Search Results

Search found 19212 results on 769 pages for 'side projects'.

Page 587/769 | < Previous Page | 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594  | Next Page >

  • Adding JavaScript to your code dependent upon conditions

    - by DavidMadden
    You might be in an environment where you code is source controlled and where you might have build options to different environments.  I recently encountered this where the same code, built on different configurations, would have the website at a different URL.  If you are working with ASP.NET as I am you will have to do something a bit crazy but worth while.  If someone has a more efficient solution please share. Here is what I came up with to make sure the client side script was placed into the HEAD element for the Google Analytics script.  GA wants to be the last in the HEAD element so if you are doing others in the Page_Load then you should do theirs last. The settings object below is an instance of a class that holds information I collection.  You could read from different sources depending on where you stored your unique ID for Google Analytics. *** This has been formatted to fit this screen. *** if (!IsPostBack) { if (settings.GoogleAnalyticsID != null || settings.GoogleAnalyticsID != string.Empty) { string str = @"//<!CDATA[ var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', '"  + settings.GoogleAnalyticsID + "']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);  (function () {  var ga = document.createElement('script');  ga.type = 'text/javascript';  ga.async = true;  ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol  ? 'https://ssl' :  'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];  s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);})();"; System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlGenericControl si =  new System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlGenericControl(); si.TagName = "script"; si.Attributes.Add("type", @"text/javascript"); si.InnerHtml = sb.ToString(); this.Page.Header.Controls.Add(si); } } The code above will prevent the code from executing if it is a PostBack and then if the ID was not able to be read or something caused the settings to be lost by accident. If you have larger function to declare, you can use a StringBuilder to separate the lines. This is the most compact I wished to go and manage readability.

    Read the article

  • SharePoint 2010 HierarchicalConfig Caching Problem

    - by Damon
    We've started using the Application Foundations for SharePoint 2010 in some of our projects at work, and I came across a nasty issue with the hierarchical configuration settings.  I have some settings that I am storing at the Farm level, and as I was testing my code it seemed like the settings were not being saved - at least that is what it appeared was the case at first.  However, I happened to reset IIS and the settings suddenly appeared.  Immediately, I figured that it must be a caching issue and dug into the code base.  I found that there was a 10 second caching mechanism in the SPFarmPropertyBag and the SPWebAppPropertyBag classes.  So I ran another test where I waited 10 seconds to make sure that enough time had passed to force the caching mechanism to reset the data.  After 10 minutes the cache had still not cleared.  After digging a bit further, I found a double lock check that looked a bit off in the GetSettingsStore() method of the SPFarmPropertyBag class: if (_settingStore == null || (DateTime.Now.Subtract(lastLoad).TotalSeconds) > cacheInterval)) { //Need to exist so don't deadlock. rrLock.EnterWriteLock(); try { //make sure first another thread didn't already load... if (_settingStore == null) { _settingStore = WebAppSettingStore.Load(this.webApplication); lastLoad = DateTime.Now; } } finally { rrLock.ExitWriteLock(); } } What ends up happening here is the outer check determines if the _settingStore is null or the cache has expired, but the inner check is just checking if the _settingStore is null (which is never the case after the first time it's been loaded).  Ergo, the cached settings are never reset.  The fix is really easy, just add the cache checking back into the inner if statement. //make sure first another thread didn't already load... if (_settingStore == null || (DateTime.Now.Subtract(lastLoad).TotalSeconds) > cacheInterval) { _settingStore = WebAppSettingStore.Load(this.webApplication); lastLoad = DateTime.Now; } And then it starts working just fine. as long as you wait at least 10 seconds for the cache to clear.

    Read the article

  • Are separate business objects needed when persistent data can be stored in a usable format?

    - by Kylotan
    I have a system where data is stored in a persistent store and read by a server application. Some of this data is only ever seen by the server, but some of it is passed through unaltered to clients. So, there is a big temptation to persist data - whether whole rows/documents or individual fields/sub-documents - in the exact form that the client can use (eg. JSON), as this removes various layers of boilerplate, whether in the form of procedural SQL, an ORM, or any proxy structure which exists just to hold the values before having to re-encode them into a client-suitable form. This form can usually be used on the server too, though business logic may have to live outside of the object, On the other hand, this approach ends up leaking implementation details everywhere. 9 times out of 10 I'm happy just to read a JSON structure out of the DB and send it to the client, but 1 in every 10 times I have to know the details of that implicit structure (and be able to refactor access to it if the stored data ever changes). And this makes me think that maybe I should be pulling this data into separate business objects, so that business logic doesn't have to change when the data schema does. (Though you could argue this just moves the problem rather than solves it.) There is a complicating factor in that our data schema is constantly changing rapidly, to the point where we dropped our previous ORM/RDBMS system in favour of MongoDB and an implicit schema which was much easier to work with. So far I've not decided whether the rapid schema changes make me wish for separate business objects (so that server-side calculations need less refactoring, since all changes are restricted to the persistence layer) or for no separate business objects (because every change to the schema requires the business objects to change to stay in sync, even if the new sub-object or field is never used on the server except to pass verbatim to a client). So my question is whether it is sensible to store objects in the form they are usually going to be used, or if it's better to copy them into intermediate business objects to insulate both sides from each other (even when that isn't strictly necessary)? And I'd like to hear from anybody else who has had experience of a similar situation, perhaps choosing to persist XML or JSON instead of having an explicit schema which has to be assembled into a client format each time.

    Read the article

  • Separating logic and data in browser game

    - by Tesserex
    I've been thinking this over for days and I'm still not sure what to do. I'm trying to refactor a combat system in PHP (...sorry.) Here's what exists so far: There are two (so far) types of entities that can participate in combat. Let's just call them players and NPCs. Their data is already written pretty well. When involved in combat, these entities are wrapped with another object in the DB called a Combatant, which gives them information about the particular fight. They can be involved in multiple combats at once. I'm trying to write the logic engine for combat by having combatants injected into it. I want to be able to mock everything for testing. In order to separate logic and data, I want to have two interfaces / base classes, one being ICombatantData and the other ICombatantLogic. The two implementers of data will be one for the real objects stored in the database, and the other for my mock objects. I'm now running into uncertainties with designing the logic side of things. I can have one implementer for each of players and NPCs, but then I have an issue. A combatant needs to be able to return the entity that it wraps. Should this getter method be part of logic or data? I feel strongly that it should be in data, because the logic part is used for executing combat, and won't be available if someone is just looking up information about an upcoming fight. But the data classes only separate mock from DB, not player from NPC. If I try having two child classes of the DB data implementer, one for each entity type, then how do I architect that while keeping my mocks in the loop? Do I need some third interface like IEntityProvider that I inject into the data classes? Also with some of the ideas I've been considering, I feel like I'll have to put checks in place to make sure you don't mismatch things, like making the logic for an NPC accidentally wrap the data for a player. Does that make any sense? Is that a situation that would even be possible if the architecture is correct, or would the right design prohibit that completely so I don't need to check for it? If someone could help me just layout a class diagram or something for this it would help me a lot. Thanks. edit Also useful to note, the mock data class doesn't really need the Entity, since I'll just be specifying all the parameters like combat stats directly instead. So maybe that will affect the correct design.

    Read the article

  • Access to Salesforce.com Data Through Tableau Desktop

    - by dataintegration
    This article will explain how to connect to any of the RSSBus OData Connectors with Tableau's business intelligence tool. While the example uses the Salesforce Connector, the same process can be followed for any of the OData Connectors. Step 1: Download and install both the Salesforce Connector from RSSBus and Tableau Desktop from Tableau. Step 2: Next you will want to configure the Salesforce Connector to connect with your Salesforce.com account. If you browse to the Help tab in the Salesforce Connector application, there is a link to the Getting Started Guide which will walk you through setting up the Salesforce Connector. Step 3: Once you have successfully configured the Salesforce Connector application, you will want to open Tableau and select the Connect to data option at the top left of the window. Step 4: Here you will click on the option labeled OData under the section labeled On a server. Step 5: A new pop up will appear. The box under Step 1 of the pop-up must contain the OData URL of the Salesforce Connector table. You can find this by clicking on the Settings tab of the Salesforce Connector. Once you have found the OData entry URL, you will need to append the table name that you want Tableau to connect with to the OData entry URL. In this example, we will connect to the Account table. Thus, the URL we enter will be: http://localhost:8181/sfconnector/data/conn/odata.rsc/Account. You will also need to add authentication options in this step. To do this, select the Use a Username and Password option in Step 2 of the pop-up and enter the Username and Password of the user who has access to the Salesforce Connector. When you are done, click the Connect button in Step 3 of the pop-up. Step 6: When the connection to the Salesforce Connector is successful, give the connection a name and click the OK button. Step 7: The table columns will be listed on the left side under the Dimensions section of the workspace. Step 8: To view your Salesforce.com data, you can right click under the table name in the Data section at the top left of the dashboard and select the View Data option. Your Saleforce.com data will appear in Tableau.

    Read the article

  • Are You Meeting Social Customer Service Expectations?

    - by Mike Stiles
    Whether it’s B2B or B2C, one sure path to repeat business is making sure your buyer has a memorably pleasant and successful customer service experience with you. If they get that kind of treatment consistently, that’s called a relationship. And those aren’t broken easily. Social customer service, driven by integrated SRM (social relationship management) technology, is the venue that can effectively connect customers not only to the brand, but to other customers. Positive experiences, once administered, don’t just rest with the recipient. They’re published in the form of public raves and peer-to-peer recommendation, a force far more actionable than push advertising. What’s more, your customers have come to expect access to you and satisfaction from you using social. An NM Incite study shows 83% of Twitter users and 71% of Facebook users expect to get an answer from brands the same day they post to them on their social assets. To make sure you’re responding, you’ve got to have a tech platform that’s set up to moderate and alert so you’ll know ASAP a customer needs help. The more integrated your social enterprise is, the faster you can not only respond, but respond with the answer they’re looking for, because your system is connected to the internal resources that can surface the answer or put wheels in motion to rectify the situation in the shortest amount of time possible. But if you go to the necessary lengths to make sure your customers feel valued and important, will they really reward you? The study says 71% of consumers who got quick and effective responses from companies they contacted via social were more likely to recommend the brand to their friends and followers. So yes, sweeping people off their feet pays big dividends in terms of word-of-mouth marketing. But you should be keenly aware of the reverse side of that coin. Give people a negative experience, either in real world or virtual customer service, and that message is highly likely to get amplified through social channels faster and louder. Only 36% of the NM Incite study’s respondents reported that their problems were solved quickly and effectively. 36%? That’s hardly an impressive number. It gets worse. 10% never got so much as a response - at all. Going back to the relationship analogy, companies that are this deep in the ditch where customer service is concerned are making their girl or boyfriends really easy for a competitor to steal. Given the technology tools and data available right now for having an intimate knowledge of the customer, what products they’ve purchased, likely problems with those products, effective resolutions to those problems, and follow-up communication to gauge satisfaction, there are fewer excuses than ever for making the lifeblood of your business feel like you couldn’t care less. @mikestiles

    Read the article

  • Platformer Collision Error [closed]

    - by Connor
    I am currently working on a relatively simple platform game that has an odd bug.You start the game by falling onto the ground (you spawn a few blocks above the ground), but when you land your feet get stuck INSIDE the world and you can't move until you jump. Here's what I mean: The player's feet are a few pixels below the ground level. However, this problem only occurs in 3 places throughout the map and only in those 3 select places. I'm assuming that the problem lies within my collision detection code but I'm not entirely sure, as I don't get an error when it happens. public boolean isCollidingWithBlock(Point pt1, Point pt2) { //Checks x for(int x = (int) (this.x / Tile.tileSize); x < (int) (this.x / Tile.tileSize + 4); x++) { //Checks y for(int y = (int) (this.y / Tile.tileSize); y < (int) (this.y / Tile.tileSize + 4); y++) { if(x >= 0 && y >= 0 && x < Component.dungeon.block.length && y < Component.dungeon.block[0].length) { //If the block is not air if(Component.dungeon.block[x][y].id != Tile.air) { //If the player is in contact with point one or two on the block if(Component.dungeon.block[x][y].contains(pt1) || Component.dungeon.block[x][y].contains(pt2)) { //Checks for specific blocks if(Component.dungeon.block[x][y].id == Tile.portalBlock) { Component.isLevelDone = true; } if(Component.dungeon.block[x][y].id == Tile.spike) { Health.health -= 1; Component.isJumping = true; if(Health.health == 0) { Component.isDead = true; } } return true; } } } } } return false; } What I'm asking is how I would fix the problem. I've looked over my code for quite a while and I'm not sure what's wrong with it. Also, if there's a more efficient way to do my collision checking then please let me know! I hope that is enough information, if it's not just tell me what you need and I'll be sure to add it. Thank you! [EDIT] Jump code: if(!isJumping && !isCollidingWithBlock(new Point((int) x + 2, (int) (y + height)), new Point((int) (x + width + 2), (int) (y + height)))) { y += fallSpeed; //sY is the screen's Y. The game is a side-scroller Component.sY += fallSpeed; } else { if(Component.isJumping) { isJumping = true; } } if(isJumping) { if(!isCollidingWithBlock(new Point((int) x + 2, (int) y), new Point((int) (x + width + 2), (int) y))) { if(jumpCount >= jumpHeight) { isJumping = false; jumpCount = 0; } else { y -= jumpSpeed; Component.sY -= jumpSpeed; jumpCount += 1; } } else { isJumping = false; jumpCount = 0; } }

    Read the article

  • HTML5 platformer collision detection problem

    - by fnx
    I'm working on a 2D platformer game, and I'm having a lot of trouble with collision detection. I've looked trough some tutorials, questions asked here and Stackoverflow, but I guess I'm just too dumb to understand what's wrong with my code. I've wanted to make simple bounding box style collisions and ability to determine on which side of the box the collision happens, but no matter what I do, I always get some weird glitches, like the player gets stuck on the wall or the jumping is jittery. You can test the game here: Platform engine test. Arrow keys move and z = run, x = jump, c = shoot. Try to jump into the first pit and slide on the wall. Here's the collision detection code: function checkCollisions(a, b) { if ((a.x > b.x + b.width) || (a.x + a.width < b.x) || (a.y > b.y + b.height) || (a.y + a.height < b.y)) { return false; } else { handleCollisions(a, b); return true; } } function handleCollisions(a, b) { var a_top = a.y, a_bottom = a.y + a.height, a_left = a.x, a_right = a.x + a.width, b_top = b.y, b_bottom = b.y + b.height, b_left = b.x, b_right = b.x + b.width; if (a_bottom + a.vy > b_top && distanceBetween(a_bottom, b_top) + a.vy < distanceBetween(a_bottom, b_bottom)) { a.topCollision = true; a.y = b.y - a.height + 2; a.vy = 0; a.canJump = true; } else if (a_top + a.vy < b_bottom && distanceBetween(a_top, b_bottom) + a.vy < distanceBetween(a_top, b_top)) { a.bottomCollision = true; a.y = b.y + b.height; a.vy = 0; } else if (a_right + a.vx > b_left && distanceBetween(a_right, b_left) < distanceBetween(a_right, b_right)) { a.rightCollision = true; a.x = b.x - a.width - 3; //a.vx = 0; } else if (a_left + a.vx < b_right && distanceBetween(a_left, b_right) < distanceBetween(a_left, b_left)) { a.leftCollision = true; a.x = b.x + b.width + 3; //a.vx = 0; } } function distanceBetween(a, b) { return Math.abs(b-a); }

    Read the article

  • Working for Web using open-source Technologies

    - by anirudha
    As a Web Developer we all have own dream to make a great web application. a great application was built upon high discipline and best practice on the process of development then we can make modification easier in future as if we want. the user feedback also have a matter because they tell us what they want or expected with the application we make day and night. sometime they report a nice story , experience or a problem they got with our application. so that's matter because they telling about our application much more because they use our software and a part of process of future development or next version of application we make. so the Web have a good thing that they updated as soon as possible. in desktop application their is a numbers of trouble client have when they want to use our application. first thing that installation of software never goes right on every system. big company spent a big amount of money to troble these problem the user have with their software.   Web application is nice implementation of application because their is no trouble with installation all have same experience and if something goes wrong patch come soon and no waiting for new version. Chrome even a desktop application [browser] but they automatically update themselves so their is no trouble for user to get next version now hasseles.    Web application development in Microsoft way have their own rule , pattern practice to make better application in less time. the technologies i want to show you here is some great opensource example like MySQL jQuery and ASP.NET MVC a framework based on ASP.NET server side language.   For going to next step we need to show you a list of software you need to have to fully experience this tutorial.   Visual Web Developer 2010 Express Edition  MySQL [open-source RDBMS]   Query [open-source javascript library]   for getting these software you need to pay nothing.   Visual Web Developer can obtained from Microsoft.com/Express or if you are student or Web Developer you are eligible to get the Visual studio professional and many other great software from Microsoft through their Dreamspark or WebsiteSpark programmes.   MySQL is a great Relational Database management software who are freely available from MySQL.com as a database monitorting tool you can use MySQL workbrench who can be freely get from MySQL official website or many other free tool are available for begining development with MySQL   jQuery is a great library for making javascipt development easier and faster.you can obtained jQuery from jQuery.com their official website.

    Read the article

  • How do I create weapon attachments?

    - by Tron86
    My question is; I am developing a game for XNA and I am trying to create a weapon attachment for my player model. My player model loads the .md3 format and reads tags for attachment points. I am able to get the tag of my model's hand. And I am also able to get the tag of my weapon's handle. Each tag I am able to get the rotation and position of and this is how I am calculating it: Model.worldMatrix = Matrix.CreateScale(Model.scale) * Matrix.CreateRotationX(-MathHelper.PiOver2) * Matrix.CreateRotationY(MathHelper.PiOver2); Pretty simple, the player model has a scale and its orientation(it loads on its side so I just use a 90 degree X axis rotation, and a Y axis rotation to face away from the camera). I then calculate the torso tag on the lower body, which gives me a local coordinate at the waist. Then I take that matrix and calculate the tag_weapon in the upper body. This gives me the hand position in local space. I also get the rotation matrix from that tag that I store for later use. All this seems to work fine. Now I move onto my weapon: Matrix weaponWorld = Matrix.CreateScale(CurrentWeapon.scale) * Matrix.CreateRotationX(-MathHelper.PiOver2) * TagRotationMatrix * Matrix.CreateTranslation(HandTag.Position) * Matrix.CreateRotationY(PlayerRotation) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(CollisionBody.Position) * You may notice the weapon matrix gets rotated by 90 degress on the X axis as well. This is because they load in on their sides. Once again this seems pretty simple and follows the SRT order I keep reading about. My TagRotation matrix is the hand's rotation. HandTag.Position is its position in local space. CreateRotationY(PlayerRotation) is the player's rotation in world space, and the CollisionBody.Position is the player's world location. Everything seems to be in order, and almost works in game. However when the gun spawns and follows the player's hand it seems to be flipped on an axis every couple frames. Almost like the X or Y axis is being inversed then put right back. Its hard to explain and I am totally stumped. Even removing all my X axis fixes does nothing to solve the problem. Hopefully I explained everything enough as I am a bit new to this! Thanks!

    Read the article

  • Deploying, but without those pesky test files!

    - by Chris Skardon
    Silverlight testing is great, we all know that (don’t we??), we’re expected to do it as part of the development process, but once we’ve got an awesome application written and we come to deploy it, we don’t want the test files going out with it… You might be like me, have the files in a Web project – let’s face it, that’s how we’re pushed into doing it… So let’s stick with it! Now. I’m deploying via the wonders of the Web Deployment shizzle, but this also applies to the classic ‘installer’ project as well.. Baaaasically, we’re going to use the ‘Debug’ / ‘Release’ configurations to include given files. ?? OK, you know in the top of your visual studio editor, you (usually) have a drop down which predominantly reads ‘Debug’? Those are ‘configurations’. Mostly we don’t bother changing it, primarily due to laziness, but also the fact that we generally don’t see ‘Release’ as actually doing anything other than making it harder to find problems :) Well today my friends we’re going to change that bad boy… The next few steps are just helping you set up a new ‘Debug’ configuration, but you can just switch to the ‘Release’ configuration and skip to the end… First let’s go to the Configuration Manager. There are multiple ways, through the ‘Build’ menu (at the bottom), or via the drop down which currently has ‘Debug’ in it :) Got it? Select ‘New’ from the ‘Active solution configuration’ drop down: Create a new configuration, kind of like the picture below shows (or for those graphically challenged – Name: DebugWithNoTests, and Copy settings from: ‘Debug’, ensuring the ‘Create new project configurations’ checkbox is checked). Press OK. VS will do some shizzle, and in the Configuration manager, you will see pretty much exactly what you did before, only with ‘Debug’ replaced with ‘DebugWithNoTests’. Turn off the build options for the test projects. We won’t need them.. IF you skipped down from the top, this is where you’ll be wanting to stop!!! Close and now we’re one notepad step away from achieving our goals. Yes, I said notepad. You can’t do what we’re going to do in VS. (Pity). Go to the folder where your web project is, and right click on the ‘.csproj’ file. Now open it with notepad. Head on down to the ‘<Content Include’ bits, they’ll look like this: <ItemGroup> <Content Include="ClientBin\Tests.xap" /> ... </ItemGroup> Take this and modify each of the files you don’t want deployed and change to: <Content Include="ClientBin\Tests.xap" Condition="'$(Configuration)' == 'Debug'" /> Once you’ve got that sorted publish your project, once with the Debug configuration selected, and another with any other configuration (‘Release’, ‘DebugWithNoTests’ etc).. No files! Huzzah!

    Read the article

  • Simulate 'Shock absorbtion' with tire rubber in PhysX (2.8.x)

    - by Mungoid
    This is a kinda tricky question and I fear there is no easy enough solution, but I figured I'd hit SE up before giving up on it and just doing what I can. A machine I am working on has no suspension or shocks or springs of any sort in the real machine, so you would think that when it drives over bumps, it would shake like crazy but because its tires (6 of them) are quite large they seem to absorb a lot of shock from the bumps. Part of this is because the machine is around 30k lbs and it just smashes/compresses any bumps in the ground down (This is another issue im still working on) and the other part is that the tires seem to have a lot of flex to them with a lot of air as well. So my current task is to simulate shock absorption in physx without visibly separating the tires from the spindle/axle.. I have been messing with all kinds of NxMaterial, NxSpring, Joints, etc. and have had no luck getting this to work. The main problem is that the spindle attached to the tire is directly in the center and the axle is basically solidly attached to the chassis, so if i give it any spring or suspension travel, that spindle on the tires will move upwards or downwards, looking very odd because now its not any longer in the center of the tire. I tried giving it a higher restitution but that just makes it bouncy without any shock absorption. Another avenue I am messing with is to actively smooth the terrain in front of the tires so that before it hits a bumpy patch, that patch is smoothed and it doesn't bounce. The only issue with this is that it is pretty expensive to do with 6 tires, high tesselation of the terrain and other complex things going on at the same time in this simulation. I am still working on this but I am hoping to mix and match a few different aspects to get the best possible outcome. This is a bit of a complex issue so I'm not expecting anyone to have a definitive answer, just hoping someone may think of something I haven't =-) -Side note: Yes i know PhysX 2.8.x is quite outdated but we have to stick with it for this implementation. We are in the process of going to another physics engine but it is out of scope to apply that engine to this project.

    Read the article

  • Drawing flaming letters in 3D with OpenGL ES 2.0

    - by Chiquis
    I am a bit confused about how to achieve this. What I want is to "draw with flames". I have achieved this with textures successfully, but now my concern is about doing this with particles to achieve the flaming effect. Am I supposed to create a path along which I should add many particle emitters that will be emitting flame particles? I understand the concept for 2D, but for 3D are the particles always supposed to be facing the user? Something else I'm worried about is the performance hit that will occur by having that many particle emitters, because there can be many letters and drawings at the same time, and each of these elements will have many particle emitters. More detailed explanation: I have a path of points, which is my model. Imagine a dotted letter "S" for example. I want make the "S" be on fire. The "S" is just an example it can be a circle, triangle, a line, pretty much any path described by my set of points. For achieving this fire effect I thought about using particles. So I am using a program called "Particle Designer" to create a fire style particle emitter. This emitter looks perfect on 2D on the iphone screen dimensions. So then I thought that I could probably draw an S or any other figure if i place many particle emitters next to each other following the path described. To move from the 2D version to the 3D version I thought about, scaling the emitter (with a scale matrix multiplication in its model matrix) and then moving it to a point in my 3D world. I did this and it works. So now I have 1 particle emitter in the 3D world. My question is, is this how you would achieve a flaming letter? Is this too inefficient if i expect to have many flaming paths on my world? Am i supposed to rotate the particle's quad so that its always looking at the user? (the last one is because i noticed that if u look at it from the side the particles start to flatten out)

    Read the article

  • Forced to be trained [closed]

    - by steeb
    is it OK to force employees to take a training in order to make them sign a contract to stay in the job for X years? Here I'm the only developer in the company and before this job I've developed in VB6, VB.Net and others. There are others technicians here but they query the database server to make reports and make little programs but do not spend all day in programming. I was hired here to manage some legacy data to be migrated to a new system and I used my experience to accomplish the task. I also have made some utilities and other developments. Since we went live with the new system I've been developing a lot of side programs, add-ons and changed the source code of it and basically I've been learning from it since then and became some sort of jack of all trades when some feature needs to be changed or corrected. I have one and a half year in this company but during the last 8 months I've been entirely programming in the system. There have been times when even the implementers ask me how I accomplish certain things. The issue here is that the company has come and told me and other co-workers (which do not program in the system but know basic programming and databases) to have a basic training to program for the new system's platform and when we finish it we will sign a contract to stay in the company for an unspecified time. They have offered also an unspecified better salary. I'm feeling very suspicious cause I know the basics of system and I don't understand why I have to take it, being known by everybody all developments I've made. I gathered with my boss and told him that I should not take that course because I feel that I can learn more with all the daily requirements I've been asked and they should save that money. But he responded me that I have to take it and sign after that. I think they want me to be with them for a long time, and I'd like to, but my opinion is that I would like to stay in the company because I feel comfortable in all laboral aspects (including salary) but not because I signed a contract forced to do more tasks and forced to say no if I have others and better job offers. What advice can you give me in this kind of situation?

    Read the article

  • Code testing practice

    - by Robin Castlin
    So now I have come to the conclusion like many others that having some way of constantly testing your code is good practice since it enables fewer people to be involved (colleges and customers alike) by simply knowing what's wrong before someone else finds out the hard way. I've heard and read some about Unit Testing and understand what it's supposed to do and all. The there are so many different types of bugs. It can be everything from web browser not being able not being able to send correct values, javascript failing, a global function messing up a piece of code somewhere to a change that looked good when testing it out but fails in some special case which was hard to anticipate. My simply finding these errors I learn to rarely repeat them again, but there seems to always be new bugs to be found and learnt from. I would guess maybe the best practice would be to run every page and it's functions a couple of times, witness the result and repeat this in Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer (and all smartphones apparently) to make sure it works as intended. However this would take quite some time to do consider I don't work with patches/versions and do little fixes here and there a couple of times per week. What I prefer would be some kind of page I can just load that tests as much things as possible to make sure the site works as intended. Basicly just run a lot of cURL's with POST-values and see if I get expected result. But how would I preferably not increase the IDs of every mysql rows if I delete these testing rows? It feels silly to be on ID 1000 with maybe 50 rows in total. If I could build a new project from scratch I would probably implement some kind of smooth way to return a "TRUE" on testing instead of the actual page. But this solution would for the moment being have to be passed on existing projects. My question What would you recommend to be the best way to test my site to make sure that existing functions does their job upon editing the code? Should I consider to implement a lot of edits first, then test manually the entire code to make sure it still works? Is there any nice way of testing codes without "hurting" the ID columns? Extra thoughs Would it be a good idea to associate all of my files to the different parts of my site which they affect? For instance if I edit home.php I will through documentation test if my homepage's start works as intended since it's the only part of my site it should affect.

    Read the article

  • How to implement a component based system for items in a web game.

    - by Landstander
    Reading several other questions and answers on using a component based system to define items I want to use one for the items and spells in a web game written in PHP. I'm just stuck on the implementation. I'm going to use a DB schema suggested in this series (part 5 describes the schema); http://t-machine.org/index.php/2007/09/03/entity-systems-are-the-future-of-mmog-development-part-1/ This means I'll have an items table with generic item properties, a table listing all of the components for an item and finally records in each component table used to make up the item. Assuming I can select the first two together in a single query, I'm still going to do N queries for each component type. I'm kind of fine with this because I can cache the data into memcache and check there first before doing any queries. I'll need to build up the items on every request they are used in so the implementation needs to be on the lean side even if they're pulled from memcache. But right there is where I feel confident about implementing a component system for my items ends. I figure I'd need to bring attributes and behaviors into the container from each component it uses. I'm just not sure how to do that effectively and not end up writing a lot of specialized code to deal with each component. For example an AttackComponent might need to know how to filter targets inside of a battle context and also maybe provide an attack behavior. That same item might also have a UsableComponent which allows the item to be used and apply some effect onto a different set of targets filtered differently from the same battle context. Then not every part of an item is an active part, an AttributeBonusComponent might need to only kick in when the item is in an equipped state or when displaying the item details page. Ultimately, how should I bring all of the components together into the container so when I use an item as a weapon I get the correct list of targets? Know when a weapon can also be used as an item? Or to apply the bonuses the item provides to a character object? I feel like I've gone too far down the rabbit hole and I can't grasp onto the simple solution in front of me. (If that makes any sense at all.) Likewise if I were to implement the best answer from here I feel like I'd have a lot of the same questions. How to model multiple "uses" (e.g. weapon) for usable-inventory/object/items (e.g. katana) within a relational database.

    Read the article

  • Is this a pattern? Should it be?

    - by Arkadiy
    The following is more of a statement than a question - it describes something that may be a pattern. The question is: is this a known pattern? Or, if it's not, should it be? I've had a situation where I had to iterate over two dissimilar multi-layer data structures and copy information from one to the other. Depending on particular use case, I had around eight different kinds of layers, combined in about eight different combinations: A-B-C B-C A-C D-E A-D-E and so on After a few unsuccessful attempts to factor out the repetition of per-layer iteration code, I realized that the key difficulty in this refactoring was the fact that the bottom level needed access to data gathered at higher levels. To explicitly accommodate this requirement, I introduced IterationContext class with a number of get() and set() methods for accumulating the necessary information. In the end, I had the following class structure: class Iterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const = 0; }; class RecursingIterator : public Iterator { RecursingIterator(const Iterator &below); }; class IterateOverA : public RecursingIterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // Iterate over members in dataStructure1 // locate corresponding item in dataStructure2 (passed via context) // and set it in the context // invoke the sub-iterator }; class IterateOverB : public RecursingIterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // iterate over members dataStructure2 (form context) // set dataStructure2's item in the context // locate corresponding item in dataStructure2 (passed via context) // invoke the sub-iterator }; void main() { class FinalCopy : public Iterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // copy data from structure 1 to structure 2 in the context, // using some data from higher levels as needed } } IterationContext ctx(dateStructure2); IterateOverA(IterateOverB(FinalCopy())).iterate(dataStructure1, ctx); } It so happens that dataStructure1 is a uniform data structure, similar to XML DOM in that respect, while dataStructure2 is a legacy data structure made of various structs and arrays. This allows me to pass dataStructure1 outside of the context for convenience. In general, either side of the iteration or both sides may be passed via context, as convenient. The key situation points are: complicated code that needs to be invoked in "layers", with multiple combinations of layer types possible at the bottom layer, the information from top layers needs to be visible. The key implementation points are: use of context class to access the data from all levels of iteration complicated iteration code encapsulated in implementation of pure virtual function two interfaces - one aware of underlying iterator, one not aware of it. use of const & to simplify the usage syntax.

    Read the article

  • Checking timeouts made more readable

    - by Markus
    I have several situations where I need to control timeouts in a technical application. Either in a loop or as a simple check. Of course – handling this is really easy, but none of these is looking cute. To clarify, here is some C# (Pseudo) code: private DateTime girlWentIntoBathroom; girlWentIntoBathroom = DateTime.Now; do { // do something } while (girlWentIntoBathroom.AddSeconds(10) > DateTime.Now); or if (girlWentIntoBathroom.AddSeconds(10) > DateTime.Now) MessageBox.Show("Wait a little longer"); else MessageBox.Show("Knock louder"); Now I was inspired by something a saw in Ruby on StackOverflow: Now I’m wondering if this construct can be made more readable using extension methods. My goal is something that can be read like “If girlWentIntoBathroom is more than 10 seconds ago” 1st attempt if (girlWentIntoBathroom > (10).Seconds().Ago()) MessageBox.Show("Wait a little longer"); else MessageBox.Show("Knock louder"); So I wrote an extension for integer that converts the integer into a TimeSpan public static TimeSpan Seconds(this int amount) { return new TimeSpan(0, 0, amount); } After that, I wrote an extension for TimeSpan like this: public static DateTime Ago(this TimeSpan diff) { return DateTime.Now.Add(-diff); } This works fine so far, but has a great disadvantage. The logic is inverted! Since girlWentIntoBathroom is a timestamp in the past, the right side of the equation needs to count backwards: impossible. Just inverting the equation is no solution, because it will invert the read sentence as well. 2nd attempt So I tried something new: if (girlWentIntoBathroom.IsMoreThan(10).SecondsAgo()) MessageBox.Show("Knock louder"); else MessageBox.Show("Wait a little longer"); IsMoreThan() needs to transport the past timestamp as well as the span for the extension SecondsAgo(). It could be: public static DateWithIntegerSpan IsMoreThan(this DateTime baseTime, int span) { return new DateWithIntegerSpan() { Date = baseTime, Span = span }; } Where DateWithIntegerSpan is simply: public class DateWithIntegerSpan { public DateTime Date {get; set;} public int Span { get; set; } } And SecondsAgo() is public static bool SecondsAgo(this DateWithIntegerSpan dateAndSpan) { return dateAndSpan.Date.Add(new TimeSpan(0, 0, dateAndSpan.Span)) < DateTime.Now; } Using this approach, the English sentence matches the expected behavior. But the disadvantage is, that I need a helping class (DateWithIntegerSpan). Has anyone an idea to make checking timeouts look more cute and closer to a readable sentence? Am I a little too insane thinking about something minor like this?

    Read the article

  • What ever happened to the Defense Software Reuse System (DSRS)?

    - by emddudley
    I've been reading some papers from the early 90s about a US Department of Defense software reuse initiative called the Defense Software Reuse System (DSRS). The most recent mention of it I could find was in a paper from 2000 - A Survey of Software Reuse Repositories Defense Software Repository System (DSRS) The DSRS is an automated repository for storing and retrieving Reusable Software Assets (RSAs) [14]. The DSRS software now manages inventories of reusable assets at seven software reuse support centers (SRSCs). The DSRS serves as a central collection point for quality RSAs, and facilitates software reuse by offering developers the opportunity to match their requirements with existing software products. DSRS accounts are available for Government employees and contractor personnel currently supporting Government projects... ...The DoD software community is trying to change its software engineering model from its current software cycle to a process-driven, domain-specific, architecture-based, repository-assisted way of constructing software [15]. In this changing environment, the DSRS has the highest potential to become the DoD standard reuse repository because it is the only existing deployed, operational repository with multiple interoperable locations across DoD. Seven DSRS locations support nearly 1,000 users and list nearly 9,000 reusable assets. The DISA DSRS alone lists 3,880 reusable assets and has 400 user accounts... The far-term strategy of the DSRS is to support a virtual repository. These interconnected repositories will provide the ability to locate and share reusable components across domains and among the services. An effective and evolving DSRS is a central requirement to the success of the DoD software reuse initiative. Evolving DoD repository requirements demand that DISA continue to have an operational DSRS site to support testing in an actual repository operation and to support DoD users. The classification process for the DSRS is a basic technology for providing customer support [16]. This process is the first step in making reusable assets available for implementing the functional and technical migration strategies. ... [14] DSRS - Defense Technology for Adaptable, Reliable Systems URL: http://ssed1.ims.disa.mil/srp/dsrspage.html [15] STARS - Software Technology for Adaptable, Reliable Systems URL: http://www.stars.ballston.paramax.com/index.html [16] D. E. Perry and S. S. Popovitch, “Inquire: Predicate-based use and reuse,'' in Proceedings of the 8th Knowledge-Based Software Engineering Conference, pp. 144-151, September 1993. ... Is DSRS dead, and were there any post-mortem reports on it? Are there other more-recent US government initiatives or reports on software reuse?

    Read the article

  • Should i continue my self-taught coding practice or learn how to do coding professionally?

    - by G1i1ch
    Lately I've been getting professional work, hanging out with other programmers, and making friends in the industry. The only thing is I'm 100% self-taught. It's caused my style to extremely deviate from the style of those that are properly trained. It's the techniques and organization of my code that's different. It's a mixture of several things I do. I tend to blend several programming paradigms together. Like Functional and OO. I lean to the Functional side more than OO, but I see the use of OO when something would make more sense as an abstract entity. Like a game object. Next I also go the simple route when doing something. When in contrast, it seems like sometimes the code I see from professional programmers is complicated for the sake of it! I use lots of closures. And lastly, I'm not the best commenter. I find it easier just to read through my code than reading the comment. And most cases I just end up reading the code even if there are comments. Plus I've been told that, because of how simply I write my code, it's very easy to read it. I hear professionally trained programmers go on and on about things like unit tests. Something I've never used before so I haven't even the faintest idea of what they are or how they work. Lots and lots of underscores "_", which aren't really my taste. Most of the techniques I use are straight from me, or a few books I've read. Don't know anything about MVC, I've heard a lot about it though with things like backbone.js. I think it's a way to organize an application. It just confuses me though because by now I've made my own organizational structures. It's a bit of a pain. I can't use template applications at all when learning something new like with Ubuntu's Quickly. I have trouble understanding code that I can tell is from someone trained. Complete OO programming really leaves a bad taste in my mouth, yet that seems to be what EVERYONE else is strictly using. It's left me not that confident in the look of my code, or wondering whether I'll cause sparks when joining a company or maybe contributing to open source projects. In fact I'm rather scared of the fact that people will eventually be checking out my code. Is this just something normal any programmer goes through or should I really look to change up my techniques?

    Read the article

  • The type of programmer I want to be [closed]

    - by Aventinus_
    I'm an undergraduate Software Engineer student, although I've decided that pure programming is what I want to do for the rest of my life. The thing is that programming is a vast field and although most of its aspects are extremely interesting, soon or later I'll have to choose one (?) to focus on. I have several ideas on small projects I'd like to develop this summer, having in mind that this will gain me some experience and, in the best scenario, some cash. But the most important reason I'd like to develop something close to “professional” is to give myself direction on what I want to do as a programmer. One path is that of the Web Programmer. I enjoy PHP and MySQL, as well as HTML and CSS, although I don't really like ASP.NET. I can see myself writing web apps, using the above technologies, as well as XML and Javascript. I also have a neat idea on a Facebook app. The other path is that of the Desktop Programmer. This is a little more complicated cause I really-really enjoy high level languages such as Java and Python but not the low level ones, such as C. I use both Linux and Windows for the last 6 years and I like their latest DEs (meaning Gnome Shell and Metro). I can see myself writing desktop applications for both OSs as long as it means high level programming. Ideally I'd like being able to help the development of GNOME. The last path that interests me is the path of the Smartphone Programmer. I have created some sample applications on Android and due to Java I found it a quite interesting experience. I can also see myself as an independent smartphone developer. These 3 paths seem equally interesting at the moment due to the shallowness of my experience, I guess. I know that I should spend time with all of them and then choose the right one for me but I'd like to know what are the pros and cons in terms of learning curve, fun, job finding and of course financial rewards with each of these paths. I have fair or basic understanding of the languages/technologies I described earlier and this question will help me choose where to focus, at least for now.

    Read the article

  • What OpenGL version(s) to learn and/or use?

    - by zuko
    So, I'm new to OpenGL... I have general knowledge of game programming but little practical experience. I've been looking into various articles and books and trying to dive into OpenGL, but I've found the various versions and old vs new way of doing things confusing. I guess my first questions is does anyone know some figures about percentages of gamers that can run each version of OpenGL. What's the market share like? 2.x, 3.x, 4.x... I looked into the requirements for Half Life 2 since I know Valve updated it with OpenGL to run on Mac and I know they usually try to hit a very wide user-base, and they say a minimum of GeForce 8 Series. I looked at the 8800 GT on Nvidia's website and it listed support for OpenGL 2.1. Which, maybe I'm wrong, sounds ancient to me since there's already 4.x. I looked up a driver for 8800GT and it says it supports 4.2! A bit of a discrepancy there, lol. I've also read things like XP only supports up to a certain version, or OS X only supports 3.2, or all kinds of other things. Overall, I'm just confused as to how much support there is for various versions and what version to learn/use. I'm also looking for learning resources. My search results thus far have pointed me to the OpenGL SuperBible. The 4th edition has great reviews on Amazon, but it teaches 2.1. The 5th edition teaches 3.3 and there are a couple things in the reviews that mention the 4th edition is better and that the 5th edition doesn't properly teach the new features or something? Basically, even within learning material I'm seeing discrepancies and I just don't even know where to start. From what I understand, 3.x started a whole new way of doing things and I've read from various articles and reviews that you want to "stay away from deprecated features like glBegin(), glEnd()" yet a lot of books and tutorials I've seen use that method. I've seen people saying that, basically, the new way of doing stuff is more complicated yet the old way is bad . Just a side note, personally, I know I still have a lot to learn beforehand, but I'm interested in tessellation; so I guess that factors into it as well, because, as far as I understand that's only in 4.x? [just btw, my desktop supports 4.2]

    Read the article

  • Advantages to Multiple Methods over Switch

    - by tandu
    I received a code review from a senior developer today asking "By the way, what is your objection to dispatching functions by way of a switch statement?" I have read in many places about how pumping an argument through switch to call methods is bad OOP, not as extensible, etc. However, I can't really come up with a definitive answer for him. I would like to settle this for myself once and for all. Here are our competing code suggestions (php used as an example, but can apply more universally): class Switch { public function go($arg) { switch ($arg) { case "one": echo "one\n"; break; case "two": echo "two\n"; break; case "three": echo "three\n"; break; default: throw new Exception("Unknown call: $arg"); break; } } } class Oop { public function go_one() { echo "one\n"; } public function go_two() { echo "two\n"; } public function go_three() { echo "three\n"; } public function __call($_, $__) { throw new Exception("Unknown call $_ with arguments: " . print_r($__, true)); } } Part of his argument was "It (switch method) has a much cleaner way of handling default cases than what you have in the generic __call() magic method." I disagree about the cleanliness and in fact prefer call, but I would like to hear what others have to say. Arguments I can come up with in support of Oop scheme: A bit cleaner in terms of the code you have to write (less, easier to read, less keywords to consider) Not all actions delegated to a single method. Not much difference in execution here, but at least the text is more compartmentalized. In the same vein, another method can be added anywhere in the class instead of a specific spot. Methods are namespaced, which is nice. Does not apply here, but consider a case where Switch::go() operated on a member rather than a parameter. You would have to change the member first, then call the method. For Oop you can call the methods independently at any time. Arguments I can come up with in support of Switch scheme: For the sake of argument, cleaner method of dealing with a default (unknown) request Seems less magical, which might make unfamiliar developers feel more comfortable Anyone have anything to add for either side? I'd like to have a good answer for him.

    Read the article

  • Developer career feeling like going back in time every new job [closed]

    - by komediant
    Is there a good category for this question? My background is bachelor in ICT and for a hobby I am programming already since I was around twelve I think. Started with QBasic, Pascal, C, Java et cetera. Currently I am working for about eight/nine years. Half academics/medical and half company world. A few years ago I started with frameworks and I began with Grails (underlying Spring/Hibernate), which was a heavenly job, very productive and no hassle. My previous job I developed in pure Spring/Hibernate Java, which was a bit more writing annotations and XML and no conventions like Grails. But still, I did like Spring/Hibernate a lot and the professional setup with a developmentstreet, versioning, Jenkins/Sonar, log4j and a good IDE like IntellIJ. It felt quite 'clear' and organised, although I knew Grails which felt a bit more productive. But...at my current job almost half the code is pure servlet, hard coded JDBC (connections handled by yourself), scriptlets in all JSP pages, no service layer, no versioning, no Maven, HTML in DAO-layer, JAR-hell, no hot swap deployment locally, every change you have to deploy and hope it works fine on the server. All local development needs ugly scriptlet tags to check which environment it is running. Et cetera. Now and then developers work over in the evening - I don't - and still lots of issues are not solved and new projects are waiting. I hear the developers complaining, but somehow they feel like what they have now is "advanced" or they are in a sort of comfore zone. The lead developer seems open for new things, but half of the times he says he can implement MVC-framework features himself instead of using what is already out there. So in short, I currently feel like I miss all the modern framework techniques and that the company is going so slow forward. I just work here for two months now. What I do now is also code some partially ugly stuff, but it goes in completely into my nature and I feel uncomfortable with it. Coding something takes long(er) than estimated and my manager complains about why it takes so long and I feel ashamed for myself needing so much time. Where I was used to just writing a query I now build up whole try catch methods. My manager knows my complaints and the developers do so too. There will come a meeting to line out plans for 2013 on technology and the issues I and the company are facing. I am not looking for another job yet, it's close to wehre I live and the economy is fragile. Does anyone else have had this kind of career, like feeling going backwards witch technology? And how did you cope with it?

    Read the article

  • RPi and Java Embedded GPIO: It all begins with hardware

    - by hinkmond
    So, you want to connect low-level peripherals (like blinky-blinky LEDs) to your Raspberry Pi and use Java Embedded technology to program it, do you? You sick foolish masochist. No, just kidding! That's awesome! You've come to the right place. I'll step you though it. And, as with many embedded projects, it all begins with hardware. So, the first thing to do is to get acquainted with the GPIO header on your RPi board. A "header" just means a thingy with a bunch of pins sticking up from it where you can connect wires. See the the red box outline in the photo. Now, there are many ways to connect to that header outlined by the red box in the photo (which the RPi folks call the P1 header). One way is to use a breakout kit like the one at Adafruit. But, we'll just use jumper wires in this example. So, to connect jumper wires to the header you need a map of where to connect which wire. That's why you need to study the pinout in the photo. That's your map for connecting wires. But, as with many things in life, it's not all that simple. RPi folks have made things a little tricky. There are two revisions of the P1 header pinout. One for older boards (RPi boards made before Sep 2012), which is called Revision 1. And, one for those fancy 512MB boards that were shipped after Sep 2012, which is called Revision 2. So, first make sure which board you have: either you have the Model A or B with 128MB or 256MB built before Sep 2012 and you need to look at the pinout for Rev. 1, or you have the Model B with 512MB and need to look at Rev. 2. That's all you need for now. More to come... Hinkmond

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594  | Next Page >