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• MVC design in Cocoa - are all 3 always necessary? Also: naming conventions, where to put Controller

  - by Nektarios

  I'm new to MVC although I've read a lot of papers and information on the web. I know it's somewhat ambiguous and there are many different interpretations of MVC patterns.. but the differences seem somewhat minimal My main question is - are M, V, and C always going to be necessary to be doing this right? I haven't seen anyone address this in anything I've read. Examples (I'm working in Cocoa/Obj-c although that shouldn't much matter).. 1) If I have a simple image on my GUI, or a text entry field that is just for a user's convenience and isn't saved or modified, these both would be V (view) but there's no M (no data and no domain processing going on), and no C to bridge them. So I just have some aspects that are "V" - seems fine 2) I have 2 different and visible windows that each have a button on them labeled as "ACTIVATE FOO" - when a user clicks the button on either, both buttons press in and change to say "DEACTIVATE FOO" and a third window appears with label "FOO". Clicking the button again will change the button on both windows to "ACTIVATE FOO" and will remove the third "FOO" window. In this case, my V consists of the buttons on both windows, and I guess also the third window (maybe all 3 windows). I definitely have a C, my Controller object will know about these buttons and windows and will get their clicks and hold generic states regarding windows and buttons. However, whether I have 1 button or 10 button, my window is called "FOO" or my window is called "BAR", this doesn't matter. There's no domain knowledge or data here - just control of views. So in this example, I really have "V" and "C" but no "M" - is that ok? 3) Final example, which I am running in to the most. I have a text entry field as my View. When I enter text in this, say a number representing gravity, I keep it in a Model that may do things like compute physics of a ball while taking in to account my gravity parameter. Here I have a V and an M, but I don't understand why I would need to add a C - a controller would just accept the signals from the View and pass it along to the Model, and vice versa. Being as the C is just a pure passthrough, it's really "junk" code and isn't making things any more reusable in my opinion. In most situations, when something changes I will need to change the C and M both in nearly identical ways. I realize it's probably an MVC beginner's mistake to think most situations call for only V and M.. leads me in to next subject 4) In Cocoa / Xcode / IB, I guess my Controllers should always be an instantiated object in IB? That is, I lay all of my "V" components in IB, and for each collection of View objects (things that are related) I should have an instantiated Controller? And then perhaps my Models should NOT be found in IB, and instead only found as classes in Xcode that tie in with Controller code found there. Is this accurate? This could explain why you'd have a Controller that is not really adding value - because you are keeping consistent.. 5) What about naming these things - for my above example about FOO / BAR maybe something that ends in Controller would be the C, like FancyWindowOpeningController, etc? And for models - should I suffix them with like GravityBallPhysicsModel etc, or should I just name those whatever I like? I haven't seen enough code to know what's out there in the wild and I want to get on the right track early on Thank you in advance for setting me straight or letting me know I'm on the right track. I feel like I'm starting to get it and most of what I say here makes sense, but validation of my guessing would help me feel confident..

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• eliminating duplicate Enum code

  - by Don

  Hi, I have a large number of Enums that implement this interface: /** * Interface for an enumeration, each element of which can be uniquely identified by it's code */ public interface CodableEnum { /** * Get the element with a particular code * @param code * @return */ public CodableEnum getByCode(String code); /** * Get the code that identifies an element of the enum * @return */ public String getCode(); } A typical example is: public enum IMType implements CodableEnum { MSN_MESSENGER("msn_messenger"), GOOGLE_TALK("google_talk"), SKYPE("skype"), YAHOO_MESSENGER("yahoo_messenger"); private final String code; IMType (String code) { this.code = code; } public String getCode() { return code; } public IMType getByCode(String code) { for (IMType e : IMType.values()) { if (e.getCode().equalsIgnoreCase(code)) { return e; } } } } As you can imagine these methods are virtually identical in all implementations of CodableEnum. I would like to eliminate this duplication, but frankly don't know how. I tried using a class such as the following: public abstract class DefaultCodableEnum implements CodableEnum { private final String code; DefaultCodableEnum(String code) { this.code = code; } public String getCode() { return this.code; } public abstract CodableEnum getByCode(String code); } But this turns out to be fairly useless because: An enum cannot extend a class Elements of an enum (SKYPE, GOOGLE_TALK, etc.) cannot extend a class I cannot provide a default implementation of getByCode(), because DefaultCodableEnum is not itself an Enum. I tried changing DefaultCodableEnum to extend java.lang.Enum, but this doesn't appear to be allowed. Any suggestions that do not rely on reflection? Thanks, Don

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• Database design problem: intermediate table between 2 tables may end up with too many results.

  - by SK.

  I have to design a database to handle forms. Basically, a form needs to go through (exactly) 7 people, one by one. Each person can either agree or decline a form. If one declines, the chain stops and the following people don't even get notified that there is a form. Right now I have thought of those 3 tables: FORM, PERSON, and RESPONSE inbetween. However, my first solution sounds too heavy because each form could have up to 7 responses. Here we are with the table inbetween. That means that each successful form has 7 rows in the table RESPONSE. Here we have the responding information directly inside the form. It looks ugly but at least keeps everything as singular as possible. On the bad side I can't track the response dates, but I don't think it is crucial for that matter. What is your opinion on this? I feel like both of them are wrong and I don't know how to fix that. If that matters, I'll be using Oracle 9.

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• Object oriented design of game in Java: How to handle a party of NPCs?

  - by Arvanem

  Hi folks, I'm making a very simple 2D RPG in Java. My goal is to do this in as simple code as possible. Stripped down to basics, my class structure at the moment is like this: Physical objects have an x and y dimension. Roaming objects are physical objects that can move(). Humanoid objects are roaming objects that have inventories of GameItems. The Player is a singleton humanoid object that can hire up to 4 NPC Humanoids to join his or her party, and do other actions, such as fight non-humanoid objects. NPC Humanoids can be hired by the Player object to join his or her party, and once hired can fight for the Player. So far I have given the Player class a "party" ArrayList of NPC Humanoids, and the NPC Humanoids class a "hired" Boolean. However, my fight method is clunky, using an if to check the party size before implementing combat, e.g. public class Player extends Humanoids { private ArrayList<Humanoids> party; // GETTERS AND SETTERS for party here //... public void fightEnemy(Enemy eneObj) { if (this.getParty().size() == 0) // Do combat without party issues else if (this.getParty().size() == 1) // Do combat with party of 1 else if (this.getParty().size() == 2) // Do combat with party of 2 // etc. My question is, thinking in object oriented design, am I on the right track to do this in as simple code as possible? Is there a better way?

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• Database design and foreign keys: Where should they be added in related tables?

  - by Carvell Fenton

  I have a relatively simple subset of tables in my database for tracking something called sessions. These are academic sessions (think offerings of a particular program). The tables to represent a sessions information are: sessions session_terms session_subjects session_mark_item_info session_marks All of these tables have their own primary keys, and are like a tree, in that sessions have terms, terms have subjects, subjects have mark items, etc. So each on would have at least its "parent's" foreign key. My question is, design wise is it a good idea to include the sessions primary key in the other tables as a foreign key to easily select related session items, or is that too much redundency? If I include the session foreign key (or all parent foreign keys from tables up the heirarchy) in all the tables, I can easily select all the marks for a session. As an example, something like SELECT mark FROM session_marks WHERE sessionID=... If I don't, then I would have to combine selects with something like WHERE something IN (SELECT... Which approach is "more correct" or efficient? Thanks in advance!

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• How to design authentication in a thick client, to be fail safe?

  - by Jay

  Here's a use case: I have a desktop application (built using Eclipse RCP) which on start, pops open a dialog box with 'UserName' and 'Password' fields in it. Once the end user, inputs his UserName and Password, a server is contacted (a spring remote-servlet, with the client side being a spring httpclient: similar to the approaches here.), and authentication is performed on the server side. A few questions related to the above mentioned scenario: If said this authentication service were to go down, what would be the best way to handle further proceedings? Authentication is something that I cannot do away with. Would running the desktop client in a "limited" mode be a good idea? For instance, important features/menus/views will be disabled, rest of the application will be accessible? Should I have a back up authentication service running on a different machine, working as a backup? What are the general best-practices in this scenario? I remember reading about google gears and how it would let you edit and do stuff offline - should something like this be designed? Please let me know your design/architectural comments/suggestions. Appreciate your help.

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• How to amend return value design in OO manner?

  - by FrontierPsycho

  Hello. I am no newb on OO programming, but I am faced with a puzzling situation. I have been given a program to work on and extend, but the previous developers didn't seem that comfortable with OO, it seems they either had a C background or an unclear understanding of OO. Now, I don't suggest I am a better developer, I just think that I can spot some common OO errors. The difficult task is how to amend them. In my case, I see a lot of this: if (ret == 1) { out.print("yadda yadda"); } else if (ret == 2) { out.print("yadda yadda"); } else if (ret == 3) { out.print("yadda yadda"); } else if (ret == 0) { out.print("yadda yadda"); } else if (ret == 5) { out.print("yadda yadda"); } else if (ret == 6) { out.print("yadda yadda"); } else if (ret == 7) { out.print("yadda yadda"); } ret is a value returned by a function, in which all Exceptions are swallowed, and in the catch blocks, the above values are returned explicitly. Oftentimes, the Exceptions are simply swallowed, with empty catch blocks. It's obvious that swalllowing exceptions is wrong OO design. My question concerns the use of return values. I believe that too is wrong, however I think that using Exceptions for control flow is equally wrong, and I can't think of anything to replace the above in a correct, OO manner. Your input, please?

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• Scalability 101: How can I design a scalable web application using PHP?

  - by Legend

  I am building a web-application and have a couple of quick questions. From what I learnt, one should not worry about scalability when initially building the app and should only start worrying when the traffic increases. However, this being my first web-application, I am not quite sure if I should take an approach where I design things in an ad-hoc manner and later "fix" them. I have been reading stories about how people start off with an app that gets millions of users in a week or two. Not that I will face the same situation but I can't help but wonder, how do these people do it? Currently, I bought a shared hosting account on Lunarpages and that got me started in building and testing the application. However, I am interested in learning how to build the same application in a scalable-manner using the cloud, for instance, Amazon's EC2. From my understanding, I can see a couple of components: There is a load balancer that first receives requests and then decides where to route each request This request is then handled by a server replica that then processes the request and updates (if required) the database and sends back the response to the client If a similar request comes in, then a caching mechanism like memcached kicks into picture and returns objects from the cache A blackbox that handles database replication Specifically, I am trying to do the following: Setting up a load balancer (my homework revealed that HAProxy is one such load balancer) Setting up replication so that databases can be synchronized Using memcached Configuring Apache to work with multiple web servers Partitioning application to use Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 (my application is something that will need great deal of storage) Finally, how can I avoid burning myself when using Amazon services? Because this is just a learning phase, I can probably do with 2-3 servers with a simple load balancer and replication but until I want to avoid paying loads of money accidentally. I am able to find resources on individual topics but am unable to find something that starts off from the big picture. Can someone please help me get started?

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• Please guide this self-taught Web Developer.

  - by ChickenPuke

  One of the major regrets in life is that I didn't do something with my introversion. I didn't manage to get past the first year of college because of that. I have chosen the path where there are no video games and other time sinks, all I have is the internet to quench my thirst of learning the ins and outs of the field of Web Developing/Designing. Though currently, I'm taking a Web Design Associate course at one of the best Computer Arts and this is the last month of the class. Even though I'm still a sapling, I love this field so much. So basically, At school I'm learning web design while at home I'm teaching myself web-developing. First thing first, returning to college seems impossible at the moment because of some financial problems. I'm pretty comfortable with CSS and HTML and I'm into PHP/MySQL at the moment. Could you please provide me a web-development Curriculum to follow. And do I need to learn about the theories behind? And I think I'm still young(I'm 18 at the time of writing). Is it a good thing or bad thing for choosing this path? I'm glad with my decision but in all honesty, I'm worrying about my future and employment because I'm an undergrad, coming from a country where companies are degree b!tches, it saddens me so. Thank you. (My questions are the bold parts. )

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• How to structure a XML-based order form using ASP.NET

  - by Brendan

  First question here; please help me if I'm doing something wrong. I'm a graphic designer who's trying to teach himself ASP.NET/C#. My server-side background is PHP/WordPress and some ASP Classic, and when I do code I've hand-coded just about everything since I started learning HTML. So, as I've started to learn .NET, my code has been very manual and procedural. I'm now trying to create a really basic order form that pulls from an XML file to populate the form; there's an image, a title, a price, and selectable quantities. If I was making this form as a static HTML file, I'd have each field named manually and so on postback I could query each field to get the values. But I'm trying to do this dynamically so that I can add/remove items from the form and not have to change the code. In terms of displaying the XML, I rolled my own by loading XmlDocument and using XmlNodeList and a bunch of foreach loops to get things displayed. Then, I learned about <asp:XmlDataSource> and <asp:Repeater>, which made displaying the XML simpler by a large margin. However, I've had a really hard time getting the data that's been submitted on postback (it was implied on SO that there are better ways to get data than nested RepeaterItems). So, what I've learned so far is that you can do things a bunch of different ways in .NET. that's why I thought it'd be good to ask for answers regarding the best way to use ASP.NET to display a XML document and dynamically capture the data that's submitted. Any help is appreciated! I'm using Notepad++ to code .NET 2.0.

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• Progressive Enhancement vs. Single Page Apps

  - by SeanPlusPlus

  I just got back from a conference in Boston called An Event Apart. A really popular theme amongst the speakers was the idea of progressive enhancement - a site's content should go in the HTML, and JavaScript should only be used to enhance behavior. The arguments that the speakers gave for progressive enhancement were very compelling. Not only is it a solid pattern for supporting older browsers, and devices on a network with low bandwidth, but HTML fails much more gracefully than JavaScript (i.e. markup that is not supported is just ignored, while if a browser throws an exception while executing your script - you are hosed). Jeremy Keith gave a particularly insightful talk about this. But what about single page web apps like Backbone and Angular? The whole design behind these frameworks seems to push the developer toward moving content out of the HTML, and into something like a JSON API. I can not seem to gel these two design patterns: progressive enhancement vs. single page web apps. Are there instances when one is better than the other? Or are they not even antagonistic technologies, and I am missing something here with my mental model?

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• Important Tips to make a user friendly Homepage

  - by Aditi

  We have done a lot of redesign work lately for many online businesses.. There are some basic things we want to stress into any web design which make it usable! Unfortunately most designers care about the graphic elements, clean code & navigation only. Most designers do not realize that a design they did could be a masterpiece to them but for a layman it could be tough to use. It is so very important to understand usability & call to action for any business and then implemented on their website Homepage. Showcase Offering The sole purpose of their websites needs to be mentioned on the homepage, what they are offering, why should one do business with them and why they are better than other competitors. Include a tag line under your logo that explicitly summarizes what the site or company does. Ease of Navigation Make it easier for your user to find what they are looking for, some archives, articles, services etc. A visible and easy to use Navigation allows just that. You may also want to feature some of the most visited content on the homepage itself. Search Form Let your users take advantage of a search form from your homepage, keep it visible enough so if they have trouble locating certain content using your navigation. The Search Bar will come handy in such situation. Especially if you have thousands and thousands of web pages. Liquid Layout There was a time when people used standard resolution, not any more. People have different screen sizes and most people now browse on handhelds. Try keeping liquid width so people can adjust as per their choice. First impression is last impression, leaving one through your perfect homepage can do wonders for your business.

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• What to think about when designing a simple GUI for a quiz game

  - by PeterK

  I am coming close to finish my first iPhone game ever, as a matter of fact also my first programming experience ever, which is a quiz game. I have all the functionality i want and is currently polishing it both from a code point of view as well as looking at the GUI. My initial idea was not to use any specific graphics but rather focus on the game experience and simplicity and by that only using background color, orange, and white text as well as buttons. The design is based on that all ages, from learning to read, should be able to host and play this game. However, as i am now getting close to the finish line i am starting to think what is needed from a GUI point of view. I would like to ask for some advice what to think about when designing a GUI. Is it considered OK without any 'fancy' graphics, what is the risk without it etc.? Also, what colors goes well together if i choose to use a simple GUI. I am thinking about color blindness etc. In other words how do i design a good and effective GUI for a simple game as mine? Thanks

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• I thought everyone did it like this – Training Session Code Management

  - by Fatherjack

  One of an occasional series of blogs about things that I do that perhaps others don’t. From very early on in my dealings with SQL Server Management Studio I started using Solutions and Projects. This means that I started using them when writing sessions and it wasn’t until speaking with someone at PASS Summit 2013 that I found out that this was a process that was unheard of by some people. So, here we go, a run through how I create and manage code and other documents that I use in presentations. For people unsure what solutions and projects are; • Solution – a container for one or more projects. • Project – a container for files, .sql files are grouped as Queries, all other files are stored as Misc. How do I start? Open Management Studio as normal, and then click File | New and select Project This will bring up the New Project dialog box and you can select/add details as necessary in the places indicated. If this is the first project you are creating then be sure to select the Create directory for solution check box (4). If know in advance that you are going to have more than one project in the solution then you may want to edit the Solution name (3) as by default it will take the name of the project that you enter at (2). This will lead you to the following folder structure (depending on the location that you chose in 3) above. In SSMS you need to turn on the Solution Explorer, either via the View menu or pressing Ctrl + Alt + L                   This will bring up a dockable window that will let you quickly access the files that you choose to include in the Solution.                     Can we get to work and write some code yet please? Yes, we can. As with many Microsoft products there are several ways to go about this, let’s look at the easiest way when creating new code. When writing a presentation I usually start from the position we are currently in – a brand new solution and project with no code. Later on we will look at incorporating existing code files into the Project where we need it. Right-click on the Project name and choose Add New Query           As soon as you click this you will be prompted to select the sql server that you want to connect to and once you have done that you will have your new query open in the text editor and the Solution Explorer will now look like this, showing your server connection and your new query.               And the Project folder will look like this         Now once you have written your code don’t press save, choose Save As and give the code a better name than QueryX.sql. SSMS will interpret this as a request to rename Query1 and your Project and the Project folder will show that SQLQuery1.sql no longer exists but there is now a file named as you requested. If you happen to click save in error then right-click the query in the project and choose rename.               You can then alter the name as you like, even when open in the SSMS text editor, and the file will be renamed. When creating a set of scripts for a presentation I name files with a numeric prefix so that when they are sorted by name they are in the order that I need to use them during the session. I love this idea but I’ve got loads of existing scripts I want to put in Projects Excellent, adding existing files to a project is easy, let’s consider that you have query files in your My Documents folder and you want to bring them into the Project we have just created. Right-click on the Project and choose Add | Existing Item           Navigate to the location of your chosen file and select it. The file will open in SSMS text editor and the Project will be updated to show that the selected query is now part of your project. If you look in Windows Explorer you will see that the query file has been copied into the Project folder, the original file still remains in your My Documents (or wherever it existed). I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to explore creating further Projects within a solution but will happily answer questions if you get into difficulties. What other advantages do I get from this? Well, as all your code is neatly in one Solution folder and the folder contains only files that are pertinent to the session you are presenting then it makes it very easy to share this code, simply copy the whole folder onto a USB stick, Blog, FTP location, wherever you choose and it’s all there in one self-contained parcel. You don’t have to limit yourself to .sql query files, you can add any sort of document via the Add Existing Item method, just try it out. Right-click on the protect and choose Add | Existing Item           Change the file type filter.                       You can multi select items here using Ctrl as you click each item you want. When you are done, click the Add button and the items will be brought into your project.                 Again, using this process means the files are copied into the project folder, leaving you original files untouched in their original location. Once they are here you can double click them in the SSMS Solution Explorer to open them, for files with a specific file type then the appropriate application will be launched – ie Word, Excel etc. However, if the files are something that the SSMS Text editor can display then they will open in a tab in SSMS. Try it out with a text file or even a PS1 file … This sounds excellent but what do I need to watch out for? One big thing to consider when working like this is the version of SSMS that you are using. There is something fundamentally different between the different versions in the way that the project (.ssmssqlproj) and solution (.sqlsuo and .ssmssln) files are formatted. If you create a solution in an older version of SSMS and then open it in a newer version you will be given the option to upgrade it. Once you do this upgrade then the older version of SSMS will not be able to open the solution any more. Now this ranks as more of an annoyance than disaster as the files within the projects are not affected in any way, you would just have to delete the files mentioned and recreate the solution in the older version again. Summary So, here we have seen how using SSMS Projects and Solutions can help keep related code files (and other document types) together in a neat structure so that they can be quickly navigated during a presentation and it also makes it incredibly simple to distribute your code and share it with others. I hope this is of use to you and helps you bring more order into your sql files, whether you are a person that does technical presentations or not, having your code grouped and managed can make for a lot of advantages as your code library expands.  

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• What are the boundaries between the responsibilities of a web designer and a web developer?

  - by Beofett

  I have been hired to do functional development for several web site redesigns. The company I work for has a relatively low technical level, and the previous development of the web sites were completed by a graphic designer who is self taught as far as web development is concerned. My responsibilities have extended beyond basic development, as I have been also tasked with creating the development environment, and migrating hosting from external CMS hosting to internal servers incorporating scripting languages (I opted for PHP/MySQL). I am working with the graphic designer, and he is responsible for the creative design of the web. We are running into a bit of friction over confusion between the boundaries of our respective tasks. For example, we had some differences of opinion on navigation. I was primarily concerned with ease-of-use (the majority of our userbase are not particularly web-savvy), as well as meeting W3 WAI standards (many of our users are older, and we have a higher than average proportion of users with visual impairment). His sole concern was what looked best for the website, and I felt that the direction he was pushing for caused some functional problems. I feel color choices, images, fonts, etc. are clearly his responsibility, and my expectation was that he would simply provide me with the CSS pages and style classes and IDs to use, but some elements of page layout also seem to fall more under the realm of "usability", which to me translates as near-synonymous with "functionality". I've been tasked with selecting the tools we'll use, which include frameworks, scripting languages, database design, and some open source applications (Moodle for example, and quite probably Drupal in the future). While these tools are quite customizable, working directly with some of the interfaces is beyond his familiarity with CSS, HTML, and PHP. This limits how much direct control he has over the appearance, which has lead to some discussion about the tool choices. Is there a generally accepted dividing line between the roles of a web designer and a web developer? Does his relatively inexperienced background in web technologies influence that dividing line?

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• Consistency of an object

  - by Stefano Borini

  I tend to keep my objects consistent during their lifetime. In some cases, setting up an object requires multiple calls to different routines. For example, a connection object may operate in this way: Connection c = new Connection(); c.setHost("http://whatever") c.setPort(8080) c.connect() please note this is just a stupid example to let you understand the point. In between calls to setHost and setPort the object is inconsistent, because the Port has not been specified yet, so this code would crash Connection c = new Connection(); c.setHost("http://whatever") c.connect() Meaning that it's a requisite for connect() to have previous calls to both setHost and setPort, otherwise it won't be able to operate as its state is inconsistent. You may fix the issue with a default value, but there may be cases where no sensible default may be devised. We assume in the later example that there's no default for the port, and therefore a call to c.connect() without first calling both setHost and setPort will be an inconsistent state of the object. This, to me, points at an incorrect interface design, but I may be wrong, so I want to hear your opinion. Do you organize your interface so that the object is always in a consistent (i.e. workable) state both before and after the call ? Edit: Please don't try to solve the problem I gave above. I know how to solve that. My question is much broader in sense. I am looking for a design principle, officially or informally stated, regarding consistency of object state between calls.

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• Implementing MVC pattern in SWT application

  - by Pradeep Simha

  I am developing an SWT application (it's basically an Eclipse plugin, so I need to use SWT). Currently my design is as follows: Model: In model, I have POJOs which represents the actual fields in views. View: It is a dumb layer, it contains just UI and contains no logic (not even event handlers) Controller: It acts as a mediator b/w those two layers. Also it is responsible for creating view layer, handling events etc. Basically I have created all of the controls in view as a static like this public static Button btnLogin and in controller I have a code like this: public void createLoginView(Composite comp) { LoginFormView.createView(comp); //This createView method is in view layer ie LoginFormView LoginFormView.btnLogin.addSelectionListener(new SelectionListener() { //Code goes here }); } Similalrly I have done for other views and controls. So that in main class and other classes I am calling just createLoginView of controller. I am doing similar thing for other views. So my question, is what I am doing is correct? Is this design good? Or I should have followed any other approach. Since I am new to SWT and Eclipse plugin development (basically I am Java EE developer having 4+ years of exp). Any tips/pointers would be appreciated.

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• How to Be a Software Engineer?

  - by Mistrio

  My problem is kind of weird so please bear with me. I have been working in a start up concerned basically with mobile development since my graduation 2 years ago. I develop apps for iOS but it's not really relevant. The start up structure is simply founders developers, with no middle-tier technical supervision or project management whatsoever. A typical project cycle of ours is like this: meet with a client send very vague recruitment to an outsourced graphics designer dig in development right after we get the design, no questions asked then improvise improvise improvise! It's not that we are unaware that stuff like requirements analysis, UML, design patterns, source code control, testing, development methodologies... etc. exist, we just simply don't use them, and I mean like never. The result is usually a clunk of hardly-maintainable yet working code. Despite everything we are literally flourishing with many successful apps on all platforms and bigger clients each project. The thing is, we want the chaos and we're looking for advice. How would you fix our company technically? Given that you can't hire project managers or team leaders just because we are barely 5 developers, so it wouldn't be a justified cost for the founders, but one-time things like courses, books, private training... etc is an option. Lastly, if it's relevant, we are based in Egypt. Thank you a lot in advance.

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• Simple Multiplayer CCG System

  - by TobiHeidi

  I am working on a cross plattform Multiplayer CCG (web, android, ios). Here are my goals in design: I want to game to be easly accessible and understandable for non CCG players within the first minute of play. a single game should be played by 2 - 4 players a once, without problems if one players drops out during play. players should make their next turn simultaneous (without waiting for other to make their turns) My current approach: each Card has a point value for four Elements. In each Turn an Element is (randomly) selected and every Player chooses 1 card out of 3. The Player choosen the card with the highest value for that element wins the Round. After 10 Rounds the players a ranked by how many rounds they won. Why does this approach seems not optimal? It seems really to easy to determin the next best turn. Your own turn is to little affected by the play style of the others. I would love the have a system where some cards are better against other cards. A bit of rock paper scissors where you have to think about what next turn the other players will make or so. But really think freely. I would love to hear ideas may it be additions or new systems to make a CCG with roughly the stated design goals. Thanks

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• TDD - Outside In vs Inside Out

  - by Songo

  What is the difference between building an application Outside In vs building it Inside Out using TDD? These are the books I read about TDD and unit testing: Test Driven Development: By Example Test-Driven Development: A Practical Guide: A Practical Guide Real-World Solutions for Developing High-Quality PHP Frameworks and Applications Test-Driven Development in Microsoft .NET xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code The Art of Unit Testing: With Examples in .Net Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests---This one was really hard to understand since JAVA isn't my primary language :) Almost all of them explained TDD basics and unit testing in general, but with little mention of the different ways the application can be constructed. Another thing I noticed is that most of these books (if not all) ignore the design phase when writing the application. They focus more on writing the test cases quickly and letting the design emerge by itself. However, I came across a paragraph in xUnit Test Patterns that discussed the ways people approach TDD. There are 2 schools out there Outside In vs Inside Out. Sadly the book doesn't elaborate more on this point. I wish to know what is the main difference between these 2 cases. When should I use each one of them? To a TDD beginner which one is easier to grasp? What is the drawbacks of each method? Is there any materials out there that discuss this topic specifically?

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• Implementing game rules in a tactical battle board game

  - by Setzer22

  I'm trying to create a game similar to what one would find in a typical D&D board game combat. For mor examples you could think of games like Advance Wars, Fire Emblem or Disgaea. I should say that I'm using design by component so far, but I can't find a nice way to fit components into the part I want to ask. I'm struggling right now with the "game rules" logic. That is, the code that displays the menu, allows the player to select units, and command them, then tells the unit game objects what to do given the player input. The best way I could thing of handling this was using a big state machine, so everything that could be done in a "turn" is handled by this state machine, and the update code of this state machine does different things depending on the state. This approach, though, leads to a large amount of code (anything not model-related) to go into a big class. Of course I can subdivide this big class into more classes, but it doesn't feel modular and upgradable enough. I'd like to know of better systems to handle this in order to be able to upgrade the game with new rules without having a monstruous if/else chain (or switch / case, for that matter). So, any ideas? I'd also like to ask that if you recommend me a specific design pattern to also provide some kind of example or further explanation and not stick to "Yeah you should use MVC and it'll work".

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• How to use the unit of work and repository patterns in a service oriented enviroment

  - by A. Karimi

  I've created an application framework using the unit of work and repository patterns for it's data layer. Data consumer layers such as presentation depend on the data layer design. For example a CRUD abstract form has a dependency to a repository (IRepository). This architecture works like a charm in client/server environments (Ex. a WPF application and a SQL Server). But I'm looking for a good pattern to change or reuse this architecture for a service oriented environment. Of course I have some ideas: Idea 1: The "Adapter" design pattern Keep the current architecture and create a new unit of work and repository implementation which can work with a service instead of the ORM. Data layer consumers are loosely coupled to the data layer so it's possible but the problem is about the unit of work; I have to create a context which tracks the objects state at the client side and sends the changes to the server side on calling the "Commit" (Something that I think the RIA has done for Silverlight). Here the diagram: ----------- CLIENT----------- | ------------------ SERVER ---------------------- [ UI ] -> [ UoW/Repository ] ---> [ Web Services ] -> [ UoW/Repository ] -> [DB] Idea 2: Add another layer Add another layer (let say "local services" or "data provider"), then put it between the data layer (unit of work and repository) and the data consumer layers (like UI). Then I have to rewrite the consumer classes (CRUD and other classes which are dependent to IRepository) to depend on another interface. And the diagram: ----------------- CLIENT ------------------ | ------------------- SERVER --------------------- [ UI ] -> [ Local Services/Data Provider ] ---> [ Web Services ] -> [ UoW/Repository ] -> [DB] Please note that I have the local services layer on the current architecture but it doesn't expose the data layer functionality. In another word the UI layer can communicate with both of the data and local services layers whereas the local services layer also uses the data layer. | | | | | | | | ---> | Local Services | ---> | | | UI | | | | Data | | | | | | | ----------------------------> | |

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• Has anyone else read "Programming video games for the Evil Genius"

  - by Martin

  I bought this book called "Programming Video Games for the Evil Genius" by Ian Cinnamon. If there is anyone who has read or is familiar with this book I am wondering if they think it is worth reading. I am interested in making video games. I have already taken intro courses in C++, Java and Python and got through okay. I've been going through this book for about a month now(SLOWLY). All I have to do is type the code exactly in the book, BUT a lot of the code is not clearly explained. I do some research online but I usually still have some trouble answering my questions. Then I found stack overflow. It's been a ton of help. Right now I am trying to make a racing game right out of this book and I got to a point where the author left a bunch of errors in his code. One of the members of this website fixed it up for me, but added some stuff that I'm having trouble understanding. I spend more time trying to figure out the authors errors and fix them or get someone to help me fix them than I actually do learning code. I REALLY want to learn how to do this and I am ready and willing to put in the time, but I'm not sure if my time would be better spent learning from a different source. Are there any veterans out there that are familiar with this book and think it's worth it/not worth it? Should I try to move onto another book? Any advice for a fresh start for someone who wants to learn some video game programming?

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• How common is prototyping as the first stage of development?

  - by EpsilonVector

  I've been taking some software design courses in the past few semesters, and while I see the benefit in a lot of the formalism, I feel like it doesn't tell me anything about the program itself: You can't tell how the program is going to operate from the Use Case spec, even though it discusses what the program can do. You can't tell anything about the user experience from the requirements document, even though it can include quality requirements. Sequence diagrams are a good description of how the software works as the call stack, but are very limited, and give a highly partial view of the overall system. Class diagrams are great for describing how the system is built, but are utterly useless in helping you figure out what the software needs to be. Where in all this formalism is the bottom line: how the program looks, operates, and what experience it gives? Doesn't it make more sense to design off of that? Isn't it better to figure out how the program should work via a prototype and strive to implement it for real? I know that I'm probably suffering from being taught engineering by theoreticians, but I need to ask, do they do this in the industry? How do people figure out what the program actually is, not what it should conform to? Do people prototype a lot, or do they mostly use the formal tools like UML and I just didn't get the hang of using them yet?

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• How common is prototyping as the first stage of development?

  - by EpsilonVector

  I've been taking some software design courses in the past few semesters, and while I see the benefit in a lot of the formalism, I still feel like it doesn't tell me anything about the program itself. You can't tell how the program is going to operate from the Use Case spec, even though it discusses what the program can do, and you can't tell anything about the user experience from the requirements document, even though it can include QA requirements. ...sequence diagrams are as good a description of how the software works as the call stack, in other words- very limited, highly partial view of the overall system, and a class diagram is great for describing how the system is built, but is utterly useless in helping you figure out what the software needs to be. Where in all this formalism is the bottom line- how the program looks, operates, and what experience it gives? Doesn't it make more sense to design off of that? Isn't it better to figure out how the program should work via a prototype and strive to implement it for real? I know that I'm probably suffering from being taught engineering by theoreticians, but I got to ask, do they do this in the industry? How do people figure out what the program actually is, not what it should conform to? Do people prototype a lot? ...or do they mostly use the formal tools like UML and I just didn't get the hang of using them yet?

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