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  • generating maps

    - by gardian06
    This is a conglomeration question when answering please specify which part you are addressing. I am looking at creating a maze type game that utilizes elevation. I have a few features I would like to have, but am unsure as to some of the implementation. I have done work doing fileIO maze generation (using a key to read the file, and then generate the level based on that file), but I am unsure how to think about this with elevation in the mix. I think height maps might be a good approach, but don't know how to represent them effectively. for a height map which is more beneficial XML(containing h[u,v] data and key definition), CSV (item1 is key reference, item2 is elevation), or another approach that I have not thought of yet? When it comes to placing the elevation values themselves what kind of deltah values are appropriate to have it noticeable at about a 60degree angle while not really effecting gravity driven physics (assuming some effect while moving up/down hill)? I am thinking of maybe going to procedural generation at some point, but am wondering if it is practical to have a procedurally generated grid (wall squares possibly same dimensions as the open space squares), or if designing to a thin wall open spaces is better? this decision will effect the amount of work need on the graphics end for uniform vs. irregular walls. EDIT: game will be a elevation maze shooter. levels/maps will be mazes with elevation the player has to negotiate. elevations will have effects on "combat" vision, and movement

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  • Best scripting language for project [on hold]

    - by Dave
    This is a subjective question, but I don't know where else to ask it. I'd appreciate it if someone could direct me to an appropriate scripting language for my project. I'm a little new at this so I'd appreciate any help. The project is a website that will display a list of photo subject groups (such as "nature" "people" "sports" etc) on the home page. The photos will all be in subdirectories of the main photo directory (photos) and each subject group will represent a subdirectory in photos. For example in directory photos there might be 3 subdirectories, "nature" "people" "sports" and in each of those subdirectories there will be the actual photos. The idea is that when the website owner wants to update/add/delete a subject group all he has to do is add, delete or update a subdirectory of the photos directory. This means, I think, that I need a scripting language that can read the directories and files in the website and then send a web page with the information in it. What is the simplest and easiest scripting language to do this in? Any ideas? Thanks

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  • Should I close database connections after use in PHP?

    - by Sprottenwels
    I wonder if I should close any unnecessary database connection inside of my PHP scripts. I am aware of the fact that database connections are closed implicitly when the block stops executing and 'manually' closing the connections could kinda bloat the codebase with unnecessary code. But shouldn't I do so in order to make by code as readable and as easy understandable as possible, while also preventing several possible issues during run time? Also, if I would do, would it be enough to unset() my database object?

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  • Is there a simple isometric graphical game engine (using vectors?) that could be used for a (multiplayer) crafting/farming game? [closed]

    - by Renier Wijnen
    Possible Duplicate: Good, free isometric game engine? With little game development experience (albeit having graphical skills and some programming knowledge) a group currently working on a game used to explain permaculture through interaction would like to create a simple concept game. Is there a specific engine or set of tools we could used to achieve this? Being able to make it an (online) multiplayer game would be much preferred. Thank you in advance for your input.

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  • Strategy to use two different measurement systems in software

    - by Dennis
    I have an application that needs to accept and output values in both US Custom Units and Metric system. Right now the conversion and input and output is a mess. You can only enter in US system, but you can choose the output to be US or Metric, and the code to do the conversions is everywhere. So I want to organize this and put together some simple rules. So I came up with this: Rules user can enter values in either US or Metric, and User Interface will take care of marking this properly All units internally will be stored as US, since the majority of the system already has most of the data stored like that and depends on this. It shouldn't matter I suppose as long as you don't mix unit. All output will be in US or Metric, depending on user selection/choice/preference. In theory this sounds great and seems like a solution. However, one little problem I came across is this: There is some data stored in code or in the database that already returns data like this: 4 x 13/16" screws, which means "four times screws". I need the to be in either US or Metric. Where exactly do I put the conversion code for doing the conversion for this unit? The above already mixing presentation and data, but the data for the field I need to populate is that whole string. I can certainly split it up into the number 4, the 13/16", and the " x " and the " screws", but the question remains... where do I put the conversion code? Different Locations for Conversion Routines 1) Right now the string is in a class where it's produced. I can put conversion code right into that class and it may be a good solution. Except then, I want to be consistent so I will be putting conversion procedures everywhere in the code at-data-source, or right after reading it from the database. The problem though is I think that my code will have to deal with two systems, all throughout the codebase after this, should I do this. 2) According to the rules, my idea was to put it in the view script, aka last change to modify it before it is shown to the user. And it may be the right thing to do, but then it strikes me it may not always be the best solution. (First, it complicates the view script a tad, second, I need to do more work on the data side to split things up more, or do extra parsing, such as in my case above). 3) Another solution is to do this somewhere in the data prep step before the view, aka somewhere in the middle, before the view, but after the data-source. This strikes me as messy and that could be the reason why my codebase is in such a mess right now. It seems that there is no best solution. What do I do?

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  • Best Option for Creating A Small Church Website

    - by Jim
    I've been asked to create a website for a small church. Their prior site was hosted on geocities which is no longer. They are not looking for anything robust, just an informational site with a calendar and maybe a contact form. The church would also like to be able to administer the site with little technical know-how. Cost is also an issue. Given these requirements, something like sites.google.com seems like a good option. However, my main concern is that Sites will suffer the same fate as geocities. It is definitely not a flagship Google product. Are there other good alternatives that fit the requirements?

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  • I need an approach to the problem of preventing inserting duplicate records into the database

    - by Maurice
    Apologies is this question is asked on the incorrect "stack" A webservice that I call returns a list of data. The data from the webservice is updated periodically, so a call to the webservice done in one hour could return the same data as a call done in an hour. Also, the data is returned based on a start and end date. We have multiple users that can run the webservice search, and duplicate data is most likely to be returned (especially for historical data). However I don't want to insert this duplicate data in the database. I've created a db table in which the data is stored (most important columns are) Id int autoincrement PK Date date not null --The date to which the data set belongs. LastUpdate date not null --The date the data set was last updated. UserName varchar(50) --The name of the user doing the search. I use sql server 2008 express with c# 4.0 and visual studio 2010. Entity Framework is used as the ORM. If stored procedures could be avoided in the proposed solution, then that will be a plus. Another way of looking interpreting what I'm asking a solution for is as follows: I have a million unique records in my table. A user does a new search. The search results from the user contains around 300k of the data that is already in the db. An efficient solution to finding an inserting only the unique records is needed.

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  • How to store prices that have effective dates?

    - by lal00
    I have a list of products. Each of them is offered by N providers. Each providers quotes us a price for a specific date. That price is effective until that provider decides to set a new price. In that case, the provider will give the new price with a new date. The MySQL table header currently looks like: provider_id, product_id, price, date_price_effective Every other day, we compile a list of products/prices that are effective for the current day. For each product, the list contains a sorted list of the providers that have that particular product. In that way, we can order certain products from whoever happens to offer the best price. To get the effective prices, I have a SQL statement that returns all rows that have date_price_effective >= NOW(). That result set is processed with a ruby script that does the sorting and filtering necessary to obtain a file that looks like this: product_id_1,provider_1,provider_3,provider8,provider_10... product_id_2,provider_3,provider_2,provider1,provider_10... This works fine for our purposes, but I still have an itch that a SQL table is probably not the best way to store this kind of information. I have that feeling that this kind of problema has been solved previously in other more creative ways. Is there a better way to store this information other than in SQL? or, if using SQL, is there a better approach than the one I'm using?

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  • Interface extension

    - by user877329
    Suppose that I have an input stream interface, which defines a method for reading data. I also have a seekable interface which defines a method for seeking. A natural way of defining a input file is then to implement both input stream and seekable. I want to construct a data decoder from the input stream interface so I can read data from a file or from another stream. The problem is that I also want to implement seek functionality to the data decoder, since I want to be able to step individual records not raw bytes. This is not possible if I only provide an input stream, which does not have the bytewise seek method. Should I skip the seekable interface and add the seek method to input stream instead and force all streams to at least leave it as a nop.

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  • How to handle status columns in designing tables

    - by altsyset
    How to handle multiple statuses for a table entry, for example an item table may have an active, inactive, fast moving, and/or batch statuses. And I wanted to handle them in single column with VARCHAR type. Also I might set each of those attributes as a boolean with different columns. But I am not sure what consequences this might lead to. So if you have experienced such situations which one would be the best way to handle it?

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  • Could someone explain in detail simplex /or perlin noise?

    - by Ryan Szemplinski
    I am really interested in perlin/simplex noise but I am having a difficult time understanding it. I am not very good at math but I am willing to learn because it interests me greatly. If someone is willing to dedicate there time into this I would be immensely appreciative of this. To be more concise, an explanation of functions and some calculation inside the functions would be nice to understand. Thanks in advance!

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  • How to name setter that does data conversion?

    - by IAdapter
    I'm struggling with how to name this method, I don't like the "set" prefix, because I feel it should be reserved for normal "dumb" setters and some tools might not like it (i did not check it in checkstyle, pmd, etc., but I got a feeling they won't like it.) for example (in java, but I feel its language agnostic) public void setActionListenerClicked(boolean actionListenerClicked) { this.actionListenerClicked = actionListenerClicked ? "1" : "0"; } The only purpose of this method is ONLY to set, this method is needed and cannot be joined with any other (because of framework used). P.S. I DO know that question is similar to How to name multi-setter?, but I feel its not the same question.

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  • Designing a simple snake A.I

    - by DillPixel
    I've looked at some stuff online regarding this specific topic, and a lot of the info that I read involved graphs and path finding. I really don't want to get involved in something too complex & out of my level, and also I don't need my snake to be that intelligent (it will be a large board with the snake not growing in size on every munch). How could you structure a simpler AI for the snake that gets the job done relatively well? I would be able to get the snake to move towards the food item correctly, but my issue is that I'm not sure how to deal with the snake colliding with itself. Say the snake has a look ahead, and it finds that its tail is in the way, it could change direction, but what happens next? Any ideas on how to tackle this? Should the snake build an instruction set from every square, or should it think on the go?

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  • Whats a good structure to save and retrieve locations of images?

    - by Goot
    I got a java-ee application, where I collect informations about movies. Im my backend I provide data like the name, description, genre and a random uuid. I also got lots of related files, which are stored on a file server. Including some screenshots, the dvd or bluRay cover and video trailers. My current approach is: When saving the files to the fileserver, I retrieve the movies random uuid (which is the primary key btw.). I then rename the files screenshot_[UUID]_1, screenshot_[UUID]_2 ... etc. Now, there are lots of other ways to handle this, like saving all filenames in a database or creating a dir structure on the fileserver for every uuid and, e.g., return all images in the "[uuid]/screenshots" folder via REST. I expect about 30k requests a day, so the service has to be pretty performant. Whats the best way to solve this?

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  • Concurrency pattern of logger in multithreaded application

    - by Dipan Mehta
    The context: We are working on a multi-threaded (Linux-C) application that follows a pipeline model. Each module has a private thread and encapsulated objects which do processing of data; and each stage has a standard form of exchanging data with next unit. The application is free from memory leak and is threadsafe using locks at the point where they exchange data. Total number of threads is about 15- and each thread can have from 1 to 4 objects. Making about 25 - 30 odd objects which all have some critical logging to do. Most discussion I have seen about different levels as in Log4J and it's other translations. The real big questions is about how the overall logging should really happen? One approach is all local logging does fprintf to stderr. The stderr is redirected to some file. This approach is very bad when logs become too big. If all object instantiate their individual loggers - (about 30-40 of them) there will be too many files. And unlike above, one won't have the idea of true order of events. Timestamping is one possibility - but it is still a mess to collate. If there is a single global logger (singleton) pattern - it indirectly blocks so many threads while one is busy putting up logs. This is unacceptable when processing of the threads are heavy. So what should be the ideal way to structure the logging objects? What are some of the best practices in actual large scale applications? I would also love to learn from some of the real designs of large scale applications to get inspirations from!

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  • What is the general definition of something that can be included or excluded?

    - by gutch
    When an application presents a user with a list of items, it's pretty common that it permits the user to filter the items. Often a 'filter' feature is implemented as a set of include or exclude rules. For example: include all emails from [email protected], and exclude those emails without attachments I've seen this include/exclude pattern often; for example Maven and Google Analytics filter things this way. But now that I'm implementing something like this myself, I don't know what to call something that could be either included or excluded. In specific terms: If I have a database table of filter rules, each of which either includes or excludes matching items, what is an appropriate name of the field that stores include or exclude? When displaying a list of filters to a user, what is a good way to label the include or exclude value? (as a bonus, can anyone recommend a good implementation of this kind of filtering for inspiration?)

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  • Layout Columns - Equal Height

    - by Kyle
    I remember first starting out using tables for layouts and learned that I should not be doing that. I am working on a new site and can not seem to do equal height columns without using tables. Here is an example of the attempt with div tags. <div class="row"> <div class="column">column1</div> <div class="column">column2</div> <div class="column">column3</div> <div style="clear:both"></div> </div> Now what I tried with that was doing making columns float left and setting their widths to 33% which works fine, I use the clear:both div so that the row would be the size of the biggest column, but the columns will be different sizes based on how much content they have. I have found many fixes which mostly involve css hacks and just making it look like its right but that's not what I want. I thought of just doing it in javascript but then it would look different for those who choose to disable their javascript. The only true way of doing it that I can think of is using tables since the cells all have equal heights in the same row. But I know its bad to use tables. After searching forever I than came across this: http://intangiblestyle.com/lab/equal-height-columns-with-css/ What it seems to do is exactly the same as tables since its just setting its display exactly like tables. Would using that be just as bad as using tables? I honestly can't find anything else that I could do. edit @Su' I have looked into "faux columns" and do not think that is what I want. I think I would be able to implement better designs for my site using the display:table method. I posted this question because I just wasn't sure if I should since I have always heard its bad using tables in website layouts.

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  • How should I write new code when the old codebase and the environment uses lots of globals in PHP

    - by Nicola Peluchetti
    I'm working in the Wordpress environment which itself heavily relies on globals and the codebase I'm maintaining introduces some more. I want this to change and so I'm trying to think how should I handle this. For the globals our code has introduced I think I will set them as dependencies in the constructor or in getter / setter so that I don't rely on them being globals and then refactor the old codebase little by little so that we have no globals. With Wordpress globals I was thinking to wrap all WP globals inside a Wrapper class and hide them in there. Like this class WpGlobals { public static function getDb() { global $wpdb; return $wpdb; } } Would this be of any help? The idea is that I centralize all globals in one class and do not scatter them through the code, so that if Wordpress kills one of them I need to modify code only in one place. What would you do?

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  • Managing accounts on a private website for a real-life community

    - by Smudge
    I'm looking at setting-up a walled-in website for a real-life community of people, and I was wondering if anyone has any experience with managing member accounts for this kind of thing. Some conditions that must be met: This community has a set list of real-life members, each of whom would be eligible for one account on the website. We don't expect or require that they all sign-up. It is purely opt-in, but we anticipate that many of them would be interested in the services we are setting up. Some of the community members emails are known, but some of them have fallen off the grid over the years, so ideally there would be a way for them to get back in touch with us through the public-facing side of the site. (And we'd want to manually verify the identity of anyone who does so). Their names are known, and for similar projects in the past we have assigned usernames derived from their real-life names. This time, however, we are open to other approaches, such as letting them specify their own username or getting rid of usernames entirely. The specific web technology we will use (e.g. Drupal, Joomla, etc) is not really our concern right now -- I am more interested in how this can be approached in the abstract. Our database already includes the full member roster, so we can email many of them generated links to a page where they can create an account. (And internally we can require that these accounts be paired with a known member). Should we have them specify their own usernames, or are we fine letting them use their registered email address to log-in? Are there any paradigms for walled-in community portals that help address security issues if, for example, one of their email accounts is compromised? We don't anticipate attempted break-ins being much of a threat, because nothing about this community is high-profile, but we do want to address security concerns. In addition, we want to make the sign-up process as painless for the members as possible, especially given the fact that we can't just make sign-ups open to anyone. I'm interested to hear your thoughts and suggestions! Thanks!

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  • Designing exceptions for conversion failures

    - by Mr.C64
    Suppose there are some methods to convert from "X" to "Y" and vice versa; the conversion may fail in some cases, and exceptions are used to signal conversion errors in those cases. Which would be the best option for defining exception classes in this context? A single XYConversionException class, with an attribute (e.g. an enum) specifying the direction of the conversion (e.g. ConversionFromXToY, ConversionFromYToX). A XYConversionException class, with two derived classes ConversionFromXToYException and ConversionFromYToXException. ConversionFromXToYException and ConversionFromYToXException classes without a common base class.

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  • Is having 'Util' classes a cause for concern? [closed]

    - by Matt Fenwick
    I sometimes create 'Util' classes which primarily serve to hold methods and values that don't really seem to belong elsewhere. But every time I create one of these classes, I think "uh-oh, I'm gonna regret this later ...", because I read somewhere that it's bad. But on the other hand, there seem to be two compelling (at least for me) cases for them: implementation secrets that are used in multiple classes within a package providing useful functionality to augment a class, without cluttering its interface Am I on the way to destruction? What you say !! Should I refactor?

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  • State Pattern - should a state know about its context?

    - by Extrakun
    I am referring to the state pattern as described in this link. In the example class diagram, a context has numerous states. However, it does not show how does a state communicates with a context (perhaps an input in a state has impact on a setting in the context). The two examples on the page shows either passing the context to the state via a function, or storing a reference to the context. Are those advisable? Are there other ways for a state to communicate with a context? Update to an edit: For instance, I am doing a remote control which can have several states. Say, the context has a setting for Volume, and I am in one of the states which allow me to tweak the volume. How should the state communicates with the context that the volume is being changed?

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  • Why don't languages include implication as a logical operator?

    - by Maciej Piechotka
    It might be a strange question, but why there is no implication as a logical operator in many languages (Java, C, C++, Python Haskell - although as last one have user defined operators its trivial to add it)? I find logical implication much clearer to write (particularly in asserts or assert-like expressions) then negation with or: encrypt(buf, key, mode, iv = null) { assert (mode != ECB --> iv != null); assert (mode == ECB || iv != null); assert (implies(mode != ECB, iv != null)); // User-defined function }

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  • Java word scramble game [closed]

    - by Dan
    I'm working on code for a word scramble game in Java. I know the code itself is full of bugs right now, but my main focus is getting a vector of strings broken into two separate vectors containing hints and words. The text file that the strings are taken from has a colon separating them. So here is what I have so far. public WordApp() { inputRow = new TextInputBox(); inputRow.setLocation(200,100); phrases = new Vector <String>(FileUtilities.getStrings()); v_hints = new Vector<String>(); v_words = new Vector<String>(); textBox = new TextBox(200,100); textBox.setLocation(200,200); textBox.setText(scrambled + "\n\n Time Left: \t" + seconds/10 + "\n Score: \t" + score); hintBox = new TextBox(200,200); hintBox.setLocation(300,400); hintBox.hide(); Iterator <String> categorize = phrases.iterator(); while(categorize.hasNext()) { int index = phrases.indexOf(":"); String element = categorize.next(); v_words.add(element.substring(0,index)); v_hints.add(element.substring(index +1)); phrases.remove(index); System.out.print(index); } The FileUtilities file was given to us by the pofessor, here it is. import java.util.*; import java.io.*; public class FileUtilities { private static final String FILE_NAME = "javawords.txt"; //------------------ getStrings ------------------------- // // returns a Vector of Strings // Each string is of the form: word:hint // where word contains no spaces. // The words and hints are read from FILE_NAME // // public static Vector<String> getStrings ( ) { Vector<String> words = new Vector<String>(); File file = new File( FILE_NAME ); Scanner scanFile; try { scanFile = new Scanner( file); } catch ( IOException e) { System.err.println( "LineInput Error: " + e.getMessage() ); return null; } while ( scanFile.hasNextLine() ) { // read the word and follow it by a colon String s = scanFile.nextLine().trim().toUpperCase() + ":"; if( s.length()>1 && scanFile.hasNextLine() ) { // append the hint and add to collection s+= scanFile.nextLine().trim(); words.add(s); } } // shuffle Collections.shuffle(words); return words; } }

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  • Ranking players depending on decision making during a game

    - by tabchas
    How would I go about a ranking system for players that play a game? Basically, looking at video games, players throughout the game make critical decisions that ultimately impact the end game result. Is there a way or how would I go about a way to translate some of those factors (leveling up certain skills, purchasing certain items, etc.) into something like a curve that can be plotted on a graph? This game that I would like to implement this is League of Legends. Example: Player is Level 1 in the beginning. Gets a kill very early in the game (he gets gold because of the kill and it increases his "power curve"), and purchases attack damage (gives him more damage which also increases his "power curve". However, the player that he killed (Player 2), buys armor (counters attack damage). This slightly increases Player 2's own power curve, and reduces Player 1's power curve. There's many factors I would like to take into account. These relative factors (example: BECAUSE Player 2 built armor, and I am mainly attack damage, it lowers my OWN power curve) seem the hardest to implement. My question is this: Is there a certain way to approach this task? Are there similar theoretical concepts behind ranking systems that I should read up on? I've seen the ELO system, but it doesn't seem what I want since it simply takes into account wins and losses.

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