders mixed in with all other files. Here’s how to fix that in under five minutes with a clever hack. You know you’ve had that issue. You’ve dug through your files looking for that one elusive folder, and because it’s jumbled in with all the other stuff, it’s more or less impossible to find. Have no fear, with no downloads or silly plug-in software, you can finally make Mac OS behave like Windows and Linux and list those folders in the proper order.  How To Encrypt Your Cloud-Based Drive with BoxcryptorHTG Explains: Photography with Film-Based CamerasHow to Clean Your Dirty Smartphone (Without Breaking Something)

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• 24 Hours of PASS next week, pre-con preview style

  - by drsql

  I will be doing my Characteristics of a Great Relational Database , which is a session that I haven’t done since last PASS. When I was asked about doing this Summit Preview version of 24 hours of PASS, I decided that I would do this session, largely because it is kind of light and fun, but also because it is either going to be the basis of the end section of my pre-con at the summit or it is going to be the section of the pre-con we don’t get to because we are so involved in working out designs that...(read more)

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• Traffic Online - SEO Style

  About traffic online as it pertains to simple and basic concepts to drive traffic online to you through content. This is a generic look at getting more targeted online traffic, and what people can do now in order to get this targeted audience today.

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• Trouble with SAT style vector projection in C#/XNA

  - by ssb

  Simply put I'm having a hard time working out how to work with XNA's Vector2 types while maintaining spatial considerations. I'm working with separating axis theorem and trying to project vectors onto an arbitrary axis to check if those projections overlap, but the severe lack of XNA-specific help online combined with pseudo code everywhere that omits key parts of the algorithm, googling has left me little help. I'm aware of HOW to project a vector, but the way that I know of doing it involves the two vectors starting from the same point. Particularly here: http://www.metanetsoftware.com/technique/tutorialA.html So let's say I have a simple rectangle, and I store each of its corners in a list of Vector2s. How would I go about projecting that onto an arbitrary axis? The crux of my problem is that taking the dot product of say, a vector2 of (1, 0) and a vector2 of (50, 50) won't get me the dot product I'm looking for.. or will it? Because that (50, 50) won't be the vector of the polygon's vertex but from whatever XNA calculates. It's getting the calculation from the right starting point that's throwing me off. I'm sorry if this is unclear, but my brain is fried from trying to think about this. I need a better understanding of how XNA calculates Vector2s as actual vectors and not just as random points.

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• Navigation in Win8 Metro Style applications

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  In Windows 8, Touch is, as they say, a first class citizen. Now, to be honest: they also said that in Windows 7. However in Win8 this is actually true. Applications are meant to be used by touch. Yes, you can still use mouse, keyboard and pen and your apps should take that into account but touch is where you should focus on initially. Will all users have touch enabled devices? No, not in the first place. I don’t think touchscreens will be on every device sold next year. But in 5 years? Who knows? Don’t forget: if your app is successful it will be around for a long time and by that time touchscreens will be everywhere. Another reason to embrace touch is that it’s easier to develop a touch-oriented app and then to make sure that keyboard, nouse and pen work as doing it the other way around. Porting a mouse-based application to a touch based application almost never works. The reverse gives you much more chances for success. That being said, there are some things that you need to think about. Most people have more than one finger, while most users only use one mouse at the time. Still, most touch-developers translate their mouse-knowledge to the touch and think they did a good job. Martin Tirion from Microsoft said that since Touch is a new language people face the same challenges they do when learning a new real spoken language. The first thing people try when learning a new language is simply replace the words in their native language to the newly learned words. At first they don’t care about grammar. To a native speaker of that other language this sounds all wrong but they still will be able to understand what the intention was. If you don’t believe me: try Google translate to translate something for you from your language to another and then back and see what happens. The same thing happens with Touch. Most developers translate a mouse-click into a tap-event and think they’re done. Well matey, you’re not done. Not by far. There are things you can do with a mouse that you cannot do with touch. Think hover. A mouse has the ability to ‘slide’ over UI elements. Touch doesn’t (I know: with Pen you can do this but I’m talking about actual fingers here). A touch is either there or it isn’t. And right-click? Forget about it. A click is a click.  Yes, you have more than one finger but the machine doesn’t know which finger you use… The other way around is also true. Like I said: most users only have one mouse but they are likely to have more than one finger. So how do we take that into account? Thinking about this is really worth the time: you might come up with some surprisingly good ideas! Still: don’t forget that not every user has touch-enabled hardware so make sure your app is useable for both groups. Keep this in mind: we’re going to need it later on! Now. Apps should be easy to use. You don’t want your user to read through pages and pages of documentation before they can use the app. Imagine that spotter next to an airfield suddenly seeing a prototype of a Concorde 2 landing on the nearby runway. He probably wants to enter that information in our app NOW and not after he’s taken a 3 day course. Even if he still has to download the app, install it for the first time and then run it he should be on his way immediately. At least, fast enough to note down the details of that unique, rare and possibly exciting sighting he just did. So.. How do we do this? Well, I am not talking about games here. Games are in a league of their own. They fall outside the scope of the apps I am describing. But all the others can roughly be characterized as being one of two flavors: the navigation is either flat or hierarchical. That’s it. And if it’s hierarchical it’s no more than three levels deep. Not more. Your users will get lost otherwise and we don’t want that. Flat is simple. Just imagine we have one screen that is as high as our physical screen is and as wide as you need it to be. Don’t worry if it doesn’t fit on the screen: people can scroll to the right and left. Don’t combine up/down and left/right scrolling: it’s confusing. Next to that, since most users will hold their device in landscape mode it’s very natural to scroll horizontal. So let’s use that when we have a flat model. The same applies to the hierarchical model. Try to have at most three levels. If you need more space, find a way to group the items in such a way that you can fit it in three, very wide lanes. At the highest level we have the so called hub level. This is the entry point of the app and as such it should give the user an immediate feeling of what the app is all about. If your app has categories if items then you might show these categories here. And while you’re at it: also show 2 or 3 of the items itself here to give the user a taste of what lies beneath. If the user selects a category you go to the section part. Here you show several sections (again, go as wide as you need) with again some detail examples. After that: the details layer shows each item. By giving some samples of the underlaying layer you achieve several things: you make the layer attractive by showing several different things, you show some highlights so the user sees actual content and you provide a shortcut to the layers underneath. The image below is borrowed from the http://design.windows.com website which has tons and tons of examples: For our app we’ll use this layout. So what will we show? Well, let’s see what sorts of features our app has to offer. I’ll repeat them here: Note planes Add pictures of that plane Notify friends of new spots Share new spots on social media Write down arrival times Write down departure times Write down the runway they take I am sure you can think of some more items but for now we'll use these. In the hub we’ll show something that represents “Spots”, “Friends”, “Social”. Apparently we have an inner list of spotter-friends that are in the app, while we also have to whole world in social. In the layer below we show something else, depending on what the user choose. When they choose “Spots” we’ll display the last spots, last spots by our friends (so we can actually jump from this category to the one next to it) and so on. When they choose a “spot” (or press the + icon in the App bar, which I’ll talk about next time) they go to the lowest and final level that shows details about that spot, including a picture, date and time and the notes belonging to that entry. You’d be amazed at how easy it is to organize your app this way. If you don’t have enough room in these three layers you probably could easily get away with grouping items. Take a look at our hub: we have three completely different things in one place. If you still can’t fit it all in in a logical and consistent way, chances are you are trying to do too much in this app. Go back to your mission statement, determine if it is specific enough and if your feature list helps that statement or makes it unclear. Go ahead. Give it a go! Next time we’ll talk about the look and feel, the charms and the app-bar….

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• How to make the emacs not to pop up a window when using tab-completion?

  - by Jinx

  When I use the emacs shell mode or in gdb, when I type double tab, the emacs pop up a new window which always cover an existed window. While in terminal, when I type double tab, to complete a directory, the terminal just print all the candidates in the same window. Can I make the emacs not to pop up a new window when I use this feature? edit this is I wanna do , but it's wrong, can somebody fix this? ;remove annoying poped-up windows (defun rm-popup-window () (other-window) (kill-this-buffer) (other-window) ) (global-set-key [C-'] 'rm-popup-window);

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• University teaches DOS-style C++, how to deal with it

  - by gaidal

  Half a year ago I had a look at available programming educations. I chose this one because unlike most of the choices: The majority of the courses seemed to be about something concrete and useful; the languages used are C++ and Java which are platform-independent; later courses include developing for mobile devices and a course on Android development, which seemed modern and relevant. Now after two introductory courses we're just starting with C++, and my programming professor seems a bit weird. He's tested us on things like "why should you use constants" and "why are globals bad" in a kind of mechanical way, without much context, before teaching actual programming. His handouts use system("pause"), system("cls"), and getch() from some conio.h that seems ancient according to what I've read. I just did a task that was about printing the "ASCII letters from 32 to 255" (huh?), with an example picture showing a table with Windows' Extended ASCII - of course I got other results for 128-255 on my Arch Linux that uses Unicode, and this isn't mentioned at all. I don't know, it just doesn't seem right... As if he is teaching programming because he has to, perhaps? Should I bring such things up? Hmm. I was looking forward to learning from someone who really knows stuff, and in an academic, rigorous way, like SICP or something. Aren't professors in programming supposed to be like that? I studied math for a while and every teacher and assistant there were really precise about what they said, but this is my second programming teacher that is sort of disappointing. Oh well. Now, question: Is this what to expect from universities or Not OK, and how do I deal with it? I have never touched the language C++ (or C) until now, and am not the right person to jump up and say "This is So Wrong!", so if I google something and find 10 people who say "xxx is blasphemy", how do I skillfully communicate this? I do think it would be better for those classmates who are total beginners not to learn bad habits (such as these vibes of total ignorance of other platforms!) during the upcoming courses, but don't want to disrespect the teacher. I don't know if it's reasonable or just cocky to bring up things like "what about other platforms?" or "but what about this article or stackoverflow answer that I read that said..." for every assignment? Or, if he keeps ignoring non-Windows-programming, should I give up and focus on my own projects or somehow argue that this really isn't OK nowadays? Are there any programming teachers out there, what do you think? By the way these are web-based courses, all interaction between teachers and students takes place in a forum. EDIT: A few answers seem to be making some incorrect assumptions, so maybe I should add a few things. I have been doing programming for fun on and off for 10 years, am pretty comfortable in 3 languages and read programming blogs et c regularly. Also, I feel kind of done being a student, having a degree in another field. I just need another, relevant diploma to work as a programmer, so I'm going back for that. Studying computer science for 5 years is not for me anymore, even though I enjoy learning and solving problems in my free time. Second, let me highlight that I don't expect it to be like the industry at all, quite the contrary. I expect it to be academic, dry and unnecessarily correct. No, it's not just math. Every professor I have had in math, or Japanese (major) or Chinese (minor) have been very very academic, discussing subtle points for hours with passion. But the courses I'm taking now and a previous one in programming don't seem serious. They neither resemble industry NOR academia. That is the problem. And it's not because I can't learn programming anyway. Third, I don't necessarily want to learn C++ or Android development, and I know I could teach myself those and anything else if I wanted to. But I am going back to school anyway, and those platform-independent languages and mobile stuff made me think that maybe they're serious about teaching something relevant here. Seems like I got this wrong, but we'll see.

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• Python lower_case_with_underscores style convention: underscores not popular?

  - by squirrel

  PEP8 recommends using lowercase, with words separated by underscores as necessary to improve readability for variable and function names. I've seen this interpreted as lower_case_with_underscores by most people, although in practice and in Python's native methods it seems like lowercasewithoutunderscores is more popular. It seems like following PEP8 strictly would be awkward since it seems to suggest mixing both lower_case_with_underscores and lowercasewithoutunderscores, which would be inconsistent. What is your interpretation of PEP8's variable names, and what do you actually use in practice? (Personally, I like lowerCamelCase as a compromise between readability and ease of typing.)

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• Should I sacrifice code succintness to ensure the narrowest variable scope? [duplicate]

  - by David Scholefield

  This question already has an answer here: Is the usage of internal scope blocks within a function bad style? 3 answers In many languages (e.g. both Perl and Java - which are the two languages I work most with) it is possible to narrow the scope of local variables by declaring them within a block. Although it adds extra code length (the opening and closing block braces), and possibly reduces readability, should I create blocks purely to narrow the scope of variables to the statements that use the variables and to uphold the principle of narrowest scope or does this sacrifice succinctness and readability just to unnecessarily uphold an agreed 'best practice' principle? I usually declare local variables to functions/methods at the start of the function to aid readability, but I could not do this, and just create blocks throughout the function and declare the variables throughout the code - within those blocks - to narrow their scope.

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• One codebase - lots of hosted services (similar to a basecamp style service) - planning structure

  - by RickM

  We have built a service (PHP Based) for a client, and are now looking to offer it to other clients as a hosted service. For this example, think of it like a hosted forum service, where a client signs up on our site, and is given a subdomain or can use their own domain, and the code picks up the domain, checks it against a 'master' users table, and then loads the content as needed. I'm trying to work out the best way of handling multiple clients. At the moment I can only think of two options that would work: Option 1 - Have 1 set of database tables, but on each table have a column called 'siteid' - this would mean every query has to check the siteid. This would effectively work with just 1 codebase, and 1 database. Option 2 - Have 1 'master' database with all the core stuff such as the client details and their domain. Then when the systen checks the domain, it pulls the clients database details (username/password/dbname) from a table, and loads a second database. The issue here is security of the mysql server details, however it does have the benefit that they are running their own database instead of sharing one. Which option would I be better taking here, and why? Ideally I want it to be fairly easy to convert the 'standalone' script to the 'multi-domain' script as we're on a tight deadline.

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• HTML5 game programming style

  - by fnx

  I am currently trying learn javascript in form of HTML5 games. Stuff that I've done so far isn't too fancy since I'm still a beginner. My biggest concern so far has been that I don't really know what is the best way to code since I don't know the pros and cons of different methods, nor I've found any good explanations about them. So far I've been using the worst (and propably easiest) method of all (I think) since I'm just starting out, for example like this: var canvas = document.getElementById("canvas"); var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d"); var width = 640; var height = 480; var player = new Player("pic.png", 100, 100, ...); also some other global vars... function Player(imgSrc, x, y, ...) { this.sprite = new Image(); this.sprite.src = imgSrc; this.x = x; this.y = y; ... } Player.prototype.update = function() { // blah blah... } Player.prototype.draw = function() { // yada yada... } function GameLoop() { player.update(); player.draw(); setTimeout(GameLoop, 1000/60); } However, I've seen a few examples on the internet that look interesting, but I don't know how to properly code in these styles, nor do I know if there are names for them. These might not be the best examples but hopefully you'll get the point: 1: Game = { variables: { width: 640, height: 480, stuff: value }, init: function(args) { // some stuff here }, update: function(args) { // some stuff here }, draw: function(args) { // some stuff here }, }; // from http://codeincomplete.com/posts/2011/5/14/javascript_pong/ 2: function Game() { this.Initialize = function () { } this.LoadContent = function () { this.GameLoop = setInterval(this.RunGameLoop, this.DrawInterval); } this.RunGameLoop = function (game) { this.Update(); this.Draw(); } this.Update = function () { // update } this.Draw = function () { // draw game frame } } // from http://www.felinesoft.com/blog/index.php/2010/09/accelerated-game-programming-with-html5-and-canvas/ 3: var engine = {}; engine.canvas = document.getElementById('canvas'); engine.ctx = engine.canvas.getContext('2d'); engine.map = {}; engine.map.draw = function() { // draw map } engine.player = {}; engine.player.draw = function() { // draw player } // from http://that-guy.net/articles/ So I guess my questions are: Which is most CPU efficient, is there any difference between these styles at runtime? Which one allows for easy expandability? Which one is the most safe, or at least harder to hack? Are there any good websites where stuff like this is explained? or... Does it all come to just personal preferance? :)

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• Small Business Desktop Meets Style and Substance

  Lenovo&#146;s ThinkCentre A70z wraps solid performance and a 19-inch flat panel into a sleek, all-in-one package that any business owner can love.

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• The sign of a true manager is delegation (C# style)

  - by MarkPearl

  Today I thought I would write a bit about delegates in C#. Up till recently I have managed to side step any real understanding of what delegates do and why they are useful – I mean, I know roughly what they do and have used them a lot, but I have never really got down dirty with them and mucked about. Recently however with my renewed interest in Silverlight delegates came up again as a possible solution to a particular problem, and suddenly I found myself opening a bland little console application to just see exactly how far I could take delegates with my limited knowledge. So, let’s first look at the MSDN definition of delegates… A delegate declaration defines a reference type that can be used to encapsulate a method with a specific signature. A delegate instance encapsulates a static or an instance method. Delegates are roughly similar to function pointers in C++; however, delegates are type-safe and secure. Well, don’t you love MSDN for such a useful definition. I must give it credit though… later on it really explains it a bit better by saying “A delegate lets you pass a function as a parameter. The type safety of delegates requires the function you pass as a delegate to have the same signature as the delegate declaration.” A little more reading up on delegates mentions that delegates are similar to interfaces in that they enable the separation of specification and implementation. A delegate declares a single method, while an interface declares a group of methods. So enough reading - lets look at some code and see a basic example of a delegate… Let’s assume we have a console application with a simple delegate declared called AdjustValue like below… class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(int val); static void Main(string[] args) { } } In a sense, all we have said is that we will be creating one or more methods that follow the same pattern as AdjustValue – i.e. they will take one input value of type int and return an integer. We could then expand our code to have various methods that match the structure of our delegate AdjustValue (remember the structure is int xxx (int xxx)) class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(int val); private static int Dbl(int val) { return val * 2; } private static int AlwaysOne(int val) { return 1; } static void Main(string[] args) { } }  Above I have expanded my project to have two methods, one called Dbl and the other AlwaysOne. Dbl always returns double the input val and AlwaysOne always returns 1. I could now declare a variable and assign it to be one of those functions, like the following… class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(int val); private static int Dbl(int val) { return val * 2; } private static int AlwaysOne(int val) { return 1; } static void Main(string[] args) { AdjustValue myDelegate; myDelegate = Dbl; Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(1).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); } } In this instance I have declared an instance of the AdjustValue delegate called myDelegate; I have then told myDelegate to point to the method Dbl, and then called myDelegate(1). What would the result be? Yes, in this instance it would be exactly the same as me calling the following code… static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine(Dbl(1).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); }   So why all the extra work for delegates when we could just do what we did above and call the method directly? Well… that separation of specification to implementation comes to mind. So, this all seems pretty simple. Let’s take a slightly more complicated variation to the console application. Assume that my project is the same as the one previously except that my main method is adjusted as follows… static void Main(string[] args) { AdjustValue myDelegate; myDelegate = Dbl; myDelegate = AlwaysOne; Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(1).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); } What would happen in this scenario? Quite simply “1” would be written to the console, the reason being that myDelegate was last pointing to the AlwaysOne method before it was called. Make sense? In a way, the myDelegate is a variable method that can be swapped and changed when needed. Let’s make the code a little more confusing by using a delegate in the declaration of another delegate as shown below… class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(InputValue val); private delegate int InputValue(); private static int Dbl(InputValue val) { return val()*2; } private static int GetInputVal() { Console.WriteLine("Enter a whole number : "); return Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine()); } static void Main(string[] args) { AdjustValue myDelegate; myDelegate = Dbl; Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(GetInputVal).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); } }   Now it gets really interesting because it looks like we have passed a method into a function in the main method by declaring… Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(GetInputVal).ToString()); So, what it the output? Well, try take a guess on what will happen – then copy the code and see if you got it right. Well that brings me to the end of this short explanation of Delegates. Hopefully it made sense!

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