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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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• Patterns for a tree of persistent data with multiple storage options?

  - by Robin Winslow

  I have a real-world problem which I'll try to abstract into an illustrative example. So imagine I have data objects in a tree, where parent objects can access children, and children can access parents: // Interfaces interface IParent<TChild> { List<TChild> Children; } interface IChild<TParent> { TParent Parent; } // Classes class Top : IParent<Middle> {} class Middle : IParent<Bottom>, IChild<Top> {} class Bottom : IChild<Middle> {} // Usage var top = new Top(); var middles = top.Children; // List<Middle> foreach (var middle in middles) { var bottoms = middle.Children; // List<Bottom> foreach (var bottom in bottoms) { var middle = bottom.Parent; // Access the parent var top = middle.Parent; // Access the grandparent } } All three data objects have properties that are persisted in two data stores (e.g. a database and a web service), and they need to reflect and synchronise with the stores. Some objects only request from the web service, some only write to it. Data Mapper My favourite pattern for data access is Data Mapper, because it completely separates the data objects themselves from the communication with the data store: class TopMapper { public Top FetchById(int id) { var top = new Top(DataStore.TopDataById(id)); top.Children = MiddleMapper.FetchForTop(Top); return Top; } } class MiddleMapper { public Middle FetchById(int id) { var middle = new Middle(DataStore.MiddleDataById(id)); middle.Parent = TopMapper.FetchForMiddle(middle); middle.Children = BottomMapper.FetchForMiddle(bottom); return middle; } } This way I can have one mapper per data store, and build the object from the mapper I want, and then save it back using the mapper I want. There is a circular reference here, but I guess that's not a problem because most languages can just store memory references to the objects, so there won't actually be infinite data. The problem with this is that every time I want to construct a new Top, Middle or Bottom, it needs to build the entire object tree within that object's Parent or Children property, with all the data store requests and memory usage that that entails. And in real life my tree is much bigger than the one represented here, so that's a problem. Requests in the object In this the objects request their Parents and Children themselves: class Middle { private List<Bottom> _children = null; // cache public List<Bottom> Children { get { _children = _children ?? BottomMapper.FetchForMiddle(this); return _children; } set { BottomMapper.UpdateForMiddle(this, value); _children = value; } } } I think this is an example of the repository pattern. Is that correct? This solution seems neat - the data only gets requested from the data store when you need it, and thereafter it's stored in the object if you want to request it again, avoiding a further request. However, I have two different data sources. There's a database, but there's also a web service, and I need to be able to create an object from the web service and save it back to the database and then request it again from the database and update the web service. This also makes me uneasy because the data objects themselves are no longer ignorant of the data source. We've introduced a new dependency, not to mention a circular dependency, making it harder to test. And the objects now mask their communication with the database. Other solutions Are there any other solutions which could take care of the multiple stores problem but also mean that I don't need to build / request all the data every time?

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• Is it feasible and useful to auto-generate some code of unit tests?

  - by skiwi

  Earlier today I have come up with an idea, based upon a particular real use case, which I would want to have checked for feasability and usefulness. This question will feature a fair chunk of Java code, but can be applied to all languages running inside a VM, and maybe even outside. While there is real code, it uses nothing language-specific, so please read it mostly as pseudo code. The idea Make unit testing less cumbersome by adding in some ways to autogenerate code based on human interaction with the codebase. I understand this goes against the principle of TDD, but I don't think anyone ever proved that doing TDD is better over first creating code and then immediatly therafter the tests. This may even be adapted to be fit into TDD, but that is not my current goal. To show how it is intended to be used, I'll copy one of my classes here, for which I need to make unit tests. public class PutMonsterOnFieldAction implements PlayerAction { private final int handCardIndex; private final int fieldMonsterIndex; public PutMonsterOnFieldAction(final int handCardIndex, final int fieldMonsterIndex) { this.handCardIndex = Arguments.requirePositiveOrZero(handCardIndex, "handCardIndex"); this.fieldMonsterIndex = Arguments.requirePositiveOrZero(fieldMonsterIndex, "fieldCardIndex"); } @Override public boolean isActionAllowed(final Player player) { Objects.requireNonNull(player, "player"); Hand hand = player.getHand(); Field field = player.getField(); if (handCardIndex >= hand.getCapacity()) { return false; } if (fieldMonsterIndex >= field.getMonsterCapacity()) { return false; } if (field.hasMonster(fieldMonsterIndex)) { return false; } if (!(hand.get(handCardIndex) instanceof MonsterCard)) { return false; } return true; } @Override public void performAction(final Player player) { Objects.requireNonNull(player); if (!isActionAllowed(player)) { throw new PlayerActionNotAllowedException(); } Hand hand = player.getHand(); Field field = player.getField(); field.setMonster(fieldMonsterIndex, (MonsterCard)hand.play(handCardIndex)); } } We can observe the need for the following tests: Constructor test with valid input Constructor test with invalid inputs isActionAllowed test with valid input isActionAllowed test with invalid inputs performAction test with valid input performAction test with invalid inputs My idea mainly focuses on the isActionAllowed test with invalid inputs. Writing these tests is not fun, you need to ensure a number of conditions and you check whether it really returns false, this can be extended to performAction, where an exception needs to be thrown in that case. The goal of my idea is to generate those tests, by indicating (through GUI of IDE hopefully) that you want to generate tests based on a specific branch. The implementation by example User clicks on "Generate code for branch if (handCardIndex >= hand.getCapacity())". Now the tool needs to find a case where that holds. (I haven't added the relevant code as that may clutter the post ultimately) To invalidate the branch, the tool needs to find a handCardIndex and hand.getCapacity() such that the condition >= holds. It needs to construct a Player with a Hand that has a capacity of at least 1. It notices that the capacity private int of Hand needs to be at least 1. It searches for ways to set it to 1. Fortunately it finds a constructor that takes the capacity as an argument. It uses 1 for this. Some more work needs to be done to succesfully construct a Player instance, involving the creation of objects that have constraints that can be seen by inspecting the source code. It has found the hand with the least capacity possible and is able to construct it. Now to invalidate the test it will need to set handCardIndex = 1. It constructs the test and asserts it to be false (the returned value of the branch) What does the tool need to work? In order to function properly, it will need the ability to scan through all source code (including JDK code) to figure out all constraints. Optionally this could be done through the javadoc, but that is not always used to indicate all constraints. It could also do some trial and error, but it pretty much stops if you cannot attach source code to compiled classes. Then it needs some basic knowledge of what the primitive types are, including arrays. And it needs to be able to construct some form of "modification trees". The tool knows that it needs to change a certain variable to a different value in order to get the correct testcase. Hence it will need to list all possible ways to change it, without using reflection obviously. What this tool will not replace is the need to create tailored unit tests that tests all kinds of conditions when a certain method actually works. It is purely to be used to test methods when they invalidate constraints. My questions: Is creating such a tool feasible? Would it ever work, or are there some obvious problems? Would such a tool be useful? Is it even useful to automatically generate these testcases at all? Could it be extended to do even more useful things? Does, by chance, such a project already exist and would I be reinventing the wheel? If not proven useful, but still possible to make such thing, I will still consider it for fun. If it's considered useful, then I might make an open source project for it depending on the time. For people searching more background information about the used Player and Hand classes in my example, please refer to this repository. At the time of writing the PutMonsterOnFieldAction has not been uploaded to the repo yet, but this will be done once I'm done with the unit tests.

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• How to explain bad software to non-technical people?

  - by mtutty

  In discussing software development with non-technical people (customers, business owners, project sponsors, etc.), I often resort to analogies and metaphors. It's relatively easy and effective to use a "house" or other metaphor for describing the size and complexity of new development. However, we often inherit someone else's code or data, and this approach doesn't seem to hold up as well when trying to explain why we're gutting something that already seems to work. Of course we can point to cycle time and cost to be saved in the future but this generally means nothing to business folks. I know doctors can say "just take this pill," but I'm not sure that software devs have the same authority. Ideas? EDIT: Let me add a bit to the discussion. The specific project I'm talking about has customers that don't realize (or care) about specific aspects of the system we're retiring (i.e., they think it was just fine): The system would save a NEW RECORD every time someone updated a field The system contained tables for reference data. These tables had new records added every day, even though they were duplicates of previous records. And there was no way to tie the reference data used for a particular case at the time it was closed. This is like 99% of the data in the old system. The field NAMES also have spaces, apostrophes and other inappropriate characters in them, making everything harder to work with. In addition to the incredible amount of duplicate data, they have around 1000 XLS files with data they want added to the system. Previously, they would do a spreadsheet for each case in the database, IN ADDITION TO what they typed into the database. Getting rid of this old, unneeded information and piping in the XLS data comprises about 80% of the total project effort, and was not something we could accurately predict. I'm trying to find a concrete way to describe how bad this thing was, mostly so that the customer will understand why the migration process has been so time-consuming. The actual coding was done pretty quickly and the new system works fine, but without the old data they won't be happy. Sorry to get into the weeds, but most of the answers I've seen so far are pretty basic scope/schedule/cost things. I've been doing this for 15 years, so this really is more of a reflective, philosophical question - but without some of the details it can be difficult to really appreciate the awful beauty of this problem.

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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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• How does URL Rewriting affect SEO?

  - by Costa

  The following paragraph is from SEO Google Guide Google is good at crawling all types of URL structures, even if they're quite complex, but spending the time to make your URLs as simple as possible for both users and search engines can help. Some webmasters try to achieve this by rewriting their dynamic URLs to static ones; while Google is fine with this, we'd like to note that this is an advanced procedure and if done incorrectly, could cause crawling issues with your site. What makes URL re-writing implementation incorrect for GoogleBot? I am using Asp.net 3.5 framework.

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• Gathering IP address and workstation information; does it belong in a state class?

  - by p.campbell

  I'm writing an enterprisey utility that collects exception information and writes to the Windows Event Log, sends an email, etc. This utility class will be used by all applications in the corporation: web, BizTalk, Windows Services, etc. Currently this class: holds state given to it via public properties calls out to .NET Framework methods to gather information about runtime details. Included are call to various properties and methods from System.Environment, Reflection details, etc. This implementation has the benefit of allowing all those callers not to have to make these same calls themselves. This means less code for the caller to forget, screw up, etc. Should this state class (please what's the phrase I'm looking for [like DTO]?) know how to resolve/determine runtime details (like the IP address and machine name that it's running on)? It seems to me on second thought that it's meant to be a class that should hold state, and not know how to call out to the .NET Framework to find information. var myEx = new AppProblem{MachineName="Riker"}; //Will get "Riker 10.0.0.1" from property MachineLongDesc Console.WriteLine("full machine details: " + myEx.MachineLongDesc); public class AppProblem { public string MachineName{get;set;} public string MachineLongDesc{ get{ if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.MachineName) { this.MachineName = Environment.MachineName; } return this.MachineName + " " + GetCurrentIP(); } } private string GetCurrentIP() { return System.Net.Dns.GetHostEntry(this.MachineName) .AddressList.First().ToString(); } } This code was written by hand from memory, and presented for simplicity, trying to illustrate the concept.

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• Do I need to be a genius to succeed in this field? [on hold]

  - by user46104

  I could not draw in high school only stick figures I have adhd but I thought some people with adhd/autism in this field are making inventions Do I have to be like michael angelo who could remember his dreams and drawed perfectly or is that someone else.Do I need to be able to read very fast like 30 books a year? sorry I never had a career counsellor who really supported me to dream big and to find me other people who can test if I am qualified for such dreams

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• Creating an online community - use templates or self-develop?

  - by ican ican

  PHPMotion, Joomla or develop my own? I'm thinking of developing a common interest online community. It will be have UGC, stats, etc.. functionality, and perhaps an online store. Though cost is an issue at this time, I want to be professional and effective. Should I use existing free platform templates, like PHP, Joomla, or should I develop my own? What are the advantages/disadvantages of either option? As a rough estimate, how much will it cost me to develop and manage my own? And how long will it take. In general what should I be careful about on this journey?

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• Help identify the pattern for reacting on updates

  - by Mike

  There's an entity that gets updated from external sources. Update events are at random intervals. And the entity has to be processed once updated. Multiple updates may be multiplexed. In other words there's a need for the most current state of entity to be processed. There's a point of no-return during processing where the current state (and the state is consistent i.e. no partial update is made) of entity is saved somewhere else and processing goes on independently of any arriving updates. Every consequent set of updates has to trigger processing i.e. system should not forget about updates. And for each entity there should be no more than one running processing (before the point of no-return) i.e. the entity state should not be processed more than once. So what I'm looking for is a pattern to cancel current processing before the point of no return or abandon processing results if an update arrives. The main challenge is to minimize race conditions and maintain integrity. The entity sits mainly in database with some files on disk. And the system is in .NET with web-services and message queues. What comes to my mind is a database queue-like table. An arriving update inserts row in that table and the processing is launched. The processing gathers necessary data before the point of no-return and once it reaches this barrier it looks into the queue table and checks whether there're more recent updates for the entity. If there are new updates the processing simply shuts down and its data is discarded. Otherwise the processing data is persisted and it goes beyond the point of no-return. Though it looks like a solution to me it is not quite elegant and I believe this scenario may be supported by some sort of middleware. If I would use message queues for this then there's a need to access the queue API in the point of no-return to check for the existence of new messages. And this approach also lacks elegance. Is there a name for this pattern and an existing solution?

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• Writing a dynamic achievement system without hardcoding rules into the application

  - by imaginative

  I really enjoyed the solution provided here for groundwork on writing an achievement framework. The problem I have is I have game designers that would like to be able to insert achievements into a CMS at runtime. In a way, it sounds insane and complex to do this, but is it really? I think the concept of having to do a hard push of the application for every new achievement is cumbersome. I would love to be able to give our designers the capability to put together new achievements by entering them into a database. It shouldn't matter what tool I'm using, but for those interested, my backend is being written in JRuby (Ruby on top of the JVM). What are some possible ways of going about abstracting the logic in the aforementioned link even further so that rules can be interpreted at runtime?

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• Creating a new variable versus assigning an existing one

  - by rwallace

  Which is more common, creating a new variable versus assigning an existing variable (field, array element etc - anything that syntactically uses the assignment operator)? The reason I ask is that I'm designing a new language, and wondering which of these two operations should get the shorter syntax. It's not intended to be a pure functional language, or the question wouldn't arise, so I'd ideally like to count usage across large existing code bases in procedural and object-oriented languages like C, C++ and Java, though as far as I can see there isn't an easy way to do this automatically, and going by memory and eyeball, neither is obviously more common than the other.

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• Creating new games on Android and/or iPhone

  - by James Clifton

  I have a succesfull facebook poker game that is running very nicely, now some people have asked if I can port this to other platforms - mainly mobile devices (and I have been asked to make a tablet version, do I really need a seperate version?) I am currently a PHP programmer (and game designer) and I simply dont' have the time to learn Android and other languages - so I have decided to pay third parties to program them (if viable). The information I need to know is what programming language is needed for the following four devices - Android mobile phone, iPhone, iPad and tablets? Can they all run off a central sql database? If they can't then i'm not interested :( Do any of these run FLASH? Have I covered all my main bases here? For example if a person programs for a ANDROID mobile phone is that to much differant to an ANDROID tablet? They will have slightly differant graphics (because the tablet has a greater screen area might as well use it) but do they need to be started from scratch? Same goes for iPhone/iPad, do they really need to be programmed differantly if the only differance is the graphics?

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• Creating meaningful and engaging quests

  - by user384918

  Kill X number of monsters. Gather Y number of items (usually by killing X number of monsters). Deliver this NPC's package to this other NPC who is far far away. etc. Yeah. These quests are easy to implement, easy to complete, but also very boring after the first few times. It's kind of disingenuous to call them quests really; they're more like chores or errands. What ideas for quests have people seen that were well designed, immersive, and rewarding? What specific things did the developers do that made it so? What are some ideas you would use (or have used) to make quests more interesting?

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• Self-Executing Anonymous Function vs Prototype

  - by Robotsushi

  In Javascript there are a few clearly prominent techniques for create and manage classes/namespaces in javascript. I am curious what situations warrant using one technique vs. the other. I want to pick one and stick with it moving forward. I write enterprise code that is maintained and shared across multiple teams, and I want to know what is the best practice when writing maintainable javascript ? I tend to prefer Self-Executing Anonymous Functions however I am curious what the community vote is on these techniques. Prototype : function obj() { } obj.prototype.test = function() { alert('Hello?'); }; var obj2 = new obj(); obj2.test(); Self-Closing Anonymous Function : //Self-Executing Anonymous Function (function( skillet, $, undefined ) { //Private Property var isHot = true; //Public Property skillet.ingredient = "Bacon Strips"; //Public Method skillet.fry = function() { var oliveOil; addItem( "\t\n Butter \n\t" ); addItem( oliveOil ); console.log( "Frying " + skillet.ingredient ); }; //Private Method function addItem( item ) { if ( item !== undefined ) { console.log( "Adding " + $.trim(item) ); } } }( window.skillet = window.skillet || {}, jQuery )); //Public Properties console.log( skillet.ingredient ); //Bacon Strips //Public Methods skillet.fry(); //Adding Butter & Fraying Bacon Strips //Adding a Public Property skillet.quantity = "12"; console.log( skillet.quantity ); //12 //Adding New Functionality to the Skillet (function( skillet, $, undefined ) { //Private Property var amountOfGrease = "1 Cup"; //Public Method skillet.toString = function() { console.log( skillet.quantity + " " + skillet.ingredient + " & " + amountOfGrease + " of Grease" ); console.log( isHot ? "Hot" : "Cold" ); }; }( window.skillet = window.skillet || {}, jQuery )); //end of skillet definition try { //12 Bacon Strips & 1 Cup of Grease skillet.toString(); //Throws Exception } catch( e ) { console.log( e.message ); //isHot is not defined } I feel that I should mention that the Self-Executing Anonymous Function is the pattern used by the jQuery team. Update When I asked this question I didn't truly see the importance of what I was trying to understand. The real issue at hand is whether or not to use new to create instances of your objects or to use patterns which do not require constructors of the use of the new keyword. I added my own answer, because in my opinion we should make use of patterns which don't use the new keyword. For more information please see my answer.

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• Structuring cascading properties - parent only or parent + entire child graph?

  - by SB2055

  I have a Folder entity that can be Moderated by users. Folders can contain other folders. So I may have a structure like this: Folder 1 Folder 2 Folder 3 Folder 4 I have to decide how to implement Moderation for this entity. I've come up with two options: Option 1 When the user is given moderation privileges to Folder 1, define a moderator relationship between Folder 1 and User 1. No other relationships are added to the db. To determine if the user can moderate Folder 3, I check and see if User 1 is the moderator of any parent folders. This seems to alleviate some of the complexity of handling updates / moved entities / additions under Folder 1 after the relationship has been defined, and reverting the relationship means I only have to deal with one entity. Option 2 When the user is given moderation privileges to Folder 1, define a new relationship between User 1 and Folder 1, and all child entities down to the grandest of grandchildren when the relationship is created, and if it's ever removed, iterate back down the graph to remove the relationship. If I add something under Folder 2 after this relationship has been made, I just copy all Moderators into the new Entity. But when I need to show only the top-level Folders that a user is Moderating, I need to query all folders that have a parent folder that the user does not moderate, as opposed to option 1, where I just query any items that the user is moderating. I think it comes down to determining if users will be querying for all parent items more than they'll be querying child items... if so, then option 1 seems better. But I'm not sure. Is either approach better than the other? Why? Or is there another approach that's better than both? I'm using Entity Framework in case it matters.

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• How one could use a live editor

  - by Sathvik

  I was thinking about a live editing environment where code / a source file is synchronized so that, changes made by one user would be carried across to all others editing the file. Something like Google Wave, but for code. Could this kind of an environment be better for the code, as changes are shared instantly? (with revision-control, of course) Has anyone tried (or has had a need for) using a shared environment for code?

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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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• Options for Application Registry

  - by Matt Felzani

  I work for a small software company (about 200 people building 8-10 applications) and I was hoping to get some advice on products that might be out there to manage the information of which clients are using which versions of our products? The most fundamental relationship would be that a "product" has "versions" and a given "version" is used by a "client." Uses would be: Determine which clients use which products Determine which clients are on which versions of a product Determine which clients are exposed to which vulnerabilities because of the version they use Determine which clients cannot move to a new version because of a vulnerability in the new version that they may hit Determine which clients should be approached for an upgrade Any thoughts or product reviews would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

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• Is there a pattern or logical structure I can follow for Event Log Numbers?

  - by makerofthings7

  What are some ideas or structure I can use when assigning EventID to events that will be saved to the Event Log? Some options I've considered Sequential (0... int.Max) Multiple of 10, where the "0" is replaced with how noisy the debugLevel is set. xxx0 may represent exceptions, critical information, start, stop etc. ...? What numbering approach gives you the most insight when a user describes the event in an email or phone? What is the most useful to support staff?

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• Who can change the View in MVC?

  - by Luke

  I'm working on a thick client graph displaying and manipulation application. I'm trying to apply the MVC pattern to our 3D visualization component. Here is what I have for the Model, View, and Controller: Model - The graph and it's metadata. This includes vertices, edges, and the attributes of each. It does not contain position information, icons, colors, or anything display related. View - This would commonly be called a scene graph. It includes the 3D display information, texture information, color information, and anything else that is related specifically to the visualization of the model. Controller - The controller takes the view and displays it in a Window using OpenGL (but it could potentially be any 3D graphics package). The application has various "layouts" that change the position of the vertices in the display. For instance, one layout may arrange the vertices in a circle. Is it common for these layouts to access and change the view directly? Should they go through the Controller to access the View? If they go through the Controller, should they just ask for direct access to the View or should each change go through the controller? I realize this is a bit different from the standard MVC example where there a finite number of Views. In this case, the View can change in an infinite number of ways. Perhaps I'm shattering some basic principle of MVC here. Thanks in advance!

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• Is programming in layers real?

  - by Aura

  I am fairly new in product development and I am trying to work over a product. The problem that I have realized is that people draw diagrams and charts showing different modules and layers. But as I am working alone (I am my own team) I got a bit confused about the interaction I am facing in the development within the programs and I am wondering whether developing a product in modules is real or not? Maybe I am not a great programmer, but I see no boundaries when data start to travel from frontend to backend.

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• Why do most programming languages only support returning a single value from a function?

  - by M4N

  Is there a reason or an explanation why functions in most(?) programming languages are designed to support any number of input parameters but only one return value? In most languages, it is possible to "work around" that limitation, e.g. by using out-parameters, returning pointers or by defining/returning structs/classes. But it seems strange, that programming languages were not designed to support multiple return values in a more "natural" way.

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• Provide an OnChange event for an internal property which is controlled externally?

  - by NGLN

  For fun and by request I am updating this ImageGrid component, a kind of listbox for images that has a FileNames property of type TStrings. For ease of writing, I have been misusing its FileNames.Objects property for bitmap storage. But since the TStrings type suggests that users of the component could or would want to use the Objects property for custom data, e.g. like TListBox.Items, I am rewriting the component to store the bitmaps elsewhere and leave FileNames.Objects untouched for unknown future usage. Now I am wondering whether to provide an OnChange event. And if so, whether to fire it when one or more FileNames.Objects changes. Trying to answer it myself, I dove in Delphi's own VCL and stumbled on: TMemo: has an OnChange event, but ignores Lines.Objects TListBox: has no OnChange event, but is capable of storing Items.Objects TStringGrid: has no OnChange event, but is capable of storing Objects, Rows.Objects, Cols.Objects So now I am somewhat puzzeled, because I cannot imagine Borland's developers didn't add events for several Objects properties out of ease. Sure, when a user changes a FileNames.Object in my component, he knows he does and could implement appropriate interaction himself. But wouldn't it be convenient when the component does automatically? What would you expect from this component in this regard?

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• Implementing new required feature after software release

  - by TiagoBrenck

  Fake Scenario There is a software that was released 1 year ago. The software is to map and register all kind of animals on our planet. When the software was released, the client only needed to know the scientific name of the animal, a flag if it is in risk of extinction and a scale of dangerous(that is a fake software and specification, I don't want to discuss this here). There are already 100.000 animals records saved on DB. New Feature One year later, the client wants a new feature. It is really important to him to know the animals classes, and this is a required field. So he asks me to put a field to input the animal class, and this field is required. Or maybe where this animal was discovered. Problem I have already 100.000 recorded animals without a class or where it was discovered, but I need to insert a new column to storage this information and this column can't be null. I don't have a default value for this situation (there isn't a default animal class or where it was discovered). I don't want to keep the requirement rule only on my software, my DB must have this requirement too(I like to keep business rules on DB too). What are the alternatives to solve this situation? I am on a situation that this new feature cannot be previewed or reviewed for the existing records. The time already passed and I can't go back on time to get it

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