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• Inconsistent booting problem 12.04LTS on Asus U46E RAL7

  - by G. He

  The laptop is dual booting with windows 7 and ubuntu 11.10. For 11.10 to boot, I had to add 'nolapic' in GRUB boot options. I downloaded 12.04LTS LiveCD yesterday and made a CD and a bootable USB stick. With both USB and LiveCD, occasionally I can boot into 12.04. But many times, the boot process stuck at some point. For USB boot, sometime it works. But other times, it seems to stuck right after seeing the message: NMI watchdog enabled. takes one hw-pmu counted [0.408590] #2 The number in [] changes. Some times it stuck at #2, and sometimes at #3. For LiveCD boot, sometime it works. But when it stuck, it stuck at different places. At times, the boot process go directly to a blank screen with a blink '_' at up left corner. Sometime it went a bit further, after showing options to try/install ubuntu then stuck with a blank screen with blink '_'. Anything I can do to get around of this?

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• Wrong package for Idle-python2.7?

  - by adelval

  I'm running python 2.7 in Ubuntu 3.10, and idle (idle-python2.7) has stopped working. Whenever I try to open a file in a editor window, it is blank, though the file does exist and is not empty/blank. Furthermore, it is not possible to close idle after this, except via a terminal kill command. Idle was working fine before. The problem appeared after I installed a number of things, including idlex, various scipy modules and mpmath, but after trying to repair it in several ways, it seems to be caused by Ubuntu's official idle package. I get this error in the terminal when trying to open a file in idle: Exception in Tkinter callback [...lines ommitted for brevity...] File "/usr/lib/python2.7/idlelib/IOBinding.py", line 129, in coding_spec for line in lst: NameError: global name 'lst' is not defined If you look at the code, it looks like an obvious bug: indeed lst is not defined in the function coding_spec. Furthermore, the source file IOBinding.py in http://fossies.org/dox/Python-2.7.5/IOBinding_8py_source.html is different and doesn't show the problem. Thinking that one of the recently packages had overwritten the file somehow, I've tried a number of things, including reinstalling all Python packages from synaptic, but the wrong IOBinding.py is still there. The reason I think the problem lies with the package itself is that I finally did sudo apt-get remove idle, verified that the idlelib directory was empty, and reinstalled with sudo apt-get install idle; but the wrong IOBinding.py file came back again. I can in fact make idle work again by simply replacing lst by str in the code, but to me that's clearly a no-no. I'm not to happy either about trying to replace just that file from the source python distribution, as other files may be wrong. I want to get the right files from the official package.

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• Matching the superclass's constructor's parameter list, is treating a null default value as a non-null value within a constructor a violation of LSP?

  - by Panzercrisis

  I kind of ran into this when messing around with FlashPunk, and I'm going to use it as an example. Essentially the main sprite class is pretty much class Entity. Entity's constructor has four parameters, each with a default value. One of them is graphic, whose default value is null. Entity is designed to be inherited from, with many such subclasses providing their own graphic within their own internal workings. Normally these subclasses would not have graphic in their constructor's parameter lists, but would simply pick something internally and go with it. However I was looking into possibly still adhering to the Liskov Substitution Principal. Which led me to the following example: package com.blank.graphics { import net.flashpunk.*; import net.flashpunk.graphics.Image; public class SpaceGraphic extends Entity { [Embed(source = "../../../../../../assets/spaces/blank.png")] private const BLANK_SPACE:Class; public function SpaceGraphic(x:Number = 0, y:Number = 0, graphic:Graphic = null, mask:Mask = null) { super(x, y, graphic, mask); if (!graphic) { this.graphic = new Image(BLANK_SPACE); } } } } Alright, so now there's a parameter list in the constructor that perfectly matches the one in the super class's constructor. But if the default value for graphic is used, it'll exhibit two different behaviors, depending on whether you're using the subclass or the superclass. In the superclass, there won't be a graphic, but in the subclass, it'll choose the default graphic. Is this a violation of the Liskov Substitution Principal? Does the fact that subclasses are almost intended to use different parameter lists have any bearing on this? Would minimizing the parameter list violate it in a case like this? Thanks.

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• What every beginner should know about website development? [closed]

  - by user975234

  I am a novice at building websites and considering to make one. But there is a lot of confusion that's going on right now. I guess every beginner faces them. Few questions that come up are: I have an idea and a need a website. That's all i know right now. But how do i start ? HTML is for sure the basic language but there are a hell of other technologies too. What is actually asp, php, ruby etc? How do i choose the right one from them? Other than asp, php there is javascript and other languages under the same belt. What are they used for? Hosting. When i am choosing the host, what considerations i have to keep in mind ? What support do i need from them (other than getting some important space obviously!). I am considering of making the website in ruby on rails. I don't know about php and what effect it would have if i choose ruby over php. I thought about ruby just because its new and i dont want to learn some thing "not new"! :P Moreover what is a framework and how does a framework effect my development process? These three questions are just to explain my "confusion" better. There is obviously a lot more to it. Just to try to answer how the flow of website development goes keeping in mind my questions!

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• Cannot ping any computers on LAN

  - by Timothy

  I havem't been able to find a straight forward answer on this yet. I'm hoping people here are able to help! Keep in mind that I'm a complete beginner at this - this is the first installation i've done for any LINUX systems ever so please keep that in mind when answering this question. We are a complete Windows shop, using nothing but Microsoft products but looking into the value of OpenStalk however have been having problems getting Ubuntu Server installed and speaking to the network. The machine is getting an IP address which is telling me that some sort of DHCP activity is working but I'm not able to ping any computer on our network as well as not able to connect to the internet. Every time I try to ping i'm getting; Destination Host Unreachable I've tried using modifying the resolv.conf file with our static details to match my Windows 7 machine still with no luck. Even tried disabling the firewall on Ubuntu Server 11 and no luck. Any ideas? Please let me know if there is any information you need from the server and I'll post up.

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• Fresh install of Ubuntu 12.10 won't boot on Asus X101CH Eee PC

  - by Najdmie

  I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.10 in my Asus X101CH Eee PC, using a live usb which I made using startup disk creator, replacing Ubuntu 12.04. The installation ran smoothly, but when I boot, it goes to a purple screen for a second, then a lot of text like the following shows up in sequence: Starting crash report submission daemon [OK] Starting CPU interrupts balancing daemon [OK] Stopping save kernel messages [OK] _ And the cursor just keeps blinking for hours. I can't log in. Pressing Alt + F2 did not bring me to console mode. I thought it might be a partition problem so I formatted the whole disk, by creating a new partition table using gparted in Ubuntu 12.04 live USB. I noticed that I can't try Ubuntu using 12.10 live USB either; it just went to a blank screen when I hit the 'try ubuntu' button. But the same problem arose. I even changed the pen drive for the live USB a couple of times. I happened to know that the Intel Atom N2600 Cedar Trail CPU in my computer is not well supported in Linux, I managed to install its drivers in Ubuntu 12.04, although the computer went blank during the installation.

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• With Choice Comes Complexity

  - by BuckWoody

  "Complex" may be defined as "Having many steps, details or parts." Many of Microsoft's products, including SQL Server, can be complex. I'm stating what most data professionals already know - there's usually multiple ways to do things in SQL Server. For instance, to import some data into a table you can use graphical tools, SQLCMD, bcp, SQL Server Integration Services, BULK INSERT, even PowerShell, just to name a few tools at your disposal. That's really not the issue, though. The bigger issue is that there are normally multiple thought-processes, or methods, that you have available for a task. That's both a strength and a weakness. If things were more simple, you would have fewer choices. Sometimes that's a good thing. Just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. However, your particular situation may not fit that tool or process, so having more options increases your ability to get your job done the way you need to do it. On the other hand, that's more for you to learn, which is harder. There's another side of this benefit/difficulty that you need to be aware of. Even if you're quite good at what you do, keep in mind that the way you know how to do something may not be the only way to do it. Keep your mind open to new possibilities, and most importantly - to new knowledge. SQL Server professionals teach me something new every day. So embrace the complexity - on balance, it's a good thing! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Higher resolutions unavailable with 2.6.38-8 kernel

  - by time-wastrel

  After upgrading to Natty and the 2.6.38-8 kernel I could no longer obtain the 1920x1080 resolution available in Maverick with 2.6.35-22. In fact the boot occasionally hung. However, after selecting the remaining 2.6.35-22 kernel, the high resolution was available. I then made the mistake of completely reinstalling, but could never get the higher resolutions with 2.6.38-8, no matter what I did. e.g. trying the nvidia proprietary driver, creating an xorg.conf. Even from the command line using xrandr --newmode "1920x1080_60.00" 173.00 1920 2048 2248 2576 1080 1083 1088 1120 -hsync +vsync xrandr --addmode DVI-I-1 1920x1080_60.00 xrandr --output DVI-I-1 --mode 1920x1080_60.00 all I would get would be a blank screen and the monitor reporting no input. (Low resolutions displayed fine with xrandr.) I could actually add the 1920x1080 to the already existing probe-reported resolutions in the pool of available resolutions, but choosing it would give the blank screen. In the end I installed the 2.6.35-22 kernel again. The high resolution is back. For a while there, staying up all night and trying many things, I thought that a new video board or monitor might be needed, but deep down, I knew that they were both OK. My question is - "Is this some bug involving the latest kernel, that will go away, or if this persists in future kernels, is there a way to make sure that I can keep my native resolution?"

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• White screen with pointer after removing Unity

  - by Sameer Pandit

  I have the same problem . I am a newbie. I added the repository with sudo add apt-get-repository ppa:canonical-dx-team/une then i went to ubuntu software center and installed "unity interface of ubuntu netbook edition" . after installing i found a problem with User interface as it kept on flashing when mouse points to side panel . so i decided to remove it . I removed it form Ubuntu software center . there were other unity related apps installed , but i did not remove then as i had no idea what they were about . Now i ended up with a blank white screen with mouse pointer whenever i login. though i m able to login using gdm , but the screen is blank white. I tried to these commands also sudo apt-get remove gnome-shell sudo apt-get remove unity sudo restart gdm but they did not work at all i also tried sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg it too did not work. Note:I donot have any sort of graphics card or video card on my pc please help !!!

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• Google ranking, page crawl

  - by Nawaf Mubarak

  please don't mind me for asking this newbie question about Google ranking. I know that in order to get ranked the page has to be crawled by Google bots, I have had a page example of which I will get a better understanding of how the system works with Google. I have made a page on my website last month, it got indexed pretty quickly, then I found that it's in Google's page 15 on my keyword as a start, next day it made it to page 13, then after a week it was jumping back and forth in page 17/18 up to 20. Now a month passed by, when and it isn't listed in any position of that 'keyword' sometimes I will find it in page 30, but later I won't find it anywhere, keep happening this way these days. Even if it isn't listed in any page for my keyword if I do a search for "site:thepageadress" it will be listed which means I'm not penalized and my page is there for google to see, but it isn't in the search result for my keyword. But when I write "site:thepage_adress" and I hit "search tools" option and click on "Past day" or "past week" it isn't listed, it is only listed when I click on "Past month" which I think means that Google indexed the page, looked at it once when I published it, and never looked at it again, is this a fair statement? So two questions that comes to mind here. 1- Should Google keep looking at a page even if I haven't changed any info for it? and is this an indication for me that my page is doing fine? or is it normal that Google see's it once and thats it? 2- Why and how to fix the fact that my page keeps jumping back and forth in the ranking result for keyword, and sometimes it isn't even listed, what does that mean? Sorry for the long msg, I hope to god that somebody help me with this. Thank you!

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• How much knowledge do I need to begin a project in Django

  - by Smock

  I started learning django about a month ago. I have an intermediate C, Java programming experience. I read the first 8 chapters of the django book . Afterwards, I picked up Practical Django Projects by James Bennett and did the first two projects: CMS & Web Blog. Although, I started getting lost when he got to the generic views part. I know that's important but I'm not sure how important that is when trying to implement a project. Anyway, I have a project in mind that I'd like to start; however, I'm nervous as to where to begin. I'm overwhelmed with the number of things that I'd like my project to do but no knowledge or minimal knowledge as to how e.g. how do i implement css and javascript in my project. Moreover, I am aware that some django packages exists to ease development but I don't know if I should use them or not. Anyway, I apologize for my length message. I just want some advice/encouragement. I have a project in mind but do you think I need to read more materials/tutorials or is it smart to just start working on my project based on the minimal knowledge i've gained from those books? Any information that can be provided is much appreciated. I really want to get good at this but I just need some direction.

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• What advantages does developing applications for smartphones have over developing the same application as a web application?

  - by Alfredo O

  Let's take the Facebook application as an example. Why did they develop an application when the users could just access to their page and do the same? For me that represents more maintenance and more cost because for each feature added to the web application that feature will have to be added to the smartphone application as well. So why would I want to develop more than once (for each patform iOS, Android, etc) when I could just have one web application? What benefits do I get? The only one that comes to my mind is GPS feature. EDIT: My question is more oriented towards business applications that are going to be used only by some members of the company, it's not about selling the application (private use). So contrary to what some answers say about that by developing as a smartphone application it will benefit from more sells because of the "smartphone stores" for me this point is not important because the application is for private use. By developing the application as a web application it means that it can be accessed through smartphone browser and also in a PC (any capable browser), but developing as a native application would limit this to only some kind of smartphone so we would be limiting the use. On the other hand developing it as a web application means that in order to access the application an Internet connection must be available. So keeping this in mind how would you convince your boss to write the application for a given smartphone platform (iOS/Android) vs developing it as a web application?

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• 11.10 liveCD black screen

  - by Shaun Killingbeck

  Attempting to install/try ubuntu 11.10 on my new laptop, using a liveCD (and tried USB). I get the purple screen (with the man/keyboard at the bottom) and after that the screen flashes bright white before going black. Ubuntu continues to load in the background, with login sound etc but the screen is off. I have tried as many different solutions as I could find including: using nomodestep, xforcevesa, i915.modeset=0 in boot options (seperately): varying consequences, but either I end up at a blinking cursor with no prompt, a command line (startx fails: no screen found), or the original blank screen again Tried booting from VirtualBox - it crashes at the same place the screen would go blank when using a CD/USB tried 11.04: I don't have this problem BUT when trying to install, I get a ubi-partman error 141 (possibly down to the three partitions that came on my laptop... not sure why HP needed there own separate partition for HP Tools...) Model: HP Pavillion DV6 6B08SA Processor: AMD Quad-Core A6-3410MX APU with Radeon HD 6545G2 Dual Graphics (1.6 GHZ 4 MB L2 cache ) Chipset: AMD RS880M Any help would be greatly appreciated. I just want to be able to partition the drive and install Ubuntu. I'm assuming the issue is graphics card related, although I have no confirmation of that. I have caught a glimpse of some output to do with pulseaudio and [fail], but I can't imagine why that would cause a screen problem and the sound definitely works anyway.

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• Automatically revert to laptop screen when external monitor unplugged

  - by Ryan

  I regularly use an external monitor with my laptop, so when I use it, I usually have the laptop screen disabled when the monitor is connected, and this seems to cause problems when the monitor is disconnected. If the monitor is connected while the laptop screen is disabled, I can't get the X session to show up at all: I can Ctrl+Alt+F1 to open a terminal, and that works fine.. ..but Ctrl+Alt+F7 does nothing. The display is blank, and stays blank. The same thing happens whether I put the computer to sleep with the monitor connected, or if I disconnect while the computer is still awake. Rebooting the computer fixes the issue, as does killing Xorg and starting it again, but both of those are sub-optimal since I lose my current session. I'm currently using the open source graphics driver (xserver-xorg-video-ati). This question looks like it might answer my question, but unfortunately hwinfo is no longer available in the apt repository. Is there a way with current tools to automatically detect when the external monitor is disconnected and switch to the laptop display?

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• Valid reason for employer to breach freelance contract

  - by Costas

  Please don't close this as offtopic. According to the FAQ I can post programming related questions. I was working on a project and when it was half way completed (1 weeks work), the employer backs out and refuses to pay me. Shortly before this he was being very rude. He was having problems configuring the server and he told me it was my fault and that I had to fix it. After I spent several hours trying to figure out the problem, it turned out to be his fault. After this when I put the code on the server. He found 1 bug that I had missed. He freaked out, accused me of being a bad programmer and told me that the code was shit and that he couldn't use it. He said that if there is a bug in the code, that means the code is bad and he can't use it. He would have to throw the code away and hire someone else. His kept reiterating his argument: "why should I pay for code that I can't use". And I kept telling him the code was fine and urged him to have another programmer give him a second opinion. But he would have none of that. He said he would compensate me for my troubles by paying me 250$. Then he changes his mind and lowers that to 200$. Then a third time he changes his mind and says he doesn't want to compensate me at all. I'm left frustrated because besides being rude, he did not at any time tell me he was unhappy with the work that I was doing. So my question is; Is the above a valid reason to back out of a verbal contract in your opinion?

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• Do you tend to write your own name or your company name in your code?

  - by Connell Watkins

  I've been working on various projects at home and at work, and over the years I've developed two main APIs that I use in almost all AJAX based websites. I've compiled both of these into DLLs and called the namespaces Connell.Database and Connell.Json. My boss recently saw these namespaces in a software documentation for a project for the company and said I shouldn't be using my own name in the code. (But it's my code!) One thing to bear in mind is that we're not a software company. We're an IT support company, and I'm the only full-time software developer here, so there's not really any procedures on how we should write software in the company. Another thing to bear in mind is that I do intend on one day releasing these DLLs as open-source projects. How do other developers group their namespaces within their company? Does anyone use the same class libraries in personal and in work projects? Also does this work the other way round? If I write a class library entirely at work, who owns that code? If I've seen the library through from start to finish, designed it and programmed it. Can I use that for another project at home? Thanks, Update I've spoken to my boss about this issue and he agrees that they're my objects and he's fine for me to open-source them. Before this conversation I started changing the objects anyway, which was actually quite productive and the code now suits this specific project more-so than it did previously. But thank you to everyone involved for a very interesting debate. I hope all this text isn't wasted and someone learns from it. I certainly did. Cheers,

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• Prefer class members or passing arguments between internal methods?

  - by geoffjentry

  Suppose within the private portion of a class there is a value which is utilized by multiple private methods. Do people prefer having this defined as a member variable for the class or passing it as an argument to each of the methods - and why? On one hand I could see an argument to be made that reducing state (ie member variables) in a class is generally a good thing, although if the same value is being repeatedly used throughout a class' methods it seems like that would be an ideal candidate for representation as state for the class to make the code visibly cleaner if nothing else. Edit: To clarify some of the comments/questions that were raised, I'm not talking about constants and this isn't relating to any particular case rather just a hypothetical that I was talking to some other people about. Ignoring the OOP angle for a moment, the particular use case that I had in mind was the following (assume pass by reference just to make the pseudocode cleaner) int x doSomething(x) doAnotherThing(x) doYetAnotherThing(x) doSomethingElse(x) So what I mean is that there's some variable that is common between multiple functions - in the case I had in mind it was due to chaining of smaller functions. In an OOP system, if these were all methods of a class (say due to refactoring via extracting methods from a large method), that variable could be passed around them all or it could be a class member.

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• I can't get grub menu to show up during boot

  - by wim

  After trying (and failing) to install better ATI drivers in 11.10, I've somehow lost my grub menu at boot time. The screen does change to the familiar purple colour, but instead of a list of boot options it's just blank solid colour, and then disappears quickly and boots into the default entry normally. How can I get the bootloader back? I've tried sudo update-grub and also various different combinations of resolutions and colour depths in startupmanager application with no success (640x480, 1024x768, 1600x1200, 16 bits, 8 bits, 10 second delay, 7 second delay, 2 second delay...) edit: I have already tried holding down Shift during bootup and it does not seem to change the behaviour. I get the message "GRUB Loading" in the terminal, but then the place where the grub menu normally appears I get a solid blank magenta screen for a while. Here are the contents of /etc/default/grub # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update # /boot/grub/grub.cfg. # For full documentation of the options in this file, see: # info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration' GRUB_DEFAULT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=" vga=798 splash" # Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs # This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains # the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...) #GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef" # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only) #GRUB_TERMINAL=console # The resolution used on graphical terminal # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE # you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo' #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 # Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true # Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries #GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true" # Uncomment to get a beep at grub start #GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"

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• Run Win7 Guest (raw disk) in Ubuntu (which was installed as Dual Boot on existing Win7)

  - by kingdango

  I installed Ubuntu 12.10 on top of Win 7 as a dual boot (awesome!). I'm hoping to use VirtualBox to run my original Win7 instance as a guest OS under Ubuntu. I found this existing question and followed the directions to no avail. I can get the VMDK file created but when I run it I just get a blank black screen with no additional information and Windows never loads. I see no HD activity or anything that would indicate it's loading. I used this command to create the VMDK file: VBoxManager internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ~/.VirtualBox/Win7Native.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sda3 It looks like everything was created correctly but I just get a blank screen when I run the VM. I do get this warning when I boot the VM: VirtualBox - Warning The virtual machine execution may run into and error condition as described below... The medium '/home/XXX/.VirtualBox/Win7Native.vmdk' has a logical size of 583GB but the file system the medium is located on can only handle up to 16GB in theory. We strongly recommend to put all your virtual disk images and the snapshot folder on a proper file system (e.g. etc3) with a sufficient size. ErrorId: Fat Partition Detected Severity: Warning How can I get this working?

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• English major new to programming. What language should I learn first? [closed]

  - by PJKaka

  After working extensively an internet startup in a marketing positions, I've decided to wade into the entrepreneurship pool with a startup of my own. The only problem: I don't have any particular technical skills to speak of. Although I can find a technical co-founder, I'd rather not be the stereotypical 'business guy' drumming his fingers on the desk and asking 'how much longer?' as my technical co-founder codes away. I would like to understand code and what's happening in the backend, even if I don't end up being anything more than a 'passable' programmer. With this in mind, which language should I try to learn first? For the record, I'm quite proficient with HTML, CSS, and a bit of JavaScript. I have some familiarity with PHP because I've toyed around with WordPress a lot, but my knowledge is limited at best. My math skills are quite strong. I took some advanced calculus courses in college since I've always enjoyed the subject. While my goals are to learn web development, I wouldn't mind learning some hardcore object oriented programming skills in C or Java as well.

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• Fast, accurate 2d collision

  - by Neophyte

  I'm working on a 2d topdown shooter, and now need to go beyond my basic rectangle bounding box collision system. I have large levels with many different sprites, all of which are different shapes and sizes. The textures for the sprites are all square png files with transparent backgrounds, so I also need a way to only have a collision when the player walks into the coloured part of the texture, and not the transparent background. I plan to handle collision as follows: Check if any sprites are in range of the player Do a rect bounding box collision test Do an accurate collision (Where I need help) I don't mind advanced techniques, as I want to get this right with all my requirements in mind, but I'm not sure how to approach this. What techniques or even libraries to try. I know that I will probably need to create and store some kind of shape that accurately represents each sprite minus the transparent background. I've read that per pixel is slow, so given my large levels and number of objects I don't think that would be suitable. I've also looked at Box2d, but haven't been able to find much documentation, or any examples of how to get it up and running with SFML.

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• Seek first to understand, then to be understood

  - by BuckWoody

  One of the most important (and most difficult) lessons for a technical professional to learn is to not jump to the solution. Perhaps you’ve done this, or had it happen to you. As the person you’re “listening” to is speaking, your mind is performing a B-Tree lookup on possible solutions, and when the final node of the B-Tree in your mind is reached, you blurt out the “only” solution there is to the problem, whether they are done or not. There are two issues here – both of them fatal if you don’t factor them in. First, your B-Tree may not be complete, or correct. That of course leads to an incorrect response, which blows your credibility. People will not trust you if this happens often. The second danger is that the person may modify their entire problem with a single word or phrase. I once had a client explain a detailed problem to me – and I just KNEW the answer. Then they said at the end “well, that’s what it used to do, anyway. Now it doesn’t do that anymore.” Which of course negated my entire solution – happily I had kept my mouth shut until they finished. So practice listening, rather than waiting for your turn to speak. Let the person finish, let them get the concept out, give them your full attention. They’ll appreciate the courtesy, you’ll look more intelligent, and you both may find the right answer to the problem. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• What kinds of languages would be most useful for this kind of webapp?

  - by Caedar

  I've had some experience with programming in the past (2-3 years of C++ self-teaching), so I'm no stranger to the programming process, but there are so many languages out there that I'm lost when thinking about this project idea that's been floating around my head: I would like to create a webapp that would be used for helping somebody figure out what kinds of productivity tools would suit them. The first part of the app would basically be a survey with a variety of questions that would help weed out tools that wouldn't be useful for them. (Slider bar between minimalist and maximizer, slider bar between all free apps and no cost limit, checkboxes on what platforms are required, etc.) While the person is filling out the survey, they will see a web of applications, webapps, and other tools forming on the screen with links showing the relationships the programs have with eachother (syncing supported, good combinations of apps, etc.), along with a list of applications below sorted by general use (notetaking, document organization, storage, etc.) I would imagine that each program entered into the database that will be accessed would have a certain set of characteristics, ie. price, user friendliness, platforms supported, general uses, etc. and the survey would be designed to correlate to those elements and remove programs that don't match the criteria set. The difficult part of this entire process would be getting the web of applications to arrange itself and render properly. Now that I've finished mind-dumping, onto my question: What kinds/combinations of programming languages would you imagine being useful for this kind of project, and why? I learn best by setting up a project for myself like this one and tinkering with the languages, so I don't mind if the end product is out of reach from my current skill level. I'd just like some guidance so I don't fumble in the dark for too long.

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• How come there is still so much programming work?

  - by jd_505

  First I'd like to say that I am not pretty sure that this question will meet the guidelines. I think it can goes under the "Freelancing and business concerns" bullet, but I am not sure. Anyway, I will give it a shot. I wonder how the programming jobs hasn't yet "dried" because of the software evolution, for example, I am a developer myself, which means that I do care about software (I mean I am not of the type of guys that needs a computer mainly to just browse the Internet), and still I wouldn't mind if I never receive any more updates on my Ubuntu machine. I find that it provides everything I need, and while the updates provide various bug fixes/improvements, I wouldn't mind using it with it's current state for the rest of my life, for 2 years of Ubuntu usage I have never bumped at a serious bug/problem. Another example is Windows, almost half of it's users still use XP, which is practically ancient, yet they find it satisfying all their needs (and I agreee with them). I could go with many more examples, but by now you are understanding my point and my question. While new "trends" appears all of the time (like a new mobile OS) which runs on new platforms and requires some fresh development work, still the majority of the software effort goes in to what I consider as "completed projects", or at least a state of a project which is enough to be considered as completed. Do you have an explanation ? I can't think of the right tags for this question, please edit it the way you find it to be most appropriate. Thanks.

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• What are the design principles that promote testable code? (designing testable code vs driving design through tests)

  - by bot

  Most of the projects that I work on consider development and unit testing in isolation which makes writing unit tests at a later instance a nightmare. My objective is to keep testing in mind during the high level and low level design phases itself. I want to know if there are any well defined design principles that promote testable code. One such principle that I have come to understand recently is Dependency Inversion through Dependency injection and Inversion of Control. I have read that there is something known as SOLID. I want to understand if following the SOLID principles indirectly results in code that is easily testable? If not, are there any well-defined design principles that promote testable code? I am aware that there is something known as Test Driven Development. Although, I am more interested in designing code with testing in mind during the design phase itself rather than driving design through tests. I hope this makes sense. One more question related to this topic is whether it's alright to re-factor an existing product/project and make changes to code and design for the purpose of being able to write a unit test case for each module?

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