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  • In a 2D platform game, how to ensure the player moves smoothly over sloping ground?

    - by Kovsa
    See image: http://i41.tinypic.com/huis13.jpg I'm developing a physics engine for a 2D platform game. I'm using the separating axis theorem for collision detection. The ground surface is constructed from oriented bounding boxes, with the player as an axis aligned bounding box. (Specifically, I'm using the algorithm from the book "Realtime Collision Detection" which performs swept collision detection for OBBs using SAT). I'm using a fairly small (close to zero) restitution coefficient in the collision response, to ensure that the dynamic objects don't penetrate the environment. The engine mostly works fine, it's just that I'm concerned about some edge cases that could possibly occur. For example, in the diagram, A, B and C are the ground surface. The player is heading left along B towards A. It seems to me that due to inaccuracy, the player box could be slightly below the box B as it continues up and left. When it reaches A, therefore, the bottom left corner of the player might then collide with the right side of A, which would be undesirable (as the intention is for the player to move smoothly over the top of A). It seems like a similar problem could happen when the player is on top of box C, moving left towards B - the most extreme point of B could collide with the left side of the player, instead of the player's bottom left corner sliding up and left above B. Box2D seems to handle this problem by storing connectivity information for its edge shapes, but I'm not really sure how it uses this information to solve the problem, and after looking at the code I don't really grasp what it's doing. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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  • How to handle multiple effect files in XNA

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

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  • What causes player box/world geometry glitches in old games?

    - by Alexander
    I'm looking to understand and find the terminology for what causes - or allows - players to interfere with geometry in old games. Famously, ID's Quake3 gave birth to a whole community of people breaking the physics by jumping, sliding, getting stuck and launching themselves off points in geometry. Some months ago (though I'd be darned if I can find it again!) I saw a conference held by Bungie's Vic DeLeon and a colleague in which Vic briefly discussed the issues he ran into while attempting to wrap 'collision' objects (please correct my terminology) around environment objects so that players could appear as though they were walking on organic surfaces, while not clipping through them or appear to be walking on air at certain points, due to complexities in the modeling. My aim is to compose a case study essay for University in which I can tackle this issue in games, drawing on early exploits and how techniques have changed to address such exploits and to aid in the gameplay itself. I have 3 current day example of where exploits still exist, however specifically targeting ID Software clearly shows they've massively improved their techniques between Q3 and Q4. So in summary, with your help please, I'd like to gain a slightly better understanding of this issue as a whole (its terminology mainly) so I can use terms and ask the right questions within the right contexts. In practical application, I know what it is, I know how to do it, but I don't have the benefit of level design knowledge yet and its technical widgety knick-knack terms =) Many thanks in advance AJ

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  • Worker roles in Windows Azure to host a multiplayer server

    - by MrWiggels
    I've been doing research on where to host a simple multi-player backend for a simple game I'm developing. So as a first choice I downloaded the Windows Azure SDK, which provides a nice and simple emulator environment where you can test out your application before uploading. I also download the Azure Social Game Toolkit (Visit), and followed as far as my understanding can take me. So, down to the main question. Is there anybody with experience developing Azure applications. I'm developing a Action RPG game, in a similar vein to Diablo III. I was thinking of putting up Matchmaking, Friends Lists, etc. Is there another way to connect to Azure services via something like UDP or TCP for sending packets or does everything have to go through HTTP requests? Is it even possible to use HTTP request/response for something like this? All game commands will be simple. Because the game server and the clients will be kept in-sync and will have deterministic actions, I'm just going to send actions like "Use Primary Skill" and "Use Secondary Skill". Any hints, ideas, light bulbs or a smack-in-the-face presentation will be much appreciated.

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  • Scene graphs and spatial partitioning structures: What do you really need?

    - by tapirath
    I've been fiddling with 2D games for awhile and I'm trying to go into 3D game development. I thought I should get my basics right first. From what I read scene graphs hold your game objects/entities and their relation to each other like 'a tire' would be the child of 'a vehicle'. It's mainly used for frustum/occlusion culling and minimizing the collision checks between the objects. Spatial partitioning structures on the other hand are used to divide a big game object (like the map) to smaller parts so that you can gain performance by only drawing the relevant polygons and again minimizing the collision checks to those polygons only. Also a spatial partitioning data structure can be used as a node in a scene graph. But... I've been reading about both subjects and I've seen a lot of "scene graphs are useless" and "BSP performance gain is irrelevant with modern hardware" kind of articles. Also some of the game engines I've checked like gameplay3d and jmonkeyengine are only using a scene graph (That also may be because they don't want to limit the developers). Whereas games like Quake and Half-Life only use spatial partitioning. I'm aware that the usage of these structures very much depend on the type of the game you're developing so for the sake of clarity let's assume the game is a FPS like Counter-Strike with some better outdoor environment capabilities (like a terrain). The obvious question is which one is needed and why (considering the modern hardware capabilities). Thank you.

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  • OpenGL ES 2 on Android: native window

    - by ThreaderSlash
    According to OGLES specification, we have the following definition: EGLSurface eglCreateWindowSurface(EGLDisplay display, EGLConfig config, NativeWindowType native_window, EGLint const * attrib_list) More details, here: http://www.khronos.org/opengles/documentation/opengles1_0/html/eglCreateWindowSurface.html And also by definition: int32_t ANativeWindow_setBuffersGeometry(ANativeWindow* window, int32_t width, int32_t height, int32_t format); More details, here: http://mobilepearls.com/labs/native-android-api I am running Android Native App on OGLES 2 and debugging it in a Samsung Nexus device. For setting up the 3D scene graph environment, the following variables are defined: struct android_app { ... ANativeWindow* window; }; android_app* mApplication; ... mApplication=&pApplication; And to initialize the App, we run the commands in the code: ANativeWindow_setBuffersGeometry(mApplication->window, 0, 0, lFormat); mSurface = eglCreateWindowSurface(mDisplay, lConfig, mApplication->window, NULL); Funny to say is that, the command ANativeWindow_setBuffersGeometry behaves as expected and works fine according to its definition, accepting all the parameters sent to it. But the eglCreateWindowSurface does no accept the parameter mApplication-window, as it should accept according to its definition. Instead, it looks for the following input: EGLNativeWindowType hWnd; mSurface = eglCreateWindowSurface(mDisplay,lConfig,hWnd,NULL); As an alternative, I considered to use instead: NativeWindowType hWnd=android_createDisplaySurface(); But debugger says: Function 'android_createDisplaySurface' could not be resolved Is 'android_createDisplaySurface' compatible only for OGLES 1 and not for OGLES 2? Can someone tell if there is a way to convert mApplication-window? In a way that the data from the android_app get accepted to the window surface?

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  • Distributed Rendering in the UDK and Unity

    - by N0xus
    At the moment I'm looking at getting a game engine to run in a CAVE environment. So far, during my research I've seen a lot of people being able to get both Unity and the Unreal engine up and running in a CAVE (someone did get CryEngine to work in one, but there is little research data about it). As of yet, I have not cemented my final choice of engine for use in the next stage of my project. I've experience in both, so the learning curve will be gentle on both. And both of the engines offer stereoscopic rendering, either already inbuilt with ReadD (Unreal) or by doing it yourself (Unity). Both can also make use of other input devices as well, such as the kinect or other devices. So again, both engines are still on the table. For the last bit of my preliminary research, I was advised to see if either, or both engines could do distributed rendering. I was advised this, as the final game we make could go into a variety of differently sized CAVEs. The one I have access to is roughly 2.4m x 3m cubed, and have been duly informed that this one is a "baby" compared to others. So, finally onto my question: Can either the Unreal Engine, or Unity Engine make it possible for developers to allow distributed rendering? Either through in built devices, or by creating my own plugin / script?

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  • Best peer-to-peer game architecture

    - by Dejw
    Consider a setup where game clients: have quite small computing resources (mobile devices, smartphones) are all connected to a common router (LAN, hotspot etc) The users want to play a multiplayer game, without an external server. One solution is to host an authoritative server on one phone, which in this case would be also a client. Considering point 1 this solution is not acceptable, since the phone's computing resources are not sufficient. So, I want to design a peer-to-peer architecture that will distribute the game's simulation load among the clients. Because of point 2 the system needn't be complex with regards to optimization; the latency will be very low. Each client can be an authoritative source of data about himself and his immediate environment (for example bullets.) What would be the best approach to designing such an architecture? Are there any known examples of such a LAN-level peer-to-peer protocol? Notes: Some of the problems are addressed here, but the concepts listed there are too high-level for me. Security I know that not having one authoritative server is a security issue, but it is not relevant in this case as I'm willing to trust the clients. Edit: I forgot to mention: it will be a rather fast-paced game (a shooter). Also, I have already read about networking architectures at Gaffer on Games.

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  • Procedural content (settlement) generation

    - by instancedName
    I have, lets say, something like a homework or assignment to do. Roughly said I need to write an algorithm (pseudo code is not necessary, just in depth description) of procedure that would generate settlements, environment and a people to populate it with, as part of some larger world generation procedure. The genre of game is not specified, it could be any genre (rpg, strategy, colony simulation etc.) where interacting with large and extensive world is central to the game. Procedure should be called once per settlement. At the time of calling, world generation procedure makes geography, culture and history input available. Output should be map of the village and it's immediate area, and various potential additional information like myths, history, demographic facts etc. Bonus would be quest ant similar stuff, but that not really my focus at the moment. I will leave quality of the output for later when I actually dig little deeper into this topic. I am free to change parameters as long as I have strong explanation for doing so. Setting of the game is undetermined so I am free to use anything that I like the most. Ok, so my actual question is: Can anyone who has some experience in this field of game design recommend me some good literature, or point me in the direction where I should look/reed/study? I'm somewhat experienced game programmer, but I've never been into game design till now so any help will be great. I want to do this assignment as good as I can. As for deadline, it's not strictly set, but lets say I don't want it to take longer then few weeks, one month at worst case.

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  • Collision detection with non-rectangular images

    - by Adam Smith
    I'm creating a game and I need to detect collisions between a character and some parts of the environment. Since my character's frames are taken from a sprite sheet with a transparent background, I'm wondering how I should go about detecting collisions between a wall and my character only if the colliding parts are non-transparent in both images. I thought about checking only if part of the rectangle the character is in touches the rectangle a tile is in and comparing the alpha channels, but then I have another choice to make... Either I test every single pixel against every single pixel in the other image and if one is true, I detect a collision. That would be terribly ineficient. The other option would be to keep a x,y position of the leftmost, rightmost, etc. non-transparent pixel of each image and compare those instead. The problem with this one might be that, for instance, the character's hand could be above a tile (so it would be in a transparent zone of the tile) but a pixel that is not the rightmost could touch part of the tile without being detected. Another problem would be that in different frames, the rightmost, leftmost, etc. pixels might not be at the same position. Should I not bother with that and just check the collisions on the rectangles? It would be simpler, but I'm afraid people.will feel that there are collisions sometimes that shouldn't happen.

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  • How to deal with OpenGL and Fullscreen on OS X

    - by Armin Ronacher
    I do most of my development on OS X and for my current game project this is my target environment. However when I play games I play on Windows. As a windows gamer I am used to Alt+Tab switching from within the game to the last application that was open. On OS X I currently can't find either a game that supports that nor can I find a way to make it possible. My current project is based on SDL 1.3 and I can see that cmd+tab is a sequence that is sent directly to my application and not intercepted by the operating system. Now my first attempt was to hide the rendering window on cmd+tab which certainly works, but has the disadvantage that a hidden OpenGL window in SDL cannot be restored when the user tabs back to the application. First of all, there is no event fired for that or I can't find it, secondly the core problem is that when that application window is hidden, my game is still the active application, just that the window disappeared. That is incredible annoying. Any ideas how to approximate the windows / linux behavior for alt+tab?

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  • What's a way to implement a flexible buff/debuff system?

    - by gkimsey
    Overview: Lots of games which RPG-like statistics allow for character "buffs", ranging from simple "Deal 25% extra damage" to more complicated things like "Deal 15 damage back to attackers when hit." The specifics of each type of buff aren't really relevant. I'm looking for a (presumably object-oriented) way to handle arbitrary buffs. Details: In my particular case, I have multiple characters in a turn-based battle environment, so I envisioned buffs being tied to events like "OnTurnStart", "OnReceiveDamage", etc. Perhaps each buff is a subclass of a main Buff abstract class, where only the relevant events are overloaded. Then each character could have a vector of buffs currently applied. Does this solution make sense? I can certainly see dozens of event types being necessary, it feels like making a new subclass for each buff is overkill, and it doesn't seem to allow for any buff "interactions". That is, if I wanted to implement a cap on damage boosts so that even if you had 10 different buffs which all give 25% extra damage, you only do 100% extra instead of 250% extra. And there's more complicated situations that ideally I could control. I'm sure everyone can come up with examples of how more sophisticated buffs can potentially interact with each other in a way that as a game developer I may not want. As a relatively inexperienced C++ programmer (I generally have used C in embedded systems), I feel like my solution is simplistic and probably doesn't take full advantage of the object-oriented language. Thoughts? Has anyone here designed a fairly robust buff system before?

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  • How to control an actor movement in UDK

    - by Mikalichov
    This might be very basic, but I couldn't find something relevant to what I need (see below). I am working on a very basic thing: a 3D environment with some buildings, and actors walking inside it. It looks like following: I mainly want to manage to have one actor standing around, idling, and another walking around the area. Right now, this is done through matinee + skeletal mesh groups, and forcing a looped animation on the actors: But I realize this is super caveman-level. So I've build an AnimTree, linking the idling and directional animations to the corresponding nodes. But then, I'm stuck. I added the AnimTree in the actors properties, but nothing happens. I've tried MoveToActor, but no success - is there a thing to set to allow an actor to move? Also, I place the actors on the map manually (they are supposed to be unique), should I spawn them instead? Every tutorial I find explains how to use an AnimTree for the player character, which is not what I want. I need a way to move the actors. I tried to look for AI tutorials, but only found UT3 bots-modifications, which is not what I need either. Since I have so much trouble finding how to do this through Kismet, I'm starting to suspect this has to be done through scripting/coding, but I would like to be sure there is no way to do it through Kismet before going that route. Every bit of answer about how to tell an actor something along the lines of "go in that direction as much as you can, then when you hit a wall turn 45° and continue" would be awesome. I'll be happy to move/edit the question if there is any problem with it

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  • How to implement "bullet time" in a multiplayer game?

    - by Tom
    I have never seen such a feature before, but it should provide an interesting gameplay opportunity. So yes, in a multiplayer/real-time environment (imagine FPS), how could I implement a slow motion/bullet time effect? Something like an illusion for the player that's currently slo-mo'ed. So everybody sees him "real-time", but he sees everything slowed down. Update A sidenote: keep in mind that a FPS game has to be balanced in order for it to be fun. So yes, this bullet time feature has to be solid, giving a small advantage to the "player", while not taking away from other players. Plus, there is a possibility that two players could activate their bullet time at the same time. Furthermore: I'm going to implement this in the future no matter what it takes. And, the idea is to build a whole new game engine for all this. If that gives new options, I'm more then interested in hearing the ideas. Meanwhile, here with my team we're thinking about this too, when our theory will be crafted, I'm going to share it here. Is this even possible? So, the question on "is this even possible" has been answered, now it's time to find the best solution. I'm keeping the "answer" until something exceptionally good comes up, like a prototype theory with something close to working pseudo code.

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  • How does a segment-based rendering engine (as in Descent) work?

    - by Calmarius
    As far as I know Descent was one of the first games that featured a fully 3D environment, and it used a segment based rendering engine. Its levels are built from cubic segments (these cubes may be deformed as long as it remains convex and sides remain roughly flat). These cubes are connected by their sides. The connected sides are traversable (maybe doors or grids can be placed on these sides), while the unconnected sides are not traversable walls. So the game is played inside of this complex. Descent was software rendered and it had to be very fast, to be playable on those 10-100MHz processors of that age. Some latter levels of the game are huge and contain thousands of segments, but these levels are still rendered reasonably fast. So I think they tried to minimize the amount of cubes rendered somehow. How to choose which cubes to render for a given location? As far as I know they used a kind of portal rendering, but I couldn't find what was the technique used in this particular kind of engine. I think the fact that the levels are built from convex quadrilateral hexahedrons can be exploited.

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  • Separate collision mesh model?

    - by Menno Gouw
    I want to have another go at 3D within XNA. What I have seen from some other games that they just have a separate very low poly model "cage" around the environment model. However I can not find any reference to this. I have not that much experience with XNA 3D either. Is it possible to have this cage within each of my environmental models already? Lets just say I call the mesh within the .FBX wall and col_wall. How would I call to these different meshes within XNA? The player would just have a tight collision cube around. To make it a bit more efficient I will be making divide the map up by cubes and only calculate collision if the player is in it. Question two: I can't find anywhere to do cube vs mesh collision. Is there a method for this? Or perhaps it is possible to build my collision cage out of cubes in the 3D app and on loading of the models in XNA replace them directly by cubes? So I could just do box to box collision which should be very cheap and still give the player the ability to move over ledges on the static models.

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  • How to avoid the GameManager god object?

    - by lorancou
    I just read an answer to a question about structuring game code. It made me wonder about the ubiquitous GameManager class, and how it often becomes an issue in a production environment. Let me describe this. First, there's prototyping. Nobody cares about writing great code, we just try to get something running to see if the gameplay adds up. Then there's a greenlight, and in an effort to clean things up, somebody writes a GameManager. Probably to hold a bunch of GameStates, maybe to store a few GameObjects, nothing big, really. A cute, little, manager. In the peaceful realm of pre-production, the game is shaping up nicely. Coders have proper nights of sleep and plenty of ideas to architecture the thing with Great Design Patterns. Then production starts and soon, of course, there is crunch time. Balanced diet is long gone, the bug tracker is cracking with issues, people are stressed and the game has to be released yesterday. At that point, usually, the GameManager is a real big mess (to stay polite). The reason for that is simple. After all, when writing a game, well... all the source code is actually here to manage the game. It's easy to just add this little extra feature or bugfix in the GameManager, where everything else is already stored anyway. When time becomes an issue, no way to write a separate class, or to split this giant manager into sub-managers. Of course this is a classical anti-pattern: the god object. It's a bad thing, a pain to merge, a pain to maintain, a pain to understand, a pain to transform. What would you suggest to prevent this from happening?

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  • Should I be worrying about limiting the number of textures in my game?

    - by Donutz
    I am working on a GUI in XNA 4.0 at the moment. (Before you point out that there are many GUIs already in existance, this is as much a learning exercise as a practical project). As you may know, controls and dialogs in Windows actually consist of a number of system-level windows. For instance, a dialog box may consist of a window for the whole dialog, a child window for the client area, another window (barely showing) for the frame, and so on. This makes detecting mouse hits and doing clipping relatively easy. I'd like to design my XNA GUI along the same lines, but using overlapping Textures instead of windows obviously. My question (yes, there's actually a question in this drivel) is: am I at risk of adversely affecting game performance and/or running low in resources if I get too nuts with the creating of many small textures? I haven't been able to find much information on how resource-tight the XNA environment actually is. I grew up in the days of 64K ram so I'm used to obsessing about resources and optimization. Anyway, any feedback appreciated.

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  • Apache returns 403 Forbidden for alternative port vhost

    - by Wesley
    I'm having an issue getting vhosts to work on Apache 2.2, Debian 6. I have two VirtualHosts, one on port 80 and one on port 8888. The port 80 one has been created automatically by DirectAdmin, the 8888 is a custom one. It's configuration is as follows. <VirtualHost *:8888 > DocumentRoot /home/user/public_html/development ServerName www.myserver.nl ServerAlias myserver.nl <Directory "/home/user/public_html/development"> Options +Indexes +FollowSymLinks +MultiViews AllowOverride All Order Allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> </VirtualHost> Of course I also have a NameVirtualHost *:8888 The port 80 DocumentRoot is /home/user/public_html/production, which is perfectly accessible and works like a charm. The port 8888 docroot of /home/user/public_html/development is 403 forbidden though. I have compared the permissions for both folders. They seem fine to me. drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 17 16:14 development drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Aug 18 04:29 production Also, the index.php file which is supposed to display when accessing through port 8888, located in /development/: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 41 Aug 17 16:14 index.html I have looked at my error_log and found many of the following entries, only being added to the log file when accessing through port 8888. [Sat Aug 18 04:35:09 2012] [error] [client 27.32.156.232] Symbolic link not allowed or link target not accessible: /home/user/public_html /home/user/public_html is a symbolic link that refers to /home/user/domains/mydomain/public_html. The symbolic link has the following permissions: lrwxrwxrwx 1 admin admin 29 Aug 17 15:56 public_html -> ./domains/mydomain/public_html I'm at a loss. It seems that everything is readable or executable. I've set the Directory to FollowSymLinks in the httpd.conf file, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. If I change that directory tag to <Directory "/home/admin/public_html"> (so it has FollowSymLinks on that as well) it still does not work. Any help is greatly appreciated. If I need to post more information, let me know. I'm pretty much a beginner at this stuff. .. .. UPDATE: I ended up changing the configuration to directly go to the actual path of the files, avoiding the public_html symlink altogether. That worked. Thanks for the suggestions folks. DocumentRoot /home/user/domains/mydomain/public_html/development instead of DocumentRoot /home/user/public_html/development

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  • Spork servers super slow (>3m) to start for RSpec & Cucumber BDD

    - by Eric M.
    I recently installed a fresh development setup on my laptop and now notice that my instances of spork take several minutes to start up. This is also most likely of the RSpec and Cucumber tests start up times running super slow. I ran in diagnostic mode with the -d flag and received the output below. Anyone have a clue why this is suddenly happening? Spork Diagnosis - -- Summary -- config/boot.rb config/environment.rb config/initializers/backtrace_silencers.rb config/initializers/devise.rb config/initializers/hoptoad.rb config/initializers/inflections.rb config/initializers/mime_types.rb config/initializers/new_rails_defaults.rb config/initializers/session_store.rb spec/spec_helper.rb -- Detail -- --- config/boot.rb --- config/environment.rb:7 /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in gem_original_require' /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:inrequire' spec/spec_helper.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/bin/../lib/spork.rb:23:in `prefork' spec/spec_helper.rb:7 --- config/environment.rb --- spec/spec_helper.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/bin/../lib/spork.rb:23:in `prefork' spec/spec_helper.rb:7 --- config/initializers/backtrace_silencers.rb --- /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:147:in load' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:622:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:in each' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:176:in process' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:insend' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:in run_without_spork' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/lib/spork/app_framework/rails.rb:18:inrun' config/environment.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in gem_original_require' /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:inrequire' spec/spec_helper.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/bin/../lib/spork.rb:23:in `prefork' spec/spec_helper.rb:7 --- config/initializers/devise.rb --- /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:147:in load' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:622:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:in each' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:176:in process' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:insend' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:in run_without_spork' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/lib/spork/app_framework/rails.rb:18:inrun' config/environment.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in gem_original_require' /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:inrequire' spec/spec_helper.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/bin/../lib/spork.rb:23:in `prefork' spec/spec_helper.rb:7 --- config/initializers/hoptoad.rb --- /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:147:in load' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:622:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:in each' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:176:in process' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:insend' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:in run_without_spork' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/lib/spork/app_framework/rails.rb:18:inrun' config/environment.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in gem_original_require' /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:inrequire' spec/spec_helper.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/bin/../lib/spork.rb:23:in `prefork' spec/spec_helper.rb:7 --- config/initializers/inflections.rb --- /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:147:in load' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:622:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:in each' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:176:in process' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:insend' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:in run_without_spork' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/lib/spork/app_framework/rails.rb:18:inrun' config/environment.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in gem_original_require' /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:inrequire' spec/spec_helper.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/bin/../lib/spork.rb:23:in `prefork' spec/spec_helper.rb:7 --- config/initializers/mime_types.rb --- /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:147:in load' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:622:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:in each' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:176:in process' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:insend' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:in run_without_spork' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/lib/spork/app_framework/rails.rb:18:inrun' config/environment.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in gem_original_require' /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:inrequire' spec/spec_helper.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/bin/../lib/spork.rb:23:in `prefork' spec/spec_helper.rb:7 --- config/initializers/new_rails_defaults.rb --- /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:147:in load' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:622:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:in each' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:176:in process' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:insend' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:in run_without_spork' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/lib/spork/app_framework/rails.rb:18:inrun' config/environment.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in gem_original_require' /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:inrequire' spec/spec_helper.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/bin/../lib/spork.rb:23:in `prefork' spec/spec_helper.rb:7 --- config/initializers/session_store.rb --- /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:147:in load' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:622:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:in each' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:621:inload_application_initializers' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:176:in process' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:insend' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/initializer.rb:113:in run_without_spork' /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/lib/spork/app_framework/rails.rb:18:inrun' config/environment.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in gem_original_require' /Users/Eric/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p249/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:inrequire' spec/spec_helper.rb:9 /Users/Eric/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p249@33n/gems/spork-0.8.2/bin/../lib/spork.rb:23:in `prefork' spec/spec_helper.rb:7 --- spec/spec_helper.rb ---

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  • PostgreSQL compare databases tool or generating migration script util

    - by opedge
    In our development we use two servers with PostgreSQL 8.4 - development and production. So, after changes were made on development server we would like to automatically generate SQL migration scripts. I found that EMS DB Comparer for PostgreSQL can do it, but it is only for Windows (our development team use Ubuntu for developing). Do you now alternative tools to do this?

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  • Using Handlebars.js issue

    - by Roland
    I'm having a small issue when I'm compiling a template with Handlebars.js . I have a JSON text file which contains an big array with objects : Source ; and I'm using XMLHTTPRequest to get it and then parse it so I can use it when compiling the template. So far the template has the following structure : <div class="product-listing-wrapper"> <div class="product-listing"> <div class="left-side-content"> <div class="thumb-wrapper"> <img src="{{ThumbnailUrl}}"> </div> <div class="google-maps-wrapper"> <div class="google-coordonates-wrapper"> <div class="google-coordonates"> <p>{{LatLon.Lat}}</p> <p>{{LatLon.Lon}}</p> </div> </div> <div class="google-maps-button"> <a class="google-maps" href="#" data-latitude="{{LatLon.Lat}}" data-longitude="{{LatLon.Lon}}">Google Maps</a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="right-side-content"></div> </div> And the following block of code would be the way I'm handling the JS part : $(document).ready(function() { /* Default Javascript Options ~a javascript object which contains all the variables that will be passed to the cluster class */ var default_cluster_options = { animations : ['flash', 'bounce', 'shake', 'tada', 'swing', 'wobble', 'wiggle', 'pulse', 'flip', 'flipInX', 'flipOutX', 'flipInY', 'flipOutY', 'fadeIn', 'fadeInUp', 'fadeInDown', 'fadeInLeft', 'fadeInRight', 'fadeInUpBig', 'fadeInDownBig', 'fadeInLeftBig', 'fadeInRightBig', 'fadeOut', 'fadeOutUp', 'fadeOutDown', 'fadeOutLeft', 'fadeOutRight', 'fadeOutUpBig', 'fadeOutDownBig', 'fadeOutLeftBig', 'fadeOutRightBig', 'bounceIn', 'bounceInUp', 'bounceInDown', 'bounceInLeft', 'bounceInRight', 'bounceOut', 'bounceOutUp', 'bounceOutDown', 'bounceOutLeft', 'bounceOutRight', 'rotateIn', 'rotateInDownLeft', 'rotateInDownRight', 'rotateInUpLeft', 'rotateInUpRight', 'rotateOut', 'rotateOutDownLeft', 'rotateOutDownRight', 'rotateOutUpLeft', 'rotateOutUpRight', 'lightSpeedIn', 'lightSpeedOut', 'hinge', 'rollIn', 'rollOut'], json_data_url : 'data.json', template_data_url : 'template.php', base_maps_api_url : 'https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false', cluser_wrapper_id : '#content-wrapper', maps_wrapper_class : '.google-maps', }; /* Cluster ~main class, handles all javascript operations */ var Cluster = function(environment, cluster_options) { var self = this; this.options = $.extend({}, default_cluster_options, cluster_options); this.environment = environment; this.animations = this.options.animations; this.json_data_url = this.options.json_data_url; this.template_data_url = this.options.template_data_url; this.base_maps_api_url = this.options.base_maps_api_url; this.cluser_wrapper_id = this.options.cluser_wrapper_id; this.maps_wrapper_class = this.options.maps_wrapper_class; this.test_environment_mode(this.environment); this.initiate_environment(); this.test_xmlhttprequest_availability(); this.initiate_gmaps_lib_load(self.base_maps_api_url); this.initiate_data_processing(); }; /* Test Environment Mode ~adds a modernizr test which looks wheater the cluster class is initiated in development or not */ Cluster.prototype.test_environment_mode = function(environment) { var self = this; return Modernizr.addTest('test_environment', function() { return (typeof environment !== 'undefined' && environment !== null && environment === "Development") ? true : false; }); }; /* Test XMLHTTPRequest Availability ~adds a modernizr test which looks wheater the xmlhttprequest class is available or not in the browser, exception makes IE */ Cluster.prototype.test_xmlhttprequest_availability = function() { return Modernizr.addTest('test_xmlhttprequest', function() { return (typeof window.XMLHttpRequest === 'undefined' || window.XMLHttpRequest === null) ? true : false; }); }; /* Initiate Environment ~depending on what the modernizr test returns it puts LESS in the development mode or not */ Cluster.prototype.initiate_environment = function() { return (Modernizr.test_environment) ? (less.env = "development", less.watch()) : true; }; Cluster.prototype.initiate_gmaps_lib_load = function(lib_url) { return Modernizr.load(lib_url); }; /* Initiate XHR Request ~prototype function that creates an xmlhttprequest for processing json data from an separate json text file */ Cluster.prototype.initiate_xhr_request = function(url, mime_type) { var request, data; var self = this; (Modernizr.test_xmlhttprequest) ? request = new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP') : request = new XMLHttpRequest(); request.onreadystatechange = function() { if(request.readyState == 4 && request.status == 200) { data = request.responseText; } }; request.open("GET", url, false); request.overrideMimeType(mime_type); request.send(); return data; }; Cluster.prototype.initiate_google_maps_action = function() { var self = this; return $(this.maps_wrapper_class).each(function(index, element) { return $(element).on('click', function(ev) { var html = $('<div id="map-canvas" class="map-canvas"></div>'); var latitude = $(element).attr('data-latitude'); var longitude = $(element).attr('data-longitude'); log("LAT : " + latitude); log("LON : " + longitude); $.lightbox(html, { "width": 900, "height": 250, "onOpen" : function() { } }); ev.preventDefault(); }); }); }; Cluster.prototype.initiate_data_processing = function() { var self = this; var json_data = JSON.parse(self.initiate_xhr_request(self.json_data_url, 'application/json; charset=ISO-8859-1')); var source_data = self.initiate_xhr_request(self.template_data_url, 'text/html'); var template = Handlebars.compile(source_data); for(var i = 0; i < json_data.length; i++ ) { var result = template(json_data[i]); $(result).appendTo(self.cluser_wrapper_id); } self.initiate_google_maps_action(); }; /* Cluster ~initiate the cluster class */ var cluster = new Cluster("Development"); }); My problem would be that I don't think I'm iterating the JSON object right or I'm using the template the wrong way because if you check this link : http://rolandgroza.com/labs/valtech/ ; you will see that there are some numbers there ( which represents latitude and longitude ) but they are all the same and if you take only a brief look at the JSON object each number is different. So what am I doing wrong that it makes the same number repeat ? Or what should I do to fix it ? I must notice that I've just started working with templates so I have little knowledge it.

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  • Any PHP MVC framework planning to use 5.3 features?

    - by alexandrul
    I would like to get started with PHP, and 5.3 release seems to bring many nice features (namespaces, lambda functions, and many others). I have found some MVC frameworks, and some of them support only PHP 5: PHP Frameworks PHP MVC Frameworks Model–view–controller on Wikipedia but can anyone recommend one of those MVC frameworks that plans to actively use PHP 5.3 features, not just being compatible with PHP 5.3? Update Results so far: Zend Framework 2.0 (in development) Lithium (in development, based on CakePHP) Symfony (in development) FLOW3 (in development, alpha)

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  • T4 Template error - Assembly Directive cannot locate referenced assembly in Visual Studio 2010 proje

    - by CodeSniper
    I ran into the following error recently in Visual Studio 2010 while trying to port Phil Haack’s excellent T4CSS template which was originally built for Visual Studio 2008.   The Problem Error Compiling transformation: Metadata file 'dotless.Core' could not be found In “T4 speak”, this simply means that you have an Assembly directive in your T4 template but the T4 engine was not able to locate or load the referenced assembly. In the case of the T4CSS Template, this was a showstopper for making it work in Visual Studio 2010. On a side note: The T4CSS template is a sweet little wrapper to allow you to use DotLessCss to generate static .css files from .less files rather than using their default HttpHandler or command-line tool.    If you haven't tried DotLessCSS yet, go check it out now!  In short, it is a tool that allows you to templatize and program your CSS files so that you can use variables, expressions, and mixins within your CSS which enables rapid changes and a lot of developer-flexibility as you evolve your CSS and UI. Back to our regularly scheduled program… Anyhow, this post isn't about DotLessCss, its about the T4 Templates and the errors I ran into when converting them from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2010. In VS2010, there were quite a few changes to the T4 Template Engine; most were excellent changes, but this one bit me with T4CSS: “Project assemblies are no longer used to resolve template assembly directives.” In VS2008, if you wanted to reference a custom assembly in your T4 Template (.tt file) you would simply right click on your project, choose Add Reference and select that assembly.  Afterwards you were allowed to use the following syntax in your T4 template to tell it to look at the local references: <#@ assembly name="dotless.Core.dll" #> This told the engine to look in the “usual place” for the assembly, which is your project references. However, this is exactly what they changed in VS2010.  They now basically sandbox the T4 Engine to keep your T4 assemblies separate from your project assemblies.  This can come in handy if you want to support different versions of an assembly referenced both by your T4 templates and your project. Who broke the build?  Oh, Microsoft Did! In our case, this change causes a problem since the templates are no longer compatible when upgrading to VS 2010 – thus its a breaking change.  So, how do we make this work in VS 2010? Luckily, Microsoft now offers several options for referencing assemblies from T4 Templates: GAC your assemblies and use Namespace Reference or Fully Qualified Type Name Use a hard-coded Fully Qualified UNC path Copy assembly to Visual Studio "Public Assemblies Folder" and use Namespace Reference or Fully Qualified Type Name.  Use or Define a Windows Environment Variable to build a Fully Qualified UNC path. Use a Visual Studio Macro to build a Fully Qualified UNC path. Option #1 & 2 were already supported in Visual Studio 2008, so if you want to keep your templates compatible with both Visual Studio versions, then you would have to adopt one of these approaches. Yakkety Yak, use the GAC! Option #1 requires an additional pre-build step to GAC the referenced assembly, which could be a pain.  But, if you go that route, then after you GAC, all you need is a simple type name or namespace reference such as: <#@ assembly name="dotless.Core" #> Hard Coding aint that hard! The other option of using hard-coded paths in Option #2 is pretty impractical in most situations since each developer would have to use the same local project folder paths, or modify this setting each time for their local machines as well as for production deployment.  However, if you want to go that route, simply use the following assembly directive style: <#@ assembly name="C:\Code\Lib\dotless.Core.dll" #> Lets go Public! Option #3, the Visual Studio Public Assemblies Folder, is the recommended place to put commonly used tools and libraries that are only needed for Visual Studio.  Think of it like a VS-only GAC.  This is likely the best place for something like dotLessCSS and is my preferred solution.  However, you will need to either use an installer or a pre-build action to copy the assembly to the right folder location.   Normally this is located at:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies Once you have copied your assembly there, you use the type name or namespace syntax again: <#@ assembly name="dotless.Core" #> Save the Environment! Option #4, using a Windows Environment Variable, is interesting for enterprise use where you may have standard locations for files, but less useful for demo-code, frameworks, and products where you don't have control over the local system.  The syntax for including a environment variable in your assembly directive looks like the following, just as you would expect: <#@ assembly name="%mypath%\dotless.Core.dll" #> “mypath” is a Windows environment variable you setup that points to some fully qualified UNC path on your system.  In the right situation this can be a great solution such as one where you use a msi installer for deployment, or where you have a pre-existing environment variable you can re-use. OMG Macros! Finally, Option #5 is a very nice option if you want to keep your T4 template’s assembly reference local and relative to the project or solution without muddying-up your dev environment or GAC with extra deployments.  An example looks like this: <#@ assembly name="$(SolutionDir)lib\dotless.Core.dll" #> In this example, I’m using the “SolutionDir” VS macro so I can reference an assembly in a “/lib” folder at the root of the solution.   This is just one of the many macros you can use.  If you are familiar with creating Pre/Post-build Event scripts, you can use its dialog to look at all of the different VS macros available. This option gives the best solution for local assemblies without the hassle of extra installers or other setup before the build.   However, its still not compatible with Visual Studio 2008, so if you have a T4 Template you want to use with both, then you may have to create multiple .tt files, one for each IDE version, or require the developer to set a value in the .tt file manually.   I’m not sure if T4 Templates support any form of compiler switches like “#if (VS2010)”  statements, but it would definitely be nice in this case to switch between this option and one of the ones more compatible with VS 2008. Conclusion As you can see, we went from 3 options with Visual Studio 2008, to 5 options (plus one problem) with Visual Studio 2010.  As a whole, I think the changes are great, but the short-term growing pains during the migration may be annoying until we get used to our new found power. Hopefully this all made sense and was helpful to you.  If nothing else, I’ll just use it as a reference the next time I need to port a T4 template to Visual Studio 2010.  Happy T4 templating, and “May the fourth be with you!”

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  • Azure, don't give me multiple VMs, give me one elastic VM

    - by FransBouma
    Yesterday, Microsoft revealed new major features for Windows Azure (see ScottGu's post). It all looks shiny and great, but after reading most of the material describing the new features, I still find the overall idea behind all of it flawed: why should I care on how much VMs my web app runs? Isn't that a problem to solve for the Windows Azure engineers / software? And what if I need the file system, why can't I simply get a virtual filesystem ? To illustrate my point, let's use a real example: a product website with a customer system/database and next to it a support site with accompanying database. Both are written in .NET, using ASP.NET and use a SQL Server database each. The product website offers files to download by customers, very simple. You have a couple of options to host these websites: Buy a server, place it in a rack at an ISP and run the sites on that server Use 'shared hosting' with an ISP, which means your sites' appdomains are running on the same machine, as well as the files stored, and the databases are hosted in the same server as the other shared databases. Hire a VM, install your OS of choice at an ISP, and host the sites on that VM, basically the same as the first option, except you don't have a physical server At some cloud-vendor, either host the sites 'shared' or in a VM. See above. With all of those options, scalability is a problem, even the cloud-based ones, though not due to the same reasons: The physical server solution has the obvious problem that if you need more power, you need to buy a bigger server or more servers which requires you to add replication and other overhead Shared hosting solutions are almost always capped on memory usage / traffic and database size: if your sites get too big, you have to move out of the shared hosting environment and start over with one of the other solutions The VM solution, be it a VM at an ISP or 'in the cloud' at e.g. Windows Azure or Amazon, in theory allows scaling out by simply instantiating more VMs, however that too introduces the same overhead problems as with the physical servers: suddenly more than 1 instance runs your sites. If a cloud vendor offers its services in the form of VMs, you won't gain much over having a VM at some ISP: the main problems you have to work around are still there: when you spin up more than one VM, your application must be completely stateless at any moment, including the DB sub system, because what's in memory in instance 1 might not be in memory in instance 2. This might sounds trivial but it's not. A lot of the websites out there started rather small: they were perfectly runnable on a single machine with normal memory and CPU power. After all, you don't need a big machine to run a website with even thousands of users a day. Moving these sites to a multi-VM environment will cause a problem: all the in-memory state they use, all the multi-page transitions they use while keeping state across the transition, they can't do that anymore like they did that on a single machine: state is something of the past, you have to store every byte of state in either a DB or in a viewstate or in a cookie somewhere so with the next request, all state information is available through the request, as nothing is kept in-memory. Our example uses a bunch of files in a file system. Using multiple VMs will require that these files move to a cloud storage system which is mounted in each VM so we don't have to store the files on each VM. This might require different file paths, but this change should be minor. What's perhaps less minor is the maintenance procedure in place on the new type of cloud storage used: instead of ftp-ing into a VM, you might have to update the files using different ways / tools. All in all this makes moving an existing website which was written for an environment that's based around a VM (namely .NET with its CLR) overly cumbersome and problematic: it forces you to refactor your website system to be able to be used 'in the cloud', which is caused by the limited way how e.g. Windows Azure offers its cloud services: in blocks of VMs. Offer a scalable, flexible VM which extends with my needs Instead, cloud vendors should offer simply one VM to me. On that VM I run the websites, store my DB and my files. As it's a virtual machine, how this machine is actually ran on physical hardware (e.g. partitioned), I don't care, as that's the problem for the cloud vendor to solve. If I need more resources, e.g. I have more traffic to my server, way more visitors per day, the VM stretches, like I bought a bigger box. This frees me from the problem which comes with multiple VMs: I don't have any refactoring to do at all: I can simply build my website as if it runs on my local hardware server, upload it to the VM offered by the cloud vendor, install it on the VM and I'm done. "But that might require changes to windows!" Yes, but Microsoft is Windows. Windows Azure is their service, they can make whatever change to what they offer to make it look like it's windows. Yet, they're stuck, like Amazon, in thinking in VMs, which forces developers to 'think ahead' and gamble whether they would need to migrate to a cloud with multiple VMs in the future or not. Which comes down to: gamble whether they should invest time in code / architecture which they might never need. (YAGNI anyone?) So the VM we're talking about, is that a low-level VM which runs a guest OS, or is that VM a different kind of VM? The flexible VM: .NET's CLR ? My example websites are ASP.NET based, which means they run inside a .NET appdomain, on the .NET CLR, which is a VM. The only physical OS resource the sites need is the file system, however this too is accessed through .NET. In short: all the websites see is what .NET allows the websites to see, the world as the websites know it is what .NET shows them and lets them access. How the .NET appdomain is run physically, that's the concern of .NET, not mine. This begs the question why Windows Azure doesn't offer virtual appdomains? Or better: .NET environments which look like one machine but could be physically multiple machines. In such an environment, no change has to be made to the websites to migrate them from a local machine or own server to the cloud to get proper scaling: the .NET VM will simply scale with the need: more memory needed, more CPU power needed, it stretches. What it offers to the application running inside the appdomain is simply increasing, but not fragmented: all resources are available to the application: this means that the problem of how to scale is back to where it should be: with the cloud vendor. "Yeah, great, but what about the databases?" The .NET application communicates with the database server through a .NET ADO.NET provider. Where the database is located is not a problem of the appdomain: the ADO.NET provider has to solve that. I.o.w.: we can host the databases in an environment which offers itself as a single resource and is accessible through one connection string without replication overhead on the outside, and use that environment inside the .NET VM as if it was a single DB. But what about memory replication and other problems? This environment isn't simple, at least not for the cloud vendor. But it is simple for the customer who wants to run his sites in that cloud: no work needed. No refactoring needed of existing code. Upload it, run it. Perhaps I'm dreaming and what I described above isn't possible. Yet, I think if cloud vendors don't move into that direction, what they're offering isn't interesting: it doesn't solve a problem at all, it simply offers a way to instantiate more VMs with the guest OS of choice at the cost of me needing to refactor my website code so it can run in the straight jacket form factor dictated by the cloud vendor. Let's not kid ourselves here: most of us developers will never build a website which needs a truck load of VMs to run it: almost all websites created by developers can run on just a few VMs at most. Yet, the most expensive change is right at the start: moving from one to two VMs. As soon as you have refactored your website code to run across multiple VMs, adding another one is just as easy as clicking a mouse button. But that first step, that's the problem here and as it's right there at the beginning of scaling the website, it's particularly strange that cloud vendors refuse to solve that problem and leave it to the developers to solve that. Which makes migrating 'to the cloud' particularly expensive.

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