Search Results

Search found 1698 results on 68 pages for 'while loops'.

Page 38/68 | < Previous Page | 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  | Next Page >

  • Alternative to Game State System?

    - by Ricket
    As far as I can tell, most games have some sort of "game state system" which switches between the different game states; these might be things like "Intro", "MainMenu", "CharacterSelect", "Loading", and "Game". On the one hand, it totally makes sense to separate these into a state system. After all, they are disparate and would otherwise need to be in a large switch statement, which is obviously messy; and they certainly are well represented by a state system. But at the same time, I look at the "Game" state and wonder if there's something wrong about this state system approach. Because it's like the elephant in the room; it's HUGE and obvious but nobody questions the game state system approach. It seems silly to me that "Game" is put on the same level as "Main Menu". Yet there isn't a way to break up the "Game" state. Is a game state system the best way to go? Is there some different, better technique to managing, well, the "game state"? Is it okay to have an intro state which draws a movie and listens for enter, and then a loading state which loops on the resource manager, and then the game state which does practically everything? Doesn't this seem sort of unbalanced to you, too? Am I missing something?

    Read the article

  • Partner Webcast – Oracle CRM: The Age of the Customer - 18 July 2013

    - by Thanos
    High-touch solutions for the complete customer experience How does Customer Relationship Management change in "the age of the customer", or does it at all? Customer relationship management has changed over the past years from a pure "inside out" point of view, where the customer is the center of attention to an "outside in" discipline where the customer has become the driving force. Away from the 360° view, through data to a holistic view of the customer’s journey and experience, through behavioral analysis and interaction across all touch points along a lifecycle of a customer relationship. Learn how this approach, integrating sales, service and marketing channels into one cohesive customer experience can drive customer experience and support acquisition, retention and efficiency in your customer relationship. With Oracle's Sales, Service and Marketing cloud offerings, you can be ahead of the game and provide a consistent and personalized voice to your customers, regardless of which channels you favor and your customers prefer. Integrated, cross-channel campaign automation and service delivery, as well as feedback-loops to sales automation, will provide you with tools to achieve top-of-the-line customer experience. Agenda · Oracle Customer Experience - Introduction into a new take on CRM · Oracle Sales Cloud - Integrated Salesforce Automation · Oracle Marketing Cloud - Cross-Channel Campaign Management · Oracle Service Cloud - Channel-blending in service delivery Delivery Format This FREE online LIVE eSeminar will be delivered over the Web. Registrations received less than 24 hours prior to start time may not receive confirmation to attend. Duration: 1 hour REGISTER NOW For any questions please contact us at partner.imc-AT-beehiveonline.oracle-DOT-com.

    Read the article

  • Team Foundation Server 2012 Build Global List Problems

    - by Bob Hardister
    My experience with the upgrade and use of TFS 2012 has been very positive. I did come across a couple of issues recently that tripped things up for a while. ISSUE 1 The first issue is that 2012 prior to Update 1 published an invalid build list item value to the collection global list. In 2010, the build global list, list item value syntax is an underscore between the build definition and the build number. In the 2012 RTM this underscore was replaced with a backslash, which is invalid.  Specifically, an upload of the global list fails when the backslash is followed at some point by a period. The error when using the API is: <detail ExceptionMessage="TF26204: The account you entered is not recognized. Contact your Team Foundation Server administrator to add your account." BaseExceptionName="Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Server.ValidationException"><details id="600019" http://schemas.microsoft.com/TeamFoundation/2005/06/WorkItemTracking/faultdetail/03"http://schemas.microsoft.com/TeamFoundation/2005/06/WorkItemTracking/faultdetail/03" /></detail> when uploading the global list via the process editor the error is: This issue is corrected in Update1 as the backslash is changed to a forward slash. ISSUE 2 The second issue is that when upgrading from 2010 to 2012, the builds in 2010 are not published to the 2012 global list.  After the upgrade the 2012 global lists doesn’t have any builds and only builds run in 2012 are published to the global list. This was reported to the MSDN forums and Connect. To correct this I wrote a utility to pull all the builds and recreate the builds global list for each project in each collection.  This is a console application with a program.cs, a globallists.cs and a app.config (not published here). The utility connects to TFS 2012, loops through the collections or a target collection as specified in the app.config. Then loops through the projects, the build definitions, and builds.  It creates a global list for each project if that project has at least one build. Then it imports the new list to TFS.  Here’s the code for program and globalists classes. Program.CS using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Client; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Common; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Server; using System.IO; using System.Xml; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client; using System.Diagnostics; using Utilities; using System.Configuration; namespace TFSProjectUpdater_CLC { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { DateTime temp_d = System.DateTime.Now; string logName = temp_d.ToShortDateString(); logName = logName.Replace("/", "_"); logName = logName + "_" + temp_d.TimeOfDay; logName = logName.Replace(":", "."); logName = "TFSGlobalListBuildsUpdater_" + logName + ".log"; Trace.Listeners.Add(new TextWriterTraceListener(Path.Combine(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["logLocation"], logName))); Trace.AutoFlush = true; Trace.WriteLine("Start:" + DateTime.Now.ToString()); Console.WriteLine("Start:" + DateTime.Now.ToString()); string tfsServer = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TargetTFS"].ToString(); GlobalLists gl = new GlobalLists(); //replace this with the URL to your TFS instance. Uri tfsUri = new Uri("https://" + tfsServer + "/tfs"); //bool foundLite = false; TfsConfigurationServer config = new TfsConfigurationServer(tfsUri, new UICredentialsProvider()); config.EnsureAuthenticated(); ITeamProjectCollectionService collectionService = config.GetService<ITeamProjectCollectionService>(); IList<TeamProjectCollection> collections = collectionService.GetCollections().OrderBy(collection => collection.Name.ToString()).ToList(); //target Collection string targetCollection = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["targetCollection"]; foreach (TeamProjectCollection coll in collections) { if (targetCollection.Equals(string.Empty)) { if (!coll.Name.Equals("TFS Archive") && !coll.Name.Equals("DefaultCol") && !coll.Name.Equals("Team Project Template Gallery")) { doWork(coll, tfsServer); } } else { if (coll.Name.Equals(targetCollection)) { doWork(coll, tfsServer); } } } Trace.WriteLine("Finished:" + DateTime.Now.ToString()); Console.WriteLine("Finished:" + DateTime.Now.ToString()); if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached) { Console.WriteLine("\nHit any key to exit..."); Console.ReadKey(); } Trace.Close(); } static void doWork(TeamProjectCollection coll, string tfsServer) { GlobalLists gl = new GlobalLists(); //target Collection string targetProject = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["targetProject"]; Trace.WriteLine("Collection: " + coll.Name); Uri u = new Uri("https://" + tfsServer + "/tfs/" + coll.Name.ToString()); TfsTeamProjectCollection c = TfsTeamProjectCollectionFactory.GetTeamProjectCollection(u); ICommonStructureService icss = c.GetService<ICommonStructureService>(); try { Trace.WriteLine("\tChecking Collection Global Lists."); gl.RebuildBuildGlobalLists(c); } catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine("Exception! :" + coll.Name); } } } } GlobalLists.CS using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Client; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Common; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Server; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client; using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client; using System.Configuration; using System.Xml; using System.Xml.Linq; using System.Diagnostics; namespace Utilities { public class GlobalLists { string GL_NewList = @"<gl:GLOBALLISTS xmlns:gl=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/workitemtracking/globallists""> <GLOBALLIST> </GLOBALLIST> </gl:GLOBALLISTS>"; public void RebuildBuildGlobalLists(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs) { WorkItemStore wis = new WorkItemStore(_tfs); //export the current globals lists file for the collection to save as a backup XmlDocument globalListsFile = wis.ExportGlobalLists(); globalListsFile.Save(@"c:\temp\" + _tfs.Name.Replace("\\", "_") + "_backupGlobalList.xml"); LogExportCurrentCollectionGlobalListsAsBackup(_tfs); //Build a new global build list from each build definition within each team project IBuildServer buildServer = _tfs.GetService<IBuildServer>(); foreach (Project p in wis.Projects) { XmlDocument newProjectGlobalList = new XmlDocument(); newProjectGlobalList.LoadXml(GL_NewList); LogInstanciateNewProjectBuildGlobalList(_tfs, p); BuildNewProjectBuildGlobalList(_tfs, wis, newProjectGlobalList, buildServer, p); LogEndOfProject(_tfs, p); } } // Private Methods private static void BuildNewProjectBuildGlobalList(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, WorkItemStore wis, XmlDocument newProjectGlobalList, IBuildServer buildServer, Project p) { //locate the template node XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(newProjectGlobalList.NameTable); nsmgr.AddNamespace("gl", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/workitemtracking/globallists"); XmlNode node = newProjectGlobalList.SelectSingleNode("//gl:GLOBALLISTS/GLOBALLIST", nsmgr); LogLocatedGlobalListNode(_tfs, p); //add the name attribute for the project build global list XmlElement buildListNode = (XmlElement)node; buildListNode.SetAttribute("name", "Builds - " + p.Name); LogAddedBuildNodeName(_tfs, p); //add new builds to the team project build global list bool buildsExist = false; if (AddNewBuilds(_tfs, newProjectGlobalList, buildServer, p, node, buildsExist)) { //import the new build global list for each project that has builds newProjectGlobalList.Save(@"c:\temp\" + _tfs.Name.Replace("\\", "_") + "_" + p.Name + "_" + "newGlobalList.xml"); //write out temp copy of the global list file to be imported LogImportReady(_tfs, p); wis.ImportGlobalLists(newProjectGlobalList.InnerXml); LogImportComplete(_tfs, p); } } private static bool AddNewBuilds(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, XmlDocument newProjectGlobalList, IBuildServer buildServer, Project p, XmlNode node, bool buildsExist) { var buildDefinitions = buildServer.QueryBuildDefinitions(p.Name); foreach (var buildDefinition in buildDefinitions) { var builds = buildDefinition.QueryBuilds(); foreach (var build in builds) { //insert the builds into the current build list node in the correct 2012 format buildsExist = true; XmlElement listItem = newProjectGlobalList.CreateElement("LISTITEM"); listItem.SetAttribute("value", buildDefinition.Name + "/" + build.BuildNumber.ToString().Replace(buildDefinition.Name + "_", "")); node.AppendChild(listItem); } } if (buildsExist) LogBuildListCreated(_tfs, p); else LogNoBuildsInProject(_tfs, p); return buildsExist; } // Logging Methods private static void LogExportCurrentCollectionGlobalListsAsBackup(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs) { Trace.WriteLine("\tExported Global List for " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\tExported Global List for " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private void LogInstanciateNewProjectBuildGlobalList(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tInstanciated the new build global list for project " + p.Name + " in the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tInstanciated the new build global list for project \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " in the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private static void LogLocatedGlobalListNode(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tLocated the build global list node for project " + p.Name + " in the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tLocated the build global list node for project \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " in the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private static void LogAddedBuildNodeName(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tAdded the name attribute to the build global list for project " + p.Name + " in the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tAdded the name attribute to the build global list for project \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " in the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private static void LogBuildListCreated(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tAdded all builds into the " + "Builds - " + p.Name + " list in the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tAdded all builds into the " + "Builds - \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " list in the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private static void LogNoBuildsInProject(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tNo builds found for project " + p.Name + " in the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tNo builds found for project " + p.Name + " \n\t\t\tin the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private void LogEndOfProject(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tEND OF PROJECT " + p.Name); Trace.WriteLine(" "); Console.WriteLine("\t\tEND OF PROJECT " + p.Name); Console.WriteLine(); } private static void LogImportReady(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tReady to import the build global list for project " + p.Name + " to the " + _tfs.Name + " collection."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tReady to import the build global list for project \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " to the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection."); } private static void LogImportComplete(TfsTeamProjectCollection _tfs, Project p) { Trace.WriteLine("\t\tImport of the build global list for project " + p.Name + " to the " + _tfs.Name + " collection completed."); Console.WriteLine("\t\tImport of the build global list for project \n\t\t\t" + p.Name + " to the \n\t\t\t" + _tfs.Name + " collection completed."); } } }

    Read the article

  • How do I measure performance of a virtual server?

    - by Sergey
    I've got a VPS running Ubuntu. Being a virtual server, I understand that it shares resources with unknown number of other servers, and I'm noticing that it's considerably slower than my desktop machine. Is there some tool to measure the performance of the virtual machine? I'd be curious to see some approximate measure similar to bogomips, possibly for CPU (operations/sec), memory and disk read/write speed. I'd like to be able to compare those numbers to my desktop machine. I'm not interested in the specs of the actual physical machine my VPS is running on - by doing cat /proc/cpuinfo I can see that it's a nice quad-core Xeon machine, but it doesn't matter to me. I'm basically interested in how fast a program would run in my VPS - how many CPU operations it can make in a second, how many bytes to write to RAM or to disk. I only have ssh access to the machine so the tool need to be command-line. I could write a script which, say, does some calculations in a loop for a second and counts how many loops it was able to do, or something similar to measure disk and RAM performance. But I'm sure something like this already exists.

    Read the article

  • Sending Emails via Google SMTP - after some time quit working

    - by Chris
    on a website I use PHPMailer to send automated registration emails, etc and also a newsletter-tool (which loops through the emails and sends them one by one). Also, I configured in Gmail under Settings and confirmed @mydomain addresses, so I can send from @mydomain emails without the gmail address being displayed. Furthermore I authorized the website to send mails with this link: https://accounts.google.com/DisplayUnlockCaptcha Now, after 2 month where everything worked perfectly fine, suddenly users started not to receive emails anymore and most recently emails are not even being sent anymore. Also, I received many error messages like this: Technical details of permanent failure: Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 5.4.1 [email protected]: Recipient address rejected: Access Denied (state 13). When I check at this link: https://toolbox.googleapps.com/apps/checkmx/ It tells 2 none critical errors: Relayhost configuration detected. There SHOULD be a valid SPF record. So, the questions I would have were: does anybody have any hint why it stopped working, what the error messages mean? what to do to fix it? where do I set a SPF record (Cpanel?)? what is a relayhost and how to fix that? It is about 1000-1400 mails a day (gmail's limit is 2000). Also, what can I do wrong when setting up an SPF record? I've heard there are some testing tools for that. Thank you so much already in advance for your help!

    Read the article

  • Diagram that could explain a state machine's code?

    - by Incognito
    We have a lot of concepts in making diagrams like UML and flowcharting or just making up whatever boxes-and-arrows combination works at the time, but I'm looking at doing a visual diagram on something that's actually really complex. State machines like those that parse HTML or regular expressions tend to be very long and complicated bits of code. For example, this is the stateLoop for FireFox 9 beta. It's actually generated by another file, but this is the code that runs. How can I diagram something with the complexity of this in a way that explains flow of the code without taking it to a level where I draw every single line-of-code into it's own box on a flowchart? I don't want to draw "Invoke loop, then return" but I don't want to explain every last detail. What kind of graph is suitable to do this? Is there already something out there similar to this? Just an example of how to do this without going overboard in complexity or too-high-level is really what I want. If you don't feel like looking at the code, basically it's 70 different state flags that could occur, inside an infinite loop that exists to a label based on some conditions, each flag has it's own infinite loop that exists to a label somewhere, and each of those loops has checks for different types of chars, which then runs off into various other methods.

    Read the article

  • How are events in games handled?

    - by Alex
    In may games that I have played, I have seen events being triggered, such as when you walk into a certain land area while holding a specific object, it will trigger a special creature to spawn. I was wondering, how do games deal with events such as this? Not in a specific game, but in general among games. The first thought I had was that each place has a hard-coded set of events that it will call when something happens there. However, that would be too inefficient to maintain, as when something new is added, that would require modification of every part of the game that would potentially cause the event to be called. Next up, I had the idea of maybe how GUI programming works. In all of the GUI programming I've done, you create a component and a callback function, or a listener. Then, when the user interacts when the button, the callback function is called, allowing you to do something with it. So, I was thinking that in terms of a game, when a land area gets loaded the game loops over a list of all events, creating instances of them and calling public methods to bind them to the current scene. The events themselves then handle what scene it is, and if it is a scene that pertains to the event, will call the public method of the scene to bind the event to an action. Then, when the action takes place, the scene would call all events that are bound to that action. However, I'm sure that's not how games would operate either, as that would require a lot of creating of events all the time. So how to video games handle events, are either of those methods correct, or is it something completely different?

    Read the article

  • MySQL – How to Write Loop in MySQL

    - by Pinal Dave
    Since, I have written courses on MySQL, I quite often get emails about MySQL courses. Here is the question, which I have received quite often. “How do I loop queries in MySQL?” Well, currently MySQL does not allow to write loops with the help of ad-hoc SQL. You have to write stored procedure (routine) for the same. Here is the example, how we can create a procedure in MySQL which will look over the code. In this example I have used SELECT 1 statement and looped over it. In reality you can put there any code and loop over it. This procedure accepts one parameter which is the number of the count the loop will iterate itself. delimiter // CREATE PROCEDURE doiterate(p1 INT) BEGIN label1: LOOP SET p1 = p1 - 1; IF p1 > 0 THEN SELECT 1; ITERATE label1; END IF; LEAVE label1; END LOOP label1; END// delimiter ; CALL doiterate(100); You can also use WHILE to loop as well, we will see that in future blog posts. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: MySQL, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

    Read the article

  • Teach Your Kid to Code (&hellip;and Vote early!)

    - by Steve Michelotti
    Next Tuesday I will be at the CMAP main meeting presenting Teach Your Kid to Code. Next Tuesday is of course Election Day so you have to make sure you vote early in order to get over to CMAP for the 7:00PM presentation. I will be co-presenting this talk with my 5th grade son. Here is the abstract: Have you ever wanted a way to teach your kid to code? For that matter, have you ever wanted to simply be able to explain to your kid what you do for a living? Putting things in a context that a kid can understand is not as easy as it sounds. If you are someone curious about these concepts, this is a “can’t miss” presentation that will be co-presented by Justin Michelotti (5th grader) and his father. Bring your kid with you to CMAP for this fun and educational session. We will show tools you may not have been aware of like SmallBasic and Kodu – we’ll even throw in a little Visual Studio and Windows 8! Concepts such as variables, conditionals, loops, and functions will be covered while we introduce object oriented concepts without any of the confusing words. Kids are not required for entry! I promise this will be an entertaining presentation! We hope to see you (and your kids) there. Click here for details.

    Read the article

  • How does this game loop actually work?

    - by Nicolai
    I read this playfulJS post, about ray-casting: http://www.playfuljs.com/a-first-person-engine-in-265-lines/ It looks really interested, so I decided to look at his javascript. I am no expert in javascript, so I quickly got lost. It's the game loop "object" that really gets me. I simply don't understand how it works. From the code: function GameLoop() { this.frame = this.frame.bind(this); this.lastTime = 0; this.callback = function() {}; } GameLoop.prototype.start = function(callback) { this.callback = callback; requestAnimationFrame(this.frame); }; GameLoop.prototype.frame = function(time) { var seconds = (time - this.lastTime) / 1000; this.lastTime = time; if (seconds < 0.2) this.callback(seconds); requestAnimationFrame(this.frame); }; var loop = new GameLoop(); loop.start(function frame(seconds) { map.update(seconds); player.update(controls.states, map, seconds); camera.render(player, map); }); Now, what really confuses me here, is this bind stuff and how this actually loops. I am guessing, that if less than 0.2 seconds have passed, since the last time the loop was run, it simply goes back to re-check the time. If more than 0.2 seconds have passed, it leaves the frame function, and executes the 3 lines in the loop. But, if this is true, then how does the loop.start() get called again? And what on earth is the meaning of this.frame = this.frame.bind(this);? I've looked up prototypes bind() but I really don't understand it.

    Read the article

  • Advice: The first-time interviewer's dilemna

    - by shan23
    I've been working in my first job for about 2 years now, and I've been "asked" to interview a potential teammate (whom I might have to mentor as well) on pretty short notice (2 days from now). Initially, I had been given a free rein(or so I thought, and hence agreed), but today, I've been told "not to pose bookish questions" - implying I can only ask basic programming puzzles and stuff similar to the 'fizbuzz' question. I strongly believe that not knowing basic algorithmic notations(the haziest ideas of space/time complexities) or the tiniest idea of regular expressions would make working with the guy very difficult for anyone. I know i'm asking for a lot here, but according to you, what would be a comprehensive way to test out the absolutely basic requirements of a CS guy(he has 2 yrs of exp) without sounding too pedantic/bookish etc ? It seems it would be legit to ask C questions/simple puzzles only....but I really do want to have something a bit different from "finding loops in linked lists" that has kind of become the opening statement of most techie interviews !! This is a face-to-face interview with about an hour or more of time - I looked at Steve's basic phone-screen questions, and I was wondering if there exists a guide on "basic face-to-face interview questions" that I can use(or compile from the community's answers here). EDIT: The position is mostly for a kernel level C programming job, with some smattering of C++ required for writing the test framework.

    Read the article

  • How to host customer developed code server side

    - by user963263
    I'm developing a multi-tenant web application, most likely using ASP.NET MVC5 and Web API. I have used business applications in the past where it was possible to upload custom DLL's or paste in custom code to a GUI to have custom functions run server side. These applications were self hosted and single-tenant though so the customer developed bits didn't impact other clients. I want to host the multi-tenant web application myself and allow customers to upload custom code that will run server side. This could be for things like custom web services that client side JavaScript could interact with, or it could be for automation steps that they want triggered server side asynchronously when a user takes a particular action. Additionally, I want to expose an API that allows customers' code to interact with data specific to the web application itself. Client code may need to be "wrapped" so that it has access to appropriate references - to our custom API and maybe to a white list of approved libraries. There are several issues to consider - security, performance (infinite loops, otherwise poorly written code, load balancing, etc.), receive compiled DLL's or require raw code, etc. Is there an established pattern for this sort of thing or a sample project anyone can point to? Or any general recommendations?

    Read the article

  • Learning to be a good developer: what parts can you skip over?

    - by Andrew M
    I have set myself the goal of becoming a decent developer by this time next year. By this I mean full experience of the development 'lifecycle,' a few good apps/sites/webapps under my belt, and most importantly being able to work at a steady pace without getting sidelined for hours by some should-know-this-already technique. I'm not starting from scratch. I've written a lot of html/css, SQL, javascript, python and VB.net, and studied other languages like C and Java. I know about things like OOP, design patterns, TDD, complexity, computational linguistics, pointers/references, functional programming, and other academic/theoretical matters. It's just I can't say I've really done these things yet. So I want to get up to speed, and I want to know what things I can leave till a later date. For instance, studying algorithms and the maths behind them is interesting and all, but so far I've hardly needed to write anything but the most basic nested loops. Investigating Assembly to have a clearer picture of low-level operations would be cool... but I imagine rarely infringes on daily work. On the other hand, looking at a functional programming language might help me write programs that are more comprehensible and less prone to hidden failures (at the moment I'm finding the biggest difficulty is when the complexity of the app exceeds my capacity to understand it - for instance passing data around was fine... until I had to start doing it with AJAX, which was a painful step up). I could spend time working through case studies of design patterns, but I'm not sure how many of them get used in 'real life.' I'm a programmer with basic abilities - what skills should I focus on developing? (also my Unix skills are very weak, and also knowledge of Windows configuration... not sure how much time I should spend on that)

    Read the article

  • Functional programming and stateful algorithms

    - by bigstones
    I'm learning functional programming with Haskell. In the meantime I'm studying Automata theory and as the two seem to fit well together I'm writing a small library to play with automata. Here's the problem that made me ask the question. While studying a way to evaluate a state's reachability I got the idea that a simple recursive algorithm would be quite inefficient, because some paths might share some states and I might end up evaluating them more than once. For example, here, evaluating reachability of g from a, I'd have to exclude f both while checking the path through d and c: So my idea is that an algorithm working in parallel on many paths and updating a shared record of excluded states might be great, but that's too much for me. I've seen that in some simple recursion cases one can pass state as an argument, and that's what I have to do here, because I pass forward the list of states I've gone through to avoid loops. But is there a way to pass that list also backwards, like returning it in a tuple together with the boolean result of my canReach function? (although this feels a bit forced) Besides the validity of my example case, what other techniques are available to solve this kind of problems? I feel like these must be common enough that there have to be solutions like what happens with fold* or map. So far, reading learnyouahaskell.com I didn't find any, but consider I haven't touched monads yet. (if interested, I posted my code on codereview)

    Read the article

  • single for-loop runtime explanation problem

    - by owwyess
    I am analyzing some running times of different for-loops, and as I'm getting more knowledge, I'm curious to understand this problem which I have still yet to find out. I have this exercise called "How many stars are printed": for (int i = N; i > 1; i = i/2) System.out.println("*"); The answers to pick from is A: ~log N B: ~N C: ~N log N D: ~0.5N^2 So the answer should be A and I agree to that, but on the other side.. Let's say N = 500 what would Log N then be? It would be 2.7. So what if we say that N=500 on our exercise above? That would most definitely print more han 2.7 stars? How is that related? Because it makes sense to say that if the for-loop looked like this: for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) it would print N stars. I hope to find an explanation for this here, maybe I'm interpreting all these things wrong and thinking about it in a bad way. Thanks in advance.

    Read the article

  • Alternative to Game State System?

    - by Ricket
    As far as I can tell, most games have some sort of "game state system" which switches between the different game states; these might be things like "Intro", "MainMenu", "CharacterSelect", "Loading", and "Game". On the one hand, it totally makes sense to separate these into a state system. After all, they are disparate and would otherwise need to be in a large switch statement, which is obviously messy; and they certainly are well represented by a state system. But at the same time, I look at the "Game" state and wonder if there's something wrong about this state system approach. Because it's like the elephant in the room; it's HUGE and obvious but nobody questions the game state system approach. It seems silly to me that "Game" is put on the same level as "Main Menu". Yet there isn't a way to break up the "Game" state. Is a game state system the best way to go? Is there some different, better technique to managing, well, the "game state"? Is it okay to have an intro state which draws a movie and listens for enter, and then a loading state which loops on the resource manager, and then the game state which does practically everything? Doesn't this seem sort of unbalanced to you, too? Am I missing something?

    Read the article

  • Fastest way to group units that can see each other?

    - by mac
    In the 2D game I'm working with, the game engine is able to give me, for each unit, the list of other units that are in its view range. I would like to know if there is an established algorithm to sort the units in groups, where each group would be defined by all those units which are "connected" to each other (even through others). An example might help understand the question better (E=enemy, O=own unit). First the data that I would get from the game engine: E1 can see E2, E3, O5 E2 can see E1 E3 can see E1 E4 can see O5 E5 can see O2 E6 can see E7, O9, O1 E7 can see E6 O1 can see E6 O2 can see O5, E5 O5 can see E1, E4, O2 O9 can see E6 Then I should compute the groups as follow: G1 = E1, E2, E3, E4, E5, O2, O5 G2 = O1, O9, E6, E7 It can be safely assumed that there is a transitive property for the field of view: [if A sees B, then B sees A]. Just to clarify: I already wrote a naïve implementation that loops on each row of the game engine info, but from the look of it, it seems a problem general enough for it to have been studied in depth and have various established algorithms (maybe passing through some tree-like structure?). My problem is that I couldn't find a way to describe my problem that returned useful google hits. Thank you in advance for your help!

    Read the article

  • best way to compute vertex normals from a Triangle's list

    - by nkint
    hi i'm a complete newbie in computergraphics so sorry if it's a stupid answer. i'm trying to make a simple 3d engine from scratch, more for educational purpose than for real use. i have a Surface object with inside a Triangle's list. For now i compute normals inside Triangle class, in this way: triangle.computeFaceNormals() { Vec3D u = v1.sub(v3) Vec3D v = v1.sub(v2) Vec3D normal = Vec3D.cross(u,v) normal.normalized() this.n1 = this.n2 = this.n3 = normal } and when building surface: t = new Triangle(v1,v2,v3).computeFaceNormals() surface.addTriangle(t) and i think this is the best way to do that.. isn't it? now.. what about for vertex normals? i've found this simple algorithm: flipcode vertex normal but.. hei this algorithm has.. exponential complexity? (if my memory doesn't fail my computer science background..) (bytheway.. it has 3 nested loops.. i don't think it's the best way to do it..) any suggestion?

    Read the article

  • How can I find the shortest path between two subgraphs of a larger graph?

    - by Pops
    I'm working with a weighted, undirected multigraph (loops not permitted; most node connections have multiplicity 1; a few node connections have multiplicity 2). I need to find the shortest path between two subgraphs of this graph that do not overlap with each other. There are no other restrictions on which nodes should be used as start/end points. Edges can be selectively removed from the graph at certain times (as explained in my previous question) so it's possible that for two given subgraphs, there might not be any way to connect them. I'm pretty sure I've heard of an algorithm for this before, but I can't remember what it's called, and my Google searches for strings like "shortest path between subgraphs" haven't helped. Can someone suggest a more efficient way to do this than comparing shortest paths between all nodes in one subgraph with all nodes in the other subgraph? Or at least tell me the name of the algorithm so I can look it up myself? For example, if I have the graph below, the nodes circled in red might be one subgraph and the nodes circled in blue might be another. The edges would all have positive integer weights, although they're not shown in the image. I'd want to find whatever path has the shortest total cost as long as it starts at a red node and ends at a blue node. I believe this means the specific node positions and edge weights cannot be ignored. (This is just an example graph I grabbed off Wikimedia and drew on, not my actual problem.)

    Read the article

  • Styles of games that work at low-resolution

    - by Brendan Long
    I'm taking a class on compilers, and the goal is to write a compiler for Meggy Jr devices (Arduino). The goal is just to make a simple compilers with loops and variables and stuff. Obviously, that's lame, so the "real goal" is to make an impressive game on the device. The problem is that it only has 64 pixels to work with (technically 72, but the top 8 are single-color and not part of the main display, so they're really only useful for displaying things like money). My problem is thinking of something to do on a device that small. It doesn't really matter if it's original, but it can't be something that's already available. My first idea was "snake", but that comes with the SDK. Same with a side-scrolling shooter. Remaining ideas include a tower defense game (hard to write, hard to control), an RPG (same), tetris (lame).. The problem is that all of the games I like require a high-resolution screen because they have a lot of text. Even a really simple game like nethack would be hard because each creature would be a single color. tl;dr What styles of games require a. No text; and b. Few enough objects that representing them each with a single color is acceptable? EDIT: To clarify, the display is 8x8 for a total of 64 pixels, not 64x64.

    Read the article

  • Styles of games that work at low-resolution

    - by Brendan Long
    I'm taking a class on compilers, and the goal is to write a compiler for Meggy Jr devices (Arduino). The goal is just to make a simple compilers with loops and variables and stuff. Obviously, that's lame, so the "real goal" is to make an impressive game on the device. The problem is that it only has 64 pixels to work with (technically 72, but the top 8 are single-color and not part of the main display, so they're really only useful for displaying things like money). My problem is thinking of something to do on a device that small. It doesn't really matter if it's original, but it can't be something that's already available. My first idea was "snake", but that comes with the SDK. Same with a side-scrolling shooter. Remaining ideas include a tower defense game (hard to write, hard to control), an RPG (same), tetris (lame).. The problem is that all of the games I like require a high-resolution screen because they have a lot of text. Even a really simple game like nethack would be hard because each creature would be a single color. tl;dr What styles of games require a. No text; and b. Few enough objects that representing them each with a single color is acceptable?

    Read the article

  • Performance due to entity update

    - by Rizzo
    I always think about 2 ways to code the global Step() function, both with pros and cons. Please note that AIStep is just to provide another more step for whoever who wants it. // Approach 1 step foreach( entity in entities ) { entity.DeltaStep( delta_time ); if( time_for_fixed_step ) entity.FixedStep(); if( time_for_AI_step ) entity.AIStep(); ... // all kind of updates you want } PRO: you just have to iterate once over all entities. CON: fidelity could be lower at some scenarios, since the entity.FixedStep() isn't going all at a time. // Approach 2 step foreach( entity in entities ) entity.DeltaStep( delta_time ); if( time_for_fixed_step ) foreach( entity in entities ) entity.FixedStep(); if( time_for_AI_step ) foreach( entity in entities ) entity.FixedStep(); // all kind of updates you want SEPARATED PRO: fidelity on FixedStep is higher, shouldn't be much time between all entities update, rather than Approach 1 where you may have to wait other updates until FixedStep() comes. CON: you iterate once for each kind of update. Also, a third approach could be a hybrid between both of them, something in the way of foreach( entity in entities ) { entity.DeltaStep( delta_time ); if( time_for_AI_step ) entity.AIStep(); // all kind of updates you want BUT FixedStep() } if( time_for_fixed_step ) { foreach( entity in entities ) { entity.FixedStep(); } } Just two loops, don't caring about time fidelity in nothing other than at FixedStep(). Any thoughts on this matter? Should it really matters to make all steps at once or am I thinking on problems that don't exist?

    Read the article

  • An unexpected pleasure from Windows 8

    - by eddraper
    This post is certainly on the more nuanced side of all the goodness that is Windows 8, but it’s about something that’s really changed my PC usage experience for the better. Besides being a geek and the enjoying all the techno-thrills and chills that go along with sitting in front of a keyboard all day, I really love the forest.  Trees have always been special to me.  The feeling of being in the forest with all the sounds and ambiance, the broken light, the fragrance of the air… it’s paradise to me. As I can’t get there often, due to work, and quite often the heat here in Texas, I’ve found something that can at least partially fill the gap…  When you install Windows 8, you’ll have an app called “Naturespace” from http://www.naturespace.com/ .  It boasts a number of predefined loops in what they call “holographic audio.”  They’re essentially high-tech 3D sound fields recorded in natural environments. After checking them out, I really liked the sound of the “Daybreak” selection: A great benefit is that you don’t have to be in Metro/Modern/Windows App Store mode, in order to keep the sound playing.  To start the day, I click on Daybreak, start it, then go back to the desktop and fire up VS, Chrome, etc. As I work and play, I’m surrounded by this delightful background ambiance which relaxes me and puts my mind at ease. Give it a try.  I think you’ll like it.  And no, you don’t need ear buds or headphones to get the benefit.

    Read the article

  • Gödel, Escher, Bach - Gödel's string

    - by Brad Urani
    In the book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter, the author gives us a representation of the precursor to Gödel's string (Gödel's string's uncle) as: ~Ea,a': (I don't have the book in front of me but I think that's right). All that remains to get Gödel's string is to plug the Gödel number for this string into the free variable a''. What I don't understand is how to get the Gödel number for the functions PROOF-PAIR and ARITHMOQUINE. I understand how to write these functions in a programming language like FlooP (from the book) and could even write them myself in C# or Java, but the scheme that Hofstadter defines for Gödel numbering only applies to TNT (which is just his own syntax for natural number theory) and I don't see any way to write a procedure in TNT since it doesn't have any loops, variable assignments etc. Am I missing the point? Perhaps Gödel's string is not something that can actually be printed, but rather a theoretical string that need not actually be defined? I thought it would be neat to write a computer program that actually prints Gödel's string, or Gödel's string encoded by Gödel numbering (yes, I realize it would have a gazillion digits) but it seems like doing so requires some kind of procedural language and a Gödel numbering system for that procedural language that isn't included in the book. Of course once you had that, you could write a program that plugs random numbers into variable "a" and run procedure PROOF-PAIR on it to test for theoromhood of Gödel's string. If you let it run for a trillion years you might find a derivation that proves Gödel's string.

    Read the article

  • Sneaky Javascript For Loop Bug

    - by Liam McLennan
    Javascript allows you to declare variables simply by assigning a value to an identify, in the same style as ruby: myVar = "some text"; Good javascript developers know that this is a bad idea because undeclared variables are assigned to the global object, usually window, making myVar globally visible. So the above code is equivalent to: window.myVar = "some text"; What I did not realise is that this applies to for loop initialisation as well. for (i = 0; i < myArray.length; i += 1) { } // is equivalent to for (window.i = 0; window.i < myArray.length; window.i += 1) { } Combine this with function calls nested inside of the for loops and you get some very strange behaviour, as the value of i is modified simultaneously by code in different scopes. The moral of the story is to ALWAYS declare javascript variables with the var keyword, even when intialising a for loop. for (var i = 0; i < myArray.length; i += 1) { }

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  | Next Page >