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  • Techniques for separating game model from presentation

    - by liortal
    I am creating a simple 2D game using XNA. The elements that make up the game world are what i refer to as the "model". For instance, in a board game, i would have a GameBoard class that stores information about the board. This information could be things such as: Location Size Details about cells on the board (occupied/not occupied) etc This object should either know how to draw itself, or describe how to draw itself to some other entity (renderer) in order to be displayed. I believe that since the board only contains the data+logic for things regarding it or cells on it, it should not provide the logic of how to draw things (separation of concerns). How can i achieve a good partitioning and easily allow some other entity to draw it properly? My motivations for doing so are: Allow multiple "implementations" of presentation for a single game entity Easier porting to other environments where the presentation code is not available (for example - porting my code to Unity or other game technology that does not rely on XNA).

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  • How to shift development culture from tech fetish to focusing on simplicity and getting things done?

    - by Serge
    Looking for ways to switch team/individual culture from chasing latest fads, patterns, and all kinds of best practices to focusing on finding quickest and simplest solutions and shipping features. My definition of "tech fetish": Chasing latest fads, applying new technologies and best practices without considering product/project impact, focusing on micro optimization, creating platforms and frameworks instead of finding simple and quick ways to ship product features. Few examples of culture differences: From "Spent a day on trying to map database query with five complex joins in NHibernate" to "Wrote a SQL query and used DataReader to pull data in" From "Wrote super-fast JSON parser in C++" to "Used Python to parse JSON response and call C++ code" From "Let's use WCF because it supports all possible communication standards" to "REST is simple text-based format, let's stick with it and use simple HTTP handlers"

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  • Are there currently any modern, standardized, aptitude test for software engineering?

    - by Matthew Patrick Cashatt
    Background I am a working software engineer who is in the midst of seeking out a new contract for the next year or so. In my search, I am enduring several absurd technical interviews as indicated by this popular question I asked earlier today. Even if the questions I was being asked weren't almost always absurd, I would be tired nonetheless of answering them many times over for various contract opportunities. So this got me thinking that having a standardized exam that working software professionals could take would provide a common scorecard that could be referenced by interviewers in lieu of absurd technical interview questions (i.e. nerd hazing). Question Is there a standardized software engineering aptitude test (SEAT??) available for working professionals to take? If there isn't a such an exam out there, what questions or topics should be covered? An additional thought Please keep in mind, if suggesting a question or topic, to focus on questions or topics that would be relevant to contemporary development practices and realistic needs in the workforce as that would be the point of a standard aptitude test. In other words, no clown traversal questions.

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  • Where can I find game postmortems with a programmer perspective [on hold]

    - by Ken
    There are a number of interesting game post-mortems in places like GDC vault or gamastura.com. The post-mortems are generally give with a CEO/manager perspective or a designer perspective, or, more often a combination of both e.g DOOM postmortem But I have not been able to find many post-mortems which are primarily from the programmers perspective. I'm looking for discussions and rational for technical choices and tradeoffs and how technical problems were overcome. The motivation here is to learn what kind of problems real game programmers encounter and how they go about solving them. A perfect example of what I'm looking for is Renaud Bédard's excellent GDC talk on the development of Fez, "Cubes all the way down". Where can I find more like that?

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  • Is it bad practice to output from within a function?

    - by Nick
    For example, should I be doing something like: <?php function output_message($message,$type='success') { ?> <p class="<?php echo $type; ?>"><?php echo $message; ?></p> <?php } output_message('There were some errors processing your request','error'); ?> or <?php function output_message($message,$type='success') { ob_start(); ?> <p class="<?php echo $type; ?>"><?php echo $message; ?></p> <?php return ob_get_clean(); } echo output_message('There were some errors processing your request','error'); ?> I understand they both achieve the same end result, but are there benefits doing one way over the other? Or does it not even matter?

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  • What problems can arise from emulating concepts from another languages?

    - by Vandell
    I've read many times on the web that if your language doesn't support some concept, for example, object orientation, or maybe function calls, and it's considered a good practice in this other context, you should do it. The only problem I can see now is that other programmers may find your code too different than the usual, making it hard for them to program. What other problems do you think may arise from this?

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  • Sorting objects before rendering

    - by dreta
    I'm trying to implement a scene graph and in all the articles i've come across there is talk about object sorting. So you'd sort your objects by "material" for example. Now untill i sat down and started implementing it, i kind of took this for granted, because it made sense. But now i'm wondering what does sorting actually change? In my engine, i have a manager for UBOs, i use those to store data that'll be shared between programs, at the moment that only involves time, camera and projection matrices and lights (i'm not worrying about managing which lights affect which objects ATM). Now for each model i have to change the model to world matrix uniform, no sorting is going to change that. So is the jump from changing this matrix to also setting a material for each object that bad? I vaguely remember reading somewhere that each time you change something in the pipeline, it has to get flushed and that can cause performance issues. But for each drawing call i'm setting up a model to world matrix anyway, so what sense does it make to ever be concerned about this? BTW is there any information about whether changing a uniform and calling glBufferSubData is more (or less) expensive.

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  • Learning good OOP design & unlearning some bad habits

    - by Nick
    I have been mostly a C programmer so far in my career with knowledge of C++. I rely on C++ mostly for the convenience STL provides and I hardly ever focus on good design practices. As I have started to look for a new job position, this bad habit of mine has come back to haunt me. During the interviews, I have been asked to design a problem (like chess, or some other scenario) using OOP and I doing really badly at that (I came to know this through feedback from one interview). I tried to google stuff and came up with so many opinions and related books that I don't know where to begin. I need a good through introduction to OOP design with which I can learn practical design, not just theory. Can you point me to any book which meets my requirements ? I prefer C++, but any other language is fine as long as I can pick-up good practices. Also, I know that books can only go so far. I would also appreciate any good practice project ideas that helped you learn and improve your OOP concepts. Thanks.

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  • Make a flowchart to demonstrate closure behavior

    - by thomas
    I saw below test question the other day in which the author's used a flow chart to represent the logic of loops. And I got to thinking it would be interesting to do this with some more complex logic. For example, the closure in this IIFE sort of boggles me. while (i <= qty_of_gets) { // needs an IIFE (function(i) promise = promise.then(function(){ return $.get("queries/html/" + product_id + i + ".php"); }); }(i++)); } I wonder if seeing a flowchart representation of what happens in it could be more elucidating. Could such a thing be done? Would it be helpful? Or just messy? I haven't the foggiest clue where to start, but thought maybe someone would like to take a stab. Probably all the ajax could go and it could just be a simple return within the IIFE.

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  • Should I use AND or should I use OR

    - by BDotA
    An order can be in the "status" of Completed, Corrected or some other stratus. I saw some code that is checking it like this, the purpose is to disable some stuff when the status is in Completed or Corrected status. if (model.CurrentStatus != DSRHelper.OrderStatusEnum.Complete && model.CurrentStatus != DSRHelper.OrderStatusEnum.Corrected) I can't get it why the engineer has used "AND" for this, shouldn't it be an "OR"?

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  • How do I print values of an array in Three Rows?

    - by Ramkumar
    I need this output.. 1 3 5 2 4 6 I want to use array function like array(1,2,3,4,5,6). If I edit this array like array(1,2,3), it means the output need to show like 1 2 3 The concept is maximum 3 column only. If we give array(1,2,3,4,5), it means the output should be 1 3 5 2 4 Suppose we will give array(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9), then it means output is 1 4 7 2 5 8 3 6 9 that is, maximum 3 column only. Depends upon the the given input, the rows will be created with 3 columns. Is this possible with PHP? I am doing small Research & Development in array functions. I think this is possible. Will you help me? For more info: * input: array(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15) * output: 1 6 11 2 7 12 3 8 13 4 9 14 5 10 15

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  • What are your worst experiences with whitespace?

    - by CheeseConQueso
    What are some good examples of whitespace being the cause of any type of error and/or total disruption of scripts and/or markups? I am more interested in any accounts related to languages that are used commonly today, but I would like to hear about any cases in general. PS - This should be a wiki, but I don't know what happened to the "make this a wiki" check box. If someone comes across this with the rights to set it as a "wiki", please do so. If SO decided they wanted to keep away from wiki's altogether, please comment me about that. Thanks

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  • How Does The Maybe Monad Relate To The Option Type?

    - by Onorio Catenacci
    I was doing a presentation on F# and was discussing the Option type when someone in the audience asked me if the Option type is F#'s implementation of the maybe monad. I know that's not the case but I did want to ask how the two concepts are related. I mean it seems to me that an option type might be the result of the operation of a maybe monad but I'm not even sure of that. Would someone elucidate the relationship between the maybe monad and the option type in those functional languages which support it?

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  • LOD in modern games

    - by Firas Assaad
    I'm currently working on my master's thesis about LOD and mesh simplification, and I've been reading many academic papers and articles about the subject. However, I can't find enough information about how LOD is being used in modern games. I know many games use some sort of dynamic LOD for terrain, but what about elsewhere? Level of Detail for 3D Graphics for example points out that discrete LOD (where artists prepare several models in advance) is widely used because of the performance overhead of continuous LOD. That book was published in 2002 however, and I'm wondering if things are different now. There has been some research in performing dynamic LOD using the geometry shader (this paper for example, with its implementation in ShaderX6), would that be used in a modern game? To summarize, my question is about the state of LOD in modern video games, what algorithms are used and why? In particular, is view dependent continuous simplification used or does the runtime overhead make using discrete models with proper blending and impostors a more attractive solution? If discrete models are used, is an algorithm used (e.g. vertex clustering) to generate them offline, do artists manually create the models, or perhaps a combination of both methods is used?

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  • BDD: Getting started

    - by thom
    I'm starting with BDD and this is my story: Feature: Months and days to days In order to see months and days as days As a date conversion fan I need a webpage where users can enter days and months and convert them to days. I have some doubts ... Should I write my scenarios before coding anything or should I first write a scenario and then write code, write a scenario again and then write code, and so on ... ? If I should write my scenarios before, can my steps be approved and production code still does not get done? When should I do refactoring on my code? After the feature is done or after each scenario implementation?

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  • Single or multiple return statements in a function [on hold]

    - by Juan Carlos Coto
    When writing a function that can have several different return values, particularly when different branches of code return different values, what is the cleanest or sanest way of returning? Please note the following are really contrived examples meant only to illustrate different styles. Example 1: Single return def my_function(): if some_condition: return_value = 1 elif another_condition: return_value = 2 else: return_value = 3 return return_value Example 2: Multiple returns def my_function(): if some_condition: return 1 elif another_condition: return 2 else: return 3 The second example seems simpler and is perhaps more readable. The first one, however, might describe the overall logic a bit better (the conditions affect the assignment of the value, not whether it's returned or not). Is the second way preferable to the first? Why?

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  • Why Nodes.js being that "unique"?

    - by Adrian Shum
    Recently years there are lots of praise to Nodes.js. I am not a developer that have much exposure on network application. From my bare understanding of Nodes.js, its strength is: We are having only on thread handling multiple connections, providing a event-based architecture. However, for example in Java, what if I am having only one thread, using NIO/AIO (which is non-blocking APIs from my bare understanding), and handle multiple connections using that thread, and I provide an event-based architecture to implement the data handling logic (shouldn't be that difficult by providing some callback etc) ? Given JVM being a even more mature VM than V8 (I expect it run faster too), and event-based handling architecture seems not something difficult to create. I am not sure why Nodes.js is attracting so much attention. Did I miss some important points?

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  • How should bots be recognised in a game?

    - by Bane
    I'm interested in how bots are usually written. Here's my situation: I plan to make an online 2D mecha game in HTML5, and the server-side will be done with node. It is intended to be multiplayer, but I also want to make bots in case there aren't enough players. How does my game logic see them, as players or as bots? Is there a standard by which I should make them? Also, any general tips and hints will be OK.

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  • Objects won't render when Texture Compression + Mipmapping is Enabled

    - by felipedrl
    I'm optimizing my game and I've just implemented compressed (DXTn) texture loading in OpenGL. I've worked my way removing bugs but I can't figure out this one: objects w/ DXTn + mipmapped textures are not being rendered. It's not like they are appearing with a flat color, they just don't appear at all. DXTn textured objs render and mipmapped non-compressed textures render just fine. The texture in question is 256x256 I generate the mips all the way down 4x4, i.e 1 block. I've checked on gDebugger and it display all the levels (7) just fine. I'm using GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST for min filter and GL_LINEAR for mag one. The texture is being compressed and mipmaps being created offline with Paint.NET tool using super sampling method. (I also tried bilinear just in case) Source follow: [SNIPPET 1: Loading DDS into sys memory + Initializing Object] // Read header DDSHeader header; file.read(reinterpret_cast<char*>(&header), sizeof(DDSHeader)); uint pos = static_cast<uint>(file.tellg()); file.seekg(0, std::ios_base::end); uint dataSizeInBytes = static_cast<uint>(file.tellg()) - pos; file.seekg(pos, std::ios_base::beg); // Read file data mData = new unsigned char[dataSizeInBytes]; file.read(reinterpret_cast<char*>(mData), dataSizeInBytes); file.close(); mMipmapCount = header.mipmapcount; mHeight = header.height; mWidth = header.width; mCompressionType = header.pf.fourCC; // Only support files divisible by 4 (for compression blocks algorithms) massert(mWidth % 4 == 0 && mHeight % 4 == 0); massert(mCompressionType == NO_COMPRESSION || mCompressionType == COMPRESSION_DXT1 || mCompressionType == COMPRESSION_DXT3 || mCompressionType == COMPRESSION_DXT5); // Allow textures up to 65536x65536 massert(header.mipmapcount <= MAX_MIPMAP_LEVELS); mTextureFilter = TextureFilter::LINEAR; if (mMipmapCount > 0) { mMipmapFilter = MipmapFilter::NEAREST; } else { mMipmapFilter = MipmapFilter::NO_MIPMAP; } mBitsPerPixel = header.pf.bitcount; if (mCompressionType == NO_COMPRESSION) { if (header.pf.flags & DDPF_ALPHAPIXELS) { // The only format supported w/ alpha is A8R8G8B8 massert(header.pf.amask == 0xFF000000 && header.pf.rmask == 0xFF0000 && header.pf.gmask == 0xFF00 && header.pf.bmask == 0xFF); mInternalFormat = GL_RGBA8; mFormat = GL_BGRA; mDataType = GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE; } else { massert(header.pf.rmask == 0xFF0000 && header.pf.gmask == 0xFF00 && header.pf.bmask == 0xFF); mInternalFormat = GL_RGB8; mFormat = GL_BGR; mDataType = GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE; } } else { uint blockSizeInBytes = 16; switch (mCompressionType) { case COMPRESSION_DXT1: blockSizeInBytes = 8; if (header.pf.flags & DDPF_ALPHAPIXELS) { mInternalFormat = GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT1_EXT; } else { mInternalFormat = GL_COMPRESSED_RGB_S3TC_DXT1_EXT; } break; case COMPRESSION_DXT3: mInternalFormat = GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT3_EXT; break; case COMPRESSION_DXT5: mInternalFormat = GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT5_EXT; break; default: // Not Supported (DXT2, DXT4 or any compression format) massert(false); } } [SNIPPET 2: Uploading into video memory] massert(mData != NULL); glGenTextures(1, &mHandle); massert(mHandle!=0); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, mHandle); commitFiltering(); uint offset = 0; Renderer* renderer = Renderer::getInstance(); switch (mInternalFormat) { case GL_RGB: case GL_RGBA: case GL_RGB8: case GL_RGBA8: for (uint i = 0; i < mMipmapCount + 1; ++i) { uint width = std::max(1U, mWidth >> i); uint height = std::max(1U, mHeight >> i); glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, i, mInternalFormat, width, height, mHasBorder, mFormat, mDataType, &mData[offset]); offset += width * height * (mBitsPerPixel / 8); } break; case GL_COMPRESSED_RGB_S3TC_DXT1_EXT: case GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT1_EXT: case GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT3_EXT: case GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT5_EXT: { uint blockSize = 16; if (mInternalFormat == GL_COMPRESSED_RGB_S3TC_DXT1_EXT || mInternalFormat == GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT1_EXT) { blockSize = 8; } uint width = mWidth; uint height = mHeight; for (uint i = 0; i < mMipmapCount + 1; ++i) { uint nBlocks = ((width + 3) / 4) * ((height + 3) / 4); // Only POT textures allowed for mipmapping massert(width % 4 == 0 && height % 4 == 0); glCompressedTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, i, mInternalFormat, width, height, mHasBorder, nBlocks * blockSize, &mData[offset]); offset += nBlocks * blockSize; if (width <= 4 && height <= 4) { break; } width = std::max(4U, width / 2); height = std::max(4U, height / 2); } break; } default: // Not Supported massert(false); } Also I don't understand the "+3" in the block size computation but looking for a solution for my problema I've encountered people defining it as that. I guess it won't make a differente for POT textures but I put just in case. Thanks.

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  • Integrated ads in phone apps - how to avoid wasting battery?

    - by Jarede
    Considering the PCWorld review that came out in March: Free Android Apps Packed with Ads are Major Battery Drains ...Researchers from Purdue University in collaboration with Microsoft claim that third-party advertising in free smartphone apps can be responsible for as much as 65 percent to 75 percent of an app's energy consumption... Is there a best practice for integrating advert support into mobile applications, so as to not drain user battery too much? ...When you fire up Angry Birds on your Android phone, the researchers found that the core gaming component only consumes about 18 percent of total app energy. The biggest battery suck comes from the software powering third-party ads and analytics accounting for 45 percent of total app energy, according to the study... Has anyone invoked better ways of keeping away from the "3G Tail", as the report puts it? Is it better/possible to download a large set of adverts that are cached for a few hours, and using them to populate your ad space, to avoid constant use of the Wi-Fi/3G radios? Are there any best practices for the inclusion of adverts in mobile apps?

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  • I want to be a programmer! [closed]

    - by Mohamed Abd El Maged
    I am a doctor. I have a bachelor of medicine and general surgery. I want to change my career and work as a programmer in big companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, ... this is my dream ! I haven't got any degree in IT or Computer science. The question here is: Is it possible to achieve my dream and work as professional programmer in the future? Another question: if applicable, which certifications should I strive to get?

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  • How to implement child-parent aggregation link in C++?

    - by Giorgio
    Suppose that I have three classes P, C1, C2, composition (strong aggregation) relations between P <>- C1 and P <>- C2, i.e. every instance of P contains an instance of C1 and an instance of C2, which are destroyed when the parent P instance is destroyed. an association relation between instances of C1 and C2 (not necessarily between children of the same P). To implement this, in C++ I normally define three classes P, C1, C2, define two member variables of P of type boost::shared_ptr<C1>, boost::shared_ptr<C2>, and initialize them with newly created objects in P's constructor, implement the relation between C1 and C2 using a boost::weak_ptr<C2> member variable in C1 and a boost::weak_ptr<C1> member variable in C2 that can be set later via appropriate methods, when the relation is established. Now, I also would like to have a link from each C1 and C2 object to its P parent object. What is a good way to implement this? My current idea is to use a simple constant raw pointer (P * const) that is set from the constructor of P (which, in turn, calls the constructors of C1 and C2), i.e. something like: class C1 { public: C1(P * const p, ...) : paren(p) { ... } private: P * const parent; ... }; class P { public: P(...) : childC1(new C1(this, ...)) ... { ... } private: boost::shared_ptr<C1> childC1; ... }; Honestly I see no risk in using a private constant raw pointer in this way but I know that raw pointers are often frowned upon in C++ so I was wondering if there is an alternative solution.

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  • Is it bad practice to call a controller action from a view that was rendered by another controller?

    - by marco-fiset
    Let's say I have an OrderController which handles orders. The user adds products to it through the view, and then the final price gets calculated through an AJAX call to a controller action. The price calculation logic is implemented in a seperate class and used in a controller action. What happens is that I have many views from different controllers that need to use that particular action. I'd like to have some kind of a PriceController that I could call an action on. But then the view would have to know about that PriceController and call an action on it. Is it bad practice for a view to call an action on a different controller from which it was rendered?

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  • Maximum Length Of IP Address: 15 (IPv4) & 39(IPv6)

    - by Gopinath
    Problem You are designing a database table for a web application that requires to store IP address of users who visits the site. The IP address is required to be stored a character data in the table. To define size of the character column you need to know maximum length of IP address. So, what is the maximum length of an IP address? Solution The IPv4 version of IP address is in the following format 255.255.255.255 To store IPv4 address we require 15 characters. The IPv6 version of IP address is grouped into sets of 4 hex digits separated by colons, like the below 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 To store IPv6 address you require a 39 characters long column. Conclusion As IPv4 and IPv6 are the commonly use protocols, you better define a column with 39 characters length so that both the format address are saved in to the table without any issues. This article titled,Maximum Length Of IP Address: 15 (IPv4) & 39(IPv6), was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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  • Should I forward the a call to .Equals onto .Equals<T>?

    - by Jaimal Chohan
    So, I've got you bog standard c# object, overriding Equalsand implementing IEquatable public override int GetHashCode() { return _name.GetHashCode(); } public override bool Equals(object obj) { return Equals(obj as Tag) } #region IEquatable<Tag> Members public bool Equals(Tag other) { if (other == null) return false; else return _name == other._name; } #endregion Now, for some reason, I used to think that forwarding the calls from Equals into Equals was bad, no idea why, perhaps I read it a long time ago, anyway I'd write separate (but logically same) code for each method. Now I think forwarding Equals to Equals is okay, for obvious reasons, but for the life me I can't remember why I thought it wasn't before. Any thoughts?

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