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• Reliable alert dialogs from the shell

  - by intuited

  I'd like to have a message pop up in response to various system events, mostly in order to be able to set reminders for myself from a shell session. There are a few ways to do this; zenity seems to be the most polished. However, I've found at least two problems with zenity: Messages do not appear on all workspaces. I tried using the gtk option --screen to control this, but they just appear on the current workspace regardless. So if I am switching workspaces as the message comes up, I will not see it. Messages do not appear above all other windows. Specifically, if I am using guake, a new zenity message will appear below the guake window and I won't be able to see it. I tried a few other apps a while back. Both gmessage and xmessage exhibited problem 1; gmessage also exhibited problem 2. I did find that kalarm, which can be scripted from the command line, worked acceptably, but I'm trying to avoid running the KDE stack if possible, and would prefer something lightweight with zenity's versatility. It seems that it might be possible to arrange for these problems to be resolved by setting the WM_CLASS, but I'm in a bit over my head there. It might also be possible to make modifications to the window after it launches with a script, but again I'm not sure where to look for resources on that.

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• What is up with the Joy of Clojure 2nd edition?

  - by kurofune

  Manning just released the second edition of the beloved Joy of Clojure book, and while I share that love I get the feeling that many of the examples are already outdated. In particular, in the chapter on optimization the recommended type-hinting seems not to be allowed by the compiler. I don't know if this was allowable for older versions of Clojure. For example: (defn factorial-f [^long original-x] (loop [x original-x, acc 1] (if (>= 1 x) acc (recur (dec x) (*' x acc))))) returns: clojure.lang.Compiler$CompilerException: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: Can't type hint a primitive local, compiling:(null:3:1) Likewise, the chapter on core.logic seems be using an old API and I have to find workarounds for each example to accommodate the recent changes. For example, I had to turn this: (logic/defrel orbits orbital body) (logic/fact orbits :mercury :sun) (logic/fact orbits :venus :sun) (logic/fact orbits :earth :sun) (logic/fact orbits :mars :sun) (logic/fact orbits :jupiter :sun) (logic/fact orbits :saturn :sun) (logic/fact orbits :uranus :sun) (logic/fact orbits :neptune :sun) (logic/run* [q] (logic/fresh [orbital body] (orbits orbital body) (logic/== q orbital))) into this, leveraging the pldb lib: (pldb/db-rel orbits orbital body) (def facts (pldb/db [orbits :mercury :sun] [orbits :venus :sun] [orbits :earth :sun] [orbits :mars :sun] [orbits :jupiter :sun] [orbits :saturn :sun] [orbits :uranus :sun] [orbits :neptune :sun])) (pldb/with-db facts (logic/run* [q] (logic/fresh [orbital body] (orbits orbital body) (logic/== q orbital)))) I am still pulling teeth to get the later examples to work. I am relatively new programming, myself, so I wonder if I am naively looking over something here, or are if these points I'm making legitimate concerns? I really want to get good at this stuff like type-hinting and core.logic, but wanna make sure I am studying up to date materials. Any illuminating facts to help clear up my confusion would be most welcome.

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• How to host customer developed code server side

  - by user963263

  I'm developing a multi-tenant web application, most likely using ASP.NET MVC5 and Web API. I have used business applications in the past where it was possible to upload custom DLL's or paste in custom code to a GUI to have custom functions run server side. These applications were self hosted and single-tenant though so the customer developed bits didn't impact other clients. I want to host the multi-tenant web application myself and allow customers to upload custom code that will run server side. This could be for things like custom web services that client side JavaScript could interact with, or it could be for automation steps that they want triggered server side asynchronously when a user takes a particular action. Additionally, I want to expose an API that allows customers' code to interact with data specific to the web application itself. Client code may need to be "wrapped" so that it has access to appropriate references - to our custom API and maybe to a white list of approved libraries. There are several issues to consider - security, performance (infinite loops, otherwise poorly written code, load balancing, etc.), receive compiled DLL's or require raw code, etc. Is there an established pattern for this sort of thing or a sample project anyone can point to? Or any general recommendations?

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• Good ruby book with exercises? [closed]

  - by watabou

  I find that I learn the best with a book that has a number of exercises at the end of each chapters. A great example of this is C++ Primer Plus by Stephen Prata or Scientific Programming with Python or the Horstmann Java books. All of those books have a number of programming exercises at the end tailored to that specific chapter. I love the styles of those book and was wondering if there is anything similar for Ruby. I've extensively searched google for this and people have been suggesting different stuff like different websites like Ruby Koans and LRTHW but honestly, I've tried those and they aren't for me. I taught myself Python with the the Hard Way book and to be honest, it's not for me. Now, forgive me if I'm blunt but does anyone have a Ruby programming BOOK (i.e. not a website), that has EXERCISES in it? I do NOT want a website, unless the book is only or is freely available online by the author, similar to the Hard Way books. I would say that I'm a intermediate level programmer with only some Ruby experience but if you know of a beginner book on Ruby, that is fine too. Thanks in advance, I would really really appreciate the help.

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• Ruby or Python?

  - by Bobby Tables

  Hi all, This question is extremely subjective and open-ended. It might even sound like something I should just research for myself and make my own decision. But I'd like to put it out there and get some thoughts from others. Long story short - I burned out with the rat race and am on a self-funded sabbatical this year. Much of it is to take a break from the corporate grind and travel around, but I also want to play around with new technologies and do some self-learning projects, to stay up to speed on programming, and well - I just love tinkering with programming, when there's no pressure! Here's the thing: I am a lifetime C/C++/Java programmer. I'm a bit of a squiggly bracket snob since I've been working with this family of languages for my entire programming career. So I'd like to learn a language which isn't so closely syntactically related to this group. What I'm basically looking for is a language which is relatively general purpose, fun to learn, has some new concepts that are different from C++/Java, and has a good community. A secondary consideration is that it has good web development frameworks. A tertiary consideration is that it's not totally academic (read: there are real world jobs out there using it). I've narrowed it down to Ruby or Python. My impression of Ruby is that it is extremely web oriented - that the only real application of it is as a server side scripting language for doing web stuff (mainly Ruby on Rails). For Python I'm not so sure. TL;DR and to put it as succinctly as possible: which of these would be better for a C++/Java guy to learn to get some new perspectives on programming? And which is more open and general purpose and applicable to a wider set of applications? I'm leaning towards Ruby at the moment, but I worry to an extent that it looks like it's used as nothing but a server side web language.

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• To my lola

  - by Erik Araojo

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Erik/archive/2013/06/29/153290.aspx I've been staring at the computer for a few minutes now and I honestly don't know what to write.  First I thought of writing about myself, where I was born, where I studied, where I am now... but that seems shallow.  Now that I thought about it.  I'd rather not talk about who I am because it seems irrelevant right now.  What I really want to say is..I'm sad.  Been like this for quite some time now.Nobody knows I'm sad.I tried telling my wife but I guess she didn't think it was serious.  We were having a fight when I told her so she probably thought I was just making up an excuse for my behavior.  And besides, she's not the kind of person who'd put my interests before hers especially when she's got lots of things on her mind.I'm not sad every single day.  Some days I'm perfectly fine.  I actually have no idea when I'd feel sad.  It just happens. I'd wake up cheerful and then before I go to bed I already feel depressed.  I have no idea what triggers it.  On the bed, I'd turn my back to my wife, curl up into a fetal position and start sobbing silently. Awful.  Maybe you're wondering now what's the cause of all this.My grandma passed away and I haven't completely  come to terms with that fact.  I long to see her, talk to her and hold her... but I can't do that anymore because she's gone.  I will never be able to hear her voice and feel her touch again.  To make matters worse, the only person whom I wish would stay beside me whenever I'm feeling miserable and dejected is never around.  She's either working late or out with her friends.  Such is my life at the moment.  I doubt it will improve anytime soon.

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• Windows 7 complaint

  - by Chris Williams

  Let me start by saying that I love Windows 7. I think it's the best OS that Microsoft has put out in ages, possibly ever. However, I do have one little complaint. Actually it's not that little, it's become a real pain in the butt for me. I'm talking about Forced Updates. Yes, I know it's always been a problem and that Windows would occasionally force a reboot while you were away, in order to install some important update. That's not quite what I'm referring to. I mean the new "feature" where you don't have the choice to skip updates when shutting down. This isn't a big deal to those of you with desktop machines, but for those of us with laptops, it is rapidly becoming an unforgivable pain in the ass. Let me see if I can make myself a little clearer... If I am shutting down my LAPTOP, 99% of the time it's because I need to get up and go. Not wait around for FORCED UPDATES!! I travel a lot, and there are few things more annoying than shutting down to head to the airport, or shutting down so I can board my flight, or shutting down because we're about to land, etc... and having to wait 5-10 minutes while Win 7 does it's thing. It's damn inconvenient. There has to be a way you can detect if I'm on a laptop and give me the option to postpone updates, or skip them or (here's a thought) run them on startup instead of on shutdown. I'm usually not in a hurry when my machine is booting up, but if I'm powering down it's because I'm ready to GO! Please fix this. Windows 7 rocks in almost every other way I can think of.

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• How to create water like in new super mario bros?

  - by user1103457

  I assume the water in New super mario bros works the same as in the first part of this tutorial: http://gamedev.tutsplus.com/tutorials/implementation/make-a-splash-with-2d-water-effects/ But in new super mario bros the water also has constant waves on the surface, and the splashes look very different. What's also a difference is that in the tutorial, if you create a splash, it first creates a deep "hole" in the water at the origin of the splash. In new super mario bros this hole is absent or much smaller. When I refer to the splashes in new super mario bros I am referring to the splashes that the player creates when jumping in and out of the water. For reference you could use this video: http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/11/17/new-super-mario-bros-u-3-star-coin-walkthrough-sparkling-waters-1-waterspout-beach just after 00:50, when the camera isn't moving you can get a good look at the water and the constant waves. there are also some good examples of the splashes during that time. How do they create the constant waves and the splashes? I am programming in XNA. (I have tried this myself but couldn't really get it all to work well together) (and as bonus questions: how do they create the light spots just under the surface of the waves, and how do they texture the deeper parts of the water? This is the first time I try to create water like this.)

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• Free NOSQL database for use with C# client [closed]

  - by Mitten

  I've never used NOSQL databases before, but so far it seems like the best data storage solution for my project. I am going to implement a datamining application. The data I would like to mine is thousands of documents which cannot be imported into datamining applications. To make to import easier and faster (than importing thousands of documents) I am planning to import these documents into a NOSQL database first and when import NOSQL database into datamining software. At the very least once I have all the data in NOSQL database I should be able to code simplest datamining logic myself. Am I correct that NOSQL databases allow to creates records of data, but they don't mandate all the records to adhere to the same data schema (same column names/types in a classic table oriended SQL databases)? I think for each document I would create a row/entry/object (not sure what is the correct term is in use in NOSQL world) which would be a string id, few (columns) with unstructured text data, and a dozens of columns mostly of datetime and integer types. From its name NOSQL does not support SQL query syntax, but it support locating the object(row/entry?) by its unique id. Does NOSQL support qyuering objects using property=value syntax? Unfortunately most of free NOSQL db only support Java/C++ clients, which free NOSQL db would you recommend for a C# programmer?

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• Database Schema Usage

  - by CrazyHorse

  I have a question regarding the appropriate use of SQL Server database schemas and was hoping that some database gurus might be able to offer some guidance around best practice. Just to give a bit of background, my team has recently shrunk to 2 people and we have just been merged with another 6 person team. My team had set up a SQL Server environment running off a desktop backing up to another desktop (and nightly to the network), whilst the new team has a formal SQL Server environment, running on a dedicated server, with backups and maintenance all handled by a dedicated team. So far it's good news for my team. Now to the query. My team designed all our tables to belong to a 3-letter schema name (e.g. User = USR, General = GEN, Account = ACC) which broadly speaking relate to specific applications, although there is a lot of overlap. My new team has come from an Access background and have implemented their tables within dbo with a 3-letter perfix followed by "_tbl" so the examples above would be dbo.USR_tblTableName, dbo.GEN_tblTableName and dbo.ACC_tblTableName. Further to this, neither my old team nor my new team has gone live with their SQL Servers yet (we're both coincidentally migrating away from Access environments) and the new team have said they're willing to consider adopting our approach if we can explain how this would be beneficial. We are not anticipating handling table updates at schema level, as we will be using application-level logins. Also, with regards to the unwieldiness of the 7-character prefix, I'm not overly concerned myself as we're using LINQ almost exclusively so the tables can simply be renamed in the DMBL (although I know that presents some challenges when we update the DBML). So therefore, given that both teams need to be aligned with one another, can anyone offer any convincing arguments either way?

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• Pub banter - content strategy at the ballot box?

  - by Roger Hart

  Last night, I was challenged to explain (and defend) content strategy. Three sheets to the wind after a pub quiz, this is no simple task, but I hope I acquitted myself passably. I say "hope" because there was a really interesting question I couldn't answer to my own satisfaction. I wonder if any of you folks out there in the ethereal internet hive-mind can help me out? A friend - a rather concrete thinker who mathematically models complex biological systems for a living - pointed out that my examples were largely routed in business-to-business web sales and support. He challenged me with: Say you've got a political website, so your goal is to have somebody read it and vote for you - how do you measure the effectiveness of that content? Well, you would. umm. Oh dear. I guess what we're talking about here, to yank it back to my present comfort zone, is a sales process where your point of conversion is off the site. The political example is perhaps a little below the belt, since what you can and can't do, and what data you can and can't collect is so restricted. You can't throw up a "How did you hear about this election?" questionnaire in the polling booth. Exit polls don't pull in your browsing history and site session information. Not everyone fatuously tweets and geo-tags each moment of their lives. Oh, and folks lie. The business example might be easier to attack. You could have, say, a site for a farm shop that only did over the counter sales. Either way, it's tricky. I fell back on some of the work I've done usability testing and benchmarking documentation, and suggested similar, quick and dirty, small sample qualitative UX trials. I'm not wholly sure that was right. Any thoughts? How might we measure and curate for this kind of discontinuous conversion?

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• Character progression through leveling, skills or items?

  - by Anton

  I'm working on a design for an RPG game, and I'm having some doubts about the skill and level system. I'm going for a more casual, explorative gaming experience and so thought about lowering the game complexity by simplifying character progression. But I'm having trouble deciding between the following: Progression through leveling, no complex skill progression, leveling increases base stats. Progression through skills, no leveling or base stat changes, skills progress through usage. Progression through items, more focus on stat-changing items, items confer skills, no leveling. However, I'm uncertain what the effects on gameplay might be in the end. So, my question is this: What would be the effects of choosing one of the above alternatives over the others? (Particularly with regards to the style and feel of the gameplay) My take on it is that the first sacrifices more frequent rewards and customization in favor of a simpler gameplay; the second sacrifices explicit customization and player control in favor of more frequent rewards and a somewhat simpler gameplay; while the third sacrifices inventory simplicity and a player metric in favor of player control, customization and progression simplicity. Addendum: I'm not really limiting myself to the above three, they are just the ones I liked most and am primarily interested in.

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• Moving from windows to linux

  - by rincewind

  I need to reconcile these 2 facts: I don't feel comfortable working on Linux; I need to develop software for Linux. Some background: I have a 10+ years of programming experience on Windows (almost exclusively C/C++, but some .NET as well), I was a user of FreeBSD at home for about 3 years or so (then had to go back to Windows), and I've never had much luck with Linux. And now I have to develop software for Linux. I need a plan. On Windows, you can get away with just knowing a programming language, an API you're coding against, your IDE (VisualStudio) and some very basic tools for troubleshooting (Depends, ProcessExplorer, DebugView, WinDbg). Everything else comes naturally. On Linux, it's a very different story. How the hell would I know what DLL (sorry, Shared Object) would load, if I link to it from Firefox plugin? What's the Linux equivalent of inserting __asm int 3/DebugBreak() in the source and running the program, and then letting the OS call a debugger? Why the hell release builds use something, called appLoader, while debug builds work somehow different? Worst of all: how to provision Linux development environment? So, taking into account that hatred is usually associated with not knowing enough, what would you recommend? I'm ok with Emacs and GCC. I need to educate myself as a Linux admin/user, and I need to learn proper troubleshooting tools (strace is cool, btw), equivalents to the ones I mentioned above. Do I need to do Linux From Scratch? Or do I need to just read some books (I've read "UNIX programming enviornment" by Kernighan and "Advanced Programming..." by Stevens, but I need to learn something more practical)? Or do I need to have some Linux distro on my home computer?

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• Is SQL Azure a newbies springboard?

  - by jamiet

  Earlier today I was considering the various SQL Server platforms that are available today and I wondered aloud, wonder how long until the majority of #sqlserver newcomers use @sqlazure instead of installing locally Let me explain. My first experience of development was way back in the early 90s when I would crank open VBA in Access or Excel and start hammering out some code, usually by recording macros and looking at the code that they produced (sound familiar?). The reason was simple, Office was becoming ubiquitous so the barrier to entry was incredibly low and, save for a short hiatus at university, I’ve been developing on the Microsoft platform ever since. These days spend most of my time using SQL Server. I take a look at SQL Azure today I see a lot of similarities with those early experiences, the barrier to entry is low and getting lower. I don’t have to download some software or actually install anything other than a web browser in order to get myself a fully functioning SQL Server  database against which I can ostensibly start hammering out some code and I believe that to be incredibly empowering. Having said that there are still a few pretty high barriers, namely: I need to get out my credit card Its pretty useless without some development tools such as SQL Server Management Studio, which I do have to install. The second of those barriers will disappear pretty soon when Project Houston delivers a web-based admin and presentation tool for SQL Azure so that just leaves the matter of my having to use a credit card. If Microsoft have any sense at all then they will realise the huge potential of opening up a free, throttled version of SQL Azure for newbies to party on; they get to developers early (just like they did with me all those years ago) and it gives potential customers an opportunity to try-before-they-buy. Perhaps in 20 years time people will be talking about SQL Azure as being their first foray into the world of coding! @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Commands don't have permission when using absolute path

  - by Markos

  I have folders set up this way: /srv/samba/video getfacl /srv/samba/video # file: srv/samba/video # owner: root # group: nogroup user::rwx group::--- group:sambaclients:rwx group:deluge:rwx mask::rwx other::--- default:user::rwx default:group::--- default:group:sambaclients:rwx default:group:deluge:rwx default:mask::rwx default:other::--- That means, user deluge has rwx to folder /srv/samba/video. However, when running command as user deluge, I am getting weird permission errors. When in folder /srv/samba/video: sudo -u deluge mkdir foo works flawlessly. But when using absolute path: sudo -u deluge mkdir /srv/samba/video/foo I am getting permission denied. When running sudo -u deluge id, I get output uid=113(deluge) gid=124(deluge) skupiny=124(deluge) which shows that user deluge is indeed in group deluge. Also, the behavior was the same when I gave the permissions also to user deluge not just group deluge. When executing as non-system user, it does work. The reason that I want to use absolute paths is that I am using automatically triggered post-download script which extracts some files into the folder. I have spent way too many hours to solve this problem myself. mkdir isn't the only command that fails, touch is doing the same thing, so I suspect that it's not mkdir's fault. If you need more info, I will try to put it in here, just ask. Thanx in advance. Edit: It seems that the root of the problem is acl set on perent folder /srv/samba, which indeed does not grant permissions to deluge (but neither denies it). getfacl /srv/samba # file: srv/samba # owner: root # group: nogroup user::rwx group::--- group:sambaclients:rwx mask::rwx other::--- default:user::rwx default:group::--- default:group:sambaclients:rwx default:mask::rwx default:other::--- If I grant the permission also to this folder, it suddenly starts to work so I believe that the acl on /srv/samba is somehow denying the permissions to deluge. So the question is: how do I set acl to both /srv/samba and /srv/samba/video so that sambaclients have access to whole /srv/samba and subdirectories and deluge has access only to /srv/samba/video and subdirectories?

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• Which algorithms/data structures should I "recognize" and know by name?

  - by Earlz

  I'd like to consider myself a fairly experienced programmer. I've been programming for over 5 years now. My weak point though is terminology. I'm self-taught, so while I know how to program, I don't know some of the more formal aspects of computer science. So, what are practical algorithms/data structures that I could recognize and know by name? Note, I'm not asking for a book recommendation about implementing algorithms. I don't care about implementing them, I just want to be able to recognize when an algorithm/data structure would be a good solution to a problem. I'm asking more for a list of algorithms/data structures that I should "recognize". For instance, I know the solution to a problem like this: You manage a set of lockers labeled 0-999. People come to you to rent the locker and then come back to return the locker key. How would you build a piece of software to manage knowing which lockers are free and which are in used? The solution, would be a queue or stack. What I'm looking for are things like "in what situation should a B-Tree be used -- What search algorithm should be used here" etc. And maybe a quick introduction of how the more complex(but commonly used) data structures/algorithms work. I tried looking at Wikipedia's list of data structures and algorithms but I think that's a bit overkill. So I'm looking more for what are the essential things I should recognize?

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• Is C and Python enough?

  - by gruszczy

  I am very proficient in Python (including Django), which I use for most tasks. I am also quite confident with C; I am maintaining small file system in userspace written in C. Yet when I am browsing job offers I see everywhere Java/C# and sometimes C++. I have coded profesionally in C++ for half a year in a gaming company, but I don't consider myself a pro. Also I simply despise Java and C#, which I would prefer not to touch ever. But it seems to me, that I am at very unfavorable position, when it comes to career. I am browsing careers.stackoverflow.com and I don't see and pure python or C offers. I would like to find a new job abroad in about 6 months. If I find some python offer, it means doing web development (not my favorite job). Does it mean, that I have to quickly start improving my C++ skills, if I wish to find a satisfying job? What would you suggest me? EDIT Learning new technologies is not an issue. Company I am working in is an integrator. Basically every new project requires learning new technologies, sometimes custom made. During last two years I was writing SQLs by hand, using LDAP, writing GUI in Qt, working on large scale DBMS prototype, making our internal help desk system use gsm modem or writing own report system. In previous job I had to learn from basics everything what I could about games development, because I knew nothing and chose this job only because of the challene it posed. I am all about embracing new technologies. I have used Java in the past and simply didn't like it. It's dull and boring. Doesn't let me do anything cool. I have recently seen some C# in action and seems similar. I don't like it. It's like German. I don't like speaking German.

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• Almost at our first year anniversary!

  - by Vizioz Limited

  It has been a hectic first year at Vizioz and things are still going from strength to strength. 11 months ago I started Vizioz with zero capital investment in the middle of a recession, which to some may seem a daunting prospect but to others including myself it was the challenge I needed to make me want to get up in the morning :) I wanted to prove that even in the curent financial climate it is still possible to start a new business.We are still experiencing the normal growing pains of a small business but this is something we just need to work our way through, it is amazing how much paperwork and administration there is running a small business, office admin, insurance, vat and for the last few months PAYE.For the last 9 months we have shared an office with another small business called Little Big Ideas. They are a design agency working across a broad spectrum of design from branding, print and digital. Last month we decided to move offices to a larger office and now have room for 8 of us, so now we need a couple more clients to help produce enough work to fill the space and grow to the next level.As well as moving office 2 months ago I blogged about my first employee Colin starting work for me, he has picked up Umbraco very well and has mastered the art of good CSS design, as the majority of our clients are large multi-nationals they still require support for IE6 which as all web developers know is the nightmare of all web browsers.This month has seen the next step in the growth of Vizioz as I have taken on another PhD graduate called Pricilla, welcome to the team!This month we plan to launch our own website to enable us to showcase some of the sites we have built over the past 11 months and to allow potential clients to see what we can offer. We might still be relatively small but we have some great case studies to show and with two PhD graduates on the team we have great talent capable of producing complex and innovative solutions for our clients. As soon as we have launched out new website I will blog again about what the future holds for Vizioz and what we can offer our prospective clients as well as e obvious Umbraco CMS solutions.

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• Programmer friendly non-voxel art styles?

  - by Overv

  Like many other programmers I've always wanted to make a game, but simply lack the skills to do any production quality graphics. I am however sure that I want to do the models and textures myself, because I need a lot of different objects and I am sure I wouldn't be able to find good matching models on 3D sites. That means I'll have to pick an art style that is "simple", programmer friendly. An extreme example of this is of course Minecraft, but I don't want to go that basic. I'm absolutely against creating a voxel game. What kind of art styles are out there that are relatively simple, i.e. things made out of basic shapes and textures, but are still good enough to form a believable and detailed world? An example of what I mean is wind waker. The objects are formed of relatively simples shapes, but still provide enough detail to create a nice, living world. The environment my game is set in is a city environment. What I'm really asking for here are good examples of "simple" art styles applied in practice, so I can choose one that fits my skills.

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• C# : When to go Fluent

  - by ach

  In many respects I really like the idea of Fluent interfaces, but with all of the modern features of C# (initializers, lambdas, named parameters) I find myself thinking, "is it worth it?", and "Is this the right pattern to use?". Could anyone give me, if not an accepted practice, at least their own experience or decision matrix for when to use the Fluent pattern? Conclusion: Some good rules of thumb from the answers so far: Fluent interfaces help greatly when you have more actions than setters, since calls benefit more from the context pass-through. Fluent interfaces should be thought of as a layer over top of an api, not the sole means of use. The modern features such as lambdas, initializers, and named parameters, can work hand-in-hand to make a fluent interface even more friendly. ... Edit: Here is an example of what I mean by the modern features making it feel less needed. Take for example a (perhaps poor example) Fluent interface that allows me to create an Employee like: Employees.CreateNew().WithFirstName("Peter") .WihtLastName("Gibbons") .WithManager() .WithFirstName("Bill") .WithLastName("Lumbergh") .WithTitle("Manager") .WithDepartment("Y2K"); Could easily be written with initiallizers like: Employees.Add(new Employee() { FirstName = "Peter", LastName = "Gibbons", Manager = new Employee() { FirstName = "Bill", LastName = "Lumbergh", Title = "Manager", Department = "Y2K" } }); I could also have used named parameters in a constructors in this example.

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• .NET access to the GPU for compute purposes

  - by Daniel Moth

  In the distant past I talked about GPGPU and Microsoft's then approach of DirectCompute. Since then of course we now have C++ AMP coming out with Visual Studio 11, so there is a mainstream easier way for developers to access the GPU for compute purposes, using C++. The question occasionally arises of how can a .NET developer access the GPU for compute purposes from their C# (or VB) code. The answer is by interoping from the managed code to a native DLL and in the native DLL use C++ AMP. As a long term .NET developer myself, I can tell you this is straightforward. Sure, there could have been a managed wrapper for C++ AMP, but honestly that is the reason we have interop – it doesn't make much sense to invest resources to solve a problem that is already solved (most developer customers would prefer investments in other areas of Visual Studio!). Besides, interoping from C# to C++ is much easier than interoping to some of the other older approaches of GPGPU programming ;-) To help you get started with the interop approach, Igor Ostrovsky has previously shared the "Hello World" version of interoping from C# to C++ AMP in his blog post: How to use C++ AMP from C# …we then were asked specifically about how to interop from C# to C++ AMP in a Metro style application on Windows 8, so Igor delivered again with this post: How to use C++ AMP from C# using WinRT Have fun! Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Leadership does not see value in standard process for machine configuration and new developer orientation

  - by opensourcechris

  About 3 months ago our lead web developer and designer(same person) left the company, greener pastures was the reason for leaving. Good for them I say. My problem is that his department was completely undocumented. Things have been tough since the lead left, there is a lot of knowledge both theoretical knowledge we use to quote new projects and technical/implementation knowledge of our existing products that we have lost as a result of his departure. My normal role is as a product manager (for our products themselves) and as a business analyst for some of our project based consulting work. I've taught myself to code over the past year and in an effort to continue moving forward I've taken on the task of setting my laptop up as a development machine with hopes of implementing some of the easier feature requests and fixing some of the no brainer bugs that get submitted into our ticketing system. But, no one knows how to take a fresh Windows machine and configure it to work seamlessly with our production apps. I have requested my boss, who is still in contact with the developer who left, ask them to document and create a process to onboard a new developer, software installation, required packages, process to deploy to the productions application servers, etc. None of this exists, and I'm spinning my wheels trying to get my computer working as a functional development machine. But she does not seem to understand the need for such a process to exist. Apparently the new developer who replaced the one who left has been using a machine that was pre-configured for our environment, so even the new developer could not set up a new machine if we added another developer. My question is two part: Am I wrong in assuming a process to on-board and configure a new computer to be part of our development eco-system should exist? Am I being a whinny baby and should I figure the process out and create a document on my own?

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• Am I too young to burn out?

  - by Steve McMesse

  I feel like I have burned out, even though I am only out of college for 5 years. For the first 3 years of my career, things were going awesome. I was never anything special in school, but I felt special at my company. Looking back, I could tell that I made all the right moves: I actively tried to improve myself daily. I made a point of helping anyone I could. I made a point (and read books about) being a good team member. I had fun. After 3 years in a row as being rated as a top employee, I converted that political capital into choosing to work on an interesting, glamorous project with only 2 developers: me and a highly respected senior technical leader. I worked HARD on that project, and it came out a huge success. High in quality, low in bugs, no delays, etc. The senior tech lead got a major promotion and a GIGANTIC bonus. I got nothing. I was so disappointed that I just stopped caring. Over the last year, I have just kind of floated. During my first 4 years I felt energized after a 10 hour day. Now I can barely be bothered to work 6 hours a day. Any advice? I don't even know what I'm asking. I am just hoping smart people see this and drop me a few pieces of wisdom.

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• Speaker at the German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2005

  The following is an excerpt from the UniversalThread conference coverage of the German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2005 written by Armin Neudert and Jan Vit. Unfortunately, my sessions were not covered at all but I was there as a speaker after all: [...] We are happy to welcome back several speakers that have already been giving sessions in previous DevCons, but hadn’t been here for one or more years. In detail: Steven Black is back after several years. Marcia Akins and her husband Andy Kramek couldn’t come in 2004 and are back again now. Regarding German speakers, Andreas Flohr and Torsten Weggen are also here again, after not doing sessions for two, respectively four years at this conference. At this point we would like to send some regards to the speakers that couldn’t come to Frankfurt this year, since they are very busy at the moment or are doing sessions anywhere else in the world right now. We are also proud to announce several speakers that are here for the very first time. Welcome to Doug Hennig, Rick Schumer, Craig Berntson, Marcus Luz and Benjamin Anders. And of course, there all the well known speakers which did great sessions over the last years: Sebastian Flucke, Uwe Habermann, Peter Herzog, Venelina Jordanova, Dan Jurden, Jochen Kirstätter, Nathalie Mengel, Lisa Slater Nichols, Michael Niethammer, Rick Strahl, Markus Winhard, Eugen Wirsing, Christof Wollenhaupt and myself - Armin Neudert :-) [...]

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• 'Binary XML' for game data?

  - by bluescrn

  I'm working on a level editing tool that saves its data as XML. This is ideal during development, as it's painless to make small changes to the data format, and it works nicely with tree-like data. The downside, though, is that the XML files are rather bloated, mostly due to duplication of tag and attribute names. Also due to numeric data taking significantly more space than using native datatypes. A small level could easily end up as 1Mb+. I want to get these sizes down significantly, especially if the system is to be used for a game on the iPhone or other devices with relatively limited memory. The optimal solution, for memory and performance, would be to convert the XML to a binary level format. But I don't want to do this. I want to keep the format fairly flexible. XML makes it very easy to add new attributes to objects, and give them a default value if an old version of the data is loaded. So I want to keep with the hierarchy of nodes, with attributes as name-value pairs. But I need to store this in a more compact format - to remove the massive duplication of tag/attribute names. Maybe also to give attributes native types, so, for example floating-point data is stored as 4 bytes per float, not as a text string. Google/Wikipedia reveal that 'binary XML' is hardly a new problem - it's been solved a number of times already. Has anyone here got experience with any of the existing systems/standards? - are any ideal for games use - with a free, lightweight and cross-platform parser/loader library (C/C++) available? Or should I reinvent this wheel myself? Or am I better off forgetting the ideal, and just compressing my raw .xml data (it should pack well with zip-like compression), and just taking the memory/performance hit on-load?

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