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• Moving multiple objects on a map

  - by Dave

  I have multiple objects on my isometric game, for example, NPC's doing path finding automatically to walk around the map. Now there could be any number of them from 0 to infinity (hypthetical as no PC could handle that). My question is: is simply looping each one individually the smartest way to animate them all? Surely as the number of units increases you will notice a lag occuring on units near the end of loop still "waiting" for their next animation movement. The alternative is a swarm algorithm to move all objects together. Is that a smarter idea or do both situations apply depending on the circumstances of the game?

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• Do any database "styles" use discrete files for their tables?

  - by Brad

  I've been talking to some people at work who believe some versions of a database store their data in discrete tables. That is to say you might open up a folder and see one file for each table in the database then several other supporting files. They do not have a lot of experience with databases but I have only been working with them for a little over a half year so I am not a canonical source of info either. I've been touting the benefits of SQL Server over Access (and before this, Access over Excel. Great strides have been made :) ). But, other people were of the impression that the/one of the the benefit(s) of using SQL Server over Access was that all the data was not consolidated down into one file. Yet, SQL Server packs everything into a single .mdf file (plus the log file). My question is, is there an RDBMS which holds it's data in multiple discrete files instead of one master file? And if the answer is yes, why do it one way over the other?

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• Managing different utility classes between engine and libraries

  - by hayer

  I'm currently in updating some engine code (which does not work, so it is more like creating a engine). I've decided to swap over to SFML (instead of my own crappy renderer, window manager, and audio), Box2D (since I need physics, but have none), and some small utilities I've built myself. The problem is that each of the project mentioned over use different types for things like Vector2, etc. So to the question: is it a good idea to replace Box2D and SFML vectors with my own vector class (which is one of my better implementations)? My idea then was to have a separate .lib with all my classes that should be shared between all the projects in the solution.

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• Efficient Algorithm for Recording gameplay's objects positions

  - by Scorch

  So, I have a game idea in mind, and for that I need to record the game around the player. I'me not talking about recording it as video, but rather recording the scene objects, and their positions within the game, and then render them, giving the player the ability to go back and forth, to stop time and move around. I've made a prototype with some data structures in C#, since this is going to be the programming language we'll be using in our game, but if we want the player to be able to go back just five minutes back with the data of just 100 NPC's, it takes almost 1GB of RAM. Right now, I'm just storing a Doubly linked list, each item with the object position. In the game, I'll need to store even more data in each node, so I need something even more ligher. Of course, this algorithm is zero optimized, but still, that is a lot. The alternatives would be create the NPC's that aren't really important to the game when the user is viewing the past, but I don't really like it very much for the sake of realism. I wonder if there is a better way to store this? Thanks in advance, Scorch

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• PHP I am pulling my hair out trying to find the best! [closed]

  - by darga33

  PULLING MY HAIR OUT I have heard of Martin Fowler's book PoEAA and the other book Head First OOA OOD but those are not in PHP. I DESPERATELY WANT TO READ THEM, but ONLY in PHP utilizing SOLID principles! Does anyone know of the absolute best, most recent PHP book that utilizes the SOLID principles and GRASP, and all the other best practices? I want to learn from the best possible source! Not beginner books! I already understand OOP. This seems like an almost impossible question to find the answer to and so I thought, hey, might as well post on stackexchange!! Surely someone out there must know!!!!!!!!!! Or if noone knows Maybe they know of an open source application that utilizes these principles that is relatively small that is not a framework. Something that I can go through every single class, and spend time understanding the insides and outs of how the program was developed. Thanks so much in advance! I really really really really appreciate it!

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• How do you go from a so so programmer to a great one? [closed]

  - by Cervo

  How do you go from being an okay programmer to being able to write maintainable clean code? For example David Hansson was writing Basecamp when in the process he created Rails as part of writing Basecamp in a clean/maintainable way. But how do you know when there is value in a side project like that? I have a bachelors in computer science, and I am about to get a masters and I will say that colleges teach you to write code to solve problems, not neatly or anything. Basically you think of a problem, come up with a solution, and write it down...not necessarily the most maintainable way in the world. Also my first job was in a startup, and now my third is in a small team in a large company where the attitude was/is get it done yesterday (also most of my jobs are mainly database development with SQL with a few ASP.NET web pages/.NET apps on the side). So of course cut/paste is more favored than making things more cleanly. And they would rather have something yesterday even if you have to rewrite it next month rather than to have something in a week that lasts for a year. Also spaghetti code turns up all over the place, and it takes very smart people to write/understand/maintain spaghetti code...However it would be better to do things so simple/clean that even a caveman/woman could do maintenance. Also I get very bored/unmotivated having to go modify the same things cut/pasted in a few locations. Is this the type of skill that you need to learn by working with a serious software organization that has an emphasis on maintenance and maybe even an architect who designs a system architecture and reviews code? Could you really learn it by volunteering on an open source project (it seems to me that a full time programmer job is way more practice than a few hours a week on an open source project)? Is there some course where you can learn this? I can attest that graduate school and undergraduate school do not really emphasize clean software at all. They just teach the structures/algorithms and then send you off into the world to solve problems. Overall I think the first thing is learning to write clean/maintainable code within the bounds of the project in order to become a good programmer. Then the next thing is learning when you need to do a side project (like a framework) to make things more maintainable/clean even while you still deliver things for the deadline in order to become a great programmer. For example, you are making an SQL report and someone gives you 100 calculations for individual columns. At what point does it make sense to construct a domain specific language to encode the rules in simply and then generate all the SQL as opposed to cut/pasting the query from the table a bunch of times and then adjusting each query to do the appropriate calculations. This is the type of thing I would say a great programmer would know. He/she would maybe even know ways to avoid the domain specific language and to still do all the calculations without creating an unmaintainable mess or a ton of repetitive code to cut/paste everywhere.

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• Algorithm to zoom a plotted function

  - by astinx

  I'm making a game in android and I need plot a function, my algorithm is this: @Override protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas) { float e = 0.5f; //from -x axis to +x evaluate f(x) for (float x = -z(canvas.getWidth()); x < z(canvas.getWidth()); x+=e) { float x1,y1; x1 = x; y1 = f(x); canvas.drawPoint((canvas.getWidth()/2)+x1, (canvas.getHeight()/2)-y1, paintWhite); } super.onDraw(canvas); } This is how it works. If my function is, for example f(x)=x^2, then z(x) is sqrt(x). I evaluate each point between -z(x) to z(x) and then I draw them. As you can see I use the half of the size of the screen to put the function in the middle of the screen. The problem isn't that the code isn't working, actually plots the function. But if the screen is of 320*480 then this function will be really tiny like in the image below. My question is: how can I change this algorithm to scale the function?. BTW what I'm really wanting to do is trace a route to later display an animated sprite, so actually scale this image doesnt gonna help me. I need change the algorithm in order to draw the same interval but in a larger space. Any tip helps, thanks! Current working result Desired result UPDATE: I will try explain more in detail what the problem is. Given this interval [-15...15] (-z(x) to z(x)) I need divide this points in a bigger interval [-320...320] (-x to x). For example, when you use some plotting software like this one. Although the div where is contain the function has 640 px of width, you dont see that the interval is from -320 to 320, you see that the interval is from -6 to 6. How can I achieve this?

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• Is it a good idea to dynamically position and size controls on a form or statically set them?

  - by CrystalBlue

  I've worked mostly with interface building tools such as xCode's Interface Builder and Visual Studio's environment to place forms and position them on screens. But I'm finding that with my latest project, placing controls on the form through a graphical interface is not going to work. This more has to do with the number of custom controls I have to create that I can't visually see before hand. When I first tackled this, I began to position all of my controls relative to the last ones that I created. Doing this had its own pros and cons. On the one hand, this gave me the opportunity to set one number (a margin for example) and when I changed the margin, the controls all sized correctly to one another (such as shortening controls in the center while keeping controls next to the margin the same). But this started to become a spiders-web of code that I knew wouldn't go very far before getting dangerous. Change one number and everything re sizes, but remove one control and you've created many more errors and size problems for all the other controls. It became more surgery then small changes to controls and layout. Is there a good way or maybe a preferred way to determine when I should be using relative or absolute positioning in forms?

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• When creating a GUI wizard, should all pages/tabs be of the same size? [closed]

  - by Job

  I understand that some libraries would force me to, but my question is general. If I have a set of buttons at the bottom: Back, Next, Cancel?, (other?), then should their location ever change? If the answer is no, then what do I do about pages with little content? Do I stretch things? Place them in the lone upper left corner? According to Steve Krug, it does not make sense to add anything to GUI that does not need to be there. I understand that there are different approaches to wizards - some have tabs, others do not. Some tabs are lined horizontally at the top; others - vertically on the left. Some do not show pages/tabs, and are simply sequences of dialogs. This is probably a must when the wizard is "non-linear", e.g. some earlier choices can result in branching. Either way the problem is the same - sacrifice on the consistency of the "big picture" (outline of the page/tab + location of buttons), or the consistency of details (some tabs might be somewhat packed; others having very little content). A third choice, I suppose is putting extra effort in the content in order to make sure that organizing the content such that it is more or less evenly distributed from page to page. However, this can be difficult to do (say, when the very first tab contains only a choice of three things, and then branches off from there; there are probably other examples), and hard to maintain this balance if any of the content changes later. Can you recommend a good approach? A link to a relevant good blog post or a chapter of a book is also welcome. Let me know if you have questions.

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• Best setup/workflow for distributed team to integrated DSVC with fragmented huge .NET site?

  - by lazfish

  So we have a team with 2 developers one manager. The dev server sits in a home office and the live server sits in a rack somewhere handled by the larger part of my company. We have freedom to do as we please but I want to incorporate Kiln DSVC and FogBugz for us with some standard procedures to make sense of our decisions/designs/goals. Our main product is web-based training through our .NET site with many videos etc, and we also do mobile apps for multiple platforms. Our code-base is a 15 yr old fragmented mess. The approach has been rogue .asp/.aspx pages with some class management implemented in the last 6 years. We still mix our html/vb/js all on the same file when we add a feature/page to our site. We do not separate the business logic from the rest of the code. Wiring anything up in VS for Intelli-sense or testing or any other benefit is more frustrating than it is worth, because of having to manually rejigger everything back to one file. How do other teams approach this? I noticed when I did wire everything up for VS it wants to make a class for all functions. Do people normally compile DLLs for page-specific functions that won't be reusable? What approaches make sense for getting our practices under control while still being able to fix old anti-patterns and outdated code and still moving towards a logical structure for future devs to build on?

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• Dynamic Strategy Pattern [migrated]

  - by Karl Barker

  So I'm writing a web service architecture which includes FunctionProvider classes which do the actual processing of requests, and a main Endpoint class which receives and delegates requests to the proper FunctionProvider. I don't know exactly the FunctionProviders available at runtime, so I need to be able to 'register' (if that's the right word) them with my main Endpoint class, and query them to see if they match an incoming request. public class MyFunc implements FunctionProvider{ static { MyEndpoint.register(MyFunc); } public Boolean matchesRequest(Request req){...} public void processRequest(Request req){...} } public class MyEndpoint{ private static ArrayList<FunctionProvider> functions = new ArrayList<FunctionProvider>(); public void register(Class clz){ functions.add(clz); } public void doPost(Request request){ //find the FunctionProvider in functions //matching the request } } I've really not done much reflective Java like this (and the above is likely wrong, but hopefully demonstrates my intentions). What's the nicest way to implement this without getting hacky?

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• Is there a colloquial term for the web dev equivalent of "Script Kiddies"? [on hold]

  - by Darkcat Studios

  I recently came across a couple of lets say "young people" who were convinced that they were "Web Developers", despite the fact that they were only able to configure a wordpress template, and not even able to edit images properly. So this got me thinking, "back in the day" kids who thought they were hackers but just ran other peoples scripts they had found, were known as Script Kiddies. Do we have a term for these yet?

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• Should I use my real name in my open source project?

  - by Jardo

  I developed a few freeware programs in the past which I had signed with my pseudonym Jardo. I'm now planning to release my first open source project and was thinking of using my full real name in the project files (as the "author"). I thought it would be good to use my name as my "trademark" so if someone (perhaps a future headhunter) googles my name, they'll find my projects. But on the other side, I feel a bit paranoid about disclosing my name (in the least case I could be getting a lot of spam to my email, its not that hard to guess your private email from your name). What do you think can be "dangerous" on disclosing your full name? What are the pros and cons? Do you use your real name or a pseudonym in your projects? I read this question: What are the advantages and disadvantages to using your real name online? but that doesn't apply to me bacause it's about using your real name online (internet discussions, profiles, etc.) where I personally see no reason to use my real name... And there is also this question: Copyrighting software, templates, etc. under real name or screen name? which deals with creating a business or a brand which also doesn't apply to me because I will never sell/give away my open source project and if someone else joins in, they can write their name as co-author without any problems...

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• Separating Db from business with Inherited classes using multiple views

  - by catalinux

  I have a software that has a car model that will be used in different views (listing, ads, detail page, carousel, up sell widget,etc). class CarModel extends DbModel{ } I look for a "nice way" (a combination of flexible, easy to maintain,etc) to have this used in views. I'm thinking at two different ways Having object views for each context CarViewBase{ var car;// of type CarModel function constructor(args){ //will instantienta internal variable car based on args } function getThumb(){ } function getTitle(){ } } CarListingView extends CarViewBase{ function getListing(){ } } CarAdsView extends CarViewBase{ //the busines rule changes for ads widget function getThumb(){ } } Extending directly the CarModel The challenges comes when My Car Model might need an abstract factory. Let's say I have a field on my car object that states the type of the car : a truck, or a bike, or van. How would affect that my object view? Let's say that getTitle() rule would be different for each type of it. How would you do it?

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• What's is the point of PImpl pattern while we can use interface for same purpose in C++?

  - by ZijingWu

  I see a lot of source code which using PIMPL idiom in C++. I assume Its purposes are hidden the private data/type/implementation, so it can resolve dependence, and then reduce compile time and header include issue. But interface class in C++ also have this capability, it can also used to hidden data/type and implementation. And to hidden let the caller just see the interface when create object, we can add an factory method in it declaration in interface header. The comparison is: Cost: The interface way cost is lower, because you doesn't even need to repeat the public wrapper function implementation void Bar::doWork() { return m_impl->doWork(); }, you just need to define the signature in the interface. Well understand: The interface technology is more well understand by every C++ developer. Performance: Interface way performance not worse than PIMPL idiom, both an extra memory access. I assume the performance is same. Following is the pseudocode code to illustrate my question: // Forward declaration can help you avoid include BarImpl header, and those included in BarImpl header. class BarImpl; class Bar { public: // public functions void doWork(); private: // You doesn't need to compile Bar.cpp after change the implementation in BarImpl.cpp BarImpl* m_impl; }; The same purpose can be implement using interface: // Bar.h class IBar { public: virtual ~IBar(){} // public functions virtual void doWork() = 0; }; // to only expose the interface instead of class name to caller IBar* createObject(); So what's the point of PIMPL?

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• How does process of updating code with Continous Integration work?

  - by BleakCabalist

  I want to draw a model of process of updating the source code with the use of Continous Integration. The main issue is I don't really understand how it works when there are several programmers working on various aspects of the code at the same time. I can't visualize it in my mind. Here's what I know but I might be wrong: New code is sent to repository. Continous Integration server asks Version Control System if there is a new code in repository. If there is than CIS executes tests on the code. If tests show there are problems than CIS orders VCS to revert back to working wersion of the code and communicates it to programmer. If tests are passed positively it compiles the repository code and makes new build of a game? New build is made not after ever single change, but at the end of the day I believe? Are my assumptions above correct? If yes, does it also work when there are several programmers updating repository at once? Is this enough to draw a model of the process in your opinions or did I miss something? Also, what software would I need for above process? Can you guys give examples for CIS software and VCS software and whatever else I need? Does CIS software perform code tests or do I need another tool for that and integrate it with CIS? Is there a repository software?

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• Classless tables possible with Datamapper?

  - by barerd

  I have an Item class with the following attributes: itemId,name,weight,volume,price,required_skills,required_items. Since the last two attributes are going to be multivalued, I removed them and create new schemes like: itemID,required_skill (itemID is foreign key, itemID and required_skill is primary key.) Now, I'm confused how to create/use this new table. Here are the options that came to my mind: 1) The relationship between Items and Required_skills is one-to-many, so I may create a RequiredSkill class, which belongs_to Item, which in turn has n RequiredSkills. Then I can do Item.get(1).requiredskills. This sounds most logical to me. 2) Since required_skills may well be thought of as constants (since they resemble rules), I may put them into a hash or gdbm database or another sql table and query from there, which I don't prefer. My question is: is there sth like a modelless table in datamapper, where datamapper is responsible from the creation and integrity of the table and allows me to query it in datamapper way, but does not require a class, like I may do it in sql?

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• Creating a Predicate Builder extension method

  - by Rippo

  I have a Kendo UI Grid that I am currently allowing filtering on multiple columns. I am wondering if there is a an alternative approach removing the outer switch statement? Basically I want to able to create an extension method so I can filter on a IQueryable<T> and I want to drop the outer case statement so I don't have to switch column names. private static IQueryable<Contact> FilterContactList(FilterDescriptor filter, IQueryable<Contact> contactList) { switch (filter.Member) { case "Name": switch (filter.Operator) { case FilterOperator.StartsWith: contactList = contactList.Where(w => w.Firstname.StartsWith(filter.Value.ToString()) || w.Lastname.StartsWith(filter.Value.ToString()) || (w.Firstname + " " + w.Lastname).StartsWith(filter.Value.ToString())); break; case FilterOperator.Contains: contactList = contactList.Where(w => w.Firstname.Contains(filter.Value.ToString()) || w.Lastname.Contains(filter.Value.ToString()) || (w.Firstname + " " + w.Lastname).Contains( filter.Value.ToString())); break; case FilterOperator.IsEqualTo: contactList = contactList.Where(w => w.Firstname == filter.Value.ToString() || w.Lastname == filter.Value.ToString() || (w.Firstname + " " + w.Lastname) == filter.Value.ToString()); break; } break; case "Company": switch (filter.Operator) { case FilterOperator.StartsWith: contactList = contactList.Where(w => w.Company.StartsWith(filter.Value.ToString())); break; case FilterOperator.Contains: contactList = contactList.Where(w => w.Company.Contains(filter.Value.ToString())); break; case FilterOperator.IsEqualTo: contactList = contactList.Where(w => w.Company == filter.Value.ToString()); break; } break; } return contactList; } Some additional information, I am using NHibernate Linq. Also another problem is that the "Name" column on my grid is actually "Firstname" + " " + "LastName" on my contact entity. We can also assume that all filterable columns will be strings.

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• Chapters Two, Three, and Four

  - by drsql

  I am trying to blog all of the chapters of the book, but due to deadlines and a lot of shuffling about, I never got around it for these three chapters, two of which I have added since I wrote the original table of contents. All of these contain mostly material from previous editions of the book, updated a good amount, but nothing tremendously different if you had memorized the material from the previous edition. As such, the pre-writing blog ritual wasn’t as necessary (for me at least) as it is going...(read more)

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• Do open world games need less backstory?

  - by Raceimaztion

  I've played a few open-world games and really enjoyed them, though the ones I've really enjoyed have generally received complaints about how little story there is to them. The Saboteur is one example of this. Fully open-world, good enough story (for me, anyway), engaging gameplay, and still has received complaints in reviews about not having enough story. Do open-world games actually need a full, all-encompassing story? Or can fun and engaging gameplay fill in the gap and let the designer get away with a slightly less complete story?

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• Can a domain specific language be used to representing the Open SRD

  - by NeoModulus

  I am in the early stages of creating an open source C# library that would allow developers to drop in the open SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/) into an existing project. Abstracted it is a complex set of tightly coupled business rules. Having previously worked on an adaptive object model project for health care risk management I began with that pattern in mind. Due to the high coupling of rules it is becoming apparent that the project may require some kind of scripting. Have started researching DSL implementation I am now considering scraping the adaptive object model for a domain specific language. I have not work with domain specific languages so my question is it reasonable to assume a domain specific language can be used to representing the open SRD?

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• Where can I find a Script for a crowdfunding website? [closed]

  - by Lincedit

  Possible Duplicate: crowd funding platform? I am looking for a project for a script (PHP/MySql) that provides me the functionality of a crowdfunding website. There are many scripts which should be usable, but I need maybe some scripts for Joomla CMS or any other kind of opensource CMS Websites. I checked all the Resources on Google and could not find some kind of this scripts, because there are no German language installed or prepared for multilingual websites. It is non profit project and I am just looking for any kind of advices, which can be helpfull to me. I hope you can help me here. Please send me some information about some scripts which are running? Many Thanks

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• What is the preferred pattern when attaching a 'runtime object'?

  - by sebf

  In my application I have the following: public class NeatObject { /* lots of static data, and configuration flags */ } public class NeatObjectConsumer { void DoCleverStuffWithObjectOnGPU(NeatObject obj); } Where NeatObject and its consumer are used to control the GPU. The idea being that, the configuration of an instance of NeatObject and its members, define how the consumer instance behaves. The object can be passed around, edited, and most importantly serialised/deserialised by the application, with and without knowledge of NeatObjectConsumer, then provided back to the consumer to do something else. The purpose of this seperation is: The consumer manages hardware resources, which change depending on the computer, and even on the execution of the application, making preserving the state of an object which does everything difficult. Avoids circular references if the assembly that contains the consumer needs to reference one that only needs to know about NeatObject. However, there is a complication in that the consumer creates hardware resources and needs to associate them with NeatObject. These don't need to be preserved, but still need to be retrieved. DoCleverStuffWithObjectOnGPU() will be called many, many times during execution and so any bottleneck is a concern, therefore I would like to avoid dictionary lookups. What is the preferred method of attaching this information to NeatObject? By preferred, I mean intuitive - other coders can see immediately what is going on - and robust - method doesn't invite playing with the resources or present them in such a way as to make them easily corruptible. Essentially, I want to add my own metadata - how should I do it? Try to use 'actual metadata' functionality like Reflection? A member of the type of an abstract class? Unmanaged pointers? If you took on a project that used this pattern, what would you have liked the previous developer to do?

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• Complex, yet simple crafting system model

  - by KatShot

  I'm working on some arcade shooter/slasher, and the main logline is "Kick'em with everything you want". There's not so many enemies in GDD, main focus is on tons of weapons and gadgets to cause mayhem. To get weapon, you need to craft it, and now crafting system looks simple, like: 1) You got three slots for weapon parts (like A, B, C) 2) You collect misc weapon parts, and when you got atleast one for every slot, you can craft a weapon (for example, if you got A1, B1, B2, B3 and C1, you can craft such models - A1B1C1, A1B2C1, A1B3C1) As for me, this crafting system is too simple, because weapon parts will just fall from the top of screen, often enough. That's why I'm thinking about adding some more crafting system levels, like resources (collect 10 scrap pieces to make part A1 or C3), etc. My question is: How can i add some more complex, still simple, transparent levels in crafting system? upd. For example, in Minecraft or Terraria, first 5-10 crafting recipies quite transparent and simple IMHO. But then it turns into huge mess to understand, how to craft this or that (for example, fishing rod)

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• What kind of programs/solutions can only be written with OOP or are too hard to achieve without it?

  - by user1598390

  Paraphrasing a recent question: What is Object Oriented Programming ill-suited for? I would like to ask the opposite question: What kind of programs cannot be written unless you use OOP? What kind of programs are not recommended to be written using non-OOP techniques? What kind of programs need OOP in order to even be written? What kind of programs would be too hard to write without OOP ? The answer to this question can help sell the idea of OOP to project leaders that have no special interest in code quality. At least they could buy the idea if one shows them the kind of things that are not even possible unless you use OOP.

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