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  • Move over DFS and Robocopy, here is SyncToy!

    - by andywe
    Ever since Windows 2000, I have always had the need to replicate data to multiple endpoints with the same content. Until DFS was introduced, the method of thinking was to either manually copy the data location by location, or to batch script it with xcopy and schedule a task. Even though this worked (and still does today), it was cumbersome, and intensive on the network, especially when dealing with larger amounts of data. Then along came robocopy, as an internal tool written by an enterprising programmer at Microsoft. We used it quite a bit, especially when we could not use DFS in the early days. It was received so well, it made it into the public realm. At least now we could have the ability to determine what files had changed and only replicate those. Well, over time there has been evolution of this ideal. DFS is obviously the Windows enterprise class service to do this, along with BrancheCache..however you don’t always need or want the power of DFS, especially when it comes to small datacenter installations, or remote offices. I have specific data sets that are on closed or restricted networks, that either have a security need for this, or are in remote countries where bandwidth is a premium. FOr this, I use the latest evolution for one off replication names Synctoy. Synctoy is from Microsoft, seemingly released in 2009, that wraps a nice GUI around setting up a paired set of folders (remember the mobile briefcase from Windows 98?), and allowing you the choice of synchronization methods. 1 way, or 2 way. Simply create a paired set of folders on the source and destination, choose your options for content, exclude any file types you don’t want to replicate, and click run. Scheduling is even easier. MS has included a wrapper for doing just this so all you enter in your task schedule in the SynToyCMD.exe, a –R as an argument, and the time schedule. No more complicated command lines or scripts.   I find this especially useful when I use MS backup to back up a system volume, but only want subsets of backup information of a data share and ONLY when that dataset has changed. Not relying on full backups and incremental. An example of this is my application installation master share. I back this up with SyncToy because I do not need multiple backup copies..one copy elsewhere suffices to back it up. At home, very useful for your pictures, videos, music, ect..the backup is online and ready to access, not waiting for you to restore a backup file, and no need to institute a domain simply to have DFS.'   Do note there is a risk..if you accidently delete a file and do not catch this before the next sync, then depending on your SyncToy settings, you can indeed lose that file as the destination updates..so due diligence applies. I make it a rule to sync manly one way…I use my master share for making changes, and allow the schedule to follow suit. Any real important file I lock down as read only through file permissions so it cannot be deleted unless I intervene.   Check out the tool and have some fun! http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?DisplayLang=en&id=15155

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  • Platform game collisions with Block

    - by Sri Harsha Chilakapati
    I am trying to create a platform game and doing wrong collision detection with the blocks. Here's my code // Variables GTimer jump = new GTimer(1000); boolean onground = true; // The update method public void update(long elapsedTime){ MapView.follow(this); // Add the gravity if (!onground && !jump.active){ setVelocityY(4); } // Jumping if (isPressed(VK_SPACE) && onground){ jump.start(); setVelocityY(-4); onground = false; } if (jump.action(elapsedTime)){ // jump expired jump.stop(); } // Horizontal movement setVelocityX(0); if (isPressed(VK_LEFT)){ setVelocityX(-4); } if (isPressed(VK_RIGHT)){ setVelocityX(4); } } // The collision method public void collision(GObject other){ if (other instanceof Block){ // Determine the horizontal distance between centers float h_dist = Math.abs((other.getX() + other.getWidth()/2) - (getX() + getWidth()/2)); // Now the vertical distance float v_dist = Math.abs((other.getY() + other.getHeight()/2) - (getY() + getHeight()/2)); // If h_dist > v_dist horizontal collision else vertical collision if (h_dist > v_dist){ // Are we moving right? if (getX()<other.getX()){ setX(other.getX()-getWidth()); } // Are we moving left? else if (getX()>other.getX()){ setX(other.getX()+other.getWidth()); } } else { // Are we moving up? if (jump.active){ jump.stop(); } // We are moving down else { setY(other.getY()-getHeight()); setVelocityY(0); onground = true; } } } } The problem is that the object jumps well but does not fall when moved out of platform. Here's an image describing the problem. I know I'm not checking underneath the object but I don't know how. The map is a list of objects and should I have to iterate over all the objects??? Thanks

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  • Any advantage to the script version of Google Adwords' conversion tracking code?

    - by ripper234
    Google Adword has an HTML snippet to track conversions: <script type="text/javascript"> /* <![CDATA[ */ var google_conversion_id = 12345; var google_conversion_language = "en"; var google_conversion_format = "3"; var google_conversion_color = "ffffff"; var google_conversion_label = "someopaqueid"; var google_conversion_value = 0; /* ]]> */ </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion.js"> </script> <noscript> <div style="display:inline;"> <img height="1" width="1" style="border-style:none;" alt="" src="http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion/12345/?label=opaque&amp;guid=ON&amp;script=0"/> </div> </noscript> It is composed of two parts: For clients supporting javascript, an inline script that sets variables, plus loading a reporting script. For other clients, an image tag. As far as I can see, the image tag has some advantages: It works on all browsers. It is asynchronous. It's shorter to have only this version, compared to both this and the js version. Any reason not to drop the <noscript> tag and just use the image conversion snippet directly?

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  • How to make a player stay within bounds of world with 2D Camera

    - by Craig
    Im creating a simple top down survival game. At the moment, i have the sprite which is a ship and moves by rotating left or right then going forward in that direction. I have implemented a 2D camera, its always centered on the player. However, when i move towards the bounds of the world that the sprite is in it just keeps on going :( How to i sort it that it stops at the edge of the world and cant go beyond it? Cheers :) Below is the main game class using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; namespace GamesCoursework_1 { /// <summary> /// This is the main type for your game /// </summary> public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; // player variables Texture2D Ship; Vector2 Ship_Position; float Ship_Rotation = 0.0f; Vector2 Ship_Origin; Vector2 Ship_Velocity; const float tangentialVelocity = 4f; float friction = 0.05f; static Point CameraViewport = new Point(800, 800); Camera2d cam = new Camera2d((int)CameraViewport.X, (int)CameraViewport.Y); //Size of world static Point worldSize = new Point(1600, 1600); // Screen variables static Point worldCenter = new Point(worldSize.X / 2, worldSize.Y / 2); Rectangle playerBounds = new Rectangle(CameraViewport.X / 2, CameraViewport.Y / 2, worldSize.X - CameraViewport.X, worldSize.Y - CameraViewport.Y); Rectangle worldBounds = new Rectangle(0, 0, worldSize.X, worldSize.Y); Texture2D background; public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = CameraViewport.X; graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = CameraViewport.Y; Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to perform any initialization it needs to before starting to run. /// This is where it can query for any required services and load any non-graphic /// related content. Calling base.Initialize will enumerate through any components /// and initialize them as well. /// </summary> protected override void Initialize() { // TODO: Add your initialization logic here base.Initialize(); } /// <summary> /// LoadContent will be called once per game and is the place to load /// all of your content. /// </summary> protected override void LoadContent() { // Create a new SpriteBatch, which can be used to draw textures. spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); // TODO: use this.Content to load your game content here Ship = Content.Load<Texture2D>("Ship"); Ship_Origin.X = Ship.Width / 2; Ship_Origin.Y = Ship.Height / 2; background = Content.Load<Texture2D>("aus"); Ship_Position = new Vector2(worldCenter.X, worldCenter.Y); cam.Pos = Ship_Position; cam.Zoom = 1f; } /// <summary> /// UnloadContent will be called once per game and is the place to unload /// all content. /// </summary> protected override void UnloadContent() { // TODO: Unload any non ContentManager content here } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to run logic such as updating the world, /// checking for collisions, gathering input, and playing audio. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { // Allows the game to exit if (GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One).Buttons.Back == ButtonState.Pressed) this.Exit(); // TODO: Add your update logic here Ship_Position = Ship_Velocity + Ship_Position; keyPressed(); base.Update(gameTime); } /// <summary> /// This is called when the game should draw itself. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); // TODO: Add your drawing code here spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Deferred, BlendState.AlphaBlend, null, null, null,null, cam.get_transformation(GraphicsDevice)); spriteBatch.Draw(background, Vector2.Zero, Color.White); spriteBatch.Draw(Ship, Ship_Position, Ship.Bounds, Color.White, Ship_Rotation, Ship_Origin, 1.0f, SpriteEffects.None, 0f); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } private void Ship_Move(Vector2 move) { Ship_Position += move; } private void keyPressed() { KeyboardState keyState; // Move right keyState = Keyboard.GetState(); if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { Ship_Rotation = Ship_Rotation + 0.1f; } if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { Ship_Rotation = Ship_Rotation - 0.1f; } if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up)) { Ship_Velocity.X = (float)Math.Cos(Ship_Rotation) * tangentialVelocity; Ship_Velocity.Y = (float)Math.Sin(Ship_Rotation) * tangentialVelocity; if ((int)Ship_Position.Y < playerBounds.Bottom && (int)Ship_Position.Y > playerBounds.Top) cam._pos.Y = Ship_Position.Y; if ((int)Ship_Position.X > playerBounds.Left && (int)Ship_Position.X < playerBounds.Right) cam._pos.X = Ship_Position.X; //tried world bounds here if (!worldBounds.Contains(new Point((int)Ship_Position.X, (int)Ship_Position.Y))) Ship_Position -= new Vector2(0.0f, -tangentialVelocity * 2); if (!worldBounds.Contains(new Point((int)Ship_Position.X, (int)Ship_Position.Y))) Ship_Position -= new Vector2(0.0f, 2 * tangentialVelocity); } else if(Ship_Velocity != Vector2.Zero) { float i = Ship_Velocity.X; float j = Ship_Velocity.Y; Ship_Velocity.X = i -= friction * i; Ship_Velocity.Y = j -= friction * j; if ((int)Ship_Position.Y < playerBounds.Bottom && (int)Ship_Position.Y > playerBounds.Top) cam._pos.Y = Ship_Position.Y; if ((int)Ship_Position.X > playerBounds.Left && (int)Ship_Position.X < playerBounds.Right) cam._pos.X = Ship_Position.X; } if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Q)) { if (cam.Zoom < 2f) cam.Zoom += 0.05f; } if (keyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.A)) { if (cam.Zoom > 0.3f) cam.Zoom -= 0.05f; } } } } my 2d camera class using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; namespace GamesCoursework_1 { public class Camera2d { protected float _zoom; // Camera Zoom public Matrix _transform; // Matrix Transform public Vector2 _pos; // Camera Position protected float _rotation; // Camera Rotation public int _viewportWidth, _viewportHeight; // viewport size public Camera2d(int ViewportWidth, int ViewportHeight) { _zoom = 1.0f; _rotation = 0.0f; _pos = Vector2.Zero; _viewportWidth = ViewportWidth; _viewportHeight = ViewportHeight; } // Sets and gets zoom public float Zoom { get { return _zoom; } set { _zoom = value; if (_zoom < 0.1f) _zoom = 0.1f; } // Negative zoom will flip image } public float Rotation { get { return _rotation; } set { _rotation = value; } } // Auxiliary function to move the camera public void Move(Vector2 amount) { _pos += amount; } // Get set position public Vector2 Pos { get { return _pos; } set { _pos = value; } } public Matrix get_transformation(GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice) { _transform = // Thanks to o KB o for this solution Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(-_pos.X, -_pos.Y, 0)) * Matrix.CreateRotationZ(Rotation) * Matrix.CreateScale(new Vector3(Zoom, Zoom, 1)) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(_viewportWidth * 0.5f, _viewportHeight * 0.5f, 0)); return _transform; } } }

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  • Am I the only one this anal / obsessive about code? [closed]

    - by Chris
    While writing a shared lock class for sql server for a web app tonight, I found myself writing in the code style below as I always do: private bool acquired; private bool disposed; private TimeSpan timeout; private string connectionString; private Guid instance = Guid.NewGuid(); private Thread autoRenewThread; Basically, whenever I'm declaring a group of variables or writing a sql statement or any coding activity involving multiple related lines, I always try to arrange them where possible so that they form a bell curve (imagine rotating the text 90deg CCW). As an example of something that peeves the hell out of me, consider the following alternative: private bool acquired; private bool disposed; private string connectionString; private Thread autoRenewThread; private Guid instance = Guid.NewGuid(); private TimeSpan timeout; In the above example, declarations are grouped (arbitrarily) so that the primitive types appear at the top. When viewing the code in Visual Studio, primitive types are a different color than non-primitives, so the grouping makes sense visually, if for no other reason. But I don't like it because the right margin is less of an aesthetic curve. I've always chalked this up to being OCD or something, but at least in my mind, the code is "prettier". Am I the only one?

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  • What determines which Javascript functions are blocking vs non-blocking?

    - by Sean
    I have been doing web-based Javascript (vanilla JS, jQuery, Backbone, etc.) for a few years now, and recently I've been doing some work with Node.js. It took me a while to get the hang of "non-blocking" programming, but I've now gotten used to using callbacks for IO operations and whatnot. I understand that Javascript is single-threaded by nature. I understand the concept of the Node "event queue". What I DON'T understand is what determines whether an individual javascript operation is "blocking" vs. "non-blocking". How do I know which operations I can depend on to produce an output synchronously for me to use in later code, and which ones I'll need to pass callbacks to so I can process the output after the initial operation has completed? Is there a list of Javascript functions somewhere that are asynchronous/non-blocking, and a list of ones that are synchronous/blocking? What is preventing my Javascript app from being one giant race condition? I know that operations that take a long time, like IO operations in Node and AJAX operations on the web, require them to be asynchronous and therefore use callbacks - but who is determining what qualifies as "a long time"? Is there some sort of trigger within these operations that removes them from the normal "event queue"? If not, what makes them different from simple operations like assigning values to variables or looping through arrays, which it seems we can depend on to finish in a synchronous manner? Perhaps I'm not even thinking of this correctly - hoping someone can set me straight. Thanks!

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  • Blind As a Bat in Multi-Monitor Hell &ndash; Free Program Inside!

    - by ToStringTheory
    If you know me personally, then you probably know that I am going blind thanks to a rare genetic eye disease.  My eye disease has already been a huge detriment to my eyesight.  One of the big things to suffer is my ability to see small things moving fast right in front of me.  On a multi-monitor setup, this makes finding the cursor absolute hell. The Problem I’ll keep this short, as I’ve basically already told you what the problem is.  On my three monitor development computer, I am constantly losing the mouse during the day.  I had used the Microsoft accessibility mousefinder (press CTRL, and it pings around the mouse).  The problem with this is, there is only an effect around 50-100 PX around the mouse, and it is a very light gray, almost unnoticeable.. For someone like me, if I am not looking at the monitor when I click the CTRL button, I have to click it multiple times and dart my eyes back and forth in a futile attempt to catch a glimpse of the action…  I had tried other cursor finders, but none I liked… The Solution So what’s a guy to do when he doesn’t like his options?  MAKE A NEW OPTION…  What else should we as developers do, am I right?  So, I went ahead and made a mousefinder of my own, with 6 separate settings to change the effect.  I am releasing it here for anyone else that may also have problems finding their mouse at times. Some of its features include: Multiple options to change to achieve the exact effect you want. If your mouse moves while it is honing in, it will hone in on its current position. Many times, I would press the button and move my mouse at the same time, and many times, the mouse happened to be at a screen edge, so I would miss it. This program will restart its animation on a new screen if the mouse changes its screen while playing. Tested on Windows 7 x64 Stylish color changing from green to red. Deployed as a ClickOnce, so easy to remove if you don't like it. Press Right CTRL to trigger effect Application lives in notification area so that you can easily reach configuration or close it. To get it to run on startup, copy its application shortcut from its startmenu directory to the “Startup” folder in your startmenu. Conclusion I understand if you don’t download this…  You don’t know me and I don’t know you.  I can only say that I have honestly NOT added any virus’ or malware to the package. Yeah, I know it’s weird Download: ‘ToString(theory) Mousefinder.zip’ CRC32: EEBCE300 MD5: 0394DA581BE6F3371B5BA11A8B24BC91 SHA-1: 2080C4930A2E7D98B81787BB5E19BB24E118991C Finally, if you do use this application - please leave a comment, or email me and tell me what you think of it. Encounter a bug or hashes no longer match? I want to know that too! <warning type=”BadPun”>Now, stop messing around and start mousing around!</warning>

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  • My GLSL shader isn't compiling even though it should. What should I investigate?

    - by reapz
    I'm porting an iOS game to Android. One of the shaders I'm using wouldn't compile until I reduced the number of uniform variables. Here are the uniform definitions: uniform highp mat4 ViewProjMatrix; uniform mediump vec3 LightDirWorld; uniform mediump int BoneCount; uniform highp mat4 BoneMatrixArray[8]; uniform highp mat3 BoneMatrixArrayIT[8]; uniform mediump int LightCount; uniform mediump vec3 LightPos[4]; // This used to be 12, but now 4, next lines also uniform lowp vec3 LightColour[4]; uniform mediump vec3 LightInnerOuterFalloff[4]; My issue is that the GLSL shader wouldn't compile until I reduced the count of the above arrays from 12 to 4. My understanding is that if those 3 lines were arrays of 12 then I would be using 56 vertex uniform vectors. I query the system at startup (GL_MAX_VERTEX_UNIFORM_VECTORS) and it says that 128 are available. Why wouldn't it compile with 56? I'm having issues on the Kindle Fire.

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  • Avoid overwriting all the methods in the child class

    - by Heckel
    The context I am making a game in C++ using SFML. I have a class that controls what is displayed on the screen (manager on the image below). It has a list of all the things to draw like images, text, etc. To be able to store them in one list I created a Drawable class from which all the other drawable class inherit. The image below represents how I would organize each class. Drawable has a virtual method Draw that will be called by the manager. Image and Text overwrite this method. My problem is that I would like Image::draw method to work for Circle, Polygon, etc. since sf::CircleShape and sf::ConvexShape inherit from sf::Shape. I thought of two ways to do that. My first idea would be for Image to have a pointer on sf::Shape, and the subclasses would make it point onto their sf::CircleShape or sf::ConvexShape classes (Like on the image below). In the Polygon constructor I would write something like ptr_shape = &polygon_shape; This doesn't look very elegant because I have two variables that are, in fact, just one. My second idea is to store the sf::CircleShape and sf::ConvexShape inside the ptr_shape like ptr_shape = new sf::ConvexShape(...); and to use a function that is only in ConvexShape I would cast it like so ((sf::ConvexShape*)ptr_shape)->convex_method(); But that doesn't look very elegant either. I am not even sure I am allowed to do that. My question I added details about the whole thing because I thought that maybe my whole architecture was wrong. I would like to know how I could design my program to be safe without overwriting all the Image methods. I apologize if this question has already been asked; I have no idea what to google.

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  • Questions before I revamp my rendering engine to use shaders (GLSL)

    - by stephelton
    I've written a fairly robust rendering engine using OpenGL ES 1.1 (fixed-function.) I've been looking into revamping the engine to use OpenGL ES 2.0, which necessitates that I use shaders. I've been absorbing information all day long and still have some questions. Firstly, lighting. The fixed-function pipeline is guaranteed to have at least 8 lights available. My current engine finds lights that are "close" to the primitives being drawn and enables them; I don't know how many lights are going to be enabled until I draw a given model. Nothing is dynamically allocated in GLSL, so I have to define in a shader some number of lights to be used, right? So if I want to stick with 8, should I write my general purpose shader to have 8 lights and then use uniforms to tell it how many / which lights to use? Which brings me to another question: should I be concerned with the amount of data I'm allocating in a shader? Recent video cards have hundreds of "stream processors." If I've got a fragment shader being used on some number of fragments in a given triangle, I assume they must each have their own stack to work on. Are read-only variables copied here, or read when needed? My initial goal is to rework my code so that it is virtually identical to the current implementation. What I have in mind is to create my own matrix stack so that I can implement something along the lines of push/popMatrix and apply all my translations, rotations, and scales to this matrix, then provide the matrix to the vertex shader so that it can make very quick vertex translations. Is this approach sound? Edit: My original intention was to ask if there was a tutorial that would explain the bare minimum necessary to jump from fixed-function to using shaders. Thanks!

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  • How to tell your boss that he's a bad programmer? [closed]

    - by Doe
    Possible Duplicate: How to tell your boss that his programming style is really bad? There was a question about the boss having a bad programming style (weird booleans, empty loops, etc.) Having a bad/weird style does not imply being a bad programmer, but my situation is different. My boss outputs some really nasty code for the project, on which we are working together (just two of us). Examples: functions that span over several screens (big screens - 1900 x 1200) Deeply nested Conditional and Loop statements (up to 10 levels!!) Too much static variables, singletons, and both (singleton class with all the methods and members also static) Sometimes the code committed to the version control system does not even compile! Copy-Paste code instead of separating it into an independent function. Fail all the deadlines. "This's [C#|Java|Python] it shouldn't be efficient, that's why we loop all over the haystack to find the needle." "This's C/C++, it's fast enough to loop all over the haystack to find the needle." There is much more to mention... But the worst is that I have to redo much of the stuff he does, my code, which I try to keep clean is often polluted with above-mentioned atrocities. He's reaching 30 soon, so all his skills are established, and I don't even know if it's possible to change something. I like the project, but sometimes I just want to quit...

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  • I can't program because the code I am using uses old coding styles. Is this normal to programmers? [closed]

    - by Renato Dinhani Conceição
    I'm in my first real job as programmer, but I can't solve any problems because of the coding style used. The code here: Does not have comments Does not have functions (50, 100, 200, 300 or more lines executed in sequence) Uses a lot of if statements with a lot of paths Has variables that make no sense (eg.: cf_cfop, CF_Natop, lnom, r_procod) Uses an old language (Visual FoxPro 8 from 2002), but there are new releases from 2007. I feel like I have gone back to 1970. Is it normal for a programmer familiar with OOP, clean-code, design patterns, etc. to have trouble with coding in this old-fashion way? EDIT: All the answers are very good. For my (un)hope, appears that there are a lot of this kind of code bases around the world. A point mentioned to all answers is refactor the code. Yeah, I really like to do it. In my personal project, I always do this, but... I can't refactor the code. Programmers are only allowed to change the files in the task that they are designed for. Every change in old code must be keep commented in the code (even with Subversion as version control), plus meta informations (date, programmer, task) related to that change (this became a mess, there are code with 3 used lines and 50 old lines commented). I'm thinking that is not only a code problem, but a management of software development problem.

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  • How to achieve selection of a tile from a tile sheet based on an ID?

    - by Bugster
    Let's say I have a tile sheet that contains 8 sprites per sheet. Each sprite is a tile of 30x30. I wrote my own custom map parser/map loader however I'm having trouble extracting a certain tile sprite from the file. I'll describe my problem better in order for everyone to understand. I wrote an enum of materials, each material has a value according to it's location relative to the tile sheet. For example void is 1, grass is 2, rock is 3, etc. So in my tile sheet they are represented as such: +---+---+---+---+---+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | +---+---+---+---+---+ Which is equivalent to: +------+-------+-------+ | void | grass | stone | +------+-------+-------+ Basically when rendering, I created a tile class, each tile has 2 coordinates: X and Y (They are calculated automatically) and a material which can be represented either as a number, either as a value (ID). When rendering, I have a vector of sprites which are all taken from 1 file called tilesheet.png, however each of them must only draw a certain portion of the tile sheet, for example say I have something like this: tile coordinateBounds(topLeftX, topLeftY, tileWidth, tileHeight); During the initialization of the map I calculate an array of tiles, and I give each of them their position, their materials based on the values in a map file and a few other variables such as collision. I need to apply the coordinateBounds to each of them according to their material value. For example if the material is grass it should only take the grass sprite from the tilesheet. I must also mention I'm using SFML, and there are no borders or spacing between the tiles.

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  • How to suggest changes as a recently-hired employee ?

    - by ereOn
    Hi, I was recently hired in a big company (thousands of people, to give an idea of the size). They said they hired me because of my rigor and because I was, despite my youngness (i'm 25), experienced as a C/C++ programer. Now that I'm in, I can see that the whole system is old and often uses obsolete technologies. There is no naming convention (files, functions, variables, ...), they don't use Version Control, don't use exceptions or polymorphism and it seems like almost everybody lost his passion (some of them are only 30 years old). I'd like to suggest somes changes but i don't want to be "the new guy that wants to change everything just because he doesn't want to fit in". I tried to "fit in", but actually, It takes me one week to do what I would do in one afternoon, just because of the poor tools we're forced to use. A lot my collegues never look at the new "things" and techniques that people use nowadays. It's like they just given up. The situation is really frustrating. Have you ever been in a similar situation and, if so, what advices would you give me ? Is there a subtle way of changing things without becoming the black sheep here ? Or should I just give up my passion and energy as well ? Thank you. Updates Just in case (if anyone cares): following your precious advices I was able to suggest changes and am now in charge of the team that must create and deploy Subversion :D Thanks to all of you !

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  • What language and topics should be covered when teaching non-CS college students how to program?

    - by michaelcarrano
    I have been asked by many of my non-computer science friends to teach them how to program. I have agreed to hold a seminar for them that will last for approximately 1 to 2 hours. My thoughts are to use Python as the language to teach them basic programming skills. I figured Python is relatively easier to learn from what I have researched. It is also a language I want to learn which will make holding this seminar all the more enjoyable. The topics I plan to cover are as followed: Variables / Arrays Logic - If else statements, switch case, nested statements Loops - for, while, do-while and nested loops Functions - pass by value, pass by reference (is this the correct terms for Python? I am mostly a C/C++ person) Object Oriented Programming Of course, I plan to have code examples for all topics and I will try to have each example flow into each other so that at the end of the seminar everyone will have a complete working program. I suppose my question is, if you were given 1 to 2 hours to teach a group of college students how to program, what language would you choose and what topics would you cover? Update: Thank you for the great feedback. I should have mentioned in my earlier post above that a majority of the students attending the seminar have some form of programming experience whether it was with Java or using Matlab. Most of these students are 3rd/4th year Engineering students who want to get a refresher on programming before they graduate.

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  • Dreaded SQLs

    - by lavanyadeepak
    Dreaded SQLs We used to think that a SQL statement without a where clause is only dangerous right since running that on a server TSQL is just going to impact the entire table like waving the magic wand. For that reason we should cultivate the habit first to write the statement as select and then to modify the select portion as update. Within the T-SQL Window, I would normally prefer the following first: select * from employee where empid in (4,5) and then once I am satisfied with the results, I would go ahead with the following change: --select * delete from employee where empid in (4,5) Today I just discovered another coding horror. This would typically be applicable in a stored procedure and with respect to variable nomenclature. It is always desirable to have a suitable nomenclature for parameters distinct from the column names and internal variables. This would help quicker debugging of the stored procedures besides enhancing the readability. Else in a quick bout of enthusiasm a statement like   if (@CustomerID = @CustomerID) [when the latter is intended to denote the column name and there is a superflous @ prepended], zeroing in on the problem would be little tricky. Had there been a still powerful nomenclature rules then debugging would have been more straight-forward and simpler right?

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  • TXPAUSE : polite waiting for hardware transactional memory

    - by Dave
    Classic locks are an appropriate tool to prevent potentially conflicting operations A and B, invoked by different threads, from running at the same time. In a sense the locks cause either A to run before B or vice-versa. Similarly, we can replace the locks with hardware transactional memory, or use transactional lock elision to leverage potential disjoint access parallelism between A and B. But often we want A to wait until B has run. In a Pthreads environment we'd usually use locks in conjunction with condition variables to implement our "wait until" constraint. MONITOR-MWAIT is another way to wait for a memory location to change, but it only allows us to track one cache line and it's only available on x86. There's no similar "wait until" construct for hardware transactions. At the instruction-set level a simple way to express "wait until" in transactions would be to add a new TXPAUSE instruction that could be used within an active hardware transaction. TXPAUSE would politely stall the invoking thread, possibly surrendering or yielding compute resources, while at the same time continuing to track the transaction's address-set. Once a transaction has executed TXPAUSE it can only abort. Ideally that'd happen when some other thread modifies a variable that's in the transaction's read-set or write-set. And since we're aborting all writes would be discarded. In a sense this gives us multi-location MWAIT but with much more flexibility. We could also augment the TXPAUSE with a cycle-count bound to cap the time spent stalled. I should note that we can already enter a tight spin loop in a transaction to wait for updates to address-set to cause an abort. Assuming that the implementation monitors the address-set via cache-coherence probes, by waiting in this fashion we actually communicate via the probes, and not via memory values. That is the updating thread signals the waiter via probes instead of by traditional memory values. But TXPAUSE gives us a polite way to spin.

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  • How to justify rewriting/revamping legacy software in a business case?

    - by sxthomson
    I work for a great little software company which makes good revenue from our main software package. The problem for me is that it's almost unmaintainable. It's written in Delphi 7 (has upgraded versions over time) and has been worked on by a lot of developers over the past 20 or so years. The software lacks any meaningful architecture - there's no object orientation whatsoever, horrible amounts of cyclical dependencies and an over-reliance on global variables to name just a few things. Another huge thing for me is Delphi 7 does NOT support 64-bit. The problem here for me is that my management team don't care about technical things, they want to know why they should care. Obviously that's expected, so what I'm asking here is for some guidance, or tales, or pitfalls about this kind of thing. There's a few things I would love to include, namely for me, the length of time taken to debug/write a feature in "legacy" code, versus coherent, well structured OO code. Does anyone know of any blog posts or the like where this is talked about? For us in the company this is a huge reason. Despite being decent developers we feel like writing a new feature is just piling more rubbish on top. On top of that, even for me who has a decent level of understanding of the code, changing things is infuriating - a small change can have a ridiculous domino effect. Anyone have any experiences they'd like to share?

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  • Strategies for managing use of types in Python

    - by dave
    I'm a long time programmer in C# but have been coding in Python for the past year. One of the big hurdles for me was the lack of type definitions for variables and parameters. Whereas I totally get the idea of duck typing, I do find it frustrating that I can't tell the type of a variable just by looking at it. This is an issue when you look at someone else's code where they've used ambiguous names for method parameters (see edit below). In a few cases, I've added asserts to ensure parameters comply with an expected type but this goes against the whole duck typing thing. On some methods, I'll document the expected type of parameters (eg: list of user objects), but even this seems to go against the idea of just using an object and let the runtime deal with exceptions. What strategies do you use to avoid typing problems in Python? Edit: Example of the parameter naming issues: If our code base we have a task object (ORM object) and a task_obj object (higher level object that embeds a task). Needless to say, many methods accept a parameter named 'task'. The method might expect a task or a task_obj or some other construct such as a dictionary of task properties - it is not clear. It is them up to be to look at how that parameter is used in order to work out what the method expects.

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  • The five steps of business intelligence adoption: where are you?

    - by Red Gate Software BI Tools Team
    When I was in Orlando and New York last month, I spoke to a lot of business intelligence users. What they told me suggested a path of BI adoption. The user’s place on the path depends on the size and sophistication of their organisation. Step 1: A company with a database of customer transactions will often want to examine particular data, like revenue and unit sales over the last period for each product and territory. To do this, they probably use simple SQL queries or stored procedures to produce data on demand. Step 2: The results from step one are saved in an Excel document, so business users can analyse them with filters or pivot tables. Alternatively, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) might be used to generate a report of the SQL query for display on an intranet page. Step 3: If these queries are run frequently, or business users want to explore data from multiple sources more freely, it may become necessary to create a new database structured for analysis rather than CRUD (create, retrieve, update, and delete). For example, data from more than one system — plus external information — may be incorporated into a data warehouse. This can become ‘one source of truth’ for the business’s operational activities. The warehouse will probably have a simple ‘star’ schema, with fact tables representing the measures to be analysed (e.g. unit sales, revenue) and dimension tables defining how this data is aggregated (e.g. by time, region or product). Reports can be generated from the warehouse with Excel, SSRS or other tools. Step 4: Not too long ago, Microsoft introduced an Excel plug-in, PowerPivot, which allows users to bring larger volumes of data into Excel documents and create links between multiple tables.  These BISM Tabular documents can be created by the database owners or other expert Excel users and viewed by anyone with Excel PowerPivot. Sometimes, business users may use PowerPivot to create reports directly from the primary database, bypassing the need for a data warehouse. This can introduce problems when there are misunderstandings of the database structure or no single ‘source of truth’ for key data. Step 5: Steps three or four are often enough to satisfy business intelligence needs, especially if users are sophisticated enough to work with the warehouse in Excel or SSRS. However, sometimes the relationships between data are too complex or the queries which aggregate across periods, regions etc are too slow. In these cases, it can be necessary to formalise how the data is analysed and pre-build some of the aggregations. To do this, a business intelligence professional will typically use SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) to create a multidimensional model — or “cube” — that more simply represents key measures and aggregates them across specified dimensions. Step five is where our tool, SSAS Compare, becomes useful, as it helps review and deploy changes from development to production. For us at Red Gate, the primary value of SSAS Compare is to establish a dialog with BI users, so we can develop a portfolio of products that support creation and deployment across a range of report and model types. For example, PowerPivot and the new BISM Tabular model create a potential customer base for tools that extend beyond BI professionals. We’re interested in learning where people are in this story, so we’ve created a six-question survey to find out. Whether you’re at step one or step five, we’d love to know how you use BI so we can decide how to build tools that solve your problems. So if you have a sixty seconds to spare, tell us on the survey!

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  • Teach Your Kid to Code Coming to Philly.NET

    - by Steve Michelotti
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/michelotti/archive/2014/05/20/teach-your-kid-to-code-coming-to-philly.net.aspxTomorrow night (Wednesday, May 21) my son and I will be at Philly.NET presenting Teach Your Kid to Code. Bring your kid out to Philly.NET with you for a fun evening! After our first talk, I’ll then be giving an introduction to TypeScript. Of any presentation I’ve ever given, this is my favorite: 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 (6th grader) and his father. Bring your kid with you to Philly.NET 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 JavaScript. 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!

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  • Oracle Executive Strategy Brief: Enterprise-Grade Cloud Applications

    - by B Shashikumar
    Cloud Computing has clearly evolved into one of the dominant secular trends in the industry. Organizations are looking to the cloud to change how they buy and consume IT. And its no longer about just lower up-front costs. The cloud promises to deliver greater agility and free up resources to focus on innovation versus running and maintaining systems. But are organizations actually realizing these benefits? The full promise of cloud is not being realized by customers who entrust their business to multiple niche cloud providers. While almost 9 out of 10 companies  expect more IT agility with cloud, only 47% are actually getting it (Source: 2011 State of Cloud Survey by Symantec). These niche cloud customers have also seen the promises of lower costs, efficiency gains, improved security, and compliance go unfulfilled. Having one cloud provider for customer relationship management (CRM) and another for human capital management (HCM), and then trying to glue these proprietary systems together while integrating to a back-office financial system can add to complexity and long-term costs. Completing a business process or generating an integrated report is cumbersome, and leverages incomplete data. Why can’t niche cloud providers deliver on the full promise of cloud? It’s simple: you still need to complete business processes. You still need reporting that enables you to take action using data from multiple systems. You still have to comply with SOX and other industry regulations. These requirements don’t go away just because you deploy in the cloud. Delivering lower up-front costs by enabling customers to buy software as a service (SaaS) is the easy part. To get real value that lasts longer than your quarterly report, it’s important to realize the benefits of cloud without compromising on functionality and while having the right level of control and flexibility. This is the true promise of cloud. Oracle’s cloud strategy centers around delivering the benefits of cloud—without compromise. We uniquely empower our customers with complete solutions and choice. From the richest functionality to integrated reporting and great user experience. It’s all available in the cloud. And it works not just with other Oracle cloud applications, but with your existing Oracle and third-party systems as well. This helps protect your current investments and extend their value as you journey to the cloud. We’ve made the necessary investments not only in our applications but also in the underlying technology that makes it all run—from the platform down to the hardware and operating system. We make it all. And we’ve engineered it to work together and be highly optimized for our customers, in the cloud. With Oracle enterprise-grade cloud applications, you get the benefits of cloud plus more power, more choice, and more confidence. Read more about how you can realize the true advantage of Cloud with Oracle Enterprise-grade Cloud applications in the Oracle Executive Strategy Brief here.  You can also attend an Oracle Cloud Conference event at a city near you. Register here. 

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  • Ask the Readers: How Many Monitors Do You Use with Your Computer?

    - by Asian Angel
    Most people have a single monitor for their computers, many have two, and some individuals enjoy “3 monitor plus” goodness. This week we would like to know how many monitors you use with your computer. Photo by DamnedNice. A good majority of people have a single monitor that they use with their computers and that single monitor serves their needs very well. It could be that these individuals do not engage in a heavy amount of work or play on their computers…they just need to do the basics like checking e-mail, using I.M., working with photos, etc. Another possibility is the use of virtual desktop software such as Dexpot, Yodm 3D, or Sysinternals Desktops on Windows systems. Linux systems such as Ubuntu already have that wonderful multi-desktop functionality built in. The wonderful part about virtual desktops is that a single monitor can feel equivalent to a small army of monitors. The ability to separate your open windows into “categories” and spread them out across multiple desktops is definitely nice. With each passing year dual monitor setups are becoming more common. Having twice the screen real-estate visible at the same time can be extremely convenient when you are multi-tasking. Perhaps you like to monitor your system’s stats and an e-mail account on the second monitor while working with software on the first. It certainly beats having windows popping up and down on your screen constantly while keeping on top of everything! Next we have the people who have three or more monitors in use with their computers. This may be a result of the type of work they do, an experiment to see if multiple monitors are right for them, or the cool, geeky factor that comes with having all those monitors. Needless to say these individuals can induce a good amount of envy and/or inspiration in the rest of us when we see their awesome setups. Are you perfectly content with a single monitor? Do you have two or more monitors that you use? If you have two or more monitors are they actually that useful to you? Perhaps you are getting ready even now to add additional monitors to your system. Whatever your situation may be at the moment, let us know your thoughts (and possible multi-monitor plans) in the comments! How-To Geek Polls require Javascript. Please Click Here to View the Poll. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? HTG Explains: Why Does Photo Paper Improve Print Quality? Hidden Tracks Your Stolen Mac; Free Until End of January Why the Other Checkout Line Always Moves Faster World of Warcraft Theme for Windows 7 Ubuntu Font Family Now Available for Download Oh No! WikiLeaks Published Santa Claus’s Naughty List [Video] Remember the Milk Now Supports HTTPS Encryption for the Entire Session

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  • How to visualize code?

    - by gablin
    I've mostly only had to read my own code. As such, I've had no need to visualize the code as I already know how each and every class and module communicate with one another. But the few times I've had to read someone else's code - let us now assume we are talking about at least one larger module which contains several internal classes - I've almost always found myself wishing "This would have been so much easier to understand if I could just visualize it!" So what are the common methods or tools for enabling this? Which do you use, and why do you prefer them over the others? I've heard stuff like UML, module and class diagrams, but I imagine there are more. Furthermore, any of these is most likely better than anything I can devise on my own. EDIT: For those who answer with "Use pen and paper and just draw it": This isn't very helpful unless you explain this further. What exactly am I supposed to draw? A box for each class? Should I include the public methods? What about its fields? How should I draw connections that explain how one class uses another? What about modules? What if the language isn't object-oriented but functional or logical, or even just imperative (C, for instance)? What about global variables and functions? Is there an already-standardized way of drawing this, or do I need to think up of a method of my own? You get the drift.

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  • Pure functional programming and game state

    - by Fu86
    Is there a common technique to handle state (in general) in a functional programming language? There are solutions in every (functional) programming language to handle global state, but I want to avoid this as far as I could. All state in a pure functional manner are function parameters. So I need to put the whole game state (a gigantic hashmap with the world, players, positions, score, assets, enemies, ...)) as a parameter to all functions which wants to manipulate the world on a given input or trigger. The function itself picks the relevant information from the gamestate blob, do something with it, manipulate the gamestate and return the gamestate. But this looks like a poor mans solution for the problem. If I put the whole gamestate into all functions, there is no benefit for me in contrast to global variables or the imperative approach. I could put just the relevant information into the functions and return the actions which will be taken for the given input. And one single function apply all the actions to the gamestate. But most functions need a lot of "relevant" information. move() need the object position, the velocity, the map for collision, position of all enemys, current health, ... So this approach does not seem to work either. So my question is how do I handle the massive amount of state in a functional programming language -- especially for game development?

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