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• Why do old programming languages continue to be revised?

  - by SunAvatar

  This question is not, "Why do people still use old programming languages?" I understand that quite well. In fact the two programming languages I know best are C and Scheme, both of which date back to the 70s. Recently I was reading about the changes in C99 and C11 versus C89 (which seems to still be the most-used version of C in practice and the version I learned from K&R). Looking around, it seems like every programming language in heavy use gets a new specification at least once per decade or so. Even Fortran is still getting new revisions, despite the fact that most people using it are still using FORTRAN 77. Contrast this with the approach of, say, the typesetting system TeX. In 1989, with the release of TeX 3.0, Donald Knuth declared that TeX was feature-complete and future releases would contain only bug fixes. Even beyond this, he has stated that upon his death, "all remaining bugs will become features" and absolutely no further updates will be made. Others are free to fork TeX and have done so, but the resulting systems are renamed to indicate that they are different from the official TeX. This is not because Knuth thinks TeX is perfect, but because he understands the value of a stable, predictable system that will do the same thing in fifty years that it does now. Why do most programming language designers not follow the same principle? Of course, when a language is relatively new, it makes sense that it will go through a period of rapid change before settling down. And no one can really object to minor changes that don't do much more than codify existing pseudo-standards or correct unintended readings. But when a language still seems to need improvement after ten or twenty years, why not just fork it or start over, rather than try to change what is already in use? If some people really want to do object-oriented programming in Fortran, why not create "Objective Fortran" for that purpose, and leave Fortran itself alone? I suppose one could say that, regardless of future revisions, C89 is already a standard and nothing stops people from continuing to use it. This is sort of true, but connotations do have consequences. GCC will, in pedantic mode, warn about syntax that is either deprecated or has a subtly different meaning in C99, which means C89 programmers can't just totally ignore the new standard. So there must be some benefit in C99 that is sufficient to impose this overhead on everyone who uses the language. This is a real question, not an invitation to argue. Obviously I do have an opinion on this, but at the moment I'm just trying to understand why this isn't just how things are done already. I suppose the question is: What are the (real or perceived) advantages of updating a language standard, as opposed to creating a new language based on the old?

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• How can I create a flexible system for tiling a 2D RPG map?

  - by CptSupermrkt

  Using libgdx here. I've just finished learning some of the basics of creating a 2D environment and using an OrthographicCamera to view it. The tutorials I went through, however, hardcoded their tiled map in, and none made mention of how to do it any other way. By tiled map, I mean like Final Fantasy 1, where the world map is a grid of squares, each with a different texture. So for example, I've got a 6 tile x 6 tile map, using the following code: Array<Tile> tiles = new Array<Tile>(); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(0,5), TileType.FOREST)); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(1,5), TileType.FOREST)); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(2,5), TileType.FOREST)); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(3,5), TileType.GRASS)); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(4,5), TileType.STONE)); tiles.add(new Tile(new Vector2(5,5), TileType.STONE)); //... x5 more times. Given the random nature of the environment, for loops don't really help as I have to start and finish a loop before I was able to do enough to make it worth setting up the loop. I can see how a loop might be helpful for like tiling an ocean or something, but not in the above case. The above code DOES get me my final desired output, however, if I were to decide I wanted to move a piece or swap two pieces out, oh boy, what a nightmare, even with just a 6x6 test piece, much less a 1000x1000 world map. There must be a better way of doing this. Someone on some post somewhere (can't find it now, of course) said to check out MapEditor. Looks legit. The question is, if that is the answer, how can I make something in MapEditor and have the output map plug in to a variable in my code? I need the tiles as objects in my code, because for example, I determine whether or not a tile is can be passed through or collided with based on my TileTyle enum variable. Are there alternative/language "native" (i.e. not using an outside tool) methods to doing this?

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• How to apply effects that occur (or change) over time to characters in a game?

  - by Joshua Harris

  So assume that I have a system that applies Effects to Characters like so: public class Character { private Collection<Effect> _effects; public void AddEffect (Effect e) { e.ApplyTo(this); _effects.Add(e); } public void RemoveEffect (Effect e) { e.RemoveFrom(this); _effects.Remove(e); } } public interface Effect { public void ApplyTo (Character character); public void RemoveFrom (Character character); } Example Effect: Armor Buff for 5 seconds. void someFunction() { // Do Stuff ... Timer armorTimer = new Timer(5 seconds); ArmorBuff armorbuff = new ArmorBuff(); character.AddEffect(armorBuff); armorTimer.Start(); // Do more stuff ... } // Some where else in code public void ArmorTimer_Complete() { character.RemoveEffect(armorBuff); } public class ArmorBuff implements Effect { public void applyTo(Character character) { character.changeArmor(20); } public void removeFrom(Character character) { character.changeArmor(-20); } } Ok, so this example would buff the Characters armor for 5 seconds. Easy to get working. But what about effects that change over the duration of the effect being applied. Two examples come to mind: Damage Over Time: 200 damage every second for 3 seconds. I could mimic this by applying an Effect that lasts for 1 second and has a counter set to 3, then when it is removed it could deal 200 damage, clone itself, decrement the counter of the clone, and apply the clone to the character. If it repeats this until the counter is 0, then you got a damage over time ability. I'm not a huge fan of this approach, but it does describe the behavior exactly. Degenerating Speed Boost: Gain a speed boost that degrades over 3 seconds until you return to your normal speed. This is a bit harder. I can basically do the same thing as above except having timers set to some portion of a second, such that they occur fast enough to give the appearance of degenerating smoothly over time (even though they are really just stepping down incrementally). I feel like you could get away with only 12 steps over a second (maybe less, I would have to test it and see), but this doesn't seem very elegant to me. The only other way to implement this effect would be to change the system so that the Character checks the _effects collection for effects that alter any of the properties any time that they are being used. I could handle this in functions like getCurrentSpeed() and getCurrentArmor(), but you can imagine how much of a hassle it would be to have that kind of overhead every time you want to do a calculation with movement speed (which would be every time you move your character). Is there a better way to deal with these kinds of effects or events?

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• What arguments can I use to "sell" the BDD concept to a team reluctant to adopt it?

  - by S.Robins

  I am a bit of a vocal proponent of the BDD methodology. I've been applying BDD for a couple of years now, and have adopted StoryQ as my framework of choice when developing DotNet applications. Even though I have been unit testing for many years, and had previously shifted to a test-first approach, I've found that I get much more value out of using a BDD framework, because my tests capture the intent of the requirements in relatively clear English within my code, and because my tests can execute multiple assertions without ending the test halfway through - meaning I can see which specific assertions pass/fail at a glance without debugging to prove it. This has really been the tip of the iceberg for me, as I've also noticed that I am able to debug both test and implementation code in a more targeted manner, with the result that my productivity has grown significantly, and that I can more easily determine where a failure occurs if a problem happens to make it all the way to the integration build due to the output that makes its way into the build logs. Further, the StoryQ api has a lovely fluent syntax that is easy to learn and which can be applied in an extraordinary number of ways, requiring no external dependencies in order to use it. So with all of these benefits, you would think it an easy to introduce the concept to the rest of the team. Unfortunately, the other team members are reluctant to even look at StoryQ to evaluate it properly (let alone entertain the idea of applying BDD), and have convinced each other to try and remove a number of StoryQ elements from our own core testing framework, even though they originally supported the use of StoryQ, and that it doesn't impact on any other part of our testing system. Doing so would end up increasing my workload significantly overall and really goes against the grain, as I am convinced through practical experience that it is a better way to work in a test-first manner in our particular working environment, and can only lead to greater improvements in the quality of our software, given I've found it easier to stick with test first using BDD. So the question really comes down to the following: What arguments can I use to really drive the point home that it would be better to use StoryQ, or at the very least apply the BDD methodology? Can you point me to any anecdotal evidence that I can use to support my argument to adopt BDD as our standard method of choice? What counter arguments can you think of that could suggest that my wish to convert the team efforts to BDD might be in error? Yes, I'm happy to be proven wrong provided the argument is a sound one. NOTE: I am not advocating that we rewrite our tests in their entirety, but rather to simply start working in a different manner for all future testing work.

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• Are these non-standard applications of rendering practical in games?

  - by maul

  I've recently got into 3D and I came up with a few different "tricky" rendering techniques. Unfortunately I don't have the time to work on this myself, but I'd like to know if these are known methods and if they can be used in practice. Hybrid rendering Now I know that ray-tracing is still not fast enough for real-time rendering, at least on home computers. I also know that hybrid rendering (a combination of rasterization and ray-tracing) is a well known theory. However I had the following idea: one could separate a scene into "important" and "not important" objects. First you render the "not important" objects using traditional rasterization. In this pass you also render the "important" objects using a special shader that simply marks these parts on the image using a special color, or some stencil/depth buffer trickery. Then in the second pass you read back the results of the first pass and start ray tracing, but only from the pixels that were marked by the "important" object's shader. This would allow you to only ray-trace exactly what you need to. Could this be fast enough for real-time effects? Rendered physics I'm specifically talking about bullet physics - intersection of a very small object (point/bullet) that travels across a straight line with other, relatively slow-moving, fairly constant objects. More specifically: hit detection. My idea is that you could render the scene from the point of view of the gun (or the bullet). Every object in the scene would draw a different color. You only need to render a 1x1 pixel window - the center of the screen (again, from the gun's point of view). Then you simply check that central pixel and the color tells you what you hit. This is pixel-perfect hit detection based on the graphical representation of objects, which is not common in games. Afaik traditional OpenGL "picking" is a similar method. This could be extended in a few ways: For larger (non-bullet) objects you render a larger portion of the screen. If you put a special-colored plane in the middle of the scene (exactly where the bullet will be after the current frame) you get a method that works as the traditional slow-moving iterative physics test as well. You could simulate objects that the bullet can pass through (with decreased velocity) using alpha blending or some similar trick. So are these techniques in use anywhere, and/or are they practical at all?

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• The Minimalist's Approach to Content Governance

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  This week on the blog, we want to focus on the content lifecylce and how important it is to have the tools in place to be able to properly manage all te phases of the content lifecylce. John Brunswick has some great advice when it comes to this topic, so expect to hear a lot from him this week! Originally posted by John Brunswick. Let's be honest - content governance is far from an exciting topic. BUT the potential of a very small intranet team creating and maintaining a platform that provides an organization with relevant, high value information, helping workers to get their jobs done with greater accuracy and in less time is exciting. It is easy to quickly start producing content, but the challenge is ensuring that the environment is easy to navigate and use on the third week and during the third year.   What can be done to bridge this gap? Over the next few blog entries let's take a pragmatic, minimalistic view of a process that can help any team manage a wealth of unstructured information. Based on an earlier article that I wrote around Portal Governance, I am going to focus on using technology as much as possible to support the governance of content with minimal involvement from users. The only certainty about content production is that business users are not fans of maintaining content. Maintenance is overhead and is a long-term investment thats value will possibly not be realized under the current content creator's watch. To add context to how we will use technical tools in this process, each post will highlight one section of the content lifecycle process as outlined below Content Lifecycle Stages 1. Request - Understand the education, purpose, resource and success criteria for content 2. Create - Determine access and workflow for content 3. Manage - Understand ownership and review cycles 4. Retire - Act on thresholds established during the request stage Within each state we will also elaborate as to 1. Why - why would we entertain doing this? 2. How - the steps that are needed to make it happen 3. Impact - what is the net benefit or loss based on the process Over the course of this week, we will dive deep into the stages and the minimal amount of time, effort and process within each to make some meaningful gains in the improvement of user experience and productivity in their search for information. It might be a stretch to say that we can make content governance exciting, but hopefully it can end up being painless and paying dividends. And if you'd like to hear first hand from a customer that is managing their content lifecycle with Oracle WebCenter, be sure to join us on Wednesday for this webcast "ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter"!

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• 5 Step Procedure for Android Deployment with NetBeans IDE

  - by Geertjan

  I'm finding that it's so simple to deploy apps to Android that I'm not needing to use the Android emulator at all, haven't been able to figure out how it works anyway (big blinky screen pops up that I don't know what to do with). I just simply deploy the app straight to Android, try it out there, and then uninstall it, if needed. The whole process (only step 4 and 5 below need to be done for each deployment iteration, after you've done steps 1, 2, and 3 once to set up the deployment environment), takes a few seconds. Here's what I do: On Android, go to Settings | Applications. Check "Unknown sources". In "Development", check "USB debugging". Connect Android to your computer via a USB cable. Start up NetBeans IDE, with NBAndroid installed, as described yesterday. and create your "Hello World" app. Right-click the project in the IDE and choose "Export Signed Android Package". Create a new keystore, or choose an existing one, via the wizard that appears. At the end of the wizard (would be nice if NBAndroid would let you set up a keystore once and then reuse it for all your projects, without needing to work through the whole wizard step by step each time), you'll have a new release APK file (Android deployment archive) in the project's 'bin' folder, which you can see in the Files window. Go to the command line (would be nice if NBAndroid were to support adb, would mean I wouldn't need the command line at all), browse to the location of the APK file above. Type "adb install helloworld-release.apk" or whatever the APK file is called. You should see a "Success" message in the command line. Now the application is installed. On your Android, go to "Applications", and there you'll see your brand new app. Then try it out there and delete it if you're not happy with it. After you've made a change in your app, simply repeat step 4 and 5, i.e., create a new APK and install it via adb. Step 4 and 5 take a couple of seconds. And, given that it's all so simple, I don't see the value of the Android emulator, at all.

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• career planning advice [closed]

  - by JDB

  Possible Duplicate: Are certifications worth it? I am at the point in my career where people start to veer off into either management-type roles or they focus on solidifying their technical skills to stay in the development game for the long-haul. Here's my story: I've got a degree in economics, an MA in Political Science and an MBA in Finance and Management. In addition, I've done coursework in advanced math and software development (although no degree in math or software). All-in-all, I've got 13 years of post-secondary education under my belt. I, however, currently work as a software developer using C# for desktop, Silverlight, Flex and javascript for web, and objective c for mobile. I've been in software development for the past 3.3 years, and it seems like it comes pretty easy to me. I work in a field called "geospatial information systems," which just involves customization and manipulation of geospatial data. Right now I am looking at one of several certifications. Given this background, which of these certifications has the highest ceiling? CFA PMP various development/technological certifications from Microsoft, etc. Other? My academic and work experience are all heavy on the analytical/development side, esp. so given the MBA and the B.S. in Econ. The political science degree was really a lot of stats. So it seems that I would be good pursuing more of the CFA/analytical role. This is a difficult path, however, because I have no work experience in the financial sector, and the developers in finance are all "quants," which again, I am OK with, but I haven't done much statistical modeling in the past 3.3 years. The PMP would require knowledge of best practices as it pertains explicitly to software development. I also don't enjoy a lot of business travel, a common theme for most PMP jobs I've seen. If certifications is the route, which would you recommend? Anything else? I've thought about going back to try to knock out a B.S. in C.S., but I wasn't sure how long that would take, or what would be involved. Thoughts or recommendations? Thanks in advance! I turn 32 this weekend, which is what has forced me to think about these issues.

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• Specifying and applying broad changes to a program

  - by Victor Nicollet

  How do you handle incomplete feature requests, when the ones asking for the feature cannot possibly write a complete request? Consider an imaginary situation. You are a tech lead working on a piece of software that revolves around managing profiles (maybe they're contacts in a CRM-type application, or employees in an HR application), with many operations being directly or indirectly performed on those profiles — edit fields, add comments, attach documents, send e-mail... The higher-ups decide that a lock functionality should be added whereby a profile can be locked to prevent anyone else from doing any operations on it until it's unlocked — this feature would be used by security agents to prevent anyone from touching a profile pending a security audit. Obviously, such a feature interacts with many other existing features related to profiles. For example: Can one add a comment to a locked profile? Can one see e-mails that were sent by the system to the owner of a locked profile? Can one see who recently edited a locked profile? If an e-mail was in the process of being sent when the lock happened, is the e-mail sending canceled, delayed or performed as if nothing happened? If I just changed a profile and click the "cancel" link on the confirmation, does the lock prevent the cancel or does it still go through? In all of these cases, how do I tell the user that a lock is in place? Depending on the software, there could be hundreds of such interactions, and each interaction requires a decision — is the lock going to apply and if it does, how will it be displayed to the user? And the higher-ups asking for the feature probably only see a small fraction of these, so you will probably have a lot of questions coming up while you are working on the feature. How would you and your team handle this? Would you expect the higher-ups to come up with a complete description of all cases where the lock should apply (and how), and treat all other cases as if the lock did not exist? Would you try to determine all potential interactions based on existing specifications and code, list them and ask the higher-ups to make a decision on all those where the decision is not obvious? Would you just start working and ask questions as they come up? Would you try to change their minds and settle on a more easily described feature with similar effects? The information about existing features is, as I understand it, in the code — how do you bridge the gap between the decision-makers and that information they cannot access?

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• Help with calculation to steer ship in 3d space

  - by Aaron Anodide

  I'm a beginner using XNA to try and make a 3D Asteroids game. I'm really close to having my space ship drive around as if it had thrusters for pitch and yaw. The problem is I can't quite figure out how to translate the rotations, for instance, when I pitch forward 45 degrees and then start to turn - in this case there should be rotation being applied to all three directions to get the "diagonal yaw" - right? I thought I had it right with the calculations below, but they cause a partly pitched forward ship to wobble instead of turn.... :( Here's current (almost working) calculations for the Rotation acceleration: float accel = .75f; // Thrust +Y / Forward if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.I)) { this.ship.AccelerationY += (float)Math.Cos(this.ship.RotationZ) * accel; this.ship.AccelerationX += (float)Math.Sin(this.ship.RotationZ) * -accel; this.ship.AccelerationZ += (float)Math.Sin(this.ship.RotationX) * accel; } // Rotation +Z / Yaw if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.J)) { this.ship.RotationAccelerationZ += (float)Math.Cos(this.ship.RotationX) * accel; this.ship.RotationAccelerationY += (float)Math.Sin(this.ship.RotationX) * accel; this.ship.RotationAccelerationX += (float)Math.Sin(this.ship.RotationY) * accel; } // Rotation -Z / Yaw if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.K)) { this.ship.RotationAccelerationZ += (float)Math.Cos(this.ship.RotationX) * -accel; this.ship.RotationAccelerationY += (float)Math.Sin(this.ship.RotationX) * -accel; this.ship.RotationAccelerationX += (float)Math.Sin(this.ship.RotationY) * -accel; } // Rotation +X / Pitch if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.F)) { this.ship.RotationAccelerationX += accel; } // Rotation -X / Pitch if (currentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.D)) { this.ship.RotationAccelerationX -= accel; } I'm combining that with drawing code that does a rotation to the model: public void Draw(Matrix world, Matrix view, Matrix projection, TimeSpan elsapsedTime) { float seconds = (float)elsapsedTime.TotalSeconds; // update velocity based on acceleration this.VelocityX += this.AccelerationX * seconds; this.VelocityY += this.AccelerationY * seconds; this.VelocityZ += this.AccelerationZ * seconds; // update position based on velocity this.PositionX += this.VelocityX * seconds; this.PositionY += this.VelocityY * seconds; this.PositionZ += this.VelocityZ * seconds; // update rotational velocity based on rotational acceleration this.RotationVelocityX += this.RotationAccelerationX * seconds; this.RotationVelocityY += this.RotationAccelerationY * seconds; this.RotationVelocityZ += this.RotationAccelerationZ * seconds; // update rotation based on rotational velocity this.RotationX += this.RotationVelocityX * seconds; this.RotationY += this.RotationVelocityY * seconds; this.RotationZ += this.RotationVelocityZ * seconds; Matrix translation = Matrix.CreateTranslation(PositionX, PositionY, PositionZ); Matrix rotation = Matrix.CreateRotationX(RotationX) * Matrix.CreateRotationY(RotationY) * Matrix.CreateRotationZ(RotationZ); model.Root.Transform = rotation * translation * world; model.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(boneTransforms); foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.World = boneTransforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index]; effect.View = view; effect.Projection = projection; effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); } mesh.Draw(); } }

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• Quickly Copy Movie Files to Individually Named Folders

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Some HTPC media manager applications require movie files to be in stored in separate folders to properly store information such as cover art images and other metadata. Here we look at copying movie files to individual folders. If you already have a large movie collection stored in a single folder, we’ll show you how to quickly move those files into their own individually named folders. File2Folder FIle2folder is a handy portable app that automatically creates and moves movie files into a folder of the same filename. There is no installation needed. Simply download and run the .exe file (link below). Enter the current movie directory, or browse for the folder. File2folder now supports both local and network shares. When you are ready to create the folders and move the files, click Move! You’ll see the move progress displayed in the window. When the process is finished, you’ll have all your movie file in individual folders.   Change your mind? Just click the Undo! button…   …and the move and folder creation process will be undone. If you would like to have the folder monitored for new files, click the Start button. File2folder will process any new files it discovers every 180 seconds. To turn it off, click Stop. This simple little program is a huge timesaver for those looking to organize movie collections for their HTPC. We should also note that this will work with any files, not just videos. Download file2folder Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Hack: Turn Off Debug Mode in VMWare Workstation 6 BetaAdd Images and Metadata to Windows 7 Media Center Movie LibraryAdd Folders to the Movie Library in Windows 7 Media CenterAutomatically Mount and View ISO files in Windows 7 Media CenterMove the Public Folder in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Identify Fonts using WhatFontis.com Windows 7’s WordPad is Actually Good Greate Image Viewing and Management with Zoner Photo Studio Free Windows Media Player Plus! – Cool WMP Enhancer Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician

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• S11 launched

  - by unixman

  Now that Oracle Solaris 11 is out, its time to do 2 things -- 1) Its time to see what's in it, what's new and why its important, and then assess why it might make sense to begin evaluating it for your needs and 2) Its time to acknowledge, give thanks to and congratulate all the R&D personnel, architects, engineers, designers and testers who've put in so much effort and energy into helping make Solaris 11 (and SunOS 5.11) what it has become -- starting way back circa 2004 and, more importantly, culminating in the recent years and months -- staying focused on the execution, unwavering in the face of various challenges. For #1 above, here are a few good things to get going with - Watch the product launch replay - Visit the Solaris 11 Spotlight section on oracle.com - Get comfortable through introductory videos and detailed "how-to" guides (ex: how to create and publish IPS packages), white papers on the new default root file system, ZFS, and reap the benefits brought on by the fundamental shift in easing the administration experience - Look at the next level of software lifecycle management that is enabled by technologies such as Automated Installer and Image Packaging System -- that dramatically address patch management-related challenges - Understand how we continue to innovate in areas of service intelligence, reliability and availability - Start to evaluate enhancements in virtualization capabilities -- whether influenced by the need to consolidate or motivated by the need to have increased service mobility across physical systems, leveraging hardware-level abstractions - Gain more control over your network-centric services through enhancements in network resource management, observability and I/O performance - Look beyond your existing infrastructure with confidence that you can re-host and transition to newer systems with the use of Solaris 10 zones running on top of Solaris 11 - Relish in the fact that you can do all this, get your data to be secure and encrypted and more, on both, SPARC and x86-based systems. - Stay informed by keeping an eye on relevant blogs, which we've begun turning up recently. - Go through a hands-on lab - Sign up to take a class or just opt to watch various videos to begin to raise your comfort level with these technologies For #2 above -- There are many ways to do that. One way is to just say "thanks" with an email, a post, or a simple card,  similar to this one seen at a Barnes and Noble store recently.  The front of the card is followed by what's inside... and as the saying goes, now more then ever "it's what's inside that counts" And here's the inside of the card: So, what are you waiting for ? Go download and try it out, and please let us know what you think of it!

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• How to set the initial component focus

  - by frank.nimphius

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} In ADF Faces, you use the af:document tag's initialFocusId to define the initial component focus. For this, specify the id property value of the component that you want to put the initial focus on. Identifiers are relative to the component, and must account for NamingContainers. You can use a single colon to start the search from the root, or multiple colons to move up through the NamingContainers - "::" will pop out of the component's naming container and begin the search from there, ":::" will pop out of two naming containers and begin the search from there. Alternatively you can add the naming container IDs as a prefix to the component Id, e.g. nc1:nc2:comp1. http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E17904_01/apirefs.1111/e12419/tagdoc/af_document.html To set the initial focus to a component located in a page fragment that is exposed through an ADF region, keep in mind that ADF Faces regions - af:region - is a naming container too. To address an input text field with the id "it1" in an ADF region exposed by an af:region tag with the id r1, you use the following reference in af:document: <af:document id="d1" initialFocusId="r1:0:it1"> Note the "0" index in the client Id. Also, make sure the input text component has its clientComponent property set to true as otherwise no client component exist to put focus on.

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• Play the Microsoft Game “Are You Certifiable?”

  - by Mysticgeek

  Want to know if you have what it takes to be certified by Microsoft? Today we check out an enjoyable way to practice and test your IT knowledge of Microsoft products.  There are two modes, one where you log in with your Live account so you can save your progress, and play additional levels.   If you log in with your Live account, it’s obvious that Microsoft wants to sell you some certification courses, so just be aware of that. Or Guest Play where you can only play one episode and scores are not saved.   Playing the Game We’ll take a look at the Guest Play just so you get a sense of what the game is about. Enter in a username and pick an avatar… Then read the instructions…we won’t go over them all here, there are a lot of options and points are scored by correct answers, amount of time it takes to answer them, you get vouchers to play a question before answers are shown…etc. Once you start playing, you get certification questions, you can take as much time to read the question as you want, then hit the Answer button when you’re ready. Now you have four answers to choose from…notice the time clicking down, so you want to try to answer as quickly as possible. After selecting the answer, you’re told if it is correct or not, then given an answer explaination, along with your score. You can flag the topic so it comes up again, which is a good way to get repetition of various topics, which really helps when taking the cert tests. If you get an answer wrong, you still get an answer explanation which is cool, so you can learn and better understand the topic. Conclusion This game is definitely not for everyone, only those who are curious or want a fun way to practice for Microsoft certifications. If you are interested in a cert from Microsoft, it’s a fun way to practice up. Play Are You Certifiable? Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Fun: Play Alien Arena the Free FPS GameFriday Fun: Get Your Mario OnFriday Fun: Play Bubble QuodFriday Fun: 13 Days in HellFriday Fun: Open Doors TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar Manage Photos Across Different Social Sites With Dropico Test Drive Windows 7 Online Download Wallpapers From National Geographic Site Spyware Blaster v4.3

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• The Problem Should Define the Process, Not the Tool

  - by thatjeffsmith

  All around awesome tool, but not the only gadget in your toolbox.I’m stepping down from my SQL Developer pulpit today and standing up on my philosophical soap box. I’m frequently asked to help folks transition from one set of database tools over to Oracle SQL Developer, which I’m MORE than happy to do. But, I’m not looking to simply change the way people interact with Oracle database. What I care about is your productivity. Is there a faster, more efficient way for you to connect the dots, get from A to B, or just get home to your kids or to the pub for happy hour? If you have defined a business process around a specific tool, what happens when that tool ‘goes away?’ Does the business stop? No, you feel immediate pain until you are able to re-implement the process using another mechanism. Where I get confused, or even frustrated, is when someone asks me to redesign our tool to match their problem. Tools are just tools. Saying you ‘can’t load your data anymore because XYZ’ isn’t valid when you could easily do that same task via SQL*Loader, Create Table As Selects, or 9 other different mechanisms. Sometimes changes brings opportunity for improvement in the process. Don’t be afraid to step back and re-evaluate a problem with a fresh set of eyes. Just trying to replicate your process in another tool exactly as it was done in the ‘old tool’ doesn’t always make sense. Quick sidebar: scheduling a Windows program to kick off thousands if not millions of table inserts from Excel versus using a ‘proper’ server process using SQL*Loader and or external tables means sacrificing scalability and reliability for convenience. Don’t let old habits blind you to new solutions and possibilities. Of couse I’m not going to sit here and say that our tools aren’t deficient in some areas or can’t be improved upon. But I bet if we work together we can find something that’s not only better for the business, but is also better for you. What do you ‘miss’ since you’ve started using SQL Developer as your primary Oracle database tools? I’d love to start a thread here and share ideas on how we can better serve you and your organizations needs. The end solution might not look exactly what you have in mind starting out, but I had no idea I’d be a Product Manager when I started college either What can you no longer ‘do’ since you picked up SQL Developer? What hurts more than it should? What keeps you from being great versus just good?

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• “It Isn’t Easy At All; Otherwise, Everyone Would Be Doing It”

  - by Kathryn Perry

  A few months ago, JP Saunders (pictured left), who leads the go-to-market initiatives for the Oracle CX Service offering, kicked off a series of articles about modern customer service. He contends that to take care of customers?and the people that support those customers?companies need to make it easy to deliver consistently great experiences. But it’s not easy; it’s an art. The six posts in The Art of Easy series will help you better understand some of the customer service challenges you face and how to avoid common pitfalls. We pulled them all together here in one post for continuity and easy access. Saunders introduces the series with The Art of Easy: Make It Easy To Deliver Great Customer Service Experiences (Part 1). The Art of Easy: Offer Self Service With the Emphasis on Service (Part 2) by David Fulton (pictured left): David Fulton, Director of Product Management, Oracle Service Cloud, shares five tenets of customer self service that move an organization closer to becoming a modern customer service business. Easy Decisions For Complex Problems (Part 3) by Heike Lorenz (pictured right): Heike Lorenz, Director of Global Product Marketing, Policy Automation, writes about automating service policies to ensure that the correct decisions are being applied to the right people. The goal is to nurture the trusted relationships with customers during complex decision-making processes. Moving at the Speed of Easy (Part 4) by Chris Ulmand (pictured left): Chris Omland, Director of Product Management, Oracle Service Cloud, addresses the need for speed to keep up with customers’ expectations. His advice—start with a platform that enables agile innovation, respects a company’s unique needs, and has proven reliability to protect customer relationships. Knowledge Makes It Easy For Everyone (Part 5) by Nav Chakravarti (pictured rig: Vice President Nav Chakravarti, Oracle Service Cloud, talks about managing the knowledge that customers need and want. He coaches readers on delivering answers to customers’ questions easily, in context, with relevance, reliably, and accurately. Making Easy, Both Effective and Efficient (Part 6) by Melinda Uhland (pictured left): Melinda Uhland, Oracle CX Product Management teaches us that happy agents produce happy customers. A Modern Customer Service organization is one that invests in its agents and empowers them with tools to make them efficient and effective, which, in turn, improves customer results.

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• Point line collision reaction

  - by user4523

  I am trying to program point line segment collision detection and reaction. I am doing this for fun and to learn. The point moves (it has a velocity, and can be controlled by the user), whilst the lines are strait and stationary. The lines are not axis aligned. Everything is in 2D. It is quite straight forward to work out if a collision has occurred. For each frame, the point moves from A to B. AB is a line, and if it crosses the line segment, a collision has occurred (or will occur) and I am able to work out the point of intersection (poi). The problem I am having is with the reaction. Ideally I would like the point to be prevented from moving across the line. In one frame, I can move the point back to the poi (or only alow it to move as far as the poi), and alter the velocity. The problem I am having with this approach (I think) is that, next frame the user may try to cross the line again. Although the point is on the poi, the point may not be exactly on the line. Since it is not axis aligned, I think there is always some subtle rounding issue (A float representation of a point on a line might be rounded to a point that is slightly on one side or the other). Because of this, next frame the path might not intersect the line (because it can start on the other side and move away from it) and the point is effectively allowed to cross the line. Firstly, does the analysis sound correct? Having accepted (maybe) that I cannot always exactly position the point on the line, I tried to move the point away from the line slightly (either along the normal to the line, or along the path vector). I then get a problem at edges. Attempting to fix one collision by moving the point away from the line (even slightly) can cause it to cross another line (one shape I am dealing with is a star, with sharp corners). This can mean that the solution to one collision inadvertently creates another collision, which is ignored. Again, does this sound correct? Anyway, whatever I try, I am having difficulty with edges, and the point is occasionally able to penetrate the polygons and cross lines, which is undesirable. Whilst I can find a lot of information about collision detection on the web (and on this site) I can find precious little information on collision reaction. Does any one know of any good point line collision reaction tutorials? Or is my approach too flawed/over complicated?

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• My First 5K, the recap.

  - by Chris Williams

  It was a nice day to be outside (and trust me, those aren't words you'll hear from me often.) I got to the site around 7:45, hit the pre-reg table and got my number along with a goody bag full of coupons for racing gear, a water bottle and a tshirt. Oh and a map. Stashed all that stuff in the jeep, emptied my pockets of everything but my iPhone and my jeep key, and proceeded to walk around for a bit as people started showing up and signing in. It was fairly breezy, and there was definitely a storm coming... but it was anyone's guess on when it would actually arrive. It was interesting to see everyone who was participating. If I had to guess, I would say the event was 60-70% women, with a pretty broad distribution of age... as young as 13 to well over 60 (in both genders.) I don't know exactly how many folks were there, but it was well over 300. Eventually it was time to kick things off, and everyone made their way to the start line. All of the 5k and 10k runners were mixed together, starting at the same time. All the walkers and the people with strollers or dogs were in the back. It was pretty chaotic at first, once things started, but it thinned out fairly quickly. The 10k people and the hardcore runners sped ahead of everyone else and the walkers gradually lagged behind. The 5K course was pretty nice, winding around a lake down in Eden Prairie. The 10K course overlapped most of ours, but branched off a couple times too. I didn't run the whole time, but I started the race running and I ended it running, and did a mix of walking and running along the way. I met my goals, which were a) don't ever stop and b) don't be last. The weather managed to hold out for the entire race. It never got too hot, there was a nice breeze and it was mostly overcast. Pretty much perfect in my book. About 20-30 minutes after I left, the rain came down pretty hard. I had a good time, and will most likely do more of them. We'll see.

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• Hierachies....from the Top Down

  - by Joe G

  I've been struggling with how to write on the topic of the importance of hierarchy design.  It's not so much that hierarchies haven't always been important, it's more of that with Fusion, the timing of when the hierarchies are designed should take a higher priority.    I will attempt to explain..... When I was implementing applications, back in the day, we had the list of detailed account values to enter with the obvious parent accounts. Then, after the setup was complete and things were functioning, the reporting phase started.  Users explained the elements that they want on the reports, what totals should be included, and how things should be compared.  Frequently, there was at least one calculation that became a nightmare either because it was based on very specific things that didn't relate to anything else or because it was "hardcoded" so that when something changed, someone need to "fix" the report. With Fusion, the process changes slightly.  You still want to enter all of the detailed accounts, but before you start adding parent values, you should investigate the reporting requirements from the top-down.  It's better to build hierarchies based on the reporting requirements than it is to build reports based on random hierarchies. Build reports based on hierarchies that resemble the reports themselves, and maintain the hierarchies without rework of the reports. For example, if you look at an income statement, you may have line items for Material Costs, Employee Costs, Travel & Entertainment, and Total Operating Expenses.  In your hierarchy, you have detail values that roll up to Material Costs, Employee Costs, and Travel & Entertainment which roll up to Total Operating Expenses. Balances are stored automatically in the cube for each of these.  When you define the report, you pick each of these members - no calculations required.  If a new detail value is added, you simply add it to the hierarchy, and there is no need to modify the report. I realize that there are always exceptions that require special handling, but I am confident that you will end up with much fewer exceptions if you make reporting a priority and design your hierarchies from the top-down.

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• Weird Ubuntu Desktop Boot Partition On External Hard Drive

  - by Magnitus

  I have a Thinkpad with Windows 7. Last time I installed an Ubuntu/Windows dual boot, Windows was never same after and regularly got corrupted so this time, I installed Ubuntu on a separate external hard drive. I took a 500 GB external hard drive and used Windows to shrink the partition on it to 400 GB, freeing 100 GB to install Ubuntu. Then I modified the booting priority of my computer to boot from the external hard drive if present. Then, I installed Ubuntu desktop on the external hard drive using a DVD, picked the most simplistic partitioning scheme I could get away with (didn't go auto as it didn't include the external hard drive as a choice) and voilà. Fast forward some time and I'm trying to refresh my understanding of Linux partitions to install a bunch of servers, so I'm looking at the current partitioning scheme on my external hard drive and find the boot partition puzzling... sda is my integrated hard drive with Windows 7. sdb is my Ubuntu desktop external hard drive. Running parted on sdb, I get this: (parted) print Model: WD My Passport 0740 (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 500GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 1049kB 393GB 393GB primary ntfs boot 2 393GB 500GB 107GB extended 5 393GB 425GB 32.8GB logical linux-swap(v1) 6 425GB 500GB 74.6GB logical ext4 At this point, I'm wondering why the ntfs partition is flagged as "boot" and not my ext4 partition which is the partition that contains / (and by extension, /boot since it's not on its own separate partition). Looking at mtab only confirms what I already know: eric@eric-ThinkPad-W530:~$ sudo cat /etc/mtab /dev/sdb6 / ext4 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0 proc /proc proc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0 sysfs /sys sysfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0 none /sys/fs/cgroup tmpfs rw 0 0 none /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw 0 0 none /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw 0 0 none /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw 0 0 udev /dev devtmpfs rw,mode=0755 0 0 devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620 0 0 tmpfs /run tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755 0 0 none /run/lock tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880 0 0 none /run/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev 0 0 none /run/user tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=104857600,mode=0755 0 0 none /sys/fs/pstore pstore rw 0 0 systemd /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd cgroup rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,none,name=systemd 0 0 gvfsd-fuse /run/user/1000/gvfs fuse.gvfsd-fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,user=eric 0 0 /dev/sdb1 /media/eric/My\040Passport fuseblk rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,default_permissions,blksize=4096 0 0 My lack of understanding concerning this is not vital to anything (this is only my development desktop partition), but somehow annoys me. Any insight that could shed some light on this would be welcome.

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• 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)

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• reference list for non-IT driven algorithmic patterns

  - by Quicker

  I am looking for a reference list for non-IT driven algorithmic patterns (which still can be helped with IT implementations of IT). An Example List would be: name; short desc; reference Travelling Salesman; find the shortest possible route on a multiple target path; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem Ressource Disposition (aka Regulation); Distribute a limited/exceeding input on a given number output receivers based on distribution rules; http://database-programmer.blogspot.de/2010/12/critical-analysis-of-algorithm-sproc.html If there is no such list, but you instantly think of something specific, please 'put it on the desk'. Maybe I can compile something out of the input I get here (actually I am very frustrated as I did not find any such list via research by myself). Details on Scoping: I found it very hard to formulate what I want in a way everything is out that I do not need (which may be the issue why I did not find anything at google). There is a database centric definition for what I am looking for in the section 'Processes' of the second example link. That somehow fits, but the database focus sort of drifts away from the pattern thinking, which I have in mind. So here are my own thoughts around what's in and what's out: I am NOT looking for a foundational algo ref list, which is implemented as basis for any programming language. Eg. the php reference describes substr and strlen. That implements algos, but is not what I am looking for. the problem the algo does address would even exist, if there were no computers (or other IT components) the main focus of the algo is NOT to help other algo's chances are high, that there are implementions of the solution or any workaround without any IT support out there in the world however the algo could be benefitialy implemented/fully supported by a software application = means: the problem of the algo has to be addressed anyway, but running an algo implementation with software automates the process (that is why I posted it on stackoverflow and not somewhere else) typically such algo implementations have more than one input field value and more than one output field value - which implies it could not be implemented as simple function (which is fixed to produce not more than one output value) in a normalized data model often times such algo implementation outputs span accross multiple rows (sometimes multiple tables), whereby the number of output rows depends on the input paraters and rows in the table(s) at start time - which implies that any algo implementation/procedure must interact with a database (read and/or write) I am mainly looking for patterns, not for specific implementations. Example: The Travelling Salesman assumes any coordinates, however it does not say: You need a table targets with fields x and y. - however sometimes descriptions are focussed on examples with specific implementations very much - no worries, as long as the pattern gets clear

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• Pixels - A cry for some insight

  - by CarrotFile

  I'm pretty new to web developing and I'd love some clarification. Although reading more than one book on the topic, I cannot seem to wrap my head around the pixel concept. I encounter problems with this issue when trying to use CSS and pixel units for design that fits different screen sizes. To my understanding a pixel is the most basic unit used by a monitor in order to compose an image on the screen. So if me resolution is 800 by 600, everything on my screen is rendered using those 800*600 basic building blocks. If I were to enlarge my screen resolution, 3 things would accrue: A. The basic image building block(the pixel) would shrink in size B. The pixels would move close together C. Well, more pixels would now be available All these combined lead to a sharper(depending on the viewing distance) and more detail enabling image. Well so far so good. Here is were I start getting lost: To my knowledge a pixel is not a physical, real object. Monitors are not embedded with a few thousand pixels. I am drawn to this conclusion because anyone can change his screen's resolution, making a pixel on his screen bigger or smaller, and adding or subtracting the amount of total pixels on screen. Adding to that, I have herd that different monitors have different pixel densities. For example Apple's retina monitors. Taking all of the above as my knowledge base, These are my questions: If a pixel has no real world constant size, what does comparing different pixel densities matter? Each screen company can define it's own pixel concept and declare the higher density. What does a bigger pixel density mean? Say we take two screens with the same physical dimensions, but with a different pixel density, am I to assert that the main difference would be the larger density screen being able to display a higher max resolution? Or am I to assert that given the same resolution on both monitors, the higher density one would display a sharper, smaller image? If a pixel is not a fixed size within one monitor, is it a fixed size between the same resolution on two different monitors? For example, would two different monitors, set to the same resolution, be comprised of same size, same quantity pixels? I'd love some help (:

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• 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.

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• Variable number of GUI Buttons

  - by Wakaka

  I have a generic HTML5 Canvas GUI Button class and a Scene class. The Scene class has a method called createButton(), which will create a new Button with onclick parameter and store it in a list of buttons. I call createButton() for all UI buttons when initializing the Scene. Because buttons can appear and disappear very often during rendering, Scene would first deactivate all buttons (temporarily remove their onclick, onmouseover etc property) before each render frame. During rendering, the renderer would then activate the required buttons for that frame. The problem is that part of the UI requires a variable number of buttons, and their onclick, onmouseover etc properties change frequently. An example is a buffs system. The UI will list all buffs as square sprites for the current unit selected, and mousing over each square will bring up a tooltip with some information on the buff. But the number of buffs is variable thus I won't know how many buttons to create at the start. What's the best way to solve this problem? P.S. My game is in Javascript, and I know I can use HTML buttons, but would like to make my game purely Canvas-based. Create buttons on-the-fly during rendering. Thus I will only have buttons when I require them. After the render frame these buttons would be useless and removed. Create a fixed set of buttons that I'm going to assume the number of buffs per unit won't exceed. During each render frame activate the buttons accordingly and set their onmouseover property. Assign a button to each Buff instance. This sounds wrong as the buff button is a part of the GUI which can only have one unit selected. Assigning a button to every single Buff in the game seems to be overkill. Also, I would need to change the button's position every render frame since its order in the unit's list of buffs matter. Any other solutions? I'm actually quite for idea (1) but am worried about the memory/time issues of creating a new Button() object every render frame. But this is in Javascript where object creation is oh-so-common ({} mainly) due to automatic garbage collection. What is your take on this? Thanks!

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