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• What types of programming contest problems are there?

  - by Alex

  Basically, I want to make a great reference for use with programming contests that would have all of the algorithms that I can put together that I would need during a contest as well as sample useage for the code. I'm planning on making this into a sort of book that I could print off and take with me to competitions. I would like to do this rather than simply bringing other books (such as Algorithms books) because I think that I will learn a lot more by going over all of the algorithms myself as well as I would know exactly what I have in the book, making it more efficient to have and use. So, I've been doing research to determine what types of programming problems and algorithms are common on contests, and the only thing I can really find is this (which I have seen referenced a few times): Hal Burch conducted an analysis over spring break of 1999 and made an amazing discovery: there are only 16 types of programming contest problems! Furthermore, the top several comprise almost 80% of the problems seen at the IOI. Here they are: Dynamic Programming Greedy Complete Search Flood Fill Shortest Path Recursive Search Techniques Minimum Spanning Tree Knapsack Computational Geometry Network Flow Eulerian Path Two-Dimensional Convex Hull BigNums Heuristic Search Approximate Search Ad Hoc Problems The most challenging problems are Combination Problems which involve a loop (combinations, subsets, etc.) around one of the above algorithms - or even a loop of one algorithm with another inside it. These seem extraordinarily tricky to get right, even though conceptually they are ``obvious''. Now that's good and all, but that study was conducted in 1999, which was 13 years ago! One thing I know is that there are no BigNums problems any more (as Java has a BigInteger class, they have stopped making those problems). So, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any more recent studies of the types of problems that may be seen in a programming contest? Or what the most helpful algorithms on contests would be?

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• Thinking skills to be a good programmer

  - by Paul

  I have been programming for last 15 years with non-CS degree. Main reason I got into programming was that I liked to learn new things and apply them to my work. And I was able to find and fix programming errors and their causes faster than others. But I never find myself a a guru or an expert, maybe due to my non-CS major. And when I saw great programmers, I observed they are very good, much better than me of course, at solving problems. One skill I found good in my mid-career is thinking of requirements and tasks in a reverse order and in abstract. In that way, I can see what is really required for me to do without detail and can quickly find parts of solution that already exist. So I wonder if there are other thinking skills to be a good programmer. I've followed Q&As below and actually read some of books recommended there. But I couldn't really pickup good methods directly applicable for my programming work. What non-programming books should a programmer read to help develop programming/thinking skills? Skills and habits to develop to be good at programming (I'm a newbie)

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• What is the Best way to learn c# programming and capability to do anything with C#?

  - by MSU

  I browsed all the answers given in Stackoverflow,i couldn't find my answer that's why i am writing this, so please don't mark this a duplicate. My case i want to get the capability of doing anything in C# from building applications to solving problems. I searched for and tried to read books. Then one of the experts said, reading books will not make any good for you, for learning you have to solve problems i.e. real world problems in C#, he gave me some sample problems, which i previously did in C++, i started doing, but the thing is that i know the internal logic of solving the problem or the algorithm to solve. But i don't know how to imepelement them using C# efficiently. so, the gap is, i can't think in C#, I know the message to passed but don't the exact way to pass it. I did a program to solve a problem, then find out there are much easier ways of doing it wherever i was doing it in tougher way. So, can you guys(C# experts) please enlighten me, what i need to get hold of the language and get the ability to code in C# proficiently?

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• Are web application usability issues equal to website usability issues?

  - by Kor

  I've been reading two books about web usability issues and tests (Rocket Surgery Made Easy¹ and Prioritizing Web Usability²) and they claim some strategies and typical problems about website usability and how to lead them. However, I want to do a web application, and I think I lost track of what I am trying to solve. These two books claim to work with raw websites (e-commerce, business sites, even intranet), but I'm not sure if everything about web usability is applicable to web application usability. They sure talk about always having available (and usable) the Back button, to focus on short information rather than big amounts of text, etc., but they could be inaccurate in deeper problems that may be easier (or just skippable) in regular websites. Has anybody some experience in this field and could tell me if both web applications and websites share their usability issues? Thanks in advance Edit: Quoting Wikipedia, a website is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets, and a web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. To sum up, both shows/lets you search/produce information but websites are "simple" in interaction and keep the classics of websites (one-click actions) and the other one is closer to desktop applications in the meaning of their uses and ways of interaction (double click, modal windows, asynchronous calls [to keep you in the same "environment" instead of reloading it] etc.). I don't know if this clarifies the difference. Edit 2: Quoting @Victor and myself, a website is anything running in your browser, but a web application is somewhat running in your browser that could be running in your desktop, with similar behaviors and features. Gmail is a web application that could replace Outlook. GDocs could replace Office. Grooveshark could replace your music player, etc.

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• Is dependency injection by hand a better alternative to composition and polymorphism?

  - by Drake Clarris

  First, I'm an entry level programmer; In fact, I'm finishing an A.S. degree with a final capstone project over the summer. In my new job, when there isn't some project for me to do (they're waiting to fill the team with more new hires), I've been given books to read and learn from while I wait - some textbooks, others not so much (like Code Complete). After going through these books, I've turned to the internet to learn as much as possible, and started learning about SOLID and DI (we talked some about Liskov's substitution principle, but not much else SOLID ideas). So as I've learned, I sat down to do to learn better, and began writing some code to utilize DI by hand (there are no DI frameworks on the development computers). Thing is, as I do it, I notice it feels familiar... and it seems like it is very much like work I've done in the past using composition of abstract classes using polymorphism. Am I missing a bigger picture here? Is there something about DI (at least by hand) that goes beyond that? I understand the possibility of having configurations not in code of some DI frameworks having some great benefits as far as changing things without having to recompile, but when doing it by hand, I'm not sure if it's any different than stated above... Some insight into this would be very helpful!

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• good literature for teaching object oriented thinking in C [closed]

  - by Dipan Mehta

  Quite often C is the primary platform for the development. And when things are large scale, I have seen partitioning of the system as different objects is quite a natural thing. Some or many of the object orientated analysis and design principles are used here very well. This is not a debate question about whether or not C is a good candidate for object oriented programming or not. This is also NOT a question how to do OO in C. You can refer to this question and there are probably many such citations. As far as I am concerned, I have learned some of this things while working with many open source and commercial projects. (libjpeg, ffmpeg, Gstreamer which is based on GObject). I can probably extend a few references that explains some of these concepts such as - 1. Event Helix article, 2. Linux Mag article 3. one of my answers which links Schreiner's reference. Unfortunately, when we induct younger folks, it seems too hard to make them learn all of it the hard way. Usually, when we say it's C, a general reaction is to throw away all of the "Object thinking". Looking for help extending above references from those who have been in the similar areas of work. Are there any good formal literature that explains how Object thinking can be made to use while you are working in C? I have seen tons of book on general "object oriented paradigms" but they all focus on advanced languages mostly not in C. You see most C books - but most focus only on the syntax and the obfuscated corners of C and that's it. There are hardly ANY good reference, specially books or any systematic (I mean formal) literature on how to apply OO in C. This is very surprising given that so many large scale open source projects use C which are truly using this very well; but we hardly see any good formal literature on this subject.

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• Have You Checked Our BI Publisher Channel at Youtube ?

  - by kanichiro.nishida

  These days, more and more people watching video online rather than reading. Steve Jobs once said people don’t read anymore. Well, I love books and still read a lot either on books, magazine, iPad, MacbookPro, or whatever the medium shows me letters! But I have to admit, sometimes it’s much easier to understand especially something like How-To by just watching video clips than reading it. And this is why we started our BI Publisher Channel at Youtube last summer. Since then we have uploaded over 10 video clips so far and and now we’re gearing up to add more and more clips. Now, we’re in a middle of finishing up our work for the next 11G 1st patchset release, which should be coming soon and will have a lot of great new features that I can’t wait to talk to you guys about. And of course we’re preparing introduction and How-Top clips. So please subscribe the BI Publisher channel now if you haven’t done yet and stay tuned for the new clips! http://www.youtube.com/user/bipublisher Also, we’d love to hear your comments for each clip, so please don’t forget leaving your comments there after you watch!

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• Learning good OOP design & unlearning some bad habits

  - by Nick

  I have been mostly a C programmer so far in my career with knowledge of C++. I rely on C++ mostly for the convenience STL provides and I hardly ever focus on good design practices. As I have started to look for a new job position, this bad habit of mine has come back to haunt me. During the interviews, I have been asked to design a problem (like chess, or some other scenario) using OOP and I doing really badly at that (I came to know this through feedback from one interview). I tried to google stuff and came up with so many opinions and related books that I don't know where to begin. I need a good through introduction to OOP design with which I can learn practical design, not just theory. Can you point me to any book which meets my requirements ? I prefer C++, but any other language is fine as long as I can pick-up good practices. Also, I know that books can only go so far. I would also appreciate any good practice project ideas that helped you learn and improve your OOP concepts. Thanks.

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• Is there a canonical source supporting "all-surrogates"?

  - by user61852

  Background The "all-PK-must-be-surrogates" approach is not present in Codd's Relational Model or any SQL Standard (ANSI, ISO or other). Canonical books seems to elude this restrictions too. Oracle's own data dictionary scheme uses natural keys in some tables and surrogate keys in other tables. I mention this because these people must know a thing or two about RDBMS design. PPDM (Professional Petroleum Data Management Association) recommend the same canonical books do: Use surrogate keys as primary keys when: There are no natural or business keys Natural or business keys are bad ( change often ) The value of natural or business key is not known at the time of inserting record Multicolumn natural keys ( usually several FK ) exceed three columns, which makes joins too verbose. Also I have not found canonical source that says natural keys need to be immutable. All I find is that they need to be very estable, i.e need to be changed only in very rare ocassions, if ever. I mention PPDM because these people must know a thing or two about RDBMS design too. The origins of the "all-surrogates" approach seems to come from recommendations from some ORM frameworks. It's true that the approach allows for rapid database modeling by not having to do much business analysis, but at the expense of maintainability and readability of the SQL code. Much prevision is made for something that may or may not happen in the future ( the natural PK changed so we will have to use the RDBMS cascade update funtionality ) at the expense of day-to-day task like having to join more tables in every query and having to write code for importing data between databases, an otherwise very strightfoward procedure (due to the need to avoid PK colisions and having to create stage/equivalence tables beforehand ). Other argument is that indexes based on integers are faster, but that has to be supported with benchmarks. Obviously, long, varying varchars are not good for PK. But indexes based on short, fix-length varchar are almost as fast as integers. The questions - Is there any canonical source that supports the "all-PK-must-be-surrogates" approach ? - Has Codd's relational model been superceded by a newer relational model ?

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• What are some good resources for creating a game engine in XNA?

  - by Glasser

  I'm currently a student game programmer working on an indie project. We have a team of eleven people (five programmers, four artists, and two audio designers) aboard, all working hard to help design this game. We've been meeting for months now and so far we have a pretty buffed out Game Design Document as well as much audio/visual concept art. Our programmers are itching to progress on our own end. Each person in our programming team is well versed in C++, but is very familiar with C#. We have enough experience and skill that we're confident that we will be successful with our game, and we're looking to build our own game engine in XNA as it seems like it would be worth our time and effort in the end. The game itself will be a 2D beat 'em up style game to be released over xbox live and the PC. It's play style will be similar to that of Castle Crashers or Scott Pilgrim vs The World. We want to design the game engine to allow us to better implement our assets into the game as well as to simplify the creation of design elements/mechanics. Currently between our programmers, we have books such as "XNA 4.0" and "Game Coding Complete, Third Edition," but we'd still like more information on both XNA and (especially) building a game engine from scratch. What are any other good books, websites, or resources we could use to further map out and program our game engine?

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• Being stupid to get better productivity?

  - by loki2302

  I've spent a lot of time reading different books about "good design", "design patterns", etc. I'm a big fan of the SOLID approach and every time I need to write a simple piece of code, I think about the future. So, if implementing a new feature or a bug fix requires just adding three lines of code like this: if(xxx) { doSomething(); } It doesn't mean I'll do it this way. If I feel like this piece of code is likely to become larger in the nearest future, I'll think of adding abstractions, moving this functionality somewhere else and so on. The goal I'm pursuing is keeping average complexity the same as it was before my changes. I believe, that from the code standpoint, it's quite a good idea - my code is never long enough, and it's quite easy to understand the meanings for different entities, like classes, methods, and relations between classes and objects. The problem is, it takes too much time, and I often feel like it would be better if I just implemented that feature "as is". It's just about "three lines of code" vs. "new interface + two classes to implement that interface". From a product standpoint (when we're talking about the result), the things I do are quite senseless. I know that if we're going to work on the next version, having good code is really great. But on the other side, the time you've spent to make your code "good" may have been spent for implementing a couple of useful features. I often feel very unsatisfied with my results - good code that only can do A is worse than bad code that can do A, B, C, and D. Are there any books, articles, blogs, or your ideas that may help with developing one's "being stupid" approach?

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• Hosting files with support for file tagging / keywords

  - by Zev Chonoles

  I have a large (approx. 25GB) collection of files I would like to host online for people to view or download. I have a spare computer I can use as a dedicated server for these files. I'm looking for a method of, or piece of software for, hosting my files where I can assign tags or keywords to the files, and people viewing my files online can search the collection via the tags. By way of approximate solutions I've found so far, I see that there is software such as Collectorz.com or Readerware for creating databases of one's books / music / movies, and these databases can be searched by tags or keywords, and the databases can be made available and searchable online; this would suit my purposes except that my files are not necessarily books, music, or movies, and I want the files themselves accessible online, not a database describing my files. A commercially-available solution like the ones above would be acceptable, but I'd prefer to have the whole setup under my control (i.e. I'd like to either implement it by hand, or use commercial software that doesn't rely on using the company's servers, paying them a continued fee, etc.). The current extent of my internet experience is designing a few Google Sites, so I know there's a fair chance I won't understand the answers I receive, but I'm always happy to have a summer project :)

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• How should an undergraduate programmer organize his time learning the maximum possible?

  - by nischayn22

  I started programming lately(pre-final year of a CS degree) and now feel like there's a sea of uncovered treasure for me out there. So, I decided to cover as much as is possible before I look out for a job after graduation. So, I started to read books (The C++ Programming Language, Introduction to Algorithms, Cracking the Coding Interview, Programming Pearls,etc ) participate in StackExchange sites, solving problems (InterviewStreet and ProjectEuler), coding for open source, chatting to fellow programmers/mentors and try to learn more and more. Good,then what's the problem?? The problem is I am trying to do many things, but I am doubtful that I am still utilizing my time properly. I am reading many books and sometimes I just leave a book halfway (jumping from one book to another), sometimes I spend way too much time on chatting and also in getting lost somewhere in the huge internet world, and lastly the wasteful burden of attending classes (I don't think my teachers know good enough or I prefer learning on my own) May be some of you had similar situation. How did you organize your time? Or what do you think is the best way to organize it for an undergraduate? Also what mistakes am I making that you can warn me of

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• I still can't figure out how to program!

  - by Mark K.

  Please help! I've read lots of programming books for various languages, Java, Python, C, etc. I understand and know all of the basics of the languages and I understand algorithms and data structures. (Equivilant of say 2 years of CompSci classes) BUT, I still can't figure how to write a program that does anything useful. All of the programming books show you how to write the language, but NOT how to use it! The programming examples are all very basic like build a card catalog for a library or a simple game or use algorithms etc... They dont't show you how to develop complex programs that actually do anything useful! I've looked a open-source programs on sourceforge, but they don't make much sense to me. There are hundreds of files in each program & thousands of lines of code. But how do I learn how to do this? There's nothing in any book I can buy on Amazon that will give me the tools to write any of these programs. How do you go from reading Intro to Java or Programming Python, or C Programming Language, etc.. to actually being able to say, I have an idea for X Program.. this is how I go about developing it? It seems like there is so much more involved in writing a program than you can learn in a book or from a class. I feel like there is someth Can anyone put me on the right track?

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• Command Query Separation

  - by Liam McLennan

  Command query separation is a strategy, proposed by Bertrand Meyer, that each of an object’s methods should be either a command or a query. A command is an operation that changes the state of a system, and a query is an operation that returns a value. This is not the same thing as CQRS, hence why I think that CQRS is poorly named. An Example of Command Query Separation Consider a system that models books and shelves. There is a rule that a shelf may not be removed if it holds any books. One way to implement the removal is to write a method Shelf.Remove() that internally checks to make sure that the shelf is empty before removing it. If the shelf is not empty then it is not removed and an error is returned. To implement this feature following the principle of command query separation would require two methods, one to query the shelf and determine if it is empty and a second method to remove the shelf. Separating the query from the command makes the shelf class simpler to use because the state change is clear and explicit.

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for November 6, 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  OAM/OVD JVM Tuning | @FusionSecExpert Vinay from the Oracle Fusion Middleware Architecture Group (the infamous A-Team) shares a process for analyzing and improving performance in Oracle Virtual Directory and Oracle Access Manager. Architects Matter: Making sense of the people who make sense of enterprise IT Why do architects matter? Oracle Enterprise Architect Eric Stephens suggests that you ask yourself that question the next time you take the elevator to the Oracle offices on the 45th floor of the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois (or any other skyscraper, for that matter). If you had to take the stairs to get to those offices, who would you blame? "You get the picture," he says. "Architecture is essential for any necessarily complex structure, be it a building or an enterprise." (Read the article...) SOA Galore: New Books for Technical Eyes Only Shake up up your technical skills with this trio of new technical books from community members covering SOA and BPM. Thought for the Day "It goes against the grain of modern education to teach students to program. What fun is there to making plans, acquiring discipline, organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self critical?" — Alan Perlis (April 1, 1922 – February 7, 1990) Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• Where can I learn about managing domain names for my websites? [closed]

  - by Shahbaz

  [I originally asked this question on serverfault.com, where it was closed as 'out of scope.' Hopefully it is appropriate for this forum] I am a developer who doesn't understand how to effectively manage Internet domain names. Say I registered a name with namecheap and host a website on linode. Now what is an a-record? What is a name server and do I host it with namecheap of linode? Why would I pay amazon when others are free? Does any of this matter in terms of website latency or reliability? I feel like a script kiddy, copying and pasting others' and hoping it works. Is there a book or other resource that explains all this? I know amazon is full of books about DNS, but afaik they are about setting up DNA servers for local networks, not the Internet. p.s. To emphasize, I'm asking for books or long write-ups which explain this to technically competent people, who just haven't had to think about the role of commercial registrars, name servers, commercial hosts, commercial websites and how all parts play together on the real internet (not local networks).

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• Over 300 "NetBeans Platform for Beginners" Sold

  - by Geertjan

  I've noticed that the authors of "NetBeans Platform for Beginners" have started exposing the number of sales they have achieved. Below, notice the '304' (which will probably change quite quickly) at the lower left end of this screenshot: That's pretty good since the book has only existed for a few months and developers tend to share books they buy in PDF format. That probably means there are 300 teams of software developers around the world who are using the book, which is pretty awesome. (Though it would help the authors significantly, I'm sure, if individual developers on teams would buy the book, rather than sharing one between them. Come on, let's support these great authors so that they'll write more books like this.) Also note that there is a set of reviewer comments on the page above: Plus, the book is updated at the end of each month, so it continues to grow and improve from month to month, for free for everyone who has bought it. If you've read the book and want to contribute a review like the above, contact walternyland @ yahoo dot com. Great work, guys! For anyone out there who hasn't got it yet: https://leanpub.com/nbp4beginners

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• I don't understand how TDD helps me get a good design if I need a design to start testing it

  - by Michael Stum

  I'm trying to wrap my head around TDD, specifically the development part. I've looked at some books, but the ones I found mainly tackle the testing part - the History of NUnit, why testing is good, Red/Green/Refactor and how to create a String Calculator. Good stuff, but that's "just" Unit Testing, not TDD. Specifically, I don't understand how TDD helps me get a good design if I need a Design to start testing it. To illustrate, imagine these 3 requirements: A catalog needs to have a list of products The catalog should remember which products a user viewed Users should be able to search for a product At this points, many books pull a magic rabbit out of a hat and just dive into "Testing the ProductService", but they don't explain how they came to the conclusion that there is a ProductService in the first place. That is the "Development" part in TDD that I'm trying to understand. There needs to be an existing design, but stuff outside of entity-services (that is: There is a Product, so there should be a ProductService) is nowhere to be found (e.g., the second requirement requires me to have some concept of a User, but where would I put the functionality to remind? And is Search a feature of the ProductService or a separate SearchService? How would I know which I should choose?) According to SOLID, I would need a UserService, but if I design a system without TDD, I might end up with a whole bunch of Single-Method Services. Isn't TDD intended to make me discover my design in the first place? I'm a .net developer, but Java resources would also work. I feel that there doesn't seem to be a real sample application or book that deals with a real line of business application. Can someone provide a clear example that illustrates the process of creating a design using TDD?

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• Advice and resources on collaborative environments

  - by Tjaart

  I need some advice on collaborative software environments. More specifically, I am looking for books and reference materials that can aid me in understanding team and code structures and the interactions thereof. In other words books, blogs or white papers explaining: Different strategies for structuring teams that share common code between each other but have distinct individual functions? To summarise my question I would like to know what would be a good source of knowledge if I were to set up teams in an organisation that shared code but each unit still remained autonomous. I have done some research on this subject and explored: code review tools, distributed VCS, continuous integration tools, Unit testing automation. The tough part about implementing these tools are to determine where a good place would be to start, which tools are low hanging fruit, which tools or methods provide higher success rates. If someone asks me about code quality reference I point them to Code Complete. I am looking for an equivalent guide on software team structures and tools to make this equation work better. I realise that this question is quite vague but it arose as "we need to share code between teams without breaking each others stuff and causing management headaches and reams of red tape" The answer is definitely not simple and requires changes on many levels, hence the question. If the question is too vague please vote to close or delete. I would accept any good starting point as an answer.

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• Update 3 for "NetBeans Platform for Beginners"

  - by Geertjan

  The latest monthly update of NetBeans Platform for Beginners was released during the last few days. Without any question at all, this book is awesome. I love how it is a 'living book' and that on a monthly basis new updates are made available. In this particular update, as before, reader comments and questions have led to changes and enhancements in the book. In addition, there's now a tighter integration between the long list of samples on GitHub and the book, since wherever a sample relates to a text in the book, the book has a handy icon, so that you know when to hop over to GitHub to get a related sample. Do you have comments or questions about the book? That's what the feedback link is for: https://leanpub.com/nbp4beginners/feedback And there's also a free sample, just in case you'd like to get a feel for the book prior to buying it: http://samples.leanpub.com/nbp4beginners-sample.pdf If you're from a company where you're all sharing a single copy of the book, it would be great if you'd go back and support this great project (and hopefully encourage future books being written) by buying additional copies, ideally one for each developer. Let's show the authors that writing books on the NetBeans Platform is a really profitable thing to do (and I'm hoping they'll write one on Maven and the NetBeans Platform, as well)!

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• How can I go about learning to write a shader

  - by Donutz

  So here's the background: I'm writing a game, just for my own amusement and education really. I've already come to the conclusion that XNA was the way to go for graphics, I've bought a couple of books, I've gotten basic game graphics going, and that's great. Now I'm starting to get a little in-depth and I'm starting to need to do stuff not covered in my (beginner) books. In particular, I need to display a sprite using a mask. Actually, what I need to do is display a generic sprite with a different color for each player. After banging around on the web, it seems the way to go is to have a color texture (one for each player) which I display using the mask, then display the generic part of the sprite. This has to be done dynamically, i.e. at runtime because there are too many sprites to keep in memory if I try to generate all the permutations at startup. So, I need to use a shader. Fine. I've downloaded a sample shader program, and managed to hit it with a hammer until it does something close enough to what I want so that I know I'm on the right track. And here, we come to my problem... I have no friggin' clue what I'm doing. While there are a lot of samples and such about shaders, no one ever actually explains what's going on. For instance, I can't find any real docs on Tex2D. I feel like the guys in Zoolander poking at the computer. So, my question (yes, I have a question) -- where is a good URL or what is a good book to take me from dumskie to reasonably competent to write a basic shader?

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• Can I eventually consider myself a professional developer if I don't have a CS degree? [on hold]

  - by heltonbiker

  Question first, context later: If I am a dedicated, self-taught programmer, always seeking top-quality books AND READING THEM, while successfully applying all that new knowledge into my current work, could I call myself (and offer my work as) a PROFESSIONAL developer? How limiting (or how common) that is nowadays? I am afraid that, no matter how hard I study and practice, it could be too difficult to compete with "actual", college graduated developers, and potential employers might have doubts investing in an "undergraduated" person. Now, context: My former profession is from healthcare sector, then I studied mechanical engineering (quit in the middle), then I studied product design (master degree), and I ended up working (very happily) at an engineering company that manufactures medical devices. For more than two years now my main activity in this company is software development. The devices contain software, and we gave up hiring software development (domain knowledge needed, too much communication cost). My current company sees a lot of value in what I do, but I cannot afford the risk of depending on this single company for the rest of my life, you get it. But a lot of job offers require some minimal formal education, usually a CS degree. Fact is that I am sure this is my target profession, I don't plan to go to another area, it is a pleasure to dive into books that normal people would consider unreadable, but I'm 36 years old and can't see going back to college as a viable alternative.

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• Recommended display/background brightness ratio and UI color schemes [duplicate]

  - by user1306322

  This question already has an answer here: Colour scheme for editor - guidelines or medical reccomendations 3 answers I'm a professional programmer, which means I spend a lot of time staring at various displays. Recently I've been having some problems with my eyes, so I went to talk to several doctors, which all gave me different recommendations as to how bright the background of the room should be in comparison to the display's brightness. It was very confusing, as some of them even agreed with counter-arguments of others, which made it all even less clear. So I'd like to ask the professional programmers, as people who actually have some experience with that. Some of the doctors said that looking at a monitor is like looking at a book, so the brightness ratios should be approximately the same. Others said that background should be as bright as the display itself, because then there is no brightness difference at the edges, and that's what may cause eye fatigue. From my own experience, I can say that reading a book isn't the same as writing or debugging a program, where you have to pay close attention to each symbol, and in books most words are easily recognizable without focusing too hard on them. Also, books are black on white and I myself use the default (dark text, white bg) color scheme for my IDE, but I've seen some programmers use mid-bright text on very dark background color schemes. So I'd like to ask what are the recommended display/background brightness ratios for programming? I'm not sure this site is the right one for this kind of questions, so if you know a better one, please comment.

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• Problem with understanding how to start

  - by Coolface

  Okay, this might be a little off-topic but i try anyway. Sorry to bother. So i'm working as sysadmin for at least 5 years now and i quite enjoy IT field in general. Somehow i was never interested in programming much but always want to learn something at least easy and for personal usage. As sysadmin i need scripting skills so learn shell scripting without much problems, i also try to learn pascal, delphi, basic over time and must recent was python. Well, my problem is when i try to learn programming i just can't apply what i learn from the books to the real word. What i mean is i understand there are data structures, algorithms, variables, lib's, if-then logic, etc. but i just can't understand how to apply this things when i want to do real things. Like i want to get a something simple as parse web page, i draw a quick algorithm like get a web page, find a word on it and write a to file, on the paper everything look simple but when i get to the coding i just stuck pretty much from the start. I try read code of the real programs that just totally confusing especially big parts with many classes so i'm just quickly lost a trail what this code do. I think i just lack some fundamentals to see a big picture but don't really know what this might be? Or maybe i just don't have a passion to programming at all... My best bet was a shell scripting so i have really no problems to write complex scripts but this just not enough. Recently i was read around 5 or 6 python books because everyone say it's so easy even kid can code something but still no much luck, python is good and easy but i can't make something harder then a prodecurial style code like in bash for easy things but when i want harder things i'm still stuck. In college i was also not a math and tech guy and like to study non-tech stuff mostly like economy, psychology maybe that my problem? Anyway any advice would be greatly appriciated.

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