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• What are the pros and cons about developing under MAC OS? [closed]

  - by user827992

  Sometimes i get the chance to program under MAC OS, i knew about this OS since Apple shipped its computers with a PowerPC by Motorola ( since Panther, more or less ), these days they are all X86 and i see no particular advantages about adopting this platform, also i see only downsides for the main part, i do not want to cause flames, please reply if you have a good answer or you can contribute in some constructive way. I'm trying to write a list of the natively supported languages, or the languages that comes only under MAC OS with some particular technology, my list is this: Objective C with Cocoa/Carbon I'm not considering personal preferences here, if a person X likes to code under Xcode it's probably ok to have a MAC, if a person Y likes to code under Visual Studio it's probably ok to not having a MAC, my purpose is to clarify what MAC OS is good for. I also do not get why people glorify the MAC for historical reasons, I mean a language like Java just comes for MAC only in the 7th edition of its JDK, things like GCC are just a porting and many technologies are out of the question like C# ( I'm sorry, i do not consider MonoDevelop like a serious alternative ) , .Net, ASP, DirectX, and many others are just, again, porting or free software, like PHP, MySQL, Javascript, XML, CSS, OpenGL, etc etc. My question is: what is so special about being a programmer under MAC OS? There is something that I have not seen? I also noticed that a significant portion of MAC users end up using their MAC like a normal Windows PC with Parallels or something like that. I can afford to buy a MAC, show me why this machine is so unique.

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• Calling methods on Objects

  - by Mashael

  Let's say we have a class called 'Automobile' and we have an instance of that class called 'myCar'. I would like to ask why do we need to put the values that our methods return in a variable for the object? Why just don't we call the method? For example: Why should we write: string message = myCar.SpeedMessage(); Console.WriteLine(message); instead of: Console.WriteLine(myCar.SpeedMessage());

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• Is it possible to extract textures or sprites from compiled game files?

  - by Brian Reindel

  For instance, every map in Portal has what appear to be sprites over a texture indicating the obstacles you'll face (see screenshot). Are these resources compiled into the source as byte code, or is it possible to extract them from installation files? Obviously I understand copyright implications, and I am only interested in using it for a recreational project. Instead of recreating them, I wonder if they can be extracted.

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• How can I compare between web development technologies?

  - by Steve

  I would like experts to explain for me how can I compare between web development tools or technologies in order to be able to choose the right one. I'm tired from searching always in the regular way: X Technology vs Y Technology. I'm tired from peoples' biased opinions and usually I don't find a fair comparison. I have decided to put my question here about how can I compare them so you may identify to me the main standards for comparisons so I can compare them by myself and becoming able to choose the technology that is appropriate for the project I will develop. Note: in web development technologies I mean server side languages (e.g. PHP). One important requirement for me that can be defined as major one is cost efficiency and I mean that I don't care about the cost in the near future or the current cost, but what is more important for me is the cost in the future. If, for example, the site becomes one of the most 100 visited sites.   So, how can I compare the cost of different technologies for a future status of a site (such as being very famous site) so I can scale my option easily without missing a good technology like what happened with some sites when they chose not the most effective tool.

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• How do I improve my code reading skills

  - by Andrew

  Well the question is in the title - how do I improve my code reading skills. The software/hardware environment I currently do development in is quite slow with respect to compilation times and time it takes the whole system to test. The system is quite old/complex and thus splitting it into a several smaller, more manageable sub-projects is not feasible in a neare future. I have realized is what really hinders the development progress is my code reading skills. How do I improve my code reading skills, so I can spot most of the errors and issues in the code even before I hit the "do compile" key, even before I start the debugger?

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• What simple game is good to learn OO principles?

  - by Bogdan Gavril

  I have to come up with a project propsal for my students, here are some details: The design should be gove over OO concepts: encapsulation, interfaces, inheritance, abstract classes Idealy a game, to keep interest high No GUI, just the console Effective time to finish this: ~ 6 days (1 person per proj) I have found one nice example of a game with carnivore and herbivore cells in a drop of water (array), it's a game of life twist. It is a bit too simple. Any ideeas? Aditional info: - language is C#

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• Is it appropriate for a class to only be a collection of information with no logic?

  - by qegal

  Say I have a class Person that has instance variables age, weight, and height, and another class Fruit that has instance variables sugarContent and texture. The Person class has no methods save setters and getters, while the Fruit class has both setters and getters and logic methods like calculateSweetness. Is the Fruit class the type of class that is better practice than the Person class. What I mean by this is that the Person class seems like it doesn't have much purpose; it exists solely to organize data, while the Fruit class organizes data and actually contains methods for logic.

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• Internal Mutation of Persistent Data Structures

  - by Greg Ros

  To clarify, when I mean use the terms persistent and immutable on a data structure, I mean that: The state of the data structure remains unchanged for its lifetime. It always holds the same data, and the same operations always produce the same results. The data structure allows Add, Remove, and similar methods that return new objects of its kind, modified as instructed, that may or may not share some of the data of the original object. However, while a data structure may seem to the user as persistent, it may do other things under the hood. To be sure, all data structures are, internally, at least somewhere, based on mutable storage. If I were to base a persistent vector on an array, and copy it whenever Add is invoked, it would still be persistent, as long as I modify only locally created arrays. However, sometimes, you can greatly increase performance by mutating a data structure under the hood. In more, say, insidious, dangerous, and destructive ways. Ways that might leave the abstraction untouched, not letting the user know anything has changed about the data structure, but being critical in the implementation level. For example, let's say that we have a class called ArrayVector implemented using an array. Whenever you invoke Add, you get a ArrayVector build on top of a newly allocated array that has an additional item. A sequence of such updates will involve n array copies and allocations. Here is an illustration: However, let's say we implement a lazy mechanism that stores all sorts of updates -- such as Add, Set, and others in a queue. In this case, each update requires constant time (adding an item to a queue), and no array allocation is involved. When a user tries to get an item in the array, all the queued modifications are applied under the hood, requiring a single array allocation and copy (since we know exactly what data the final array will hold, and how big it will be). Future get operations will be performed on an empty cache, so they will take a single operation. But in order to implement this, we need to 'switch' or mutate the internal array to the new one, and empty the cache -- a very dangerous action. However, considering that in many circumstances (most updates are going to occur in sequence, after all), this can save a lot of time and memory, it might be worth it -- you will need to ensure exclusive access to the internal state, of course. This isn't a question about the efficacy of such a data structure. It's a more general question. Is it ever acceptable to mutate the internal state of a supposedly persistent or immutable object in destructive and dangerous ways? Does performance justify it? Would you still be able to call it immutable? Oh, and could you implement this sort of laziness without mutating the data structure in the specified fashion?

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• Is there an IDE that can simplify the process of creating a game matchmaking website?

  - by Scott

  Yes, I'm an old guy. And I'm well versed in "C" and have written several games which I have been selling on the web for a number of years. And now, I would like to adapt one of my games to be "online". Sounds simple. I'm sure I can use the thousands of lines of "C" code that I've already written. Right? So my initial investigation begins. First, I think I'll need a server program that lives on a dedicated server (or a VPS probably) that talks to a bunch of client applications that live on individual devices around the world. I can certainly handle that! (I think to myself). I'll break up my existing game into two pieces, a client piece that is just the game displays and buttons, and a server piece that does everything else. Piece of cake, right? But that means that the "server piece" must be executed on a remote machine somewhere and run 24/7. Can I do that? [apparently, that question is so basic, so uneducated, and so lame, that nobody has ever posed it before. Because hours of Googling does not yield an answer. Fine. I'll assume I can do that and move on.] I'll need a "game room", which to me means a website where you log in and then go to a lobby of some kind where you can setup your preferences, see if any of your friends are connected, and create or join games. Should be easy, but it's not. No way. Can I do all this with my local website builder? (which happens to be 90 Second Website Builder, a nice product, btw). It turns out, I can not. I can start with that, but must modify each page, so I can interact with my sql database. So I begin making each page a "PHP" page and dynamically modifying the HTML code with PHP code. I'm already starting to get a headache. Because the resulting web pages looked terrible, I began looking at using JQuery. I want to user a JQuery dialog on my website to display a list of friends and allow the user to select one to invite to the game. [google search for "how to populate a JQuery dialog from a sql database" yields nothing but more confusion.] Javascript? Java? HTML? XML? HTML5? PHP? JQuery? Flash? Sockets? Forms? CSS? Learning about each one of these, and how they interact with each other and/or depend on each other is too much for my feeble old brain. Can anyone simplify this process for me? Is there an IDE that will help me do all this without having to go back to college for a few years? Thanks, Scott

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• Is there any reason lazy initialization couldn't be built into Java?

  - by Renesis

  Since I'm working on a server with absolutely no non-persisted state for users, every User-related object we have is rolled out on every request. Consequently I often find myself doing lazy initialization of properties of objects that may go unused. protected EventDispatcher dispatcher = new EventDispatcher(); Becomes... protected EventDispatcher<EventMessage> dispatcher; public EventDispatcher<EventMessage> getEventDispatcher() { if (dispatcher == null) { dispatcher = new EventDispatcher<EventMessage>(); } return dispatcher; } Is there any reason this couldn't be built into Java? protected lazy EventDispatcher dispatcher = new EventDispatcher();

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• how to programtically build a grid of interlocking but random sized squares

  - by Mrwolfy

  I want to create a two dimensional layout of rectangular shapes, a grid made up of random sized cubes. The cubed should fit together and have equal padding or margin (space between). Kind of like a comic book layout, or more like the image attached. How could I do this procedurally? Practically, I would probably be using Python and some graphic software to render an image, but I don't know the type of algorithm (or whatnot) I would need to use to generate the randomized grid.

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• When and why you should use void (instead of i.e. bool/int)

  - by Jonas

  I occasionally run into methods where a developer chose to return something which isn't critical to the function. I mean, when looking at the code, it apparently works just as nice as a void and after a moment of thought, I ask "Why?" Does this sound familiar? Sometimes I would agree that most often it is better to return something like a bool or int, rather then just do a void. I'm not sure though, in the big picture, about the pros and cons. Depending on situation, returning an int can make the caller aware of the amount of rows or objects affected by the method (e.g., 5 records saved to MSSQL). If a method like "InsertSomething" returns a boolean, I can have the method designed to return true if success, else false. The caller can choose to act or not on that information. On the other hand, May it lead to a less clear purpose of a method call? Bad coding often forces me to double-check the method content. If it returns something, it tells you that the method is of a type you have to do something with the returned result. Another issue would be, if the method implementation is unknown to you, what did the developer decide to return that isn't function critical? Of course you can comment it. The return value has to be processed, when the processing could be ended at the closing bracket of method. What happens under the hood? Did the called method get false because of a thrown error? Or did it return false due to the evaluated result? What are your experiences with this? How would you act on this?

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• How can unrealscript halt event handler execution after an arbitrary number of lines with no return or error?

  - by Dan Cowell

  I have created a class that extends TcpLink and is instantiated in a custom Kismet Sequence Action. It is being instantiated correctly and is making the GET HTTP request that I need it to (I have checked my access log in apache) and Apache is responding to the request with the appropriate content. The problem I have is that I'm using the event receive mode and it appears that somehow the handler for the Opened event is halted after a specific number of lines of code have executed. Here is my code for the Opened event: event Opened() { // A connection was established WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] event opened"); WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] Sending simple HTTP query"); //The HTTP GET request //char(13) and char(10) are carrage returns and new lines requesttext = "userId="$userId$"&apartmentId="$apartmentId; SendText("GET /"$path$"?"$requesttext$" HTTP/1.0"); SendText(chr(13)$chr(10)); SendText("Host: "$TargetHost); SendText(chr(13)$chr(10)); SendText("Connection: Close"); SendText(chr(13)$chr(10)$chr(13)$chr(10)); //WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] Sent request: "$requesttext); //WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] end HTTP query"); //WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] LinkState: "$LinkState); //WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] LinkMode: "$LinkMode); WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] ReceiveMode: "$ReceiveMode); WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] Error: "$string(GetLastError())); } As you can see, a number of the Broadcast calls have been commented out. Initially, only the lines up to the Broadcast containing "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] Sent request: " were being executed and none of the Broadcasts were commented out. After commenting out that line, the next Broadcast was successful and so on and so forth. As a test, I commented out the very first Broadcast to see if the connection closing had any effect: // A connection was established //WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] event opened"); WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] Sending simple HTTP query"); Upon doing that, an additional Broadcast at the end of the function executed. Thus the inference that there is an upper limit to the number of lines executed. Additionally, my ReceivedText handler is never called, despite Apache returning the correct HTTP 200 response with a body. My working hypothesis is that somehow after the Sequence Action finishes executing the garbage collector cleans up the TcpLinkClient instance. My biggest source of confusion with that is how on earth it does it during the execution of an event handler. Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? My full TcpLinkClient class is below: /* * TcpLinkClient based on an example usage of the TcpLink class by Michiel 'elmuerte' Hendriks for Epic Games, Inc. * */ class DNomad_TcpLinkClient extends TcpLink; var PlayerController PC; var string TargetHost; var int TargetPort; var string path; var string requesttext; var string userId; var string apartmentId; var string statusCode; var string responseData; event PostBeginPlay() { super.PostBeginPlay(); } function DoTcpLinkRequest(string uid, string id) //removes having to send a host { userId = uid; apartmentId = id; Resolve(targethost); } function string GetStatus() { return statusCode; } event Resolved( IpAddr Addr ) { // The hostname was resolved succefully WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] "$TargetHost$" resolved to "$ IpAddrToString(Addr)); // Make sure the correct remote port is set, resolving doesn't set // the port value of the IpAddr structure Addr.Port = TargetPort; //dont comment out this log because it rungs the function bindport WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] Bound to port: "$ BindPort() ); if (!Open(Addr)) { WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] Open failed"); } } event ResolveFailed() { WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[TcpLinkClient] Unable to resolve "$TargetHost); // You could retry resolving here if you have an alternative // remote host. //send failed message to scaleform UI //JunHud(JunPlayerController(PC).myHUD).JunMovie.CallSetHTML("Failed"); } event Opened() { // A connection was established //WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] event opened"); WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] Sending simple HTTP query"); //The HTTP GET request //char(13) and char(10) are carrage returns and new lines requesttext = "userId="$userId$"&apartmentId="$apartmentId; SendText("GET /"$path$"?"$requesttext$" HTTP/1.0"); SendText(chr(13)$chr(10)); SendText("Host: "$TargetHost); SendText(chr(13)$chr(10)); SendText("Connection: Close"); SendText(chr(13)$chr(10)$chr(13)$chr(10)); //WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] Sent request: "$requesttext); //WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] end HTTP query"); //WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] LinkState: "$LinkState); //WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] LinkMode: "$LinkMode); WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] ReceiveMode: "$ReceiveMode); WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "[DNomad_TcpLinkClient] Error: "$string(GetLastError())); } event Closed() { // In this case the remote client should have automatically closed // the connection, because we requested it in the HTTP request. WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "Connection closed."); // After the connection was closed we could establish a new // connection using the same TcpLink instance. } event ReceivedText( string Text ) { WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "Received Text: "$Text); //we dont want the header info, so we split the string after two new lines Text = Split(Text, chr(13)$chr(10)$chr(13)$chr(10), true); WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "Split Text: "$Text); statusCode = Text; } event ReceivedLine( string Line ) { WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "Received Line: "$Line); } event ReceivedBinary( int Count, byte B[255] ) { WorldInfo.Game.Broadcast(self, "Received Binary of length: "$Count); } defaultproperties { TargetHost="127.0.0.1" TargetPort=80 //default for HTTP LinkMode=MODE_Text ReceiveMode=RMODE_Event path = "dnomad/datafeed.php" userId = "0"; apartmentId = "0"; statusCode = ""; send = false; }

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• What is the best approach for inline code comments?

  - by d1egoaz

  We are doing some refactoring to a 20 years old legacy codebase, and I'm having a discussion with my colleague about the comments format in the code (plsql, java). There is no a default format for comments, but in most cases people do something like this in the comment: // date (year, year-month, yyyy-mm-dd, dd/mm/yyyy), (author id, author name, author nickname) and comment the proposed format for future and past comments that I want is: // {yyyy-mm-dd}, unique_author_company_id, comment My colleague says that we only need the comment, and must reformat all past and future comments to this format: // comment My arguments: I say for maintenance reasons, it's important to know when and who did a change (even this information is in the SCM). The code is living, and for that reason has a history. Because without the change dates it's impossible to know when a change was introduced without open the SCM tool and search in the long object history. because the author is very important, a change of authors is more credible than a change of authory Agility reasons, no need to open and navigate through the SCM tool people would be more afraid to change something that someone did 15 years ago, than something that was recently created or changed. etc. My colleague's arguments: The history is in the SCM Developers must not be aware of the history of the code directly in the code Packages gets 15k lines long and unstructured comments make these packages harder to understand What do you think is the best approach? Or do you have a better approach to solve this problem?

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• How to write good code with new stuff?

  - by Reza M.

  I always try to write easily readable code that is well structured. I face a particular problem when I am messing around with something new. I keep changing the code, structure and so many other things. In the end, I look at the code and am annoyed at how complicated it became when I was trying to do something so simple. Once I've completed something, I refactor it heavily so that it's cleaner. This occurs after completion most of the time and it is annoying because the bigger the code the more annoying it is the rewrite it. I am curious to know how people deal with such agony, especially on big projects shared between many people ?

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• Best exception handling practices or recommendations?

  - by user828584

  I think the two main problems with my programs are my code structure/organization and my error handling. I'm reading Code Complete 2, but I need something to read for working with potential problems. For example, on a website, if something can only happen if the user tampers with data via javascript, do you write for that? Also, when do you not catch errors? When you write a class that expects a string and an int as input, and they aren't a string and int, do you check for that, or do you let it bubble up to the calling method that passed incorrect parameters? I know this is a broad topic that can't be answered in a single answer here, so what I'm looking for is a book or resource that's commonly accepted as teaching proper exception handling practice.

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• Do most programmers copy and paste code?

  - by John MacIntyre

  I learned very early on that cutting & pasting somebody else's code takes longer in the long run that writing it yourself. In my opinion unless you really understand it, cut & paste code will probably have issues which will be a nightmare to resolve. Don't get me wrong, I mean finding other peoples code and learning from it is essential, but we don't just paste it into our app. We rewrite the concepts into our app. But I'm constantly hearing about people who cut & paste, and they talk about it like it's common practice. I also see comments by others which indicate it's common practice. So, do most programmers cut & paste code?

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• deciphering columnar transposition cipher

  - by Arfan M

  I am looking for an idea on how to decipher a columnar transposition cipher without knowing the key or the length of the key. When I take the cipher text as input to my algorithm I will guess the length of the key to be the factors of the length of the cipher text. I will take the first factor suppose the length was 20 letters so I will take 2*10 (2 rows and 10 columns). Now I want to arrange the cipher text in the columns and read it row wise to see if there is any word forming and match it with a dictionary if it is something sensible. If it matches the dictionary then it means it is in correct order or else I want to know how to make other combinations of the columns and read the string again row wise. Please suggest another approach that is more efficient.

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• Low coupling and tight cohesion

  - by hidayat

  Of course it depends on the situation. But when a lower lever object or system communicate with an higher level system, should callbacks or events be preferred to keeping a pointer to higher level object? For example, we have a world class that has a member variable vector<monster> monsters. When the monster class is going to communicate with the world class, should I prefer using a callback function then or should I have a pointer to the world class inside the monster class?

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• Can somebody guide me asto how I can make a game for playing cards [closed]

  - by user2558

  In college me and my friends use to play cards all the time. I want to make a game for that. It's quite similar to hearts, a kind of modified hearts which we made up. I want to make a multiplayer game which could be played over the internet. Plus there should also be an option for computer to play if less players availiable at the time. I don't want to make a exe. I want to play in browser. How should I go about it.

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• Get entities ids from two similar collections using one method

  - by Patryk Roszczyniala

  I've got two lists: List<Integer, ZooEntity> zoos; List<Integer, List<ZooEntity>> groupOfZoos; These operations will return collections of values: Collection<ZooEntity> cz = zoos.values(); Collection<List<ZooEntity>> czList = groupOfZoos.values(); What I want to achieve is to get list of all zoo ids. List<Integer> zooIds = cz ids + czList ids; Of course I can create two methods to do what I want: public List<Integer> getIdsFromFlatList(Collection<ZooEntity> list) { List<Integer> ids = new ArrayList<Integer>(); for (ZooEntity z : list) { ids.add(z.getId()); } return ids; } public List<Integer> getIdsFromNestedList(Collection<List<ZooEntity>> list) { List<Integer> ids = new ArrayList<Integer>(); for (List<ZooEntity> zList : list) { for (ZooEntity z : zList) { ids.add(z.getId()); } } return ids; } As you can see those two methods are very similar and here is my question: Is it good to create one method (for example using generics) which will get ids from those two lists (zoos and groupOfZoos). If yes how it should look like? If no what is the best solution? BTW. This is only the example. I've got very similar problem at job and I want to do it in preety way (I can't change enities, I can change only getIds...() methods).

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• Should my colleagues review each others code from source control system?

  - by Daniel Excinsky

  Hi everybody. So that's my story: one of my colleagues uses to review all the code, hosted to revision system. I'm not speaking about adequate review of changes in parts that he belongs to. He watches the code file to file, line to line. Every new file and every modified. I feel just like being spied on! My guess is that if code was already hosted to control system, you should trust it as workable at least. My question is, maybe I'm just too paranoiac and practice of reviewing each others code is good? P.S: We're team of only three developers, and I fear that if there will be more of us, colleague just won't have time to review all the the code we'll write.

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• How you return to a code when you don't remember what you were doing?

  - by speeder

  Well, I have some problems with procrastination and whatnot, but those get infinitely worse, when I cannot remember what I should be doing. I mean, I know my project, I wrote 100% of the code so far, and I knew more or less what I was doing, but I don't remember exactly what, I don't remember what file I was editing and why. How I get back on track? (because right now my technique of opening the source code and staring at it is not working)

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• Best way to indicate more results available

  - by Alex Stangl

  We have a service to return messages. We want to limit the number returned, either allowing the caller to specify the max number to return, or else to use an internal hard limit. We also have thought it would be nice to include in the response whether more messages are available. The "best" way to go about this is not clear. Here are some ideas so far: Only set the "more messages" indicator if the user did not specify a max limit, and the internal max limit was hit. Same as #1 except that "more messages" indicator set regardless of whether the internal hard limit is hit, or the user-specified limit is hit. Same as #1 (or #2) except that we internally read limit + 1 records, but only return limit records, so we know "for sure" there is at least one additional message rather than "maybe" there are additional messages. Do away with the "more messages" flag, as it is confusing and unnecessary. Instead force the user to keep calling the API until it returns no messages. Change "more messages" indicator to something more akin to an EOF indicator, only set when the last message is known to have been retrieved and returned. What do you think is the best solution? (Doesn't have to be one of the above choices.) I searched and couldn't find a similar question already asked. Hopefully this is not "too subjective".

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• How to recover from finite-state-machine breakdown?

  - by Earl Grey

  My question may seems very scientific but I think it's a common problem and seasoned developers and programmers hopefully will have some advice to avoid the problem I mention in title. Btw., what I describe bellow is a real problem I am trying to proactively solve in my iOS project, I want to avoid it at all cost. By finite state machine I mean this I have a UI with a few buttons, several session states relevant to that UI and what this UI represents, I have some data which values are partly displayed in the UI, I receive and handle some external triggers (represented by callbacks from sensors). I made state diagrams to better map the relevant scenarios that are desirable and alowable in that UI and application. As I slowly implement the code, the app starts to behave more and more like it should. However, I am not very confident that it is robust enough. My doubts come from watching my own thinking and implementation process as it goes. I was confident that I had everything covered, but it was enough to make a few brute tests in the UI and I quickly realized that there are still gaps in the behavior ..I patched them. However, as each component depends and behaves based on input from some other component, a certain input from user or some external source trigers a chain of events, state changes..etc. I have several components and each behave like this Trigger received on input - trigger and its sender analyzed - output something (a message, a state change) based on analysis The problem is, this is not completely selfcontained, and my components (a database item, a session state, some button's state)...COULD be changed, influenced, deleted, or otherwise modified, outside the scope of the event-chain or desirable scenario. (phone crashes, battery is empty phone turn of suddenly) This will introduce a nonvalid situation into the system, from which the system potentially COULD NOT BE ABLE to recover. I see this (althought people do not realize this is the problem) in many of my competitors apps that are on apple store, customers write things like this "I added three documents, and after going there and there, i cannot open them, even if a see them." or "I recorded videos everyday, but after recording a too log video, I cannot turn of captions on them.., and the button for captions doesn't work".. These are just shortened examples, customers often describe it in more detail..from the descriptions and behavior described in them, I assume that the particular app has a FSM breakdown. So the ultimate question is how can I avoid this, and how to protect the system from blocking itself? EDIT I am talking in the context of one viewcontroller's view on the phone, I mean one part of the application. I Understand the MVC pattern, I have separate modules for distinct functionality..everything I describe is relevant to one canvas on the UI.

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