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• Help deciding on language for a complex desktop - web application

  - by user967834

  I'm about to start working on a fairly complex project needing a desktop GUI as well as a web interface and I need to decide on a language(s) to use. This is from an electrical engineering/robotics background. These are the requirements: Program will have to read data from multiple sensors and inputs (motion sensor, temperature sensor, capacitive sensor, infrared, magnetic sensors, etc) through a port on a computer - so either through USB or ethernet. Program will have to be able to send control signals based on this input. Program will have to continuously monitor all input signals at all times - so realtime data. Program will require authentication. Program will need to be controllable from a web interface from anywhere via logging in to a website. Web interface will also need to have realtime feedback once authenticated. What language do you think would best accomplish this? I was thinking maybe saving everything into a database which can be accessed by both the desktop and web app? And would Python be able to do all of this? Or something like a remote desktop app? I know this is a complex project but let's assume I can learn any language. Has anyone done something like this and if so how did you accomplish it?

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• What is wrong with my logic for the divide and conquer algorithm for Closest pair problem?

  - by Programming Noob

  I have been following Coursera's course on Algorithms and came up with a thought about the divide/conquer algorithm for the closest pair problem, that I want clarified. As per Prof Roughgarden's algorithm (which you can see here if you're interested): For a given set of points P, of which we have two copies - sorted in X and Y direction - Px and Py, the algorithm can be given as closestPair(Px,Py): Divide points into left half - Q, and right half - R, and form sorted copies of both halves along x and y directions - Qx,Qy,Rx,Ry Let closestPair(Qx,Qy) be points p1 and q1 Let closestPair(Rx,Ry) be p2,q2 Let delta be minimum of dist(p1,q1) and dist(p2,q2) This is the unfortunate case, let p3,q3 be the closestSplitPair(Px,Py,delta) Return the best result Now, the clarification that I want is related to step 5. I should say this beforehand, that what I'm suggesting, is barely any improvement at all, but if you're still interested, read ahead. Prof R says that since the points are already sorted in X and Y directions, to find the best pair in step 5, we need to iterate over points in the strip of width 2*delta, starting from bottom to up, and in the inner loop we need only 7 comparisions. Can this be bettered to just one? How I think is possible seemed a little difficult to explain in plain text, so I drew a diagram and wrote it on paper and uploaded it here: Since no one else came up with is, I'm pretty sure there's some error in my line of thought. But I have literally been thinking about this for HOURS now, and I just HAD to post this. It's all that is in my head. Can someone point out where I'm going wrong?

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• Thoughts on exception handling.

  - by AndyScott

  Was working on a windows form app (something I haven't done in a while), adding threading and logging so that it would work a little more smoothly and have a record of who did what.  I was just about at the point where I was going to check it into source control when I noticed that the Output window was showing "A first chance exception of type 'System.InvalidCastException' occurred in mscorlib.dll", so I googled it.  In reading some threads about the error, I came across the following comment and it got me thinking: "In addition, while they should be avoided if possible, exceptions are a quite legitimate part of program execution. It's their going unhandled that is a real issue, because that means crashy, crashy." How do you normally use exception handling?  I feel that exceptions are intended to handle errors in code (in my experience generally related to bad data making its way into the system).  Now don't get me wrong, I understand that exceptions happen and should be dealt with, but I feel that they are a "last resort" to keep a program from crashing, but should never be a way to pass data or continue logical processing that could be handled in standard code flow. I mention this, because I have seen it done. What do you think?

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• Reporting Solution in PHP / CodeIgniter - Server side logic vs client side

  - by dot

  I'm building a report for an end user. They would like to see a list of all widgets... but then also like to see widgets with missing attributes, like missing names, or missing size. So i was thinking of creating one method that returns json data containing all widgets... and then using javascript to let them filter the data for missing data, instead of requerying the database. Ultimately, they need to be able to save all "reports" (filtered versions of data) inside a csv file. These are the two options I'm mulling over: Design 1 Create 3 separate methods in my controller/model like: get_all_data() get_records_with_missing_names() get_records_with_missing_size() And then when these methods are called, I would display the data on screen and give them a button to save to csv file. Design 2 Create one method called get_all_data() and then somehow, give them tools in the view to filter the json data using tables etc... and then letting them save subsets of the data. The reality is, in order to display all data, I still need to massage the data, and therefore, I know which records are missing attributes. So i'd rather not create separate methods by each filter. I'm not sure how I would do that just yet but at this point, i would like to know some pros/cons of each method. Thanks.

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• Architecture of a "website generator" web application

  - by Resorath

  What is the most maintainable and efficient way to architect a web application who's purpose is to host and generate websites which can be customized to a certain degree? There are a lot of these style of applications in the wild that generate all kinds of sites, from sites that host World of Warcraft guilds like guildlaunch to other sites like my wedding for wedding site hosting. My question is, what is the basic architecture that these sites operate on? I imagine there are two ways of thinking about this. A central set of code that all sites on the host run against, and it acts differently based on which site was visited. In this manner, when the base code is updated all sites are updated simultaneously. Or, the code for an individual site exists in a silo, and is simply replicated to a new directory each time a site is created. When an update needs to be applied, the code is pushed out to each site silo. In my case, I am working in PHP with the CodeIgniter framework, however the answer need not be limited to this case. Which method (if any) creates a more maintainable and efficient architecture to manage this style of web application?

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• Reduce weight in healthy way

  - by krnites

  This post is my daily summary of activities that I am going to take to reduce my overall weight by 15 lbs. I am not an overweight person as per my height of 5.11 I have decent weight of 178.4 and good body build. But from a long time(approx 3 month) I am thinking of getting 2-3 abs (note not 6 abs) and reducing my weight to below 170 ( which I was 2 years ago). This post will work as my daily diary of what I ate, what exercises I did, what apps/software I used to monitor my weight loss. Sometime it will not contain much information but some time when I will research will contain information for people who really want to reduce weight. My current target for next few week is to run 2.5 miles everyday under 30 minutes. Eat a lot of fruits and vegetable. No burger or tacos. No meat either fat or lean. And checking body weight after every four hour. Here are reading for today10:00 AM  - 178.22:00 PM    - 178.4I have already ran for 2 miles in 25 minutes, did a little bit of shoulder exercise and had eaten small bowl of vegetable biryani and two bread.I hope this post and all coming post will give the reader the first hand experience of a person who had read every blog and articles related to reducing weight and now trying to do it by implementing all of them by self. My approach will be a healthy way of reducing weight, I am not going to starve my self or going to eat only fruits all day. I will enjoy all the food item that I like to eat and will work hard on my body. This way I will / reduce the weight naturally and will increase the flexibility, durability and immunity of my system /body.

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• Software development company business plan

  - by Navi

  I apologize in advance if this is the wrong forum for this question, so please forward me to the right place. I have about 10 years professional experience as software developer. Mostly on the Java platform doing server side programs. I have picked up a bit of Linux skills on the way as well. I know HTML and Javascript, so I can make a website that would not be too ugly, but I am not going to win any prizes with it. In fact I think I am pretty terrible in the user interface department. My initial plan is to do Android development. I read a few Android books and tried making a few apps. Since it is Java based I think I got the technical side down. Lately I have been thinking about iphone and Mac development, because of the relevant app store/development programs. The trouble is I don't know Objective C. As a side question, how long would it take me to become proficient in Objective C? Considering that I am working on my own and could hire somebody to help me for a short time for low wages if necessary what are my options? What are the pro and cons of the development programs app stores of Android and Apple? Which development/app stores are out there beside the ones I mentioned? Do you think it is necessary to find funds to get me started or should I just use my savings? If you have positive/negative experiences in a similar situations can you please share them? Thanks for your help.

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-09-26

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Oracle Introduces Free Version of Oracle Application Development Framework Several community bloggers have already written about Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Essentials, the free version of Oracle ADF. Here's the official press release. ADF Essentials - Quick Technical Review | Andrejus Baranovskis "This post is just a quick review for ADF Essentials on Glassfish," says Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis. "I will do a proper performance test soon to compare ADF performance on 5 ways to think like a cloud architect | ZDNet "Is enterprise architecture ready for the cloud? Is the cloud ready for EA?" Joe McKendrick asks. "Cloud represents a different way of thinking. But we've been here before." Configuring trace file size and number in WebCenter Content 11g | Kyle Hatlestad A quick tip from Oracle Fusion Middleware A-Team member Kyle Hatlestad. Thought for the Day "Elegance is not a dispensable luxury but a factor that decides between success and failure." — Edsger W. Dijkstra (May 11, 1930 – August 6, 2002) Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• best way to send messages to all subscribers with multiple subscriptions and multiple providers

  - by coding_idiot

  I'm writing an application in which - Many users can subsribe to posts made by another users. So for a single publisher there can be many subscribers. When a message is posted by an user X, all users who have subscribed to messages of User X will be sent an email. How to achieve this ? I'm thinking of using publish-subscribe pattern. And then I came through JMS. Which is the best JMS implementation to use according to your experience ? Or else what else solution do you propose to the given problem ? Shall I go for a straight-forward solution ?: User x posts a message, I find all users (from database) who subscribe to user x and then for every user, I call the sendEmail() method. [EDIT] My intention here is not to send-emails. I'm really sorry if it wasn't clear. I also have to send kind of system-notifications apart from Email to all subscribers. Right now, I've implemented the email-sending as a threadPool

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• .NET app - Should we use SQL Server and duplicate some reference data from an external Oracle DB? Or use Oracle and have a DB link?

  - by Daventry

  We're looking to migrate some existing Excel/Access processes into a new system which will provide the users with a Silverlight frontend to run and view the reports instead of using MS Access. The initial idea was to have SQL Server 2008 as RDBMS. The problem is that we've got some static data such as country codes, counterparties, etc which live in an existing Oracle DB. Since we do not want to duplicate that data (if possible), we were thinking of having a DB link between SQL Server and Oracle, but our firm does not allow that. So the options are either duplicate the data or use Oracle as RDBMS - surprise, the firm does allow DB links between Oracle databases. The initial idea was also to use WCF RIA Services, Entity Framework, etc which we're not sure they play well with Oracle, that's why it was decided to go with SQL Server in the first place. Would you advise to go for Oracle so that we can just link the static data? Or use SQL Server 2008 and replicate it because it's "safer" to stay within the Microsoft land? To use or not to use Entity Framework and WCF RIA Services at all? Regards. UPDATE: Thanks everyone for your answers. Nothing is set in stone yet. We'll try to import the data instead of linking, as if the other DB goes down, our system can still carry on. We're likely to use SQL Server just because most developers are more experienced with it. Even if we used RIA Services, we can swap out the Data Access Layer and use other frameworks such those mentioned below.

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• Better way to go up/down slope based on yaw?

  - by CyanPrime

  Alright, so I got a bit of movement code and I'm thinking I'm going to need to manually input when to go up/down a slope. All I got to work with is the slope's normal, and vector, and My current and previous position, and my yaw. Is there a better way to rotate whether I go up or down the slope based on my yaw? Vector3f move = new Vector3f(0,0,0); move.x = (float)-Math.toDegrees(Math.cos(Math.toRadians(yaw))); move.z = (float)-Math.toDegrees(Math.sin(Math.toRadians(yaw))); move.normalise(); if(move.z < 0 && slopeNormal.z > 0 || move.z > 0 && slopeNormal.z < 0){ if(move.x < 0 && slopeNormal.x > 0 || move.x > 0 && slopeNormal.x < 0){ move.y += slopeVec.y; } } if(move.z > 0 && slopeNormal.z > 0 || move.z < 0 && slopeNormal.z < 0){ if(move.x > 0 && slopeNormal.x > 0 || move.x < 0 && slopeNormal.x < 0){ move.y -= slopeVec.y; } } move.scale(movementSpeed * delta); Vector3f.add(pos, move, pos);

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• Is there any simple game that involves psychological factors?

  - by Roman

  I need to find a simple game in which several people need to interact with each other. The game should be simple for an analysis (it should be simple to describe what happens in the game, what players did). Because of the last reason, the video games are not appropriate for my purposes. I am thinking of a simple, schematic, strategic game where people can make a limited set of simple moves. Moreover, the moves of the game should be conditioned not only by a pure logic (like in chess or go). The behavior in the game should depend on psychological factors, on relations between people. In more details, I think it should be a cooperation game where people make their decisions based on mutual trust. It would be nice if players can express punishment and forgiveness in the game. Does anybody knows a game that is close to what I have described above? ADDED I need to add that I need a game where actions of players are simple and easy to formalize. Because of that I cannot use verbal games (where communication between players is important). By simple actions I understand, for example, moves on the board from one position to another one, or passing chips from one player to another one and so on.

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• Suggestion for setting web application parameters

  - by user40730

  I'm creating a web application on GWT. I'm using MVP pattern with activities and places. I have a xml config file containing some parameters to be used by the application. Content of this xml file is sent to the client using HttpRequest; I'm using a singleton class to hold the information from the xml file. Right now, the application is getting the data when the user starts the application in the home page, that is working well. Now, since I'm using activities and places, a user can bookmark a page and starts the application in any other page (Place). And here comes the problem: Since I'm using some of the information from the xml file to set some ui widgets, I have to check if the xml config file was read and the application already has the parameters (I do this by checking the singleton class). But the xml file is read by using an HttpRequest, so I got errors 'cause the application needs some parameters to initialize some ui widgets, but these parameters aren't ready on time. I was thinking on using an synchronous request to fix the problem, but it seems complicated and not recommendable to do that. So, I'd like to hear some other suggestions. Thanks.

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• What should you do when presented with a horrible design?

  - by plua

  Our firm makes websites. We also design websites. But sometimes our client brings his/her own design. This is often made by an in-house designer, or it is the same design they used for something else. However, sometimes these designs look awful. And I am talking really unprofessional, unbalanced, uncool. But the client really wants this design. I really do not like working with a design that is so awful. It takes away all pleasure in coding. You code. You check the demo. Works great. Looks awful. It's just not fun. And ultimately the client might be happy, but 1) I do not feel proud of the final product and 2) the community sees you 'develop' ugly websites, which is bad for your image. Anybody experiencing this kind of stuff? What do you recommend? I've been thinking: Blocking these clients. If somebody has an 'own' design, ask to see it first. Then somehow politely decline. Drawback: you lose a client. Create a new design. Have our in-house designers work one something really cool. Drawbacks: client would need to pay for this (without asking for it), or it will be declined and the company loses time = money. And it might come as an insult if you propose a new design out of the blue. THEIR designer won't like it for sure. Put a clear disclaimer at the bottom of the site: Website design by XXXXX, Website development by US. Helps for the community-impact (if people pay attention), but not for the uneasy feeling.

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• Purpose oriented user accounts on a single desktop?

  - by dd_dent

  Starting point: I currently do development for Dynamics Ax, Android and an occasional dabble with Wordpress and Python. Soon, I'll start a project involving setting up WP on Google Apps Engine. Everything is, and should continue to, run from the same PC (running Linux Mint). Issue: I'm afraid of botching/bogging down my setup due to tinkering/installing multiple runtimes/IDE's/SDK's/Services, so I was thinking of using multiple users, each purposed to handle the task at hand (web, Android etc) and making each user as inert as possible to one another. What I need to know is the following: Is this a good/feasible practice? The second closest thing to this using remote desktops connections, either to computers or to VM's, which I'd rather avoid. What about switching users? Can it be made seamless? Anything else I should know? Update and clarification regarding VM's and whatnot: The reason I wish to avoid resorting to VM's is that I dislike the performance impact and sluggishness associated with it. I also suspect it might add a layer of complexity I wish to avoid. This answer by Wyatt is interesting but I think it's only partly suited for requirements (web development for example). Also, in reference to the point made about system wide installs, there is a level compromise I should accept as experessed by this for example. This option suggested by 9000 is also enticing (more than VM's actually) and by no means do I intend to "Juggle" JVMs and whatnot, partly due to the reason mentioned before. Regarding complexity, I agree and would consider what was said, only from my experience I tend to pollute my work environment with SDKs and runtimes I tried and discarded, which would occasionally leave leftovers which cause issues throught the session. What I really want is a set of well defined, non virtualized sessions from which I can choose at my leisure and be mostly (to a reasonable extent) safe from affecting each session from the other. And what I'm really asking is if and how can this be done using user accounts.

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• Traverse tree with results. Maybe type in Java?

  - by Angelo.Hannes

  I need to check a tree's node state. It can either be OK or NOT_OK. But that state is dependent on its children. So for a node to be OK, every of its children needs to be OK. If one or more of its children is NOT_OK the whole node is NOT_OK. To determine the state of a node I need to aggregate some properties of the node. So I thought of two possible implementations. And they are more or less covered in this question: Why is Option/Maybe considered a good idea and checked exceptions are not? Exception I could pass the properties up the recursion path, and throw an exception if something went wrong. Maybe I implement an Maybe type and let it either hold an error or the aggregated properties. Maybe it is more an Either. I tend towards the last option. And I'm thinking of an enum with two objects. Where I can additionally set those aggregated properties. Am I on the right track? I'm not familiar with the new JDK8 functional stuff. But I'm stuck on JDK7 anyway, so please focus on JDK7.

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• Entry level engineer question regarding memory mangement

  - by Ealianis

  It has been a few months since I started my position as an entry level software developer. Now that I am past some learning curves (e.g. the language, jargon, syntax of VB and C#) I'm starting to focus on more esoteric topics, as to write better software. A simple question I presented to a fellow coworker was responded with "I'm focusing on the wrong things." While I respect this coworker I do disagree that this is a "wrong thing" to focus upon. Here was the code (in VB) and followed by the question. Note: The Function GenerateAlert() returns an integer. Dim alertID as Integer = GenerateAlert() _errorDictionary.Add(argErrorID, NewErrorInfo(Now(), alertID)) vs... _errorDictionary.Add(argErrorID, New ErrorInfo(Now(), GenerateAlert())) I originally wrote the ladder and rewrote it with the "Dim alertID" so that someone else might find it easier to read. But here was my concern and question. "Should one write this with the Dim AlertID, it would in fact take up more memory; finite but more, and should this method be called many times could it lead to an issue? How will .NET handle this object AlertID. Outside of .NET should one manually dispose of the object after use (near the end of the sub)." I want to ensure I become a knowledgeable programmer that does not just rely upon garbage collection. Am I over thinking this? Am I focusing on the wrong things?

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• Dual Booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04. Partition Sizes?

  - by John F.

  I'm about to reinstall Windows, so I thought that I'd try Ubuntu out on a partition just for fun. My question is, how large should my partitions be for each of them? I know this various depending on what you use, so i'll give you a general idea of what I have, and what I have in mind. I'm currently running: Windows 7 Professional (64bit) RAM: 4GB CPU: 2.5Ghz Quad Core processor HDD: 500GB GPU: 1GB Nvidia GeForce I have around 130GB in Steam games, and some heavier applications like Photoshop CS6, Sony Vegas Pro 11. But other Applications I use are: Chrome Skype Dxtory Fraps OpenOffice BitTorrent and other assorted smaller programs. So, I was thinking that I would give my Windows partition about 150-200GB, my Ubuntu Partition around 20GB, and the rest to shared storage. I'm not really sure if I'd need more or less on Ubuntu, because I've never used it and I'm not really sure what kind of apps i'd be using over there. This would also be a clean install, so I'd be wiping my HDD, creating the Partitions in GParted, then installing Windows with Ubuntu following that. Any critique you could give me? Maybe explanations to what the /root, /boot and /home partitions I hear are about? Thanks in advanced if you actually read this lengthy thing! Any help is appreciated. (x

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• Floating point undesirable in highly critical code?

  - by Kirt Undercoffer

  Question 11 in the Software Quality section of "IEEE Computer Society Real-World Software Engineering Problems", Naveda, Seidman, lists fp computation as undesirable because "the accuracy of the computations cannot be guaranteed". This is in the context of computing acceleration for an emergency braking system for a high speed train. This thinking seems to be invoking possible errors in small differences between measurements of a moving object but small differences at slow speeds aren't a problem (or shouldn't be), small differences between two measurements at high speed are irrelevant - can there be a problem with small roundoff errors during deceleration for an emergency braking system? This problem has been observed with airplane braking systems resulting in hydroplaning but could this actually happen in the context of a high speed train? The concern about fp errors seems to not be well-founded in this context. Any insight? The fp is used for acceleration so perhaps the concern is inching over a speed limit? But fp should be just fine if they use a double in whatever implementation language. The actual problem in the text states: During the inspection of the code for the emergency braking system of a new high speed train (a highly critical, real-time application), the review team identifies several characteristics of the code. Which of these characteristics are generally viewed as undesirable? The code contains three recursive functions (well that one is obvious). The computation of acceleration uses floating point arithmetic. All other computations use integer arithmetic. The code contains one linked list that uses dynamic memory allocation (second obvious problem). All inputs are checked to determine that they are within expected bounds before they are used.

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• License validation and calling home

  - by VitalyB

  I am developing an application that, when bought, can be activated using a license. Currently I am doing offline validation which is a bit troubling to me. I am aware there is nothing to do against cracks (i.e modified binaries), however, I am thinking to trying to discourage license-key pirating. Here is my current plan: When the user activates the software and after offline validation is successful, it tries to call home and validate the license. If home approves of the license or if home is unreachable, or if the user is offline, the license gets approved. If home is reached and tells the license is invalid, validation fails. Licensed application calls home the same way every time during startup (in background). If license is revoked (i.e pirated license or generated via keygen), the license get deactivated. This should help with piracy of licenses - An invalid license will be disabled and a valid license that was pirated can be revoked (and its legal owner supplied with new license). Pirate-users will be forced to use cracked version which are usually version specific and harder to reach. While it generally sounds good to me, I have some concerns: Users tend to not like home-calling and online validation. Would that kind of validation bother you? Even though in case of offline/failure the application stays licensed? It is clear that the whole scheme can be thwarted by going offline/firewall/etc. I think that the bother to do one of these is great enough to discourage casual license sharing, but I am not sure. As it goes in general with licensing and DRM variations, I am not sure the time I spend on that kind of protection isn't better spent by improving my product. I'd appreciate your input and thoughts. Thanks!

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• Would form keys reduce the amount of spam we receive?

  - by David Wilkins

  I work for a company that has an online store, and we constantly have to deal with a lot of spam product reviews, and bogus customer accounts. These are all created by automated systems and are more of a nuisance than anything. What I am thinking of (in lieu of captcha, which can be broken) is adding a sort of form key solution to all relevant forms. I know for certain some of the spammers are using XRumer, and I know they seldom request a page before sending us the form data (Is this the definition of CSRF?) so I would think that tying a key to each requested form would at least stem the tide. I also know the spammers are lazy and don't check their work, or they would see that we have never posted a spam review, and they have never gained any revenue from our site. Would this succeed in significantly reducing the volume of spam product reviews and customer account creations we are seeing? EDIT: To clarify what I mean by "Form Keys": I am referring to creating a unique identifier (or "key") that will be used as an invisible, static form field. This key will also be stored either in the database (relative to the user session) or in a cookie variable. When the form's target gets a request, the key must be validated for the form's data to be processed. Those pesky bots won't have the key because they don't load the javascript that generates the form (they just send a blind request to the target) and even if they did load the javascript once, they'd only have one valid key, and I'm not sure they even use cookies.

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• Handling deleted users - separate or same table?

  - by Alan Beats

  The scenario is that I've got an expanding set of users, and as time goes by, users will cancel their accounts which we currently mark as 'deleted' (with a flag) in the same table. If users with the same email address (that's how users log in) wish to create a new account, they can signup again, but a NEW account is created. (We have unique ids for every account, so email addresses can be duplicated amongst live and deleted ones). What I've noticed is that all across our system, in the normal course of things we constantly query the users table checking the user is not deleted, whereas what I'm thinking is that we dont need to do that at all...! [Clarification1: by 'constantly querying', I meant that we have queries which are like: '... FROM users WHERE isdeleted="0" AND ...'. For example, we may need to fetch all users registered for all meetings on a particular date, so in THAT query, we also have FROM users WHERE isdeleted="0" - does this make my point clearer?] (1) continue keeping deleted users in the 'main' users table (2) keep deleted users in a separate table (mostly required for historical book-keeping) What are the pros and cons of either approach?

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• Forking a GPL dual licensed software with business owned copyrights

  - by Eric

  After receiving some threats of the copyrights holder of a dual licensed software(GPL2 and commercial) to buy the commercial version for projects in production, I am thinking to make a fork. In a case of GPL2 and commercially dual licensed with business owned copyrights software, is forking the GPL2 version an option? Also, is forking a good way to deal with such cases? Background information The software is a web CMS released under 2 versions a GPL2 free open source edition and a commercial edition including technical support and extra functionality. The problem is that now, basing their argumentation on the "distribution" definition of the GPL2, the company holding the copyrights argue that delivering the software and some extensions to a client is considered as a "distribution". And that such a "distribution" falls under the GPL2 obligation to release the custom made extension code. Custom made extensions are mainly designs, templates and very specific functionality. Basically they give me 3 choices: Buying the commercial licensed edition for projects based on the GPL in production, Deleting all the projects in production based on GPL2 version, Releasing all the extensions as GPL2 code. The first 2 options are nothing realistic for finished projects. The third option could be fine, but as most of the extensions are very specific, cleaning the code to make it usable by other users means lot of works and also I am not sure the clients will appreciate to have their website designs and specific functionality released publicly. The copyrights holding company even contacted some clients directly, giving them the "choice". I know that this is a very corporate interpretation of GPL2, and a such action is nothing close to legal, but as an independent developer, I don't want to take the risk to get involved in some long and tiring legal procedures. PS. This question was first asked on Stack Overflow where it felt out of the scope and closed, after reading the present site FAQ, discussing about software licensing seems fine.

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• game play strategy in an arena

  - by joulesm

  I am writing a player's behavior for an arena game, and I'm wondering if you can offer some strategies. I'm writing it in Python, but I'm just interested in the high level game play. Here are the game aspects: Arena is a circle of a given size. The arena size shrinks every round to help break ties. Players are much smaller circles, can be on teams of 1 or 2 players. Players attack by colliding with other players, and based on the physics of the collision (speed of both players, angle), one could force another player out of the arena. Once a player is out of the arena, they are out of the game (for that round). The goal is to be the only team with players left in the arena. All other players have been pushed (through collisions or mistakes) out of the arena. It is possible for there to be no winner if the last two players exit the arena at the same time. Once the player has been programmed, the game just runs. There is no human intervention in the game. I'm thinking it's easiest to implement a few simple programmatic rules for my player to follow. For example, stay close to center of the arena, attack opponents from the inner side of the arena, etc. Are there any good simple game strategies? Would adding a random aspect to the game help? For example, to avoid predictability by the other team or something. Thanks in advance.

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• Storing Tiled Level Data in J2ME game

  - by Alex

  I'm developing a J2ME game which uses tiled backgrounds for the levels. My question is how do I store this tile information in my game. At the moment it is stored as an array; with each number representing a different tile from the tile-sheet. This works well enough, however I don't like the fact that it is 'hard-coded' into the game because (at least in my opinion) it is harder to edit the levels, or design new ones. I was also thinking that it would be difficult if you wanted to add a 'level pack', I'm not sure on how this would be achieved though; it's not something I was planning on doing, I'm just curious. I was wondering if there was a way I could store level data in some external file and then load this in to the game. The problem is I don't know what the limitations are for J2ME regarding file I/O, can it read in any file like Java? I am aware of the RMS, but from my experience I don't think this would work (unless I am mistaken). Also, would loading the data in this way be too big a performance hit? Or is there another way I can achieve what I am trying to do. As I said, the way I have it at the moment works fine, and if this is the only viable option then it will suffice.

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